Victorian premier says she didn't know of brutal massacres of Aboriginal people near her home

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan says learning about the depth of brutality involved in historical massacres of Aboriginal tribes near her home city shamed and “distressed” her.

Ms Allan became the first leader of an Australian government to give evidence at a formal truth-telling inquiry on Monday, when she appeared at the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

She gave several hours of evidence related to the theft of land from Aboriginal nations across Victoria and agreed the sovereignty of those clans was never ceded.

In preparing to give evidence, Ms Allan said she undertook detailed research related to the colonisation of Victoria and found that multiple massacres had occurred near her home region of Bendigo.

“I was sitting there, in my backyard, reading through the materials and just felt so distressed that these were massacres that occurred not far from where I was sitting and I didn’t know about them.

“Growing up and living as I have all my life in central Victoria, on Dja Dja Wurrung country, I did not know about the massacres that occurred so close to home.

“And that distress carries with me today. It brings me a sense of shame and distress personally that I did not know that, and it brings me a sense of shame and distress that this was done by people, all in the pursuit of taking land off First Peoples.”

In central Victoria, a massacres map published by the University of Newcastle details massacres of Victorian Aboriginal people in which they were shot and poisoned.

Ms Allan agreed with the commission that Aboriginal people were massacred and dispossessed so that their best land could be stolen from them by settlers.

Commissioner Travis Lovett, a Kerrupmara Gunditjmara man, asked the premier if she accepted that Aboriginal people “have been saying this for 200 years, what really happened to us”.

“I most certainly do,” Ms Allan said.

“It’s not that I, before my appearance today, was not aware of the dispossession and disadvantage and the wrongs that occurred at that point that the nation and then the state was colonised.

“My learning was deepened and expanded in terms of the brutality.”

Counsel assisting Yoorrook, Tony McAvoy SC, said evidence before the commission had made it “clear and undeniable that First Peoples were murdered in large numbers, that children and women were stolen and raped and tortured and this was mostly done so that First Peoples’ lands could be taken”.

The commission was shown an excerpt from an inquiry published in 1837 which found that Aboriginal people were being driven back “as if they were dogs” and that colonial forces “punished the natives as aggressors”.

Many Aboriginal people may ‘never get the best of their land back’, inquiry hears

Ms Allan told the commission that a “systematic” attempt to erase Aboriginal people from the history books had left her and many other Victorians ignorant of the state’s full history.

But she was repeatedly questioned by the commission over whether the government was doing all it could to redress the human rights abuses perpetrated against Aboriginal Victorians.

A particular focus of these hearings is the widespread theft of land.

“There is extreme wealth being made from parcels of land that were once owned by First Peoples, for which they’ve never been compensated,” Mr McAvoy said.

He suggested the dispossession and massacres of their ancestors had meant Aboriginal people may “never get the best of their land back”.

He pressed Ms Allan on whether the government had ever set aside money for traditional owners to “re-own” valuable lands and waterways.

“I absolutely agree it is very difficult for First Peoples to have lands that they have never ceded … to purchase [that land] on the open market,” Ms Allan said.

Treaty a chance to break cycle of ‘political football’, premier says

Mr McAvoy asked the premier if she agreed Aboriginal people often ended up as “political footballs at the whim of government” in Australia.

“Yes, yes I would,” Ms Allan said, adding that she intended for the state’s treaty process to help insulate Aboriginal people from cynical political games.

“This is a process and a journey that is not about one particular individual — it’s about addressing the historic wrong of the way land was not ceded, how that dispossession has carried through to the present day and caused so much disadvantage,” she said.

Ms Allan also expressed her government’s commitment to ensuring the state’s full history is properly taught in schools.

“What I see as the legacy of this part [Yoorrook] of the process is to be the writing of the fundamental truth of the history of our state, for that truth to be told in classrooms across the state,” she said.

“Because in shining a light on how our state was settled, we can genuinely start to work towards better outcomes, and that is part of the pathway to treaty.”

Mr McAvoy asked if her government would help the commission obtain all the documents it needs to do its work, including those held by government offices and archives.

“Should the commission provide recommendations to that effect, we would absolutely work with the commission and relevant agencies and it’s consistent with the approach the government has taken in some other areas on this front,” Ms Allan said.

Mr McAvoy said there was a “whole string of very important documents” that set out the formation of Australian colonies that could not be found.

Premier told to ‘live up to your words’

The premier fielded questions from Yoorrook for hours, telling the commissioners she was passionately committed to serious action to address the legacies of past injustice.

Before she left, Yoorrook’s chair and Wergaia elder Aunty Eleanor Bourke impressed upon her the significance of the occasion, urging her to “live up to your words”.

“First Peoples have faced a long history of being let down by successive governments and their leaders,” she said.

“Broken promises, unfulfilled commitments and apologies, followed by inertia.

“Unless accompanied by a genuine and lasting change, acknowledgements and apologies mean little.

“Worse, they give the impression that action is coming while maintaining the status quo.”

On Wednesday, Yoorrook is due to hear from representatives from the Catholic, Anglican and Uniting churches.