Premier delivers historic apology to Aboriginal Victorians for ‘profound harm’ of colonisation
Premier Jacinta Allan has delivered a historic parliamentary apology to Aboriginal Victorians for colonisation’s “profound harm”, but the Opposition refused to support the gesture.
Premier Jacinta Allan has delivered another historic apology to Aboriginal Victorians for the “profound and undeniable harm” caused by colonisation.
In a special sitting of parliament on Tuesday, Ms Allan apologised to the state’s Indigenous population for laws, policies and decisions made by the Victorian parliament that resulted in the stealing of land, the removal of children from families and the erasure of culture.
“Today is a day of reckoning,” she said.
“We say sorry for the violence committed under the banner of the state and the colony that came before it, and for the neglect that allowed it to continue without consequence.
“We say sorry for the wealth built on lands and waters taken without consent while first peoples were locked out of prosperity.
“We say sorry for the silencing of language and the erasure of words.
“We say sorry for the policies that stripped First Peoples of the right to move freely, to marry without permission, to work for fair wages or to live with dignity on their own land.”
Ms Allan said the apology symbolised a “new era” which “embraces truth, honours justice and creates space for a shared future”.
An emotional Sonya Kilkenny, Victoria’s Attorney-General, and Aboriginal Labor MP Sheena Watt wiped tears from their eyes as the Premier spoke.
The apology was one of the agreements under Victoria’s treaty process.
It comes after the Victorian parliament passed Australia-first legislation in October to enshrine Treaty into law, and just over a year on from Ms Allan’s first apology to Aboriginal Victorians.
The Premier made the previous apology, specifically to Victoria’s Stolen Generation, at a private gathering at the Victorian Aboriginal Community Services Association on behalf of the Victorian government in October last year.
She later announced the apology on social media.
“Members of the Stolen Generations have never received an apology in person from the Victorian Government. Until today,” she wrote.
“On behalf of successive Victorian governments and parliaments, I apologised to those children who were forcibly removed from their families.”
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson said the Coalition did not support the government’s second apology on Tuesday but remained in support of former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett’s “unprecedented” apology to the Stolen Generations in 1997 which she read in the chamber.
“Premier Kennett said Aboriginal people occupy a special place in Victoria and members of the Indigenous community have suffered greatly in the past through acts of discrimination,” she said.
“He went on to say this discrimination and its long term effects must be understood and acknowledged if Aboriginal people and other Australians are to achieve genuine recognition within the context of a truly multicultural Victoria.
“Unlike the motion before us at present, the 1997 apology was brought forward by both sides of the parliament.”
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd also previously gave an apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.
Ms Wilson committed to measures other than Treaty, which she has pledged to axe, to close the gap.
The Labor caucus was audibly upset as she made this commitment to leaders of Victoria’s First People’s Assembly.
Co-chairs Ngarra Murray and Rueben Berg sat in the public gallery along with other members of the assembly who could be seen tearing up as Ms Allan delivered her apology.
Ms Murray said that while the apology was significant, she acknowledged it would land differently for different people.
“This acknowledgment reaches deep into our families and our communities,” she said.
“It cannot erase the injustice, but it can begin to ease the burden we have carried for generations and help heal our collective spirit.”
Lord Mayor Nick Reece also watched on in the gallery.
With upper house MPs invited into the chamber for the historic moment, MPs found seats among the aisles and shared seats to mark the historic moment.
Earlier on Tuesday, shadow minister for Aboriginal Affairs Melina Bath accused the government of “playing politics” over the apology.
She said Ms Wilson had approached the Premier to “collaborate on an apology” but was rebuffed.
“What we should have seen is something that we could all agree on negotiated,” Ms Bath said.
“But we see the government, the Premier, is playing politics with this apology and it is deeply disappointing.
“But it will be no shock to anybody that the Liberals and Nationals cannot support this apology as it is written.”
The Greens spoke strongly in support of the “historic” apology, but tied it to criticism of the government’s tough new bail and adult sentencing laws.
“I think it’s important to remember though that this apology today comes at a really difficult time for many First Nations communities,” Greens leader Ellen Sandell said.
“In the last few weeks alone, the Allan Labor government has rammed through laws in the parliament, new youth justice laws that we know will have a disproportionate impact on First Nations children.”
Ms Sandell said she feared the government would be apologising for the effects of those policies in the decades ahead.
She acknowledged that while it would be a “deeply healing” process for many people, but for others the meaning of the apology “will be in the inaction or the action that comes following it”.
Read Allan’s apology in full
Apology to the First Peoples of Victoria
This parliament expresses our formal and sincere apology to First Peoples of Victoria for the harm inflicted upon them through the actions and inactions of the state, and the colony that came before it, in the following terms:
Decisions made in this parliament over its history have long denied the First Peoples of this land their rights and their self-determination.
Today, this parliament becomes a place of reckoning, and that reckoning has meaning for all of us who call Victoria home.
We acknowledge the harm inflicted on generations of First Peoples — and mark the beginning of a new era, one that embraces truth, honours justice, and creates space for a shared future built in full view of the past.
We acknowledge that many of us did not know about the true extent of this harm until the work of the truth-telling Yoorrook Justice Commission.
Whether we came here 174 years ago when the Colony of Victoria was formed, or the decades since, we came dreaming of a better future.
The commission has transformed the way we reckon with this state’s history and face the truths shared by Elders, survivors, families and community leaders, that the better futures for many, came at the expense of others – making plain what was long buried beneath denial and shame.
The Yoorrook Justice Commission found that the sovereignty of First Peoples in Victoria was never ceded.
This is what Traditional Owners have always maintained.
Colonisation of what is now called Victoria was not peaceful.
It was rapid and violent.
Lands and waters were taken without consent.
Communities were displaced, languages silenced, children removed, lives lost.
The Yoorrook Justice Commission heard that the laws and policies of the colonial and Victorian governments, enabled these acts — not by accident, but by design.
The actions and inactions of the state, and the colony that came before it, carried out through words spoken and laws passed in the chambers of parliament, resulted in profound and undeniable harms — the effects of which we are still grappling with today.
We can no longer look away.
Now that we have a Statewide Treaty — a negotiated agreement between equals — we can begin to say what should have been said long ago.
To ensure that the wrongs of the past are never repeated, we say sorry.
To all the First Peoples in the gallery today, and to every community across this state — we say, sorry.
For the laws, the policies and the decisions of this parliament and those that came before it — laws that took land, removed children, broke families, and tried to erase culture — we say sorry.
For the tears shed in the dark, for the silence that shadowed their years, and for the childhood taken, never to return — for the Stolen Generations — we say sorry.
For the violence committed under the banner of the state, and the colony that came before it, and for the neglect that allowed it to continue without consequence — we say sorry.
For the laws that criminalised culture and punished survival — we say sorry.
For the wealth built on lands and waters taken without consent, while First Peoples were locked out of the prosperity it created — we say sorry.
For the silencing of language, and the erasure of words that carried knowledge older than the State itself — we say sorry.
The loss of those languages is a loss for us all, for they held truths about this ancient land that we may now never fully understand.
For the forced removal of families to missions and reserves, where culture was controlled, movement restricted and identity denied — we say sorry.
For the policies that stripped First Peoples of the right to move freely, to marry without permission, to work for fair wages, or to live with dignity on their own land — we say sorry.
For the laws and policies which removed First Peoples from their lands and allowed the sale of sacred sites without consent — we say sorry.
For the laws that filled institutions disproportionately with First Peoples and made this seem ordinary — we say sorry.
For the harm that was done, and for the harm that continues — we say sorry with the resolve to work with you to address injustice in all its guises.
And to those who carried the truth all their lives but did not live to hear it spoken here — we say sorry.
From today, our hope is that your descendants and all Victorians hear these truths and move forward together in the knowledge of your legacies.
We offer this apology with open minds, open eyes and open hearts.
We know that words alone are not enough.
This is why the State of Victoria has pursued Treaty, to create the enduring change that must follow.
So, let this be one act among many that honours the truth and upholds justice.
Through Treaty, we commit to building a future where the power taken is returned, where the voices silenced are heard, and where the relationship between First Peoples and the state is remade — not in the image of the past, but in a future of equality and respect for all our peoples.
If this apology is to carry more than words and the intention of members today, then we must certify through what we do next that Treaty is not merely a gesture.
It is a pathway to healing and change.
It is how we begin to right the wrongs that apology alone cannot mend.
So, to those who held the truth close, both present and gone, and to those yet to carry its weight and wisdom, we offer this promise: Victoria will not look away.
Not from the truth. Not from the work.
Not from you.
Hon. Jacinta Allan MP
Premier of Victoria
Originally published as Premier delivers historic apology to Aboriginal Victorians for ‘profound harm’ of colonisation
Health emergency as Vic hospitals face wave of older, sicker patients
Grand Prix theft auto? Fears Phillip Island could lose MotoGP
Neighbour raised alarm before two women were found dead in Rosanna
‘King Kaz’ smokes Albo in PR war
‘Sweetest soul’: Heartache after 14yo killed on e-bike at Diamond Creek
