Speaker 1: Just a warning before we get started. Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Islander listeners should be aware that today's episode features
Speaker 1: the voices of people who have died. This episode is
Speaker 1: the first part in a two part series.
Speaker 2: Welcome Uncle Jack, Thank you.
Speaker 3: We are delighted and honored the Duke to join us today.
Speaker 4: One of the first people that we heard from in
Speaker 4: the Commission was the late great Uncle Jack Charles as well.
Speaker 2: I am a well known nun Collingwood Vitroy Bloke, Melvernion,
Speaker 2: and I am self proclaimed in my community as the
Speaker 2: local goodcha man law man feed afoot of the Smeth
Speaker 2: Street Strip.
Speaker 1: In April twenty twenty two, Uncle Jack Charles told the
Speaker 1: story of his life to the York Justice Commission. Uncle
Speaker 1: Jack is known and loved for his work as an actor,
Speaker 1: but the role most important to him, the one that
Speaker 1: he focused on when he gave testimony at Yuruk, was
Speaker 1: his role within his own community.
Speaker 2: And that's my job as an elder. We've lived experiences
Speaker 2: to be yet a source for people to gravitate towards
Speaker 2: in their own journey of coming out of their own
Speaker 2: heart of darkness, and it's been.
Speaker 4: Proven sadly it was probably unless there's something else. I'm
Speaker 4: not aware of his final public act as an elder
Speaker 4: because he died shortly afterwards.
Speaker 1: Over four years, thousands of Victorians shared their stories with
Speaker 1: the York Justice Commission. It had all the powers of
Speaker 1: a royal commission and was the first truth telling process
Speaker 1: of its kind in Australian history. Yesterday its findings were
Speaker 1: handed to the Victorian government. My co host Daniel James,
Speaker 1: has spent the last seven months documenting Europe for the
Speaker 1: official report, Truth Be Told. It's a powerful, unflinching account
Speaker 1: of Victoria's past and present. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
Speaker 1: seven AM today. Daniel James on how knowing the truth
Speaker 1: of the past sets us up for a better future.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, July two. Daniel, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Uncle Jack's testimony and how it's set
Speaker 1: up the stage for how Europe unfolded from there.
Speaker 4: Of course, his testimony was very moving. He talked about
Speaker 4: the impacts of being a member of the Stolen Generation.
Speaker 2: Being born under the Assimilation Policy EL babies was supposed
Speaker 2: to be taken from the hospital bed from their mothers
Speaker 2: and then placed into babies' homes City Mission over in
Speaker 2: Brunswick managed to keep me for flaw months and I
Speaker 2: was discovered with her a dasher's paddock.
Speaker 4: And so he was put into a children's home where
Speaker 4: he was abused both physically and sexually. How that led
Speaker 4: to a life of petty crime, all.
Speaker 2: B eggs and pain. The woes of existing, you know,
Speaker 2: with a heavy addiction and having to do, you know,
Speaker 2: burglaries to do to support the funding of the drugs
Speaker 2: and etc. Came to a stop, a full stop.
Speaker 4: But also the great thing about his hearing was that
Speaker 4: he was able to you know, quote unquote redeem himself.
Speaker 4: He was able to make something of himself in the
Speaker 4: face of all of that. And it wasn't until very
Speaker 4: very late in life that he was actually able to
Speaker 4: discover who his father was.
Speaker 2: But Edinburgh re Gardens, I was given this side below
Speaker 2: and I opened it up and there was Hilton Hamilton
Speaker 2: Bosh and leaning on a walking stick which he carved himself.
Speaker 2: And the irony there struck me between you know, and
Speaker 2: the eyes that when I found my mum at eighteen
Speaker 2: on the air whichever between mill I mean, what else?
Speaker 2: He was carving walking sticks, snakes around walking sticks.
Speaker 4: And that was a process that thankfully became a circular
Speaker 4: moment for him and I'm so glad that he got
Speaker 4: to realize exactly who he was and where he was
Speaker 4: from before he passed away, and Uruk assisted with that, and.
Speaker 1: Uncle Jack was one of thousands of people who gave
Speaker 1: testimony to the commission this process. It's been a long
Speaker 1: time coming. So tell me where the story of rock starts.
Speaker 4: The story actually really starts at the point of first
Speaker 4: contact between European settlers and First Nations people really in
Speaker 4: the western districts of Victoria, and what Euruk has been
Speaker 4: doing is trying to investigate the fallout from that point
Speaker 4: and everything that's followed subsequently. I think one thing that's
Speaker 4: really important to note is that Victoria was probably the
Speaker 4: heaviest populated section of this land mass that we now
Speaker 4: call Australia at the time of invasion, and so there
Speaker 4: has been a plethora of political movements here. Europe is
Speaker 4: a wamba wamba word for truth, and it is something
Speaker 4: that is the combination of a movement that has been
Speaker 4: going for generations and generations. It started at a place
Speaker 4: called cornderk on or Andrey Country near Hillsville. There was
Speaker 4: a mission, one of the early missions that were established
Speaker 4: once Melbourne was settled, and the residents of Coron Dirk,
Speaker 4: headed by a fellow called Uncle William Barrick, protested not
Speaker 4: only their conditions but the colonies I guess reluctance to
Speaker 4: let them play a full and vital role in the
Speaker 4: life of the colony and the life of their local
Speaker 4: communities by participating in the economic life of where they
Speaker 4: were situated. They wanted to grow hops to feed some
Speaker 4: of the emerging buries that were being established around the place,
Speaker 4: so they were quite entrepreneurial in that way. But they
Speaker 4: didn't get what they want, so they petitioned the colony
Speaker 4: and they eventually marched from Cronder to what is now
Speaker 4: State Parliament to protest their rights, their land rights, their
Speaker 4: rights as citizens.
Speaker 2: Quite a new media people saying I don't like the
Speaker 2: black man, but he's then blood to live in a
Speaker 2: black man's country.
Speaker 1: All the things.
Speaker 3: I am calling a crowbie of all the leaders in
Speaker 3: New South Wales to send a petition to the King
Speaker 3: in an endeavor to improve our conditions.
Speaker 4: And there's been a series of movements since then, and
Speaker 4: in many ways Europe is a major, major chapter in
Speaker 4: that story.
Speaker 1: And so at what point would you say that those
Speaker 1: protests and political movements really crystal into what we're seeing now.
Speaker 4: I would say probably around the early seventies there was
Speaker 4: a very strong push to establish some of our own organizations.
Speaker 4: So we've got things like the Victorian Original Legal Service,
Speaker 4: which was the first community controlled organization in Victoria, the
Speaker 4: second in Australia, that, in combination with the establishment of
Speaker 4: health services and cooperatives around the state, really enabled Aboriginal
Speaker 4: people to talk about the politics of our plight, to
Speaker 4: talk about ways of moving forward across portfolio areas like
Speaker 4: education and health. So the steps towards treaty in particular
Speaker 4: really sort of started around that point. It was seen
Speaker 4: as a way of not only improving outcomes for Aboriginal people,
Speaker 4: but also moving towards things like land rights and native title,
Speaker 4: which was all to come much later on. But if
Speaker 4: you were to look at how that actually crystallized into
Speaker 4: the very sort of jagged path we're on now towards
Speaker 4: truth and treaty, the formal process of Europe would have
Speaker 4: started about seven years ago once the First People's Assembly
Speaker 4: of Victoria had been formally established, because it was them
Speaker 4: who called for.
Speaker 1: It, and so they're calling for this commission. How does
Speaker 1: the eurok Justice Commission become a reality?
Speaker 4: Though? So, the First People's Assembly, in one of its
Speaker 4: first acts, called for a truth telling process.
Speaker 5: Victoria is one step closer to a landmark treaty with
Speaker 5: its First People's Indigenous leaders delivered a stirring address on
Speaker 5: the floor of Parliament marking laws to create a special authority.
Speaker 4: Their view is, and I think it's a view that's
Speaker 4: proven around the world in many ways, is that you
Speaker 4: can't have a treaty process without a truth telling process.
Speaker 4: And so what they were doing was calling for the
Speaker 4: first truth telling process to be formalized in Australia in
Speaker 4: which we could actually hear for the first time from
Speaker 4: a first people's slash Aboriginal people's perspective on what happened.
Speaker 2: And here there's no escape in the harsh reality that
Speaker 2: actional people have suffered immensely at the hands of the
Speaker 2: Victorian state.
Speaker 4: And only once the broader Victorian public and the broader
Speaker 4: Australian public understands what happened here can you actually start
Speaker 4: treating negotiations in good faith.
Speaker 1: We cannot move forward using the same systems that have
Speaker 1: been used against us and that have held us back.
Speaker 4: So they were the ones that called for it, and
Speaker 4: the Victorian government, led by Dan Andrews at the time,
Speaker 4: to their credit, said yes, you can have that.
Speaker 1: For far too long we've had white belts telling our
Speaker 1: first nations, Victorians how it ought to be and I
Speaker 1: don't intend to do that.
Speaker 4: And so one of the major challenges in the first
Speaker 4: place is okay, well, what does this look like, what
Speaker 4: powers is it given, and what do we want from it.
Speaker 4: A tremendous amount of work went into that, both from
Speaker 4: the First People's Assembly but also through the establishment of
Speaker 4: the Commission itself, which had to work out what it was,
Speaker 4: areas it would explore and what outcomes it was looking
Speaker 4: to achieve from exploring those areas.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk more about those parts of
Speaker 1: the Commission, but as it moved forward and established itself
Speaker 1: with their other challenges.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were a number of challenges. Major one was
Speaker 4: this has never happened before in Australia, It's happened in
Speaker 4: other parts of the world. How much does it cost,
Speaker 4: who do you get to chair it, what areas does
Speaker 4: it look at, where do you house it? I mean,
Speaker 4: one of the things that I discovered, to my astonishment,
Speaker 4: was when the Commission was looking for premises to house itself,
Speaker 4: it meant what one would call sort of passive resistance.
Speaker 4: They would get to a point where they were close
Speaker 4: to negotiating a lease, and then once the landlord sort
Speaker 4: of discovered that it was an organization run by and
Speaker 4: for Aboriginal people, those lease would sort of fail to materialize.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't until the Victorian government, by chance happened
Speaker 4: to be building a new government building in Collingwood that
Speaker 4: the Commission was actually able to house itself and create
Speaker 4: an environment where people coming in and providing testimony before
Speaker 4: the Commission could actually feel safe. One of the things
Speaker 4: that seemed to take a while for a number of
Speaker 4: people to get their head around was that the Commission
Speaker 4: had all the powers of a royal commission. So a
Speaker 4: royal commission can request any document that at once and
Speaker 4: get a hold of that document, they can summoned people
Speaker 4: to appear before the commissioner androde testimony. One of the
Speaker 4: early hurdles was a tardiness from the Victorian bureaucracy in
Speaker 4: terms of getting the thousands of documents that commissioners and
Speaker 4: the Commission itself had actually asked for and it got
Speaker 4: to a point where they had to actually all a
Speaker 4: direction's hearing for non compliance.
Speaker 3: So the state's response over the past few weeks to
Speaker 3: Yurook's request for documents to me demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding
Speaker 3: of the truth telling process.
Speaker 4: They've brought all of these senior public servants in and
Speaker 4: the people that were in charge of these systems and said, listen,
Speaker 4: we're telling you nicely now that this is a royal commission.
Speaker 4: When we ask for something, you give it to us.
Speaker 6: The state recognizes that compliance dates for recent notices have
Speaker 6: passed oologizers to the Commission for the delay in providing
Speaker 6: responses to the notices, and.
Speaker 4: Was from that point on that I think not only
Speaker 4: did the bureaucracy start taking Europe seriously, interested parties within
Speaker 4: the Victorian community realized that this was very much the
Speaker 4: real deal when it comes to inquiries.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break. The Formidable woman chosen to
Speaker 1: lead Europe.
Speaker 3: Racism and inequality affect First peoples in almost every aspect
Speaker 3: of our lives, from schooling and work, to getting housing
Speaker 3: and to accessing healthcare.
Speaker 1: Daniel let's talk more about the direction that the Commission
Speaker 1: took once it was established. Tell me about the chair.
Speaker 4: Well, the chair is a remarkable woman, Auntie Eleanor burke Am.
Speaker 4: She is a Wagaya Wamba Wamba elder.
Speaker 3: There is an unbroken line of injustice which runs from
Speaker 3: the original theft of our lands and waters until today.
Speaker 4: She is someone who has dedicated her entire life to
Speaker 4: Aboriginal people, one of the first Aboriginal public servants in Canberra.
Speaker 3: The truth is we cannot secure justice for First peoples
Speaker 3: without transforming the laws and policies which by design continue
Speaker 3: to disadvantage us.
Speaker 4: She is now eighty two years old, so she would
Speaker 4: have been in her late seventies when she was called
Speaker 4: upon to be the chair of this commission. Her main
Speaker 4: area of interest has been education and research, and so
Speaker 4: she's a professor and director of the Aboriginal Research Institute
Speaker 4: at the University of South Australia. She's been inducted into
Speaker 4: the Victorian Honor Roll for women here in Victoria and
Speaker 4: also into the Aboriginal Honor Role. She's someone that is
Speaker 4: universally respected and has been tireless in her efforts. I
Speaker 4: couldn't think of a better chairperson to undertake this role
Speaker 4: because it not only is still a resolve, it requires
Speaker 4: a truckload of empathy and has required a truckload of
Speaker 4: strengths as well. To hear some of the things that
Speaker 4: these commissioners have heard over the last four or five
Speaker 4: years has been amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, tell me more about that. What have they heard?
Speaker 1: What has stuck with you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are a number of massacres that took place
Speaker 4: that I didn't know about that came to light. Those
Speaker 4: sort of revelations were profound and very moving and very distressing.
Speaker 4: But the hardest thing from my perspective, and I would
Speaker 4: dare say from a commissioner's perspective, would be hearing from
Speaker 4: members of the Stolen Generation in particular, and hearing their
Speaker 4: first person accounts of what happened to them or that
Speaker 4: they missed out on the clinical brutality of the state
Speaker 4: taking children away from the clutters of their mothers and fathers.
Speaker 4: So hearing what happened to people in the first person
Speaker 4: with the most moving moments from a people who had
Speaker 4: had horrific ordeals with the child protection system, either as
Speaker 4: a parent or as a child, seeing their bravery in
Speaker 4: terms of fronting the commission, which is something that so
Speaker 4: many original people don't want to do because why would
Speaker 4: they trust systems, Why would they trust another inquiry? Why
Speaker 4: would they trust a royal commission? Given what's happened previously?
Speaker 1: And as you say, truth telling is important because how
Speaker 1: do you attempt to change things if you haven't even
Speaker 1: identified what was wrong? But what else changes when the
Speaker 1: truth goes on record like.
Speaker 4: This, Well, one of the things that does change, and
Speaker 4: it's something that requires a little bit of lateral thinking,
Speaker 4: but shame and guilt no longer become a concern. So
Speaker 4: the truth has been told. We've heard from Indigenous people,
Speaker 4: We've heard from descendants of some of the early landholders
Speaker 4: in Victoria. We've heard how they are descendants of people
Speaker 4: that were complicit in the attempt to genocide of aoriginal
Speaker 4: people in this place we now call Victoria. And there
Speaker 4: were no ramifications for them, there was no pushback. They
Speaker 4: were heard respectfully and openly. And so the idea of
Speaker 4: being able to then move forward with the truth means
Speaker 4: that not only does it empower First Nations people, but
Speaker 4: it also lifts the veil of shame and guilt on
Speaker 4: non Aboriginal people who have been involved in some of
Speaker 4: the things that have harmed us most. And we don't
Speaker 4: have to keep revisiting the past because the past has
Speaker 4: now been written and is now part of the public record,
Speaker 4: and it's there for all to see. So what has
Speaker 4: happened in many ways in the past is not our business,
Speaker 4: but what happens next is and that's what telling the
Speaker 4: truth has enabled us to do.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of seven Am.
Speaker 1: It's the first part in a two part series about
Speaker 1: the York Justice Commission. Part two is available in a
Speaker 1: seven AM feed now