Historic bill

Establishment of Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry is a welcome and overdue move

For those who were able to bear witness to the historic passing of the Path to Treaty legislation in a regional sitting of parliament in Cairns on Wednesday night, the emotion was palpable.

The state’s first Indigenous female minister, Leeanne Enoch, shed tears while the public gallery cheered.

The landmark Bill paves the way for a five-member board called the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry, which must be set up in the next three months and will run for at least three years.

The inquiry will hold truthtelling sessions and hearings and could lead to major financial reparations, health reforms and curriculum changes by the state government as part of landmark treaty negotiations with Queensland’s First Nations groups.

The hearings will for the first time investigate the massacre of Indigenous people, the effect of the Stolen Generation and the impacts of colonisation on First Nations and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Queensland.

Because the truth is, Australia’s history – while full of tales of pioneering courage and endeavour, of struggle and success in the nation’s farthest reaches – is also a story of loss and dispossession.

One does not cancel out the other. They both exist – and have always existed.

In this sense, Path to Treaty and its associated inquiries will bring one side of our history into the light.

If you have the time, it is worth heading to the Colonial Frontier Massacres Digital Map Project.

It is the first national project to record mass killings on the Australian frontier, and it has been around for at least a couple of years now.

It only includes frontier massacres for which sufficient evidence exists.

Zoom out on the map and you will find the country is literally littered with yellow dots representing the massacre of Indigenous people.

Wednesday night was the first step down the Path to Treaty.

It will be confronting for our First Nations communities.

But it is time to speak honestly about our past, and to heal.