Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will continue to tell the truth regardless of which political party wins Queensland's election, Indigenous leaders have vowed.
If elected on Saturday, the Liberal National Party says it will scrap the Queensland Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry, which recently marked 100 days, and has also made youth justice a feature of their pitch to voters.
Aboriginal people were forcibly removed from their homelands, all over Queensland and northern NSW, and brought to (first called Barambah), an Aboriginal Reserve, under the Aborigines Protection Act of 1897.
"Our truth is everyone's truth, our story is everyone's story," Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Mayor Bruce Simpson said.
Cherbourg has the opportunity to finally tell their truth and continue the history of our people.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has used last year's failed Voice referendum as his rationale to scrap the truth-telling inquiry , as polling suggests it will.
"I saw the division and I don't want to go down the same path for Queensland," he told reporters on Tuesday.
Inquiry chair Joshua Creamer said the inquiry was about unity, not division.
"If you understand history, we have been divided," he said.
"We were separated as a people.
"This is about bringing us together and actually what do we want for the future."
The Opposition's proposed youth justice reforms are "pretending to have a simple solution" to a complicated problem, Queensland Labor Premier Steven Miles says, as law and order remains a key election issue.
Under the LNP's proposed 'Adult Crime, Adult Time' policy, young offenders found guilty of serious offences in Queensland could be tried as adults.
In March, a damning report into youth justice was tabled in state parliament, which found Queensland already had the most children behind bars in the country.
The report by the found Indigenous children aged 10-17 are 21 times more likely than non-Indigenous juveniles to be under youth justice supervision and 23 times more likely to be in detention than their non-Indigenous peers.
Mr Crisafulli has outlined planned "detention with purpose" reforms to youth detention centres including compulsory education within centres, minimum isolation periods for assaulting staff, and the introduction of behavioural management plans.
"The youth crime crisis remains front and centre in Queenslanders' minds and we won't allow the Labor party to try to airbrush this as the defining issue of this election," he said.
Mr Miles said many of Mr Crisafulli's proposed reforms were already being enacted.
"What this bloke is very good at doing is taking a very complicated problem and pretending to have a simple solution," he told reporters.
"The fact is education is already mandatory in our detention facilities and what we've been doing over time is increasing access to schooling and increasing access to health-care services because so many of the people entering our detention system are suffering from mental health, alcohol and drug abuse issues.
"What we know is that mandatory solitary confinement, as proposed by the LNP, will not prevent any crime."
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Comissioner Katie Kiss told NITV that Australia is at a dangerous point, with all jurisdictions creating significant issues by breaching human rights, including protections against torture and inhumane and degrading treatment.
"The slogans that are being portrayed in Queensland are about winning elections, they're not about protecting children or about protecting the community," she said.
It's not appropriate that we have 10 year old children being locked up in jail and 'adult crime, adult time' is a slogan that doesn't actually reflect the lived experience of these children.
"We're punishing them for the disadvantage and challenges that they live with and face that they have no control over."
Prevention, not punishment
Commissioner Kiss said instead of looking at the end of the cycle for children when they end up in detention centres, policy should focus on prevention and early intervention programs.
"Government's responsibility is to make sure that our children are nurtured, protected and developed into functioning adults, not criminalised and turned into functioning criminals as they grow up," she said.
"So our children should not be put in jail.
"Our children should be nurtured, loved and developed, and our people are best to do that, and we need government supporting us to do that and not punishing and putting kids in jail."
Doomadgee locals are frustrated with the Opposition's tough on crime stance while they go without the basics - and Mayor Fredrick O'Keefe wants the Truth-Telling and Healing Inquiry to continue.
"Our house is overcrowded," he said.
"Our people are getting sicker, our people are left dying in hospital, nobody's supporting us.
"Our people are going to jail at a younger age.
"You know why? Because there's nothing there for them."
Mr Creamer says the Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry is separate to the Treaty process and is entirely focused on providing an accurate record of history.
“The Inquiry is important because we need to establish an authoritative public record on the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - that hasn’t been done before,” he said.
“There’s a limited time to be able do that because we do have an opportunity here from people who did grow up on missions and settlements and reserves in Queensland and that period of time is really significant in terms of the influence on people.
“So there’s a real importance in understanding what can be improved in terms of services and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people."
Mr Creamer said halting the inquiry would mean a "lost opportunity for our generation".
"People want to share their truth, they want to be part of this process," he said.
"It'd be devastating for the community to lose that opportunity."
Mr Simpson said no matter who won the election, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would continue to tell their truth.
"Our people are resilient," he said.
"We will continue to fight the fight, to tell our story and to tell our truth."
The Inquiry chair and four members have visited as far away as the Torres Strait and Cairns in the far north, to Cherbourg in the state’s west, Minjerribah/Stradbroke Island to the east and Inala in Brisbane’s south.
The inquiry will hold a truth-telling session in Cherbourg on November 19 and anyone is able to make an .
