This is the second episode in a two part series. If you haven't yet, go back and listen to part one. It's called The Road to Europe. In this episode, we find out what happened when the Europe Justice Commission started taking evidence and what should happen now that the truth has been told. Daniel, you've been documenting the Europe Justice Commission. Tell me more about who else we heard from.
Aw heard from people like Uncle Jim Berg, who has been a seminal figure in the original community here. He was the person that established the Curity Heritage Trust As an example.
However, that is often wondered about my dad and his family. None I ever known or soon I was total. He was taken away from his mum and became part of the Stolen generation.
People like Jill Galligher. She is someone that has come from a very traumatized background and was able to articulate her story beautifully.
These social determinants are the invisible shackles that constrain us as Aboriginal people, impacting on our lives far more than genetics or individual choices.
Ever, could we heard from other people like Aliam of Thorpe, who is Senatorlia Thorpe's mother presented before the Commission.
You got a name because that your Aboriginal name was run away.
You didn't know it, so I don't know.
I've still lost. She was an absolute stalwart and helping to establish the community controlled sector down here in Victoria, the retauring Aboriginal Legal Service and the return Abriaginal Health Service, and hearing all these stories from all these elders before they're gone is something that we just can't sort of underestimate the power of that because having it down on the official record as part of the true history of this place from the people that experienced them themselves is
something that and I'm assuming a lot of other people involved in the process will never take for granted.
So we've got these collective stories of abuse, particularly from members of the Stolen Generation, as they are giving their evidence. What do you think became clear about the way that various systems in this country have the role that they've played.
That's a very good question, because what became clear is that not only were systems initially designed at the exclusion of Aboriginal people. What became clear as Aboriginal people became more and more of a problem for the system and for politicians and everyone else in between. Those systems actually started to adapt to breed the Aboriginal community out into
the white community. So in the late nineteenth century, there was this thing called, and it's a terrible term, called the half Caste Act, which initially just prevented half casts and quarter casts, all these terrible eugenic terms members of the Aboriginal community from dealing with the full blooded members
of their community. So the idea was that you would leave the full bloods on missions to die, and you would keep the half casts and quarter casts and everyone else in between away from them, so there couldn't be any more sort of procreational or strengthening of Aboriginal blood
by Aboriginal people getting together. And the idea is that eventually the half cast would fade away into the general population over time, so we will just have a bunch of people that wouldn't identify as being Aboriginal, but they would tan up very well during summer. And Victoria is full of those stories. Now, that is a specific act that was specifically designed to do that. That is cultural genocide.
Every Aboriginal person lived under the purview of the Half cast Act, and then informed the way things like the criminal justice system and the child protection system, the health system dealt with First peoples. These things were very, very real, and these things were highlighted at a very granular level throughout the workings of Europe and the.
Victorian Premier Sinator Alan. She became Australia's first sitting state leader to testify to an Indigenous Ledge Truth Commission. Tell me about her appearance, the questions that she faced.
Premier, the evidence that you were about to give, do you undertake to provide truthful evidence to the europ Justice Commission?
I certainly do well.
It was quite extraordinary because it's the first time that someone with that much authority has been called before Aboriginal people to provide testimony, and it's the first time that Aboriginal people have been in the powerful One of the extraordinary things from that day was that the premiers acknowledged ignorance on some of the massacres and killings that had happened in her part of the world. On jud j our own country in Bendico, I have.
Learned much that I did not know in terms of the true history of the dispossession, what the settlers, the colonizers did when they came to Victoria. I did not know of the massacres. I'm ashamed to say I did not. I have learned about the size and scale of the murders and the massacres.
She also said that she didn't learn about any of this in school. She wouldn't have had a clue who the traditional owners were. That moment really highlighted why we needed a truth telling commission and why Europe was so important. The europe commiss I actually heard from two hundred and twenty nine witnesses, eliciting sixteen government apologies from various ministers and chiefs of various departments. One of the most notable apologies was from the Victorian Police Commissioner.
The result of systemic racism, racist attitudes and discriminatory actions of police have gone undetected, unchecked, unpunished or without appropriate sanctions, and of course significant harm across generations of Aboriginal families.
It was something that wasn't called for, but it was also something that really left the police force open to criticism every time from thereon it acted in a way that was seen as being prejudicial against Aboriginal people.
After the break, the truth has been told so what comes next, Daniel. The final report from the Europe Commission has now been handed to the government. Can you talk me through what the Commission wants the government to do with its findings, What the recommendations are.
They cover a whole bunch of different areas, things like strengthening the treaty process to make sure that the lessons of Europe are better than those processes, and obvious one is a set of recommendations that go to the idea
of strengthening cultural competence and responsiveness. That's where the story of Europe and the history and the reports that it on earthed will hopefully find their way not only into the curriculum, but also into some of these potential cultural competence frameworks that may be established as a result of that. Linking so much of what we do here in Victoria back to human rights and basic human rights, including aboriginal
cultural rights. There are a set of recommendations that go to that and ongoing truth telling as we move forward. That's something that the First People's Assembly of Victoria has been calling for and there's something that the eurok Justice Commission has been very cognizant of as it's been moving forward. Oversight of the trial protection system's early prevention and intervention
when it comes to child removal. When original children are removed from home, if they go to a non Aboriginal setting, that they have an opportunity to reunify with their Aboriginal heritage and with their Aboriginal culture.
And you've spoken about the personal stories the Commission heard and about the systemic failures of governments. So how did you address the issue of reparations.
We know because it was presented before the Commission that there was two hundred and eighty seven billion dollars worth of gold extracted in Victoria since eighteen fifty one, and of that money, none of it has been seen by Indigenous people. There has been eighty three billion dollars in revenue generated from water rivers and the damming of those rivers, one point eight billion generated from friestry and grazing licenses
in the last thirteen years alone. So what the government decides to do with that is yet to be seen. Let's just hope that it isn't another case of another rural commission that has provided a lot of thorough and meaningful recommendations that aren't acted upon by the government. Receives them all the successive governments that still haven't acted on them. And of course I'm thinking of the Rural Commission that through Aboriginal dests and custody as a prime example of that.
Yeah, the issue of trust is so key here. As you say, there have been so many reports, inquiries and yet nothing changes. So what sense do you get of the willingness of those in power to take accountability, to make meaningful change, to accept and adopt what the Commission is telling them.
I think we're in a unique situation because we have a Victorian government. There's been in power for a long time now, but it is a government that took the advice of Aboriginal people to instigate the treaty process, took the advice of the First People's Assembly of Victoria to instigate the truth telling process in Europe. You would think they would be more open to receiving the recommendations from the Commission than potentially any other government in the history
of Australia. They're certainly making the right noises, they have been supportive of the Commission. But the one great thing that we have to our advantage at this point that has never happened anywhere else in this country is that we have the First People's Assembly of Victoria there as a separate, powerful entity that will be able to hold
government to account in real time. So many of the recommendations and reports that have befallen here in Victoria and around the country have fallen by the wayside because there hasn't been any sort of apparatus for governments and departments systems to be how to account in real time. And here in Victoria we have that through the First People's
Assembly of Victoria. One of the things I'm always mindful of, and I'm not sure how much other people have been thinking about it, but post the disastrous result of the voice and the political capital that many in our political class have been trying to obtain from that defeat, it's unlikely in my view that we'll ever see anything like
this in this country again. Something that has given the powers that Uruk has had the Prime Minister post the defeat of the referendum, has seemingly walked away from any notion of a truth telling process. We've seen truth telling processes kiboshed in Queensland. We're in a much more thwart political environment now that makes what's happened at Uruk and the people that presented to Yuruk and the work the commissioners have done even more powerful because it is unlikely
that we'll ever see anything like this in this country. Again.
Well, Daniel, thank you so much for your time.
Always good space you Ruby.
Also in the news today, Victorian health authorities have recommended twelve hundred children linked to a childcare worker charged with sexual abuse get tested for infectious diseases. Victorian Premier descent To Allen has called the case shocking and distressing, after the twenty six year old man was charged with seventy child abuse offences while working at twenty different childcare centers
between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty five. Police say the alleged victims will all aged between five months and two years of age, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netnyahoo is set to meet with US President Donald Trump next week in Washington of amounting pressure to broker a new ceasefire agreement in Gaza. The news comes as Israel ramps up its bombing of Gaza with air strikes killing sixty Palestinians, including twenty two women, children and a journalist. Hiding in
a cafe. Over the weekend, the US President took to social media to call on Yahoo to quote make the deal in Gaza. I'm Ruby Jones is seven am. Thanks for listening.