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After more than two decades in the construction industry, Andrew Thorpe has decided to down tools and take a shot at politics.

But it is not the traditional political system that has governed Australia since 1901. Thorpe is running for a seat in a “new era” of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, after Australia’s first and only treaty was signed between a state government and traditional owners in November.

It’s a familiar world for Thorpe: his mother, the independent senator Lidia Thorpe, and uncle Robbie Thorpe, have been fighting and campaigning for Aboriginal rights for decades.

The Gunnai and Gunditjmara man tells Guardian Australia it was his time to “step up and be a part of it”.

“Last Friday, I quit my job in construction, and I’m full on [campaigning],” he says. “Either if I get into the treaty – I want to be able to make changes that are beneficial for mob – or if I don’t get into the treaty, I’m still gonna be working directly with whatever I can to try and help our mob move forward.”

Thorpe says while he has not been “upfront and a leader” before, “I’ve always been around it [politics] and a part of it in the background, being an activist and going to all the rallies.”

Thorpe is running for a seat in the state’s south-east region, where as a marathon runner and mental health advocate, he facilitates first aid courses in mental health for First Nations people.

He will join 70 other candidates competing to represent five regions: metro, north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east. Successful candidates will form a new-look First Peoples’ Assembly called Gellung Warl, a statutory body created through the treaty. Gellung Warl will not have powers to make laws but it will be able to ask questions of ministers and advise the government on proposals that affect First Nations people.

It will also be responsible for implementing reforms negotiated through the treaty, which include changes to the history curriculum, allocating grants for Aboriginal community infrastructure, dual-naming policies, and allowing for the negotiation of local-level treaties between traditional owners and the state.

Victoria is the only jurisdiction in Australia to have progressed to treaty, despite a flurry of commitments made by other governments in the years between the Uluru statement from the heart in 2017, and the failed referendum to introduce a national Indigenous voice to parliament in 2023.

New South Wales and the ACT are still in the talking stage and the Tasmanian government abandoned the treaty process last year but is still funding a truth-telling commission. South Australia is the only other state to keep treaty on the books: the state government legislated a voice to parliament in 2023, and has committed to a treaty and truth-telling process.

Queensland dumped its path toward a treaty with the election of the LNP government in 2024, undoing six years of work in two days. The Country Liberal party officially dismantled the Northern Territory’s treaty process in 2025.

The Victorian Liberal party has promised to do the same in its first 100 days in office if elected in November.

Opposition leader, Jess Wilson, said a treaty was not the “right approach to delivering outcomes for First Nations” people in Victoria, and instead suggested a new body called First Nations Victoria, which would report to one minister and tasked with delivering outcomes.

That’s exactly the kind of idea, First Peoples’ Assembly co-chair Ngarra Murray says, that has led to “decades of talk without outcomes”.

“Any political party that’s genuine about closing the gap should listen to what the Productivity Commission has recommended, and that is putting decision making in the hands of First Peoples,” the Wamba Wamba, Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung and Dhudhuroa woman said.
“Treaty is about making sure Aboriginal communities can use our local knowledge to come up and deliver practical solutions and improve the lives of our people.

“We’re the experts on our own lives, we know what does and doesn’t work for us.


“In rejecting treaty, Jess Wilson wants to return to a broken, business-as-usual model where non-Aboriginal people think they know what’s best for Aboriginal people.”

Lived experience

Lived experience should be a requirement for anyone seeking to represent the First Nations community, says Yorta Yorta man Jarvis Atkinson, who is running for a seat in the north-east region.

The 42-year-old became entangled in the justice system and experienced homelessness from a young age. He previously worked for the First Peoples’ Assembly as an engagement officer, visiting schools and educating kids on the treaty process. He says his “strong passion” for helping kids in out-of-home-care was one of his reasons for running.

He says seeing kids throw a boomerang for the first time, or having ochre on their faces for the first time, were formative experiences. Watching young people connect with and feel strong in their identities drives his desire to run.

“I will operate with empathy, I will operate knowing what someone is going through and it will definitely play a part in the weight of my opinion and my voice in that space,” he says. “I’m running because I believe lived experience in them spaces is really needed and really important. I’m all about the people.”

Meanwhile, Gunnai and Gunditjmara candidate Meriki Onus, who is running for the metro region, says successful candidates should have a “vision in order for Gellung Warl’s work to be transformative”.

Onus previously worked for the First Peoples’ Assembly as head of policy, which gave her a “technical understanding” of how the treaty works, she says.

“[We must have] a vision of something different to what we have now, something better for our people, and our community has to build that vision,” she says. “Sovereignty has to be at the heart of everything that we do at the First Peoples’ Assembly, and sovereignty is the basis of the First Peoples’ treaty and that’s very important to me.

“It is really important to have a self-determining body to make our own decisions.”

The Victorian Coalition has vowed to scrap the treaty within the first 100 days of government if they win the state election in November.

Voting in the treaty elections opened on 21 March and will go until 12 April, as the newly elected Gellung Warl officially commences in May.