Victorian Aristocracy Returns

A form of hereditary peerage is emerging in Victoria, and it's not coming from the Queen's Birthday Honours list.

I distinctly remember voting “no” to an indigenous voice to parliament. I even vaguely remember that 60% of Australians did the same. Even in progressive Victoria, 54% voted against an indigenous body formed alongside our Commonwealth parliament. So, you can imagine my surprise when I found Victoria was proposing the Voice through the backdoor.

The Victorian ‘voice to parliament’ comes by way of the 246-page Statewide Treaty Bill 2025. It sets up an entirely new structure of governance in Victoria and dismantles the notion that we are all equal before the law, with the same political rights vested in our Members of Parliament.

The Allan government's treaty doesn't just recognise indigenous Victorians - it creates an entirely parallel system of governance. Not advisory bodies. Not consultation frameworks. Actual decision-making institutions with statutory power, guaranteed funding, and preferential access to government. All based on racial identity.

Let me be clear about what's happening here. Victoria is establishing ‘Gellung Warl’ - three permanent indigenous institutions including the First Peoples' Assembly with 33 members. Twenty-two are elected (though only 7% of eligible indigenous voters bothered to vote in 2019), but eleven are appointed by Traditional Owner groups. No election. No accountability. Just birthright.

These aren't ceremonial positions either. The Assembly has binding authority over indigenous affairs, controls infrastructure funding, influences all indigenous-related legislation, and can compel ministers to attend their meetings. They get dedicated rooms in Parliament House and annual addresses to parliament. The oversight body, Nginma Ngainga Wara, can haul ministers before public hearings and publish findings on government performance.

Every new bill must now include a ‘Statement of Treaty Compatibility.’ Think about that - legislation affecting all seven million Victorians requires approval from bodies representing 65,000 people, many members of which are appointed rather than elected. It's taxation without representation in reverse - representation without democratic accountability.

The price tag? A mere $70 million annually with automatic 2.5% increases, a total of $586 million by 2029. That's on top of the $776 million already spent since 2016. Over $1.3 billion for parallel governance structures while families struggle with cost of living.

But here's where it gets properly concerning. Academic research consistently shows indigenous corporations suffer from ‘elite capture’ - where connected families concentrate benefits within narrow kinship networks. The Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations oversees 3,306 aboriginal corporations nationally, with numerous cases requiring special administration for financial discrepancies.

The treaty's structure practically guarantees this problem. Reserved seats for Traditional Owner groups mean certain families hold permanent positions of influence. With guaranteed funding insulated from budget scrutiny and exemptions from freedom of information laws, tracking where the money goes will be nearly impossible.

Former Supreme Court Justice Kevin Bell claims parliamentary sovereignty remains intact. Pull the other one. When you create institutions with statutory independence, guaranteed funding that requires special legislation to reduce, and mandatory consultation powers, you've fundamentally altered the system. The government can claim parliament remains supreme all it wants but try cutting that funding or ignoring those consultation requirements and see what happens.

This isn't reconciliation; it's the creation of a two-tier democracy where some Victorians have special access to power based on their ancestry. The Institute of Public Affairs correctly identifies this as violating core Westminster principles. We're establishing unelected positions with real power over elected governments. If that's not aristocracy, what is?

The Opposition should be screaming from the rooftops. Instead, they've gone missing in action, terrified of being called racist, allowing Labor to push through the most fundamental change to Victorian governance since Federation with barely a whimper of scrutiny.

I don't oppose recognition of indigenous Australians or addressing historical injustices. But creating parallel power structures based on race does not heal divisions - it institutionalises them. Real reconciliation means equal citizenship, not special citizenship. It means the same democratic rights and responsibilities for all, not preferential access based on bloodlines.

Victoria is about to discover what that when you abandon the principle of equality before the law; when some citizens are more equal than others; when birthright determines political influence; when parallel institutions operate beyond democratic accountability - you haven't progressed beyond colonialism. You've just changed who holds the privileged positions.