A landmark bill to create an independent authority to oversee Victoria's treaty negotiations is poised to be put to a final vote in state parliament.
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The Treaty Authority and Other Treaty Elements Bill 2022 passed the lower house in late June with the support of all but one MP and will be debated in the upper house this week.
A final vote could come as early as Tuesday evening, with the legislation all but certain to pass with bi-partisan support from the major parties.
Under the bill, the body will be given legal powers to oversee treaty talks and resolve any disputes between the state government and First Peoples' Assembly of Victoria.
It will sit outside the usual state bureaucracy, will not report to a minister, have its funding safeguarded, and be led by First Nations people.
An agreement between the assembly and Victorian government on the form of the treaty authority was reached in June and the democratically elected representative body's co-chair Marcus Stewart said politicians have listened.
"They've been willing to make some space and to concede some power. This is what decolonisation looks like," the Nira illim bulluk man said in a statement.
The ground rules for negotiations are next to be set, with the assembly hopeful an agreement can be struck before the government enters caretaker mode ahead of the November 26 state election.
Premier Daniel Andrews said it was significant the bill would pass amid a push for a First Nations voice to federal parliament.
"It just shows you how far we've come in even such a short period of time," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, a report into Victoria's triple-zero call-taking service has been received by the Victorian government after at least 18 deaths were linked to system failures.
Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes confirmed the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) report from the Inspector-General for Emergency Management was handed to her last week.
She has committed to release the 150-page report in full within the next month, once the government formalises its response.
"It goes into some detail about the experience of ESTA and indeed our emergency services providers during the pandemic," Ms Symes said on Tuesday.
Former Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton recently did a similar review and found ESTA was plagued by continued and systematic underperformance.
ESTA's benchmark is for 90 per cent of ambulance triple-zero calls to be answered within five seconds.
But there were days during the Delta coronavirus wave in September last year when four out of five calls were not being answered on time, according to leaked Ambulance Victoria figures published in The Age on Tuesday.
A budget estimates hearing in May heard the service was responsible for 18 deaths of people waiting for an ambulance over the previous six months, with a further three fatalities attributed to paramedics not getting to patients on time.
Victoria's coroner is reviewing several cases to determine how many will form part of an investigation into deaths linked to emergency call delays.
Australian Associated Press