Hansard debates

Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Jobs and Industry, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Minister for Women) (10:57): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I ask that my second-reading speech be incorporated into Hansard.

Incorporated speech as follows:

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and custodians of the land on which this Parliament stands, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nations. I pay my respects to their Elders and ancestors; Elders from all Victorian First Peoples, and any Elders and other Aboriginal people who join us here today. Since time immemorial, First Peoples have practiced their laws, customs and languages, and nurtured Country through their spiritual, material and economic connections to land, water and resources. Victoria’s First Peoples maintain that their sovereignty has never been ceded.

Reforms in response to recommendations from the Yoorrook Justice Commission

The Yoorrook Justice Commission is a historic process – the first truth-telling inquiry of its kind in Australian history. Since its establishment, a fundamental principle of the inquiry has been that First Peoples must be able to engage with the truth-telling process on their own, self-determined terms. When providing evidence to the Commission, First Peoples have been asked to express their choices about how the information they provide is to be treated by the Commission. The Commission has subsequently called for legislative change so that those choices are upheld by the State of Victoria once the Commission ends.

Today, the Government is proud to support the Commission’s commitment to First Peoples by introducing this Bill, which will extend First Peoples’ control over their own stories and evidence shared with the Commission beyond the end of the Commission’s term, in line with Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDS) principles.

IDS is an international, Indigenous-led movement seeking to remedy government methods of holding Indigenous peoples’ records and assert the sovereignty of First Peoples over their own information. The Commission has articulated IDS as the ‘right of Indigenous Peoples to own, control, access and possess data that derive from them, and which pertain to their members, knowledge systems, customs, resources, or territories.’

Reforms in support of IDS principles are aligned with the Government’s commitment to First Peoples’ self-determination.

The Bill responds to two recommendations from the Commission for legislative reform to uphold First Peoples’ choices about how evidence they provide to the Commission should be treated once the Commission ends. Specifically, the Bill implements recommendation 2 of the Yoorrook with Purpose report (2022), as well as recommendation 45 of the Yoorrook for Justice report (2023) insofar as it relates to First Peoples’ evidence provided to the Commission.

Currently, Royal Commissions are required to transfer records to the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) upon their conclusion. DPC is then required to transfer the records to the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV).

These records are then subject to public access unless an order is made under the Public Records Act 1973 (Public Records Act) or an exemption applies under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act). This means that access to and use of these records is a matter for government decision-making and discretion, not First Peoples’ choices.

The Inquiries Amendment (Yoorrook Justice Commission Records and Other Matters) Bill 2024 remedies this. The reforms are narrow in scope, applying only to records of First Peoples’ evidence provided to the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

The Bill enables the Commission to uphold First Peoples’ choices relating to the post-inquiry treatment of their evidence by:

• amending the Inquiries Act 2014 (Inquiries Act) to empower the Commission to make record orders to close or restrict access to specified records for 99 years after the Commission concludes, and to provide that the FOI Act does not apply to such records for the same period;

• amending the Public Records Act to require the Keeper of Public Records to restrict and/or provide access to specified records in accordance with the Commission’s record orders.

The Commission may also include additional access instructions in a record order to reflect First Peoples’ wishes as to how their evidence should be handled once they have passed away. For example, authors or records may tell the Commission that they want members of their immediate family, extended family or community have access to records of their evidence when they die. The Commission can reflect these wishes in additional access instructions, which PROV will then need to uphold.

The Bill also includes technical amendments to the Inquiries Act so that the requirement to transfer records to PROV as soon as practicable after their receipt is expressed as being subject to the standards issued by the Keeper under the Public Records Act. This amendment updates the legislation to align with current practice when distinguishing between permanent and temporary records.

The Bill has been informed by extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including the Commission, the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, PROV, the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner and government departments. The Commission consulted with First Peoples who provided evidence to ensure that the Bill represents their wishes in accordance with IDS principles.

The Bill enables the Commission to fulfil a key obligation under its Letters Patent, to uphold ‘the sovereignty of First Peoples over their knowledge and stories by consulting with them on how the information they provide should be treated and ensuring adequate information and data protection’.

It ensures that First Peoples’ engagement with this historic process is truly on their terms, and it recognises that First Peoples are the rightful decision-makers over the future access and use of their personal evidence.

I commend the Bill to the House.