Federal efforts died, but another Australian state has committed to forming a truth-telling body

South Australia will stand up a truth-telling commission over coming months, extending a Voice-to-treaty framework that cements the state as the second-most advanced jurisdiction on the Uluru Statement's unfinished agenda.

Speaking to NITV's John-Paul Janke and Natalie Ahmat on the broadcaster's Garma set, against a backdrop of stringybarks rising from the red Arnhem Land dirt, Acting Premier Kyam Maher said the state government would spend $8.5 million on a commission that will run a truth-telling process and advise on a possible treaty.

Maher is also South Australia's Aboriginal Affairs Minister.

The commission is the next stage in a program South Australian Labor has pursued since 2019. Responding to the Uluru Statement from the Heart — the 2017 declaration by Indigenous leaders calling for a Voice to Parliament, treaty and truth-telling — was among the party's first commitments, made in opposition that year.

Labor won government in 2022 and legislated the state's Voice to Parliament in March 2023. It has held power since, winning a second term earlier this year.

The federal Voice to Parliament suffered a major setback in October 2023, when just over 60 per cent of Australians rejected a constitutional referendum to recognise Indigenous people and establish a national advisory body, with every state and territory except the ACT voting No.

After Queensland, South Australia recorded the country's highest No vote.

A promise predating the No vote

South Australia though, had already legislated its own Voice to Parliament before the referendum. Maher rejected the argument the No result should halt the state's plans.

"This is about something we committed seven years ago to do in South Australia, and we will take that commitment," he told NITV on Sunday, referencing the 2019 pledge Labor made in opposition and carried into government.

"What was voted on at the referendum was to change the federal constitution, to firstly recognise Aboriginal people — recognise the oldest living culture this planet's ever seen — but also to establish an advisory body."

He acknowledged not everyone was behind him. "I wouldn't say there's no division," Maher said, adding that the issue still generates dozens of letters to his office each month.

The state's Voice has now been through two elections, in 2024 and 2026.

The body — comprising 12 members drawn from six regional bodies, all elected by and from First Nations South Australians — advises parliament and government on health, education, justice and other matters affecting their communities.

Maher said the first part of the state's efforts was spent building the machinery of a body. Without a national precedent, he likened the work to "building the plane as you're flying it".

"[You're] having to put that infrastructure around something that had never happened in Australia before," he said.

At the second election, about half the incumbents were returned and half the seats went to new members, a mix he said was beginning to produce substantive advice for the government to act on.

Maher casts the truth-telling commission as "the next element" of the same work.

On Saturday, Voice architect Noel Pearson used his first major speech since the referendum to reckon with the defeat, asking what right anyone had to offer a vision that turned out to be a "mirage" — a measure of how heavily the 2023 loss still hangs over national debate.

The map beyond Canberra

South Australia's trajectory places it just behind Victoria, which commenced Australia's first treaty under its Statewide Treaty Act in May.

The law makes Victoria's First Peoples' Assembly a permanent body, known as Gellung Warl. It is a new truth-telling institution that builds on the earlier Yoorrook Justice Commission.

Other states have not been able to replicate South Australia and Victoria's successes.

Queensland repealed its Path to Treaty laws in late 2024, shutting down a truth-telling inquiry barely five months into its work and abolishing the body set up to negotiate treaty.

The Northern Territory's Country Liberal government scrapped its long-running treaty process in early 2025.

New South Wales is midway through a 12-month consultation on whether Aboriginal communities want a treaty at all, while Western Australia has pursued truth-telling and redress rather than a treaty.

Maher also welcomed the Australian Electoral Commission's decision to rename the federal seat of Grey as the Division of O'Donoghue in July. On Sunday, the Acting Premier said doing so honoured a South Australian in the late Yankunytjatjara leader Lowitja O'Donoghue.

The electorate takes in much of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands.

Maher, who knew O'Donoghue, called the change "exceptionally significant". It also points to a history in which "Aboriginal people have been deliberately excluded".

The unveiling in June of a bronze statue of O'Donoghue at Tarntanya Wama (Elder Park) in Adelaide — the first of six planned to honour prominent Aboriginal South Australians — is part of the same effort to correct that record.

NITV and SBS will have extensive coverage from the Garma Festival beginning Friday 31 July and concluding Monday 3 August. You can watch on SBS and NITV and SBS On Demand.

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