Truth-telling could set the basis for treaties or other agreements but Australians must be prepared to listen to ensure the process is a success, an inquiry has been told.
Understanding the past and the historical relationship between First Nations and non-Indigenous people was important to understanding why measures such as treaties were being undertaken, Reconciliation Australia chief executive Karen Mundine said.
"Truth-telling helps to create the why, the need for treaty, the why for agreements," she told the Inquiry into Truth and Justice Commission Bill.
"By understanding history, by understanding what has gone before, it sets the basis and the platform for the conversation of what needs to be in an agreement or what needs to be addressed in an agreement."
Constitutional lawyer Megan Davis, one of the architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, said she did not believe truth-telling had to precede legal recognition.
"There really is no process I can point to in the world where truth is done first," she said.
Professor Davis said the 2023 voice to parliament referendum defeat had not diminished the need for a representative political entity.
"We don't have that national entity and that is a risk for truth-telling in relation to the faith and trust that First Nations communities have in a process when they're not sure that the people at the table are representative of communities," she told the inquiry.
The national director of Indigenous rights organisation ANTAR, Blake Cansdale, said a First Nations-led national truth and justice body could play a role in preparing Australia "one community at a time, to move toward a culture of listening and action".
He told the inquiry Australians must be prepared to listen to the truth and act in a meaningful way.
"Without this, truth-telling risks being reduced to a symbolic exercise, rather than the transformative process that it is intended to be and needs to be for our people," Mr Cansdale said.
"A truth process undertaken in a society unprepared to listen risks being undermined by political resistance, co-optation and superficial engagement."
The Truth and Justice Bill sets a time frame of four years before the commission submits its final report.
Mr Cansdale said a truth-telling process would take "a bit of time".
"We're 250 years into the colonial project, which I would say is alive and well at this very point in time," he said.
"The sheer complexity of that legacy and the impact it has on our communities, that's not going to be unwound in a few months or a few years."
