In early 2016, Aboriginal community discussions with the Victorian Andrews government about the implications of its policy of support for the right of Aboriginal people to self-determination became talk of a treaty. Indeed, part of the Andrews government's Aboriginal affairs policy at the 2014 election was its intention to raise the matter of a treaty at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
In 2010, I was part of a process that enquired into the Northern Territory's Child Protection System. I spent the better of that year travelling around mainly Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The situation prior to the Intervention, which commenced in 2007, had begged for some sort of intervention with the kind of resourcing that we now know has underpinned the real Intervention.
