‘Violent, illegal, stolen’: Yoorrook’s verdict on European settlement in Victoria

Yoorrook’s final report has called for Victorians to acknowledge First Peoples never ceded sovereignty of the state.

A smoking ceremony and welcome to country with Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: NewsWire / Nadir Kinani

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Sweeping changes to Indigenous control of land and a share of revenue generated from natural resources have been recommended by the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s final report, which declares Victoria was not “discovered by the British” or “founded by settlers”.

One hundred recommendations have been included in the final report — covering policy areas including education, justice, health, housing and employment — which was tabled in parliament late on Tuesday and called for wholesale changes and acknowledgment that the “sovereignty of First Peoples in Victoria has never been ceded and continues to exist”.

A range of new public spaces, roads, reserves, and waterways in Victoria would be renamed with Indigenous place names under a new recommendation from the commission’s report.

The report calls upon state and local levels of government to “reinstate Indigenous place names across Victoria … and ensure these place names are reflected on relevant maps, signs and official documents”.

The final report from the four-year inquiry into historical and ongoing injustices experienced by First Peoples has recommended the state hand over a portion of the government’s “land, water and natural resource-related revenues” to First Nations Victorians.

It also calls for the Victorian government to “provide the resources to support the transition to genuine nation-to-nation relationships”, while also recommending the government negotiate with the First People’s Assembly to secure the ongoing funding streams needed to do so.

“All major political parties, whether in government or in opposition, have perpetuated and compounded the trauma, injustice and suffering of First Peoples,” the report states.

The report said the “consistent and overwhelming theme” of evidence was that the “legacy of colonisation is still manifest in every aspect of life — including the current-day over-representation of First Peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems, and in the inequitable outcomes in health and wellbeing, housing, employment, education, economic and political life”.

“First Peoples have demonstrated that with secure access to their lands, waters and resources, they are better able to provide for the social, economic and cultural needs of their community than government or industry.”

The final report described the arrival of European settlers in Victoria in 1834 as an “occupation” and said it was “illegal, rapid and largely uncontrolled”.

“The taking of country and resources was violence as First Peoples were displaced and massacred by European settlers in the pursuit of their land and waters,” the report states.

Premier Jacinta Allan said her government shared the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s goals of “truth and justice” and will carefully consider its final findings and recommendations.

“Victoria’s truth-telling process is a historic opportunity to hear the stories of our past that have been buried – these are stories that all Victorians need to hear,” Ms Allan said.

The Yoorrook’s final report has also recommended sweeping reforms to the state’s public service with suggested reforms including giving senior managers a “positive duty” of care for Indigenous employees’ “cultural safety”.

The report also calls on the state to “consider the adequacy of existing remuneration and/or leave models to recognise First Nations staff’s contributions and responsibilities”.

Other reforms include introducing new performance “assessment processes” for senior public service executives whereby their remuneration is assessed on criteria such as “promoting the employment, retention and promotion of First Peoples staff”.

Other criteria on which executive remuneration would be assessed include “prioritising the actions within their Department/Agency necessary to support the treaty-making process” and “overseeing timely and fulsome implementation of recommendations within relevant reports”.

Victoria’s Yoorrook Commission report has recommended big changes for Indigenous Victorians in the state’s prisons.

Recommendation 84 calls for the state to “transfer oversight and responsibility of First Peoples’ prison healthcare from the Department of Justice and Community Safety to the Department of Health”.

It also calls on the commonwealth “to ensure that First Peoples in prison have access to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Medicare Benefits Schedule”.

The report also asks for reforms that would ensure Indigenous prison complaints “are handled by an appropriately resourced independent oversight body with sufficient powers to refer matters for criminal investigation.

“The body must be accessible to First Peoples in prison and complainants must have adequate legislative protection.”