The votes are counted and the quiet shattered as treaty arrives in Victoria

Aboriginal people have been nothing if not patient waiting for an Australian government – any government – to sit down and treat with them over the terms of white settlement.

So it is perhaps fitting that when the upper house of the Victorian parliament finally voted to enact a statewide treaty with its First Peoples, a long day of debate had stretched well into the night.

Celebrations erupted after the bill passed on Thursday evening. Credit: Justin McManus

When the votes were tallied, the public gallery of the Legislative Council fell quiet.

First Peoples’ Assembly co-chairs Ngarra Murray and Rueben Berg were there, along with Aboriginal elders Belinda Briggs and Esme Bamblett, Alister Thorpe, Lowana Moore and Gary Murray and other members of the assembly.

From the balcony, Vict