Voting has opened for Victorian Aboriginal communities to elect the people who will help make the rules for what are expected to be the first treaty negotiations in Australia.

Key points: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians will vote to elect a 32-seat First People's Assembly

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians will vote to elect a 32-seat First People's Assembly The assembly will then create the treaty authority, which will act as an umpire during treaty negotiations

The assembly will then create the treaty authority, which will act as an umpire during treaty negotiations Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner Jill Gallagher said Victoria's progress on a treaty was "ground-breaking"

More than 75 Aboriginal people have nominated as candidates for the First Peoples' Assembly, across five regions.

The election comes after nearly four years of community consultation by Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner Jill Gallagher, who said Aboriginal people had been demanding a treaty for 240 years.

"This is the first time this country has ever done anything like this, it's ground-breaking," she said.

"This is something that if we are successful, it is going to right those wrongs that were committed on our communities in the past."

The vote will determine which Victorian traditional owners are elected to 21 of 32 Assembly seats.

The remaining seats have already been allocated to formally recognised traditional owner groups.

"The role of the Assembly will be to negotiate what the treaty authority will look like," Ms Gallagher said.

"The treaty authority is like the independent umpire. It's going to say what's on the negotiating table and what's not on the negotiating table."

There are 32 Assembly seats across Victoria. ( Supplied: Victorian Treaty Advancement Commissioner )

The vote is open to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians over the age of 16.

2,000 of an eligible 30,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have enrolled to vote.

'They treated us like flora and fauna'

Wotjobaluk elder and Australia's first Indigenous Paralympian Uncle Kevin Coombs, 78, said he never thought he would see this in his lifetime.

"What I would like to see is a reconciliation," he said.

"I'd like to see the treaty go through first then on a national basis, for us to be recognised in the constitution.

"It's very important for us to be recognised, because we're not in there, they treated us like flora and fauna back in the day, but hopefully that will change."

Mr Coombs's daughter and Wotjobaluk woman Janine said it was a historic day for her family.

"It's about my grandchildren and the next six generations after and what will benefit them," she said.

"It's about what will empower them, what will build their capacity and their economic growth."

Janine's 24-year-old daughter Kyeema, also a Wotjobaluk woman, said she would like to see better education of Aboriginal history in schools, as part of the treaty.

"I remember being in Year Eight and it seemed like Australia's history only started when Captain Cook arrived," she said.

"I would like to see less of our women in care and less of our men and women locked up."

She said it was important there were young people on the First People's Assembly.

"30, 40, 60 years from now we will be the ones enforcing the treaties, so we need to at least be at the table."

The treaty process has not been without controversy, as last week hundreds of people rallied on the steps of Victorian Parliament holding signs which read "No Trees No Treaty".

The protestors said they were refusing to vote in the treaty unless the Andrews Government stopped plans to knock down sacred trees in at Buangor near Ararat, to make way for the duplication of the Western Highway.

The ballot will be open for five weeks and voting will close on October 20.

Voting is open online, by post, and at 43 polling booths across Victoria.