Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan faces truth-telling inquiry

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Victoria's Premier Jacinta Allan is today before Australia's first indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry, where she is giving evidence to the Yoorrook Justice Commission to address injustices against Victoria's first peoples.

Transcript

00:00 She has just begun, just in the last half an hour or so,

00:05 begun giving evidence for the first time.

00:08 We're seeing an Australian head of government giving evidence

00:11 at a truth-telling inquiry in Australia,

00:14 the first of its kind here in Victoria,

00:16 initiated by Aboriginal communities.

00:18 This is an Aboriginal-led truth-telling inquiry

00:21 to examine the effects of colonisation

00:23 on Aboriginal people here in Victoria

00:26 and to look at the intersection between the decisions made

00:29 by government and the disadvantage still faced

00:32 by Aboriginal communities right across this state.

00:35 So it was fitting that the Premier arrived here

00:38 to be welcomed by Wurundjeri elders here on Wurundjeri

00:41 country in Collingwood, where the Commission's officers are.

00:44 She was given quite a solemn and welcome reception

00:50 from Wurundjeri elders who initiated a smoking

00:53 ceremony for the Premier and welcomed

00:55 other members of the community that

00:56 have come to hear this significant moment

00:59 in Australian history.

01:01 There are some Aboriginal community members here

01:03 who have waited a very long time to see

01:06 a senior official of this kind give evidence

01:09 to a set of Aboriginal commissioners

01:11 and really be questioned about what the government's doing

01:14 in terms of its many commitments to close

01:16 the gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

01:19 in Victoria.

01:19 We might hear a little bit of what the Premier had to say.

01:22 She gave a statement, Ros, to the commissioners

01:24 about the importance of truth telling and owning our history.

01:28 The process of truth telling is a refusal

01:32 to submit to that silence.

01:34 The record this commission will hand down

01:36 will mean at long last the truth of our state's history

01:39 is told--

01:40 the murder, the massacres, the dispossession of culture

01:45 and country, the land taken away,

01:47 the way of life destroyed, the children who never came back

01:50 home, and those who are still trying to find their way back.

01:55 I also want to acknowledge that it's not enough to merely know

01:58 this history.

01:59 We do need to learn from it, and we need to act on it too.

02:03 Bridget, what does this moment mean for Aboriginal Victorians?

02:09 Ros, I think it's complex.

02:11 I mean, this history is really complex for Aboriginal people.

02:13 There are a lot of painful things

02:15 that have been dredged up through this commission

02:17 process.

02:18 I mean, as the Premier's referenced,

02:19 the massacres, the theft of land, the ongoing poverty

02:23 that many Aboriginal people are experiencing,

02:25 the mass incarceration of Aboriginal people.

02:28 This is all the many complex issues

02:31 that this commission is tasked with interrogating.

02:34 So there are complex feelings from community members here,

02:36 but a lot of elders are here in the room

02:38 to hear what the Premier has to say today.

02:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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