Harry Hobbs and Lorne Neudorf

Much of the political momentum surrounding Indigenous rights quickly dissipated following the defeat of the Voice referendum in October 2023. Newly elected governments in the Northern Territory and Queensland abandoned their long-running treaty processes, while the federal government has remained conspicuously silent about a path forward. This is not the whole story, however. In South Australia, the government has maintained its commitment to the State’s First Nations Voice, despite early challenges and an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the legislation and dismantle the institution.

Developments in Victoria have also continued apace. Since November 2024, the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and the State government have engaged in negotiations aimed at reaching a Statewide Treaty. If concluded, it would mark the first formal treaty in Australian history: a watershed moment in the legal relationship between First Peoples and the state. As Patrick Dodson has observed, treaties that give effect to Indigenous self-determination and establish ‘mutually agreed terms for our relationship with the Australian government’, remain part of the nation’s ‘unfinished business’.

Georgie Clough

On 21 April 2021, the Commonwealth Minister for Foreign Affairs (the Minister) announced the cancellation of two memoranda of understanding between the Victorian state government and the Chinese government with respect to the latter’s Belt and Road Initiative (the Belt and Road agreements). The power to cancel the agreements …