Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (11:04): I table the statement of apology to First Peoples.

Ordered to be published.

Jacinta ALLAN: I move:

That this house endorses the apology to First Peoples tabled today, acknowledges the past laws, policies, and practices that have contributed to systemic injustice for First Peoples and affirms that under treaty, Victorians will move together toward a new and better future.

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 long 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 in 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. But 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 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 chamber 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 negotiation agreement between equals, we can begin to say what should have been said a long time 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, for the childhood taken and never returned, 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 prosperity, 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 all of us, 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 the harm that continues, we say sorry with resolve to work with you to address injustice in all its guises. And to those who carried the truth their whole 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, one act among the 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. I commend this apology to the house.

 Jess WILSON (Kew – Leader of the Opposition) (11:14): I rise on behalf of the Liberal and Nationals coalition today, and I acknowledge the remarks of the Premier. I also acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Rueben Berg and Ngarra Murray, and through them I acknowledge all members of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria and all Indigenous people who are here today. I want to thank Rueben and Ngarrra for their advocacy and engagement with me, my colleague Melina Bath and other members of the coalition. This engagement has always been conducted in good faith and from a place of respect, and I give you my commitment that this will continue.

Today I start by acknowledging the deep hurt that has been experienced by Aboriginal people since the arrival of the first Europeans to these shores.

I acknowledge the courage of elders and community members who have shared their stories through the Yoorrook Justice Commission and other processes. I acknowledge the immense contribution that Aboriginal Victorians make to our state – as leaders, carers, workers, parents, volunteers and custodians of the world’s oldest living cultures.

To all Aboriginal Victorians listening today, I say this plainly: I see the injustice in our history, I see the disadvantage that still exists today and I am determined that we must do better. We accept that this Parliament and governments past have authored laws and policies that have hurt and caused injustice and disadvantage to Aboriginal Victorians, and for that we say sorry.

Today is a historic day, but it is not an unprecedented day. Nearly 30 years ago in this place, on 17 September 1997, Premier Jeff Kennett put forward a motion apologising to Aboriginal people on behalf of all Victorians for the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. In his speech on the motion, Premier Kennett said:

… Aboriginal people occupy a special place in Victoria as members of an indigenous community that suffered greatly in the past through acts of discrimination.

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 reconciliation within the context of a truly multicultural Victoria.

Almost 30 years on from this important moment in Victorian history we in the Liberal and National parties continue to support every word of the apology motion that was passed by all sides of the Parliament in Victoria. Unlike the motion before us at present, the apology in 1997 was brought forward by both sides of Parliament, with Premier Kennett working in collaboration with then opposition leader John Brumby on a form of words both sides of the house could endorse. The text of that apology reads as follows:

That this house apologises to the Aboriginal people on behalf of all Victorians for the past policies under which Aboriginal children were removed from their families and expresses deep regret at the hurt and distress this has caused and reaffirms its support for reconciliation between all Australians.

Thirty years ago these words were effectively unprecedented. They preceded Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology by a decade. And perhaps most significantly, when Jeff Kennett delivered his apology he made this very important remark:

The Victorian government is committed to working with Aboriginal communities to deliver programs to address their undoubted disadvantage but, more importantly, this government is committed to assisting Aboriginal communities to become economically sustainable …

I want to bring to the chamber’s attention this remark, because I believe this is where governments have failed over the decades that have followed to make meaningful improvements in addressing the disadvantage that continues to persist in the lives of too many Aboriginal Victorians. I do not believe that anybody in this place could argue that the progress we have made in addressing Indigenous disadvantage in the period between Premier Kennett’s apology and today is acceptable. We can and we must do more. We must take meaningful steps to address Indigenous disadvantage and empower Aboriginal people and Aboriginal communities.

I want to emphasise that the difference in approach between the coalition and the government represents a policy disagreement on the most effective method to achieve meaningful outcomes and improvements for Indigenous Victorians. It does not represent a disagreement on the need to achieve these outcomes and improvements. As Prime Minister John Howard said in 1997 in his opening address to the Australian Reconciliation Convention here in Melbourne:

It cannot seriously be argued that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are not, as a group, profoundly disadvantaged.

Sadly, almost three decades on the truth of this statement remains largely unchanged. Again, I emphasise that the policy difference is a matter of approach, not a dispute on the substance of the issues, which is that governments have a responsibility to do more, much more, to address Indigenous disadvantage and empower Indigenous communities.

There are meaningful steps that can be taken without delay. We must fund education programs to improve attendance and learning outcomes for Indigenous children in our schools. We must invest in improving health outcomes for Aboriginal Victorians. We must implement diversionary programs to keep Indigenous youth out of the justice system. We must empower Aboriginal community controlled organisations with secure funding and genuine decision-making authority. We must act to create job readiness programs to lift economic participation for Indigenous Victorians. Good intentions matter, but so too do good outcomes. Actions matter, and they matter far more than mere sentiments. Too often we hear a sentiment expressed in the community that we have inherited a collective guilt. I believe what we have inherited is a responsibility to address persistent and unacceptable Indigenous disadvantage.

Speaker, through you, I want to address my remarks now to Rueben and Ngarra and through them to the others who are here today who have worked to establish the framework enacted by the Statewide Treaty Act 2025. I give you my word that if the Victorian people elect a Liberal and Nationals government in 2026, we will work with you to progress our shared goals of addressing disadvantage and creating opportunities for Indigenous Victorians. We will work with Aboriginal leaders, elders and communities, including those who disagree strongly with us, to seek practical, measurable improvements in people’s lives. If we are going to deliver for Indigenous Victorians, we must bring all Victorians on the journey towards closing the gap.

Noel Pearson speaks of the three great threads of our shared Australian story: our rich Indigenous heritage, our significant British inheritance and our incredible migrant success story. All three strands are worthy of acknowledgement and of celebration, but in acknowledging them we must also acknowledge the significant disadvantage still confronted by our First Peoples and commit together to addressing it. My appeal to all Victorians is simple and goes to the love of this great country and how we as a nation have always prized a fair go. The continued disadvantage of our Aboriginal people diminishes us all. On behalf of the Liberal and Nationals coalition, I commit to addressing it if elected in 2026.

 Natalie HUTCHINS (Sydenham – Minister for Government Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, Minister for Women) (11:22): It is with deep respect that I acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as the traditional owners of the lands on which this Parliament meets, and I pay respects to the elders, ancestors, leaders and knowledge holders of that group. I also acknowledge and pay respect to all the traditional owners across the lands and waters now known as Victoria. I also want to acknowledge the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, the elected members and co-chairs. Thank you for working with us to make the apology happen by representing your communities with heart and skill and for trusting in our new relationship together. I extend my gratitude to members of Parliament present here today, to the Premier for her leadership, to Sheena Watt MP, to Christine Couzens MP and to the former Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Gab Williams.

For tens of thousands of years First Peoples cared for country, living with rich culture, languages and knowledge systems. I acknowledge the strength and resilience of First Peoples in Victoria, who have fought to defend their right to practise law, lore and culture on their country. Yoorrook found that the colonisation of Victoria was characterised by dispossession, by violence and by injustice. I encourage all Victorians to engage in the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s Truth Be Told inquiry and final report. Truth Be Told draws on thousands of stories shared bravely and generously across the state to form a powerful record of Victoria’s history from the perspective of First Peoples. It is because of this shared history that we are gathered here today. It is with anger and sorrow that I read in the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s Truth Be Told that the period of 1834 to the 1850s was characterised by rampant displacement and violence. It is now known that at least 50 massacres happened here in Victoria against First Nations peoples.

It is with anger and sorrow that I read, in Truth Be Told, that it is estimated that in the 1850s 2000 First Peoples remained across the lands we now call Victoria, a once-thriving population reduced by 90 per cent in less than two decades. It is with anger and sorrow that I read, in Truth Be Told, about laws and policies of our predecessors in this Parliament that disrupted First Peoples’ connections to their traditional lands and waters, that separated families, that prevented language from being taught and cultural practice being engaged in. It is with anger and sorrow that I reflect on past governments’ policies, such as the Aborigines Protection Act 1869 and its successor acts through which First Peoples were forced off country and onto missions and reserves. Under these acts many First Peoples, adults and children, were denied their basic human rights.

As Minister for Aboriginal Affairs from 2014 to 2018 and Minister for Treaty and First Peoples since 2023, I acknowledge that since the passing of the Aborigines Protection Act in 1869 there have been 74 acts about Aboriginal people passed through this Parliament. The majority of these were created without Aboriginal voices, but they had a huge, immense impact on their everyday lives. Yoorrook found that these laws, policies and practices enacted by people who have sat in these chairs before us subjugated Aboriginal people, including the stealing of their children, the creation of stolen generations, the taking of wages, the disregard of the service conducted by Aboriginal service men and women at war, the silencing of language and exclusion from political, economic and social life. Aboriginal families, communities and cultures were dislocated in a way that can never be reversed. The gap between First Peoples and other Victorians in life expectancy, education, employment and health has not closed.

As Minister for Treaty and First Peoples I too extend my apology to First Peoples for the profound injustices endured by First Peoples since the start of colonisation. Aboriginal people have lived on this land, they have practised their culture, they have spoken their language and sung in their language. They have connected to their songlines, to the stars and to the sacred places all their lives for over 65,000 years. Aboriginal people have developed sophisticated societies, economies and political decision-making. We only have to look here in our own backyard at the legacy that leaders of the Wurundjeri left when they were present here on this very site of Parliament. The Wurundjeri negotiated, they conducted ceremony, they upheld relationships with their many neighbouring Aboriginal nations. The strength, the love, the respect and resilience of Aboriginal people is evident in every corner of Victoria, from the Aboriginal-run tourist enterprises like Budj Bim through to Aboriginal health organisations in each community, to the ovals of the Rumbalara and Fitzroy Stars football clubs, to the halls of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, to the rallies that happen on Melbourne streets.

Aboriginal people have survived persecution on their own lands. They continue to resist systemic injustices. We all know the facts. Aboriginal women are more likely to have their children removed from them. They are more likely to be victims of family and domestic violence. We all understand that Aboriginal people experience worse life outcomes than other Victorians. The time has come to stop these injustices. It is up to us to act in love and respect, to make equity and justice a reality for First Peoples and therefore for all Victorians.

Aboriginal people are resilient. Victoria’s First People are strong. First Peoples cultures are intelligent, they hold incredible wisdom, and we all have something to learn from Aboriginal resilience and knowledge. That is why we have treaty. Treaty acknowledges and affirms this truth that should have been told many years ago. Treaty builds a future where the past harms cannot be repeated and where Victorians can move forward together.

Treaty ensures that our children and future generations grow up understanding the truth of our past. Treaty ensures they grow up not feeling the burden and weight of our past, not feeling immobilised by guilt or shame but proud, proud that we share this state with the oldest living culture on earth – the oldest living culture on earth – and proud to be a part of a society that embraces truth and honours justice to create a better shared future together.

This is a better future for all Victorians, and this apology today is a line in the sand. Here, as a community, we stand strong and we say no to exclusion, no to culture wars, no to racism and no to discrimination. To the First Peoples, we hear you, we see you, we love you. We respect your culture, and we will not turn our backs on you – not now, not ever.

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (11:31): To begin, I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung of the Kulin nation, whose lands this Parliament sits on, and pay my respects to elders past and present and to all First Nations people here today and across the land we now call Victoria.

It is a deep privilege to stand here today to add my voice to the apology to First Nations peoples for the wrongs inflicted upon them by the state and the colony of Victoria, by the colonisation of their home – of your home. When I was growing up there was a lot of talk about reconciliation, but as we know from so many post-war healing processes around the world, true reconciliation can only come after truth and justice. To move forward, we must deeply and honestly reckon with the past, and this apology today is part of that reckoning. So it is my privilege and honour to stand here on behalf of all Greens MPs and members and on behalf of our constituents and the Victorians we are elected to represent to apologise to the First Nations people of so-called Victoria for the deep harms, the dispossession, the trauma and the genocide that was perpetrated by our ancestors against yours, to say clearly and loudly and solemnly: I am sorry – we are sorry – for the injustices of the past and the decisions that were made in this building, which we know still have deep impacts in the present.

I want to acknowledge everyone in the gallery today and watching online for their generosity at being here today for this apology. I know the apology will mean different things to different people. For some, the state government finally admitting and officially acknowledging the wrongs of the past will be a deeply healing event. For others, the meaning of the apology will be in the action or inaction that comes after it.

In preparing for this speech I reflected on the immense work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission and all those who shared their stories over five years. The evidence was laid out – clear and undeniable –about the true history of how most of us came to live in so-called Victoria. It is not easy reading, but nothing changes the facts, no matter how uncomfortable we may find them. It is important to talk about what we are saying sorry for. In Victoria, unfortunately, it is a little hard to know where to start, such was the swift, brutal and systematic nature of attempts to wipe out Aboriginal people – to wipe out their culture, their language, their children and their future.

Many of my ancestors arrived in the mid-1800s, mostly Irish Catholics escaping famine, oppression and the law. Many in this place, I imagine, have a similar family history. Just a few years before this, in 1839, two Aboriginal men from Lutruwita / Tasmania, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, were brought to the colony of Victoria. In 1841 they were among a group of guerrilla resistance fighters who fought throughout Victoria. A year later they were caught and convicted of the murder of two whale hunters, and they became the first people to be hanged in Melbourne in public, to communicate a political message to Aboriginal people considering armed resistance to colonisation. A memorial to these two men sits just down the road from this building, but most of us were not taught this history because it did not fit the narrative that our predecessors wanted to tell about this country – that Victoria’s colonisation was not peaceful, it was brutal.

Growing up I was taught a story, which I think would be fairly common to many of us in this room, of the frontier, of struggle and of Australia providing a place of peace, freedom and opportunity. But this peace and freedom and opportunity was not granted to Victoria’s original inhabitants – quite the opposite.

We were not taught about 1842 when six settlers in western Victoria found a group of Gai-wurrung and Djab Wurrung families sleeping under a clump of tea-tree and then shot them, killing a boy and four women, one of whom was pregnant. Historians believe that the massacre was premeditated and carried out simply to relieve the boredom of a summer evening. When two survivors reported the incident, all the way up to the decision-makers in Melbourne, the perpetrators faced trial for only one count of murder and were swiftly declared not guilty by a jury.

We were not taught about what happened in 1834 when a whale washed up at the beach at Portland, and when the Gunditj clan members went to collect the meat, as they had done for thousands of years, they were massacred by white settlers who wanted the whale for themselves, killing around 60 people with no-one held to account. I certainly was not taught about the story that we found hidden in tiny print in a copy of my husband’s family history book, where it mentioned his great-great-great-aunt, who kept the ‘blacks at bay’ with muskets on the farm in western Victoria. As the minister mentioned, there were at least 50 massacres across Victoria that are officially recorded in historical evidence, showing that people knew, governments knew – and now we all know. That is why today we say sorry.

I feel very fortunate, having grown up with parents who lived in and worked in communities in the Tiwi Islands and in Mparntwe / Alice Springs, that I received perhaps more of an education about our true history than many people of my generation. But as a child and a teenager it was still hard to make sense of what I saw around me. Why was it that the Aboriginal kids in my town went to one school, while the white kids mostly went to another? Why was it that so many Aboriginal people were sent to live on the outskirts of town on particular streets, where few white people ever ventured? Why was it that my best friend in high school did not find out she was Aboriginal until she was a teenager because her family told everyone her grandmother was Italian rather than admit that she was Aboriginal? Why was it that my mum was told when she was a child that there were no Aboriginal people in Gippsland? Why was it that Aboriginal people had such immensely worse outcomes in health and education and were so over-represented in the justice and child protection systems? It was not because, as the Uluru Statement from the Heart pointed out, there is something inherently different about First Nations people. These inequalities, this shame, were created as a result of 190 years of deliberate decisions and deliberate actions and then a concerted effort to hide and erase this history.

And it is not just the massacres that we are apologising for today. It is the racist policies of the past, many enacted in this very building: the children stolen from their parents; the human remains stolen from graves as curiosities; the forcing of Aboriginal people onto missions and reserves and then the passing of a law in 1865 that prohibited people on these missions from voting; the people forced into slavery-like conditions and never paid the wages owed to them; and the act of Parliament passed here in 1869 that gave the state power to determine who people could marry, where they could work and what they could do with their earnings. These are not things that are a matter of opinion. They are matters of fact. They happened.

I encourage people as they sit in this place to look at the ceiling. That is 24-carat gold leaf decorating the walls and ceiling of this building. Since 1851 more than $290 billion worth of gold has been extracted from Victoria, but as Yoorrook heard, First Peoples have never received any of that wealth. Not only that, but deliberate policies enacted in this building – this building covered in gold – meant that Aboriginal people were not even allowed to own land, let alone pass that wealth on to their children. Those who committed these atrocities, who made these decisions, were overwhelmingly never held to account or brought to justice for their actions. But it is us, non-Aboriginal Victorians, who overwhelmingly benefited from these policies and decisions. We cannot go back in time and undo what has been done, but we can admit that it was deeply, profoundly wrong and apologise. There is a power in accepting that this is part of our history and then doing something to change it.

That is why it was a privilege to vote yes to treaty six weeks ago, to embark on a different and more hopeful path and to hand back some of the power to First Nations communities to have ownership over their own affairs so that things can be better in the future. Today is about not only saying sorry but committing to do better, so it would be negligent to ignore the fact that this apology comes during a time that is very difficult for many First Nations people. Last week the Victorian government passed laws to introduce life sentences for children and put children through the adult court system, which we know will have a disproportionate impact on First Nations children. Ngarra Murray, co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly, put it eloquently when she said:

Our peoples are already over-policed and over-represented in prison populations. Aboriginal communities will again bear the brunt of the government’s proposed changes, which will result in Aboriginal children being locked up in prison and kept away from their families for longer.

We know Aboriginal women are also already bearing the brunt of the government’s recent changes to bail laws, with the rate of First Nations women being held in prison before trial having risen drastically. Sue-Anne Hunter, the national commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people, has called the recent youth justice laws:

… a moral failure that will have a resounding impact for the next generation and beyond.

Looking back now at Victoria’s true history, back to the actions of people in the 1800s, the 1900s, I believe most of us in this place would be horrified and say people should have known better. Right now we cannot deny it; we do know better. I fear that in 10 or 20 years time a new Parliament will have to stand in this exact same place and apologise again for policies enacted this year that governments knew would destroy more First Nations people’s lives.

Many people deeply affected by the effects of colonisation did not live to see this apology. So as we take this important step in acknowledging and apologising for the wrongs of the past, we think of them. We think of the old people who endured so much, those who survived to share their culture with us and those who did not. But we also think of the young people, the future, and it is for their sake that we must not allow ourselves to repeat the same mistakes of the past. This apology is an important step for all of us. It is a first. I sincerely hope it will not be needed again. I commend the motion.

The SPEAKER: I thank members for their contributions on the motion and all members for attending today. I thank the Legislative Council members for attending today and advise that they must leave the chamber so the Assembly members may vote.

Assembly divided on motion: