Treaty and Truth by Uncle Larry Walsh

Treaty, for or against, why, what will it change, who and why should we involve ourselves.

Treaty and Truth
by Uncle Larry Walsh
Delivered on 15 June 2024

These are some of the questions we all have, and no offence to the peoples assembly, it is alright trying to recruit people to be involved but until they can explain the whys, which they have not been able to as of yet. They tell us they have been working on the process that will be the treaty process.

So for the first 4 years the people have asked us to trust them, but that has never been our way. Trust has to be earned and if we do not know you because we very rarely see you at community gatherings being one of us.

I have joined because I have a few ideas and concerns that I think needed to be discussed, as have a few other people who are well known for their contributions at a local level.

We the people, need to feel like we know you, but at the moment we do not.

So treaty mob you need to show us that you have ideas that we are concerned about or have discussions ( not on a facebook stream or whatever streaming service you use), about our( the communities) ideas and recommendations that come from us.

Some of us within the community have built the orgs and some of the programs you lot have inherited, but we feel you are not listening to us, your just listening to the loudest people in the room,

I am hopeful as discussions start this process of hearing, listening and learning on both sides of the discussions as you (including me, as I am now part of the treaty process) start to face the reality of our wants and needs and how it will fit into the negotiations.

We need you to become either the platypus or the koala as both of their stories are about a pathway to peace, and a pathway to creating how peace can be achieved, not beuro speak, plain ordinary English, yeah I know quite a few of you can speak bearo talk, but bearo speak is about saying yes and no at the same time, which does not answer what we are after. I would rather we will put it into treaty, even if the gubbamint rejects the idea so that we will know how much more we will have to do to create the change that is needed.

I also believe that some of the ideas will only work if you agree to some of the ideas that can work, if you and the orgs can be involved in shaping, and/or be involved in local level which may require changes to those constitutions to re-enforce some of the treaty plans.

One of the ideas or inspirations I have is change the Aboriginal heritage act. I want to change the word heritage to inheritance. I have realised there is an important difference between the two . Heritage is steeped in the past, not part of today but our land, practises, traditions, histories are very present – we are part of the longest continuous living culture what is given to us from the ancestors and the past is our inheritance. This is step one now step two is about another country called Equador. This is the only constitution so far that I have found with an indigenous constitution. For me it had some interesting ideas such as forests and waterways are living entities, and the local indigenous communities speak on behalf of these living entities. The Moari people of Aotearoa are and have passed legislation on rivers being a living entity, there are on fb examples of this and this is happening in a part of Canada, so I believe this should be part of our discussions on treaty, again this constitution can be found on the web, by all means look this constitution up as some of you may get some ideas because of it on what constitutional ideas that will fit into treaty. I am only looking at what I think will work, some of you will see other ideas that could/should be part of treaty. I feel if we do not include waterways and land and forests then we have lost the cultural inheritance that shaped our cultures.