Michael O’Kane & Courtney Boag: The Intersection of Treaty and Native Title: framing eligibility within ‘minimum standards’

Mick is the Research Manager for First Nations Legal & Research Services. He also currently holds the position of Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Latrobe University. Courtney is an applied anthropologist with interests in native title anthropology, international development and climate change and disaster resilience. She has been conducting native title research in Western Victoria since 2019.

The First People’s Assembly of Victoria and the State have announced the formulation of ‘minimum standards’ that Aboriginal groups must meet in order to have standing to negotiate a Treaty or Treaties with the State. However, what these minimum standards will look like remains unclear. In this opinion piece, Michael and Courtney outline some of the complexities of this intersection of modes of recognition of Victoria’s Aboriginal peoples.