Colonial hegemony distinguishes relationships between the Australian state and Indigenous nations. British government was violently established and there was no accommodation with the Indigenous populations to allow settlement to proceed, as occurred through treaties in Canada and New Zealand. Indigenous arguments for treaties in Australia are, however, well established. Notwithstanding some Commonwealth and state and territory governments considering such agreements over the past 40 years, none have been concluded, and more modest forms of recognition have been alternatively proposed. In 2015, following extensive Indigenous advocacy, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition appointed a Referendum Council to consult on an amendment to the Commonwealth Constitution to recognise Australia’s first peoples. The recommendation of a Voice to Parliament and a Makarrata Commission to oversee truth telling and agreements to allow ‘coming together after a struggle’ suggested a transformative ambition beyond the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition’s expectations. Makarrata does not stipulate treaties as an ideal form of agreement, but in raising the possibility, the Council added to the concept’s political momentum.

This article discusses the place of treaties in contemporary Australian discourse, including treaty negotiations that are in progress in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory. It uses examples from New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi to discuss their possibilities and limits in Australia. From these examples, two overarching arguments are made. Firstly, that treaties are potentially transformative, not because they may settle historical grievances, but because their required mutual recognition of each party’s enduring political standing means that they define ongoing, just terms of association. Secondly, the substantively different political arrangements that they presume mean that they are not merely instruments of egalitarian justice and are instead concerned with the distribution of political authority – Indigenous authority over their affairs and through a distinctive and culturally contextualised state citizenship.

殖民霸权区分了澳大利亚州与土著民族之间的关系。英国政府是暴力建立的，原住民没有任何住处可以进行定居，这是加拿大和新西兰通过条约达成的。但是，关于澳大利亚条约的土著论点已经确立。尽管在过去的40年中，一些联邦政府，州和地区政府都在考虑达成这样的协议，但仍未达成任何协议，或者提出了更为温和的承认形式。2015年，在土著居民的广泛倡导下，总理和反对党领袖任命了全民投票委员会，以征询对《联邦宪法》的修正案，以承认澳大利亚的第一民族。建议国会发声，并要求马卡拉塔委员会监督真相和协议，以允许“斗争后聚在一起”，这提出了超越总理和反对党领导人期望的变革性野心。Makarrata并未将条约规定为理想的协议形式，但在提高可能性的过程中，理事会增加了该概念的政治势头。

本文讨论了条约在当代澳大利亚话语中的位置，包括在维多利亚，昆士兰州和北领地进行的条约谈判。它以新西兰《威坦哲条约》中的例子为例，讨论了它们在澳大利亚的可能性和局限性。从这些示例中，得出了两个总体论点。首先，这些条约具有潜在的变革性，不是因为它们可以解决历史上的不满，而是因为它们必须相互承认每个政党的持久政治地位，这意味着它们定义了持续的，公正的结盟条款。其次，