Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has announced the newly-elected Liberal-National Party (LNP) government “won’t be allowing” the state’s Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry to run planned next month.
This comes despite the party initially supporting the Path to Treaty legislation in May last year.
The Inquiry started in July and was legislated to run for three years.
“We have made a decision; it is the right decision, and we stand by it, but I don’t want to cause angst to people,” he told reporters.
Crisafulli said he would have more to say “in the coming weeks,” but wanted to assure the state’s Indigenous people that “we will do better for them than what they’ve had. We'll give them the opportunity to own their home.”
“I want people to know we are serious about giving good outcomes for Indigenous communities and Indigenous Queenslanders,” he said.
Inquiry Chair Says He Was Not Informed
Inquiry chairperson Joshua Creamer said he had been “blindsided” by the decision.
“[I] had no contact with the premier or his office before the [announcement], or subsequent to that,” the Indigenous barrister said.
“Because of the trauma-aware and healing-informed processes involved in working with community ... to stop work midstream in that context is really damaging.”
He disagreed with the premier, arguing that “people sharing their stories to capture an accurate history of our state is not ‘divisive.’”
Creamer has directed his staff not to attend a planned meeting this weekend, even in a personal capacity, and said the Inquiry will pause its work until further information is available.
Former Treaty Minister Leeanne Enoch, a resident of North Stradbroke Island, said Crisafulli’s decision had caused “utter devastation” not just in her community but also in other Indigenous communities across the state.
“For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, there is a deep hurt that a government in its first days would be so opposed to even just telling the truth,” she said.‘Disrespectful’: Commissioner
Aboriginal Social Justice Commissioner Katie Kiss said the cancellation was “extremely disrespectful and harmful” not just to Indigenous communities, but also to the many who had “provided invaluable input to support truth, justice, and healing.”
Kiss was previously executive director of the Interim Truth and Treaty Body, the forerunner of the Inquiry.
And the chairman of The Healing Foundation—the national body representing Stolen Generation survivors—Professor Steve Larkin, said the cancellation of the Inquiry would be detrimental to heailng.
“[The] Inquiry offers great potential to address the critical recommendations still outstanding from the ”Bringing them home“ report and support the long journey to justice for Stolen Generations survivors,” he said.The independent Inquiry has held five public hearings since September, intending to set the foundation for an eventual Treaty negotiation between the state and Indigenous communities, which would likely include reparations.
Truth-Telling Process Had Its Critics
Yet the process was not without its detractors.Indigenous leader Warren Mundine had previously warned that the Truth-telling process would sideline those that opposed the official narrative around colonialism.
“In a free society, if people are unable to tell the truth or provide information, then you are unable to defeat [falsehoods] through conversation. And when you get committees making decisions on this, that is where it gets dangerous,” Mundine said.
Meanwhile, Nick Dametto, deputy leader of Katter’s Australia Party (KAP), also spoke out against it.
“This week I called for equality, not division, multiculturalism, not segregation,” he wrote on Facebook.
“Australia should be one. And not divided by trying to create a situation where one race of people in this country have more of a say than the rest,” he added.
