A Central Victorian Indigenous group would have serious reservations if a "fundamentally flawed" list of parties was adopted for treaty negotiations.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Victoria's First Nations people are still to decide which groups will get to hammer out treaties in coming years but Dja Dja Wurrung leader Rodney Cater is worried that one idea currently being considered sidelines existing representative groups.
"That's not helpful for anyone," he said.
Indigenous groups are still several years away from negotiating with the state government on rights similar to those secured in other countries where people were dispossessed of land by colonising Europeans.
They are also yet to decide much of the framework, including whether individual groups should negotiate with the state government.
Mr Carter is among Indigenous leaders to take aim at a so-called "38 nations model" that some people have been advocating for.
The model would divide treaty negotiations into about 38 different discussions, which would be based in part on the language groups of Victoria's First People.
Some critics of the model say that dividing people by language is a Western notion that does not properly capture Aboriginal ideas about kinship with other groups.
Mr Carter fears a 38 nations approach could effectively sideline representative Aboriginal parties (RAP) that already advocate 75 per cent of the state's indigenous people.
"I think any effort we can put to getting representation for that remaining 25 per cent is important and that has been a long outstanding issue," he said. "Let's help the few who really need help."
Mr Carter heads DJAARA, the Dja Dja Wurrung's own RAP.
DJAARA spent 15 years pushing to become a RAP that could nurture the rights of 11 different clans and family groups across the region.
"We've already been through a collective process to get our organisation to represent our rights," Mr Carter said. "It [the 38 nations model] gets into the realm of deconstructing what's already been done - and not in a clearly functional manner."
Mr Carter said the Dja Dja Wurrung would have to question its part in any process that might compromise existing RAPs' unity.
"We would not do that to ourselves, so we are not going to support others to do it to each other," he said.
Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
