Yoorrook commission split over findings on injustices against Indigenous people

Irreconcilable differences between Yoorrook commissioners have split Victoria’s truth-telling process, with a majority refusing to put their names to all the commission’s findings and boycotting the handover of its final reports.

The Victorian government will table in state parliament on Tuesday the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s final reports into systemic injustices perpetrated against First Peoples since European settlement and make public the findings and recommendations of a four-year inquiry established to inform the state’s treaty process.

Yoorrook Justice Commission deputy chair Sue-Anne Hunter. Credit: Jason South

This masthead can reveal that consensus on some of the findings broke down to the point where three of five commissioners – deputy chair Sue-Anne Hunter, University of Tasmania professor Maggie Walter and former Federal Court judge Anthony North – considered writing a dissenting report.

Instead, following a series of crisis meetings across Yoorrook and Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly and interventions by respected Indigenous community figures, an accommodation was reached to enable publication of the reports without formal dissent.

Under the compromise struck, the commission’s account of Victoria’s history of colonisation, as told by First Peoples to Yoorrook, carries a fine-print caveat that three commissioners do not support all findings contained in the report.

This caveat, which appears in a single line, does not identify findings on which the commission agreed and those that are subject to dispute. It also gives no indication of the depth of division that plagued the truth-telling process.

Commission chair Eleanor Bourke. Credit: Justin McManus

The split within Yoorrook and machinations which led to consideration of a dissenting report were confirmed by three sources with knowledge of the workings of the commission but unauthorised to discuss its internal processes.

“There have been crisis talks for the last two months,” one of the sources said.

Two sources involved in the work of the commission confirmed the split centred on differences over how historical events should be interpreted and whether those interpretations were better expressed as recommendations rather than findings of fact.

Despite disagreements over findings of fact, all five commissioners endorsed the Yoorrook recommendations to government.

Walter and North did not respond to attempts to contact them. Hunter referred questions to Yoorrook communications staff. The Yoorrook commission declined to answer questions provided by this masthead.

“As the commission has delivered its final reports and completed its mandate, it is not able to comment,” a spokesperson said.

Hunter, Walter and North took no part in the Yoorrook Walk for Truth which ended two weeks ago on the steps of the Victorian parliament, or a meeting last week at which the commission’s final reports were presented to Governor Margaret Gardner and First Peoples’ Assembly co-chairs Ngarra Murray and Rueben Berg.

Commission chair Eleanor Bourke and deputy commissioner Travis Lovett attended both events.

Bourke, Lovett and Hunter are all First Peoples from Victoria and Walter is Palawa, a Tasmanian Aboriginal. North, a retired judge who presided over native title cases, joined the commission in January last year.

Commissioner Maggie Walter.Credit: Jason South

Revelations of the split come as a fresh political divide opens over the future of the First Peoples’ Assembly, an elected body of Aboriginal people established in 2018 as a first step towards a treaty between the state government and traditional owners.

Premier Jacinta Allan indicated on Monday that the assembly may be given a formal advisory role, in which parliament would be compelled to seek its advice on legislation and other matters that affect Aboriginal people.

Opposition Leader Brad Battin lashed any attempt to create a state body similar to the Voice, the proposed First Nations advisory body to federal parliament rejected at the 2023 referendum.

“This government continues to push down a road that most Victorians have already voted against,” Battin said. “We have already seen a referendum here in Victoria that opposed the Voice. I will continue to stand with those Victorians and say the Voice is not needed.”

Allan rejected the comparison.

“The key difference to the referendum that was put nationwide a couple of years ago is that was changing the Constitution,” she said. “This is not changing the Victorian Constitution. It is simply taking a commonsense approach – sitting the First Peoples’ Assembly, an ongoing representative body, into our existing parliamentary structures.

Yoorrook commissioner Travis Lovett leading the Walk for Truth to the steps of parliament on June 16.Credit: Justin McManus

“The significant change is it will be a body where we will be listening, taking on their advice.”

The state government issued a statement last week confirming that the ongoing shape and powers of the assembly are the subject of treaty negotiations.

The Yoorrook Justice Commission was established in May 2021 as a royal commission into historic and ongoing systemic injustices perpetrated against First Peoples. Its final work is contained in two reports.

The first contains the findings of the truth-telling process – a First Peoples’ account of Victorian history – based on public submissions, hearings, community engagements and documentary evidence. The second, a report which runs to five volumes, contains 100 final recommendations to the government. These will add to 148 recommendations already published through the commission’s interim reports.

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