An international treaty on Indigenous intellectual and cultural property is the opportunity we need to legally recognise First Nations’ rights, decision-making authority, and data sovereignty. Our short submission to the parliamentary inquiry into implementing the WIPO Treaty called for effective benefit-sharing, decision-making, and enforcement mechanisms in any efforts to domestically implement the WIPO Treaty – identifying the Traditional Owner Native Foods and Botanicals Strategy as a key guideline for ensuring legally and culturally appropriate protection of Traditional Owners’ intellectual and cultural property. Read the submission

Victoria’s uniquely limiting land rights context prevents Traditional Owners from accessing benefits derived from resource-extraction on their Country – and emerging economies have to do things differently. We contributed a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the factors shaping social license and economic development outcomes in critical minerals projects across Australia. We argued: agreement-making with Traditional Owner groups in emerging economies, including critical minerals mining, is the key economic development opportunity to ensure Traditional Owners can access an equitable share of benefits from the new commerce in their Country and its resources. Read the submission

The Federation’s submission to the parliamentary inquiry into racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The Federation’s submission in support of an ATSIHPA declaration for the protection of Lake Boort.

The Federation’s submission to the consultation on the forthcoming National Statement on First Nations in Agriculture.

Our contribution to policy thinking around a potential ban on the sale of fur in Victoria highlights how proposed policy inadvertently sidelines Traditional Owner groups’ rights and interests.

The Federation’s submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Review of the Future Acts Regime.

The Federation’s submission to the Independent Review of Victoria’s Wildlife Act 1975 offered practical ways Traditional Owners’ rights and worldviews could be respected by and integrated into a reformed wildlife conservation law.

Planning towns and suburbs is a significant opportunity for Traditional Owner groups to be involved in decision-making for Country, but a substantial risk their rights and interests will be ignored. The Federation contributed a written submission on the first pillar of the 25-year Plan for Victoria framework, which envisages a state that centres self-determination and care for Country in its planning decision-making. Our submission focused on Traditional Owners’ rights – we said the plan is an opportunity to be visionary in realising the collective right to self-determination, end damaging practices that impinge on and undermine collective rights, centre cultural obligations to Country, and fully recognise Traditional Owner Corporations’ rights and authority by providing for power-sharing partnership (in just six pages, too!). Read the submission

The Federation welcomed the opportunity to contribute a submission to the Truth and Justice Commission Bill, which would create a national truth-telling mechanism as called for by the Uluru Statement from the Heart. In response to the Joint Standing Committee’s request to hear how the Commission could be culturally safe, our submission urged a future Commission to Commission to seek cultural and community authority (including through engaging with Traditional Owner Corporations), embed internationally established Indigenous human rights into its design, and take the best parts of Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission to ensure a culturally safe and meaningful truth-telling process. Download the submission Read the testimony