A message stick, aching feet and great expectations as truth walk ends
No gift, this. It was a demand concerning what the crowd believed was long-overdue justice: the first treaty between an Australian state and the people of the First Nations.
Premier Jacinta Allan was exposed to the gravity of the moment, too. A long line of traditional owners and elders presented her with a series of message sticks from their communities across the state, and they whispered to her the meaning of these hand-hewn objects and their hopes.
There seemed to be a sigh around the packed Queen's Hall of parliament when Allan spoke the word 'treaty'.
The work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the premier said, had brought hard truths into the light 'truths that for a long time have been silenced, have been ignored or indeed denied; truths that are not easy to hear. However, they must be reckoned with, because justice, genuine justice, begins with the telling of the truth'.
When the final report of the commission was presented to parliament next month, it would not be the end of anything.
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'Truth marks the beginning,' she said.
'We know the important work of the commission will inform negotiations on treaty.'
Lovett is deputy chair of the Yoorrook commission, which has spent the past four years gathering the personal stories of Victoria's Aboriginal community that tell a larger story: of the pain and manifold injustices experienced by Aboriginal people since colonisation began in Victoria 191 years ago.
That truth was the word of the day was no surprise: Yoorrook means truth in the Wamba Wamba language of north-west Victoria, and Lovett's trek was called the Walk for Truth. More than 12,000 people joined him for various sections of it, which began on May 25 in Portland – site of the first European settlement in the state.
The path wended along highways and byways, diverting regularly to sites sacred to the people of several language groups, and to sites haunted by old massacres. Rain, chilled winds and sunshine alternated, and Lovett went through seven pairs of walking shoes.
The commission's chair, Wergaia/Wamba Wamba elder Professor Eleanor Bourke, said Yoorrook's work did not occur over just the past four years – its foundations had been set by the elders of the past, and many young people were now taking responsibility for the future.
She said she was struck that parliament's Queen's Hall had been named in 1887 for Queen Victoria's Jubilee – celebrating her 50-year reign.
Bourke said her grandmother had been born that same year.
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'She was born on a mission, and she grew up on a mission,' she said.
And though Queen Victoria's years on the throne might have been 'victorious', there were many massacres of Australian Aboriginal people during that same period, Bourke said.
But now the stories had finally been told by First Nations people themselves and recorded by the commission, 'we are in a good position to build and rebuild'.
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