COMMISSIONERS for the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission this week travelled to the region to speak with Indigenous elders about their priorities for the Victorian truth-telling process.
As part of the visit, three commissioners, chair Professor Eleanor Bourke, Professor Kevin Bell QC and Professor Maggie Walter, attended elders’ yarns and participated in an on-country tour in Swan Hill.
The previous day they had visited Mildura, and on Thursday they continued on to Robinvale.
Elders’ yarns will take place in regional Victoria over the next five weeks leading up to the beginning of official hearings on April 26.
Professor Bell said while the process needed to be led by First Nations people, it was a truth-telling process for the whole community.
“So I have some role there to to represent the white community in this collective effort,” he said.
“It’s appropriate that it be Indigenous-led, but also it’s appropriate that there be a significant contribution through the membership of a white person on the commission.
“And as a former judge, of the Supreme Court, and then a former barrister over a long period of time, I hope I have a lot to give.”
Prof Bell has also worked in Aboriginal Affairs as a lawyer and a judge for a lifetime and will bring that perspective to the process.
Under the leadership of Prof Bourke, a Wergaia and Wamba Wamba elder with decades of leadership and dedication to advancing Aboriginal education and cultural heritage, the commission hopes to tell a more complete story of the state’s past.
“The first (goal) is to enable truth to be told about the impact of colonization upon Victoria’s Aboriginal peoples, taking into account their perspective, which is not the perspective from which that history is normally taught,” Prof Bell said.
“The second thing we hope to achieve is to promote understanding among all Victorians, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Victorians about the history that we share on this land that we now share.
“And the third thing we hope to achieve is to transform society in the direction of respectful relations between the different elements of this single community to reform institutions, political institutions, digital institutions, social institutions, so as to achieve self-determination because it’s self-determination, that more than anything, was taken away.”
Prof Bell said he also had the privilege of visiting the former Moravian Mission at Lake Boga with Prof Bourke which is a particularly important location in her own family’s history, with the names of multiple relatives inscribed on a memorial stone there, as well as nearby roads named after some of her ancestors.
Prof Bourke has told The Guardian “two different stories have been told” about the history of this land.
“The story since settlement still impacts us now, there are still issues that go back to the beginning,” she said.
The commissioners aim to seek truth, understanding and the transformation this can bring about for future generations.
