Eastern Maar citizen Rueben Berg has been appointed to the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria (the Assembly) within the Reserved Seat Membership for Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation (EMAC).
After an Expression of Interest process Rueben was elected by Eastern Maar community members at a Full Group Meeting held in late May.
Rueben said ‘I am extremely honoured to be representing the Eastern Maar community in this next phase of the Treaty process. Being able to represent the people, land, and waters, that I am most connected to is very powerful’.
‘For this next phase I want to continue to progress the important Treaty work that lies ahead, I hope to play a key role to support Eastern Maar to progress Traditional Owner Treaties, and to make sure that Treaty brings benefits to all of our community’, Rueben said.
‘Our community has made some really strong and positive achievements, especially in more recent years, and the Treaty process is a great way to strengthen those achievements as well as gaining even greater rights and empowering our people to take control of our communities, our language, our land, our waters, and our future’, Rueben said.
The Assembly is an independent and democratically elected body to represent Traditional Owners of Country and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Victoria. In its next term, the Assembly will immediately focus heavily on negotiate a statewide Treaty to tackle the big overarching statewide issues like improving health, education, and justice.
EMAC congratulates all Treaty candidates who have recently stood for election in this second phase and we look forward to working closely through Rueben as our Treaty Reserved Seat member with the next composition of the Assembly.
