Charles Pakana (VAN):

Today on the program, we’ll be speaking about the interaction between traditional owner groups and local governments across Victoria. This is particularly important, given the light of the local treaty negotiations that will start very soon, as we’ve seen with DJAARA, and increasingly over the next few years. The important relationships that exist and will exist between local governments and traditional owners can never be underrated. Today, we’re recording an interview on Taungurung country with the CEO of the Taungurung Land and Waters Council, Matt Burns, and also Bendigo Council’s Mayor, Councilor Andrea Metcalf. This is all about the Taungurung Land and Waters Council Local Government Forum. Matt, thanks for joining us again on the podcast.

Matt Burns (CEO, Taungurung Land and Waters Council):

Thanks, Hank. I’m glad to be here.

Charles:

Andrea, thank you so much indeed for coming along to Broadford today for this interview.

Cr. Andrea Metcalf (Mayor, City of Greater Bendigo):

It’s been a beautiful day for a drive, pleased to be here.

Charles:

Matt, let’s start with you. What’s the primary motivation that led to establishing this forum, along with specific goals that Taungurung was seeking to achieve?

Matt:

The motivation for the forum came about a number of years ago, following Taungurung’s signing of our recognition and settlement agreement, where particular obligations that were put to local government to respond and engage with Taungurung Land and Waters Council as the representative body of Taungurung people. It meant that the 12 or 13 different councils upon Taungurung country, substantively more around 11 councils, were engaging on similar issues, and that meant that there were 11 independent conversations that were happening around council plans, around community visions, around some of the particular obligations within the recognition and settlement agreement, and it also meant that council, in engaging with Taungurung, have their own processes and systems in which they engage, so it meant that we had to adapt to 11 or 12 different types of engagements in order to feed in what might be very similar information from a holistic traditional owner sense.

It came about, because I felt and we felt that there was an opportunity to create more efficiency, but also, more power in our message and collaboration amongst councils around efficiency of resources when we think about the type of objectives that we might be able to achieve. In terms of objectives that we want to achieve, in my view, I think one of the things that is understated and under-realized opportunity is the collective advocacy that local government and traditional owner communities can deliver when it comes to engaging and advocating to the state around local community outcomes. That’s not just Aboriginal outcomes, that’s broader community outcomes, and I think there’s a lot of strength that is under-realized in that conversation. I think there’s a lot of opportunity that we want to be able to engage with council when it comes to our knowledge, our views, our objectives, instead of aspirations of what we’ve got to achieve, really great outcomes for Taungurung country for all Victorians.

But the challenge that we have is resourcing sometimes to be able to operate as a real partner to local governments. Some of the opportunities are around collective resourcing potentially, from local council to support the employment of key people within the organization. Efficiencies when it comes to our statutory function as the registered Aboriginal Party under the Aboriginal Heritage Act, council have very key roles to play when it comes to the Planning and Environment Act and significant decision-making around land use, so there’s some real opportunities to create some efficiencies, some alignment of views, and perspectives around, “How do we perform our functions better together and how do we identify where there are challenges in that system, and how can we advocate together to improve those systems?”

Charles:

We’ll definitely dive into some of those things. Before we get to you, Councilor Metcalf, I’ll just stay with you, Matt. When did it start? And give us a rough structure of how it looks.

Matt:

There was a one-off Local Government Forum back in 2018 to-

Charles:

Going back a while, Okay.

Matt:

… discuss the recognition and settlement agreement, the Taungurung recognition and settlement agreement. I’m more on time, but I’m going to say, about 18 months ago, we convened formally with a terms of reference and with a concept of the Local Government Forum, which brought together mayors and CEOs of each local council area or a delegate and Taungurung Land and Waters Council to set common goals and objectives, and one of the things that we really wanted to make clear and establish within this forum was this concept of, “This is our forum together. It’s not a Taungurung forum, it’s actually a local government collective and Taungurung forum where we can prioritize the key areas that we need to work together to improve and to achieve mutually-beneficial outcomes.”

Charles:

I think that’s really code cross, in the fact that there is a co-chair of this, and that is you, Councilor Metcalf. But if we just put you back in the seat as the mayor of Bendigo for a second, what prompted you and your fellow councilors? Because this would’ve been prior to the last council elections. What prompted Bendigo Council to become involved in this and what were you seeking to achieve?

Cr. Metcalf:

Well, Bendigo has been waiting for Taungurung Land and Waters Council to establish themselves. Matt’s talked about the resource demand that’s been coming in to the Taungurung Land and Waters Council, and we were just waiting for them to establish themselves. Matt reached out, as he said, about 18 months ago to all of the local government areas around here, and we met. Very next meeting was at Heathcote, we put our hand up to do that meeting, because we really value the relationship with Taungurung and we want to make sure… For me personally, I’m going to say that, during this term of council, we’ll be doing a new Barpangu Reconciliation Plan from 2026 to 2030, and I also thought the opportunity for me to be, as co-chair, here on this Local Government Forum means that I actually will be able to take knowledge back to specifically support and influence the goals and aspirations of the Taungurung Land and Waters Council and with this third version of our plan.

Charles:

But apart from that Reconciliation Action Plan, were there other key aspirations or goals that you and your fellow councilors, and of course, the bureaucrats as well within Bendigo Council would’ve identified as being achievable within this forum?

Cr. Metcalf:

I’m going to say the relationship building. As I said, I’m really conscious of all the demands that have been placed on, and also, Matt in particular as the CEO, but also, his staff as well. As he outlined here, all the different councils coming in with our council plans, advice on when we’ve got planning applications, and we were all asking… They needed the time to actually build up the staff to be able to respond to that. Then when they did, as I said, they’ve reached out to us, which is just fantastic. It really is about we’re going to be on this journey together now, local government and Taungurung Land and Waters Council, and we’ll be moving forward together. Matt talked about treaty is coming up as well, so we need to be across what that means.

Charles:

You are the co-chair and, I believe, recently-elected co-chair. Now, it was interesting, I was having a yarn with some of the staff and asking them inappropriate questions, and it was shared with me that the election was not actually involving votes from Taungurung or any of the other interested parties, such as LGV or MAV, but it was just your fellow councilors from around the Taungurung area. How many all told were voting in that?

Cr. Metcalf:

I’m not sure whether it was… Somewhere between 11 and 15, I would’ve thought. Matt might know.

Matt:

Well, it’s a good question. My understanding was all the councilors from each local government area had a vote, the co-chair who was going to be the councilor co-chairing the-

Charles:

What made you put your hand up for that? You’ve got enough work, surely, as the mayor of Bendigo. It’s not exactly as small as Shire.

Cr. Metcalf:

No, but look, it’s been really important to me that we develop this relationship with Matt and his team here, so that we can actually work together.

Charles:

Matt, how has the initiation of the Local Government Forum really impacted on this effective two-way dialogue in comparison to what typically would’ve happened years ago between Taungurung and the local governments that operate within its boundaries?

Matt:

Some of the authorizing environment around this might be important to understand is that Taungurung have a recognition and settlement agreement within that recognition and settlement agreement. There are different intersections of that agreement that put responsibilities on local council to engage when it comes to different land use activities in public land, but it also requires engagement around specific agreement activities that we negotiated with the state government. Separate to that, there was an amendment to the local government act in 2020, which changed the definition of the Municipal Community. Council have responsibilities to represent and reflect the views and make decisions in the best interest of the municipal community.

Charles:

Sorry, is this one where it actually says, I think in the 2020 act, that any decision that impacts on Aboriginal people must be made in consultation with the local Aboriginal people? You’re alluding to that?

Matt:

I’m not necessarily sure. What I do know is that the municipal community definition includes traditional owners of the land now, and what that means is, when council are engaging for community vision, community strategies, and key elements, council need to reflect the views of the municipal community, which includes traditional owners of the land, and there are also obligations of council.

Charles:

Yeah.

Matt:

Both council laws and council to engage in key elements of community practice under a local council. Therefore, there were these legislated and agreement-based obligations that required local council to engage with us. That is a contextual element of why there was some practicality and what it is that we were trying to drive. If you want to ask your question again, maybe that’s helpful just to provide that context, though.

Charles:

The question was, essentially, how is it brought about a change in the constructive or the two-way dialogue between councils and the Taungurung over traditional consultation methods?

Matt:

It’s provided an opportunity to give an alternate perspective than what council laws broader community might have around traditional owner views in lots of things, so it creates an opportunity to have a collective conversation around values. I believe some of the foundational things that we have achieved, even in these 18 months, is really developing a collective understanding of our values, our collective values, our collective interests and realizing that local council responsibilities and wants for outcomes, and traditional owner community wants and aspirations for good outcome is actually much closer than people might realize. If you think about local council and the constituents to local council want to make sure that their parks reserves, their forests and other things, they’re healthy and-

Charles:

That’s pretty good alignment.

Matt:

… and maintained to ensure that it’s for your own mental health and wellbeing. Having connection to and access to healthy and cared for places in country are really important for people’s mental health and connection to country, whether you’re Aboriginal or not. Traditional owners have a similar aspiration to make sure country is healthy for all Victorians to have access and connect to. There are some immediate alignments there, but then there are some greater efficiencies that we’re trying to work to. In my mind, I feel as though we’ve been able to establish a better understanding of our values and our direction as a traditional owner community and as the organization that represents that traditional owner community that we actually have a lot more in common. I feel like we’ve been able to create an understanding and an appreciation for what this Local Government Forum could achieve, by virtue of that alignment.

Charles:

Andrea, run me through a general meeting that may be… The things that have typically been discussed so far. What has been on the agenda?

Cr. Metcalf:

The first time that we had a meeting, it really was around the terms of reference, and there was a really strong turn up of councils that are on Taungurung lands. This was a really significant day for us at Bendigo, but for Taungurung as well, a second meeting was held at Heathcote, and it was the first time that we flew the Taungurung flag at Heathcote. We now actually have four flags outside our civic buildings at Heathcote, and the number of people that say to me, “I was driving through Heathcote and you’ve got four flags there,” and it just starts that conversation. I think the value has been in the meetings. As Matt said, it is that shared alignment that we have in common, and especially when one of the first exercises we did was, “Where do you go to really feel at peace?”

There was a lot of talk around being on country, in the bush, in nature. It was very much, as Matt was talking before, that we all have this natural alignment. We’re actually learning a lot more about Taungurung, and the flag-raising was an important part of that, as to why they use that design, but every time we get together, we get to spend time with the traditional owners, and there is that storytelling that happens, but there’s also that other piece of work that is, “What does local government need? What does Taungurung need?”

Charles:

That’s what I’d like to-

Cr. Metcalf:

And, “How do we marry them together?”

Charles:

Well, let’s go into some of those, because a lot of what you’ve been saying, that’s all very, very feel-good stuff, but in a real-world situation, what are some of the challenges? What are some of the questions that councils may have that you can bring to these forums and seek a response from the Taungurung?

Cr. Metcalf:

I think treaty will be a really good one to be having conversations about, because we will need to understand that, from a Taungurung perspective and for us at Bendigo.

Charles:

There were 78 other local governments around Victoria saying the same thing.

Matt:

I can provide a little bit of how we came about, actually. Prioritizing some of the things that we’re actively working.

Charles:

Yeah, that’d be great, Matt.

Matt:

Again, in the spirit of this isn’t a Taungurung forum, this is a collective forum, we had a process of running some surveys, different councils around. What are the top priorities when it comes to engagement with traditional owners and what are the key issues that we think we could improve? We related and we got about 10 priorities, and some of those priorities would’ve been cultural heritage, so the statutory function of forum, cultural awareness, land use activity agreement. There was a whole raft of things, and what we did was we ran a process at Heathcote to prioritize, “What are the key priorities that we need to work on?” That was each council’s opportunity to vote and prioritize. One of them was partnership agreements, so how are we establishing how we’re going to work together? We’ve got these terms of reference of this governance forum and how we do business together, but what is our partnership?

We’re working on at the moment a walking-together statement, so in Taungurung language, that’s [foreign language 00:14:57], and that means “Working together.” We’re working around really establishing our values of partnership and how we act together, and we’re working through that. We’ve got a working group of each council, each council appoints some of their key staff to work on that working group to collaborate and start to build towards different products, and one of the first ones is this “Walking together” statement, which at the next council meeting, there’s going to be a draft that’s provided to the Local Government Forum. Naturally, there’s going to be some different endorsement pathways that council will need to go through, but that’s going to be the first draft that’s coming to council. Cultural heritage is one of those priorities that’s already been identified and is currently been working on, because we have a statutory function that feeds in directly to council’s responsibilities and obligations under the Environment and Planning Act.

At the moment, the state government are doing a review in the Planning and Environment Act to try and cut red tape, create more efficiency, and achieve better outcomes for the… What is it? The 2030 housing plan. We’ve been advocating at our level to say, “If you want to create efficiencies, you need to think about it holistically and think about the Aboriginal Heritage Act, and how might we have greater continuity between the Planning and Environment Act functions that local government perform and how might we perform our functions better, so we are providing more valued advice at the right time and creating more free prior informed consent for developers, so that they’ve got a fuller understanding of obligations under the act and the role that we play and try to make it more efficient.” The things that we believe that council and Taungurung Land and Waters Council can work together to identify the process, and how do we work together there?

There’s also our land use activity agreement, and how do we create processes and systems and consistency in the way that we engage with council? What information do we need? How do we ensure that we’re, in a timely way, working through different obligations, responsibilities? Then broader than that, which aren’t necessarily projects, there’s all of the other obligations that council have with all the different strategies, community strategies, program strategies, and activities that they’re looking to do on country. We can use this forum and activities that come out of that forum to inform and be a bit more proactive for council to get on and do their business.

Charles:

Brings up a question then, because a lot of the plans and the policies you were talking about, having worked in local government, I know that there are disperse and disparate teams working on these various projects. Do you see an opportunity for representatives from these teams to come in to the Local Government Forum and actually hear feedback from Taungurung and their fellow councils as well providing information they can take back to their respective councils and help develop their own policies and plans?

Matt:

That’s the working group’s opportunity to collaborate.

Charles:

You’re looking at Andrea there?

Cr. Metcalf:

No, when Matt said that before, it wouldn’t have always been the case, that different groups across councils would have been working directly with their First Nations groups-

Charles:

That’s just it.

Cr. Metcalf:

… and that’s just the tick for a start about coming together and doing this work.

Charles:

This information is being fed through to the respective teams?

Cr. Metcalf:

Yes, it is.

Charles:

Obviously, that’s a big thing. Let’s now talk about challenges, because there’s no good story without challenges. Andrea, what are some of the challenges that you’ve seen in running the group or any other level of things? Whether it’s statements from members of the community or challenges holding back from within council, without naming names, unless of course you want to.

Cr. Metcalf:

No, I won’t name names. I’m just going to say, you talked about some statements that people make in the community, and it’s always really disappointing when that does happen, when people are critical of our First Nations people. It is so disappointing, and-

Charles:

I’m talking-

Cr. Metcalf:

… the sadness.

Charles:

Talking about the forum in particular.

Cr. Metcalf:

Look, I think we’re just starting to get off on our feet. Really, right now, it’s about time, it’s about building trust, it’s about building the relationships, and councils, like the local government act changes in 2020, are really filtering through now about what our role is in supporting our First Nations people to be successful as well. I know our community vision actually talks about walking hand in hand with our First Nations people, so it will be that time to build the relationships. The meetings are a good opportunity for all of us to get to know each other, and sometimes it can just be those conversations where you go, “I’m just wondering if you meant this,” and it can get clarified straight away rather than sending an email and then waiting for a response and then reading it and misinterpreting.

It’s the time now, the trust to build the relationship. As I said, Matt’s talked about a few things. The Land Use Activity Agreement is one that councils have. It’s been difficult to work through councils in some respects, but there are ways that it can work that will benefit our First Nations people, but benefit our communities as well, so we’re all successful.

Charles:

Matt, what about from your perspective and the Taungurung Land Water Councils? Any challenges in particular? Because bear in mind, we want other local governments and other traditional groups across Victoria to follow on this model, and we will talk a bit more about that in a second, but challenges?

Matt:

Challenges come in different ways. In my mind, what is not a challenge at this point in time, as where we’re at, is that the councilors, CEOs, and the councils themselves see value in what it is that we’re doing. There will be challenges associated with agreeing to certain things, certain outcomes, and I think there will be different perspectives from different councils around the outcomes that we’re trying to achieve. In terms of a challenge from a Taungurung Land and Water council perspective is that I often find a big disconnect between state government policy and priorities when they set expectations and policy positions and don’t necessarily think about, say, traditional owners. When it comes to councils, you must partner with traditional owners to do X, Y and Z. “Council, you must do this. Water corporations, you must do this,” and they put this implication on… That traditional owner knowledge is valuable and that value can really enhance outcomes for the broader community, and I think that’s what’s underpinning it.

What is not considered is, how do we make sure that there’s resourcing available for the traditional owner groups to be able to deliver against that value to support councils to get better outcomes? The challenge that we have is that we don’t receive $1 from the state government in order to do the work that we’re doing with the local government.

Charles:

You could have been a bit harder on the state government.

Matt:

In my mind, the opportunity is to say, “Well…” This is a conversation that we’re actively happening councils at the moment to say, “You could theoretically take this challenge of your obligations to the Taungurung people and to… In some cases, the different councils have different traditional owner country within their council boundaries. You can take that on yourself or we can come together as a collective of councils and start to consider the resourcing challenges in order for us to be a partner and deliver against some of your obligations, and helping us also deliver against our obligations and responsibilities to country and people that live on country.” That is the issue that we’ve got currently, and I think we’re working constructively with councils, but councils have an ever-diminishing pool of resourcing to deliver their programs and priorities for councils as well.

That is an issue that we’re collectively and trying to positively and collaboratively work at, but in my mind, there is still a disconnect between the state government when it comes to, “Here are outcomes that we want to see, because traditional owners have value. That value is really important for the state of Victoria,” and then that decision to pass that responsibility onto another entity without thinking about our ecosystem needs to be able to respond and add that value. That is a consistent issue that’s happened to put us in difficult positions, because… I don’t want to be belaboring the point, but what actually happens then is that council have obligations, we don’t meet them because we don’t have resourcing, that perpetuates this view that Aboriginal people are not capable, and all of a sudden, we’re perpetuating us a negative stereotype rather than actually empowering and creating better outcomes.

Charles:

We could definitely dive deeper into that into a supplementary interview, Matt, and we may well do that in the future, but it does lead to the final question, and we’ll start off with you, Councilor Metcalf. That is, what advice would you give to other local governments who are in other traditional-owned group areas to follow along a similar path?

Cr. Metcalf:

I’d actually say reach out and ask questions, and recognize that it does take time to build trust from all parties. I would say that, but we’ve got to remember that, at local government, with closest source of government to the people.

Charles:

Absolutely.

Cr. Metcalf:

We have such a strong role in reconciliation in this country, so we’ll all be successful when we’re all successful and we’re working together, and we are not making demands of our First Nations people that they’re not resourced to fulfill.

Charles:

Matt, what advice would you give, apart from obviously traditional owner groups lobbying the state government more resources? But what advice would you give to other TR groups? We look at Wurundjeri with about 39 or so local governments within their boundaries. What’s the advice you have? How do they replicate this model or at least go along a similar path?

Matt:

I mean, that’s a self-determined pathway, but my view is that we’re now creating a more efficient pathway to engage and partner with local councils, so if we’re thinking about our time and effort and resourcing to be able to engage across Taungurung country, we’re creating a much more efficient and potentially consistent, because delivering the consistent message collectively. I think that other traditional owner groups should actively consider the value of consolidating a forum for local government areas and having the one conversation multiple. I mean, ultimately, everyone has their own pathway, but yeah, I think there’s a lot of value that can come from this approach.

Charles:

Matt Burns, CEO of Taungurung Land and Waters Council and Councilor Andrea Metcalf, mayor of Bendigo and co-chair of the Local Government Forum. Thank you so much indeed for your time, both of you.

Cr. Metcalf:

Thank you, Charles.

Matt:

Thank you.