2016

1. July Treaty

   The Victorian government commences the Treaty Interim Working Group to "provide advice on the process and timing for treaty, guidance on community engagement and examining options for a permanent Victorian Aboriginal representative body". ^[1] It has 5 Aboriginal representatives and 6 people appointed by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

2. 1 August Arts

   A new law in Victoria allows Koorie people to protect and control the use of their culture and heritage by nominating for protection particular elements, e.g. traditional songs, stories, dance and art with significant spiritual and cultural connection to knowledge.

3. 13 December Treaty

   The SA Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Kyam Maher, announces that the government commits $4.4 million over 5 years towards the establishment of up to 40 treaties across South Australia. This commitment to individualised treaties for Aboriginal communities is different to Victoria's plans for a statewide treaty. The investment also funds the appointment of an independent commissioner for treaty.

   Treaty is an important step towards addressing the wrongs of the past. The fact that so many Aboriginal people to this day face such significant disadvantage remains the greatest stain on our society.

   — Kyam Maher, South Australian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation ^[2]

2017

1. 3 April Politics

   UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, presents her preliminary report on the human rights situation of Aboriginal people.

2. 20 November Politics

   Greens’ Lidia Thorpe defeats Labor’s Clare Burns in a seat the party had held for 90 years to become the first Aboriginal woman to be elected to the Victorian parliament.

3. 11 December Recognition

   The International Astronomical Union formally approves four Aboriginal names for stars. Three names come from the Wardaman language of northern Australia: Larawag is now used for the star previously known as Epsilon Scorpii, Ginan replaces Epsilon Crucis (the smallest of the five stars that make up the Southern Cross), and Wurren is used for Zeta Phoenicis. The Boorong people of the Wergaia language group in northwestern Victoria contribute Unurgunite (an ancestral figure who fights the Moon) for the star Sigma Canis Majoris.
   

2018

1. 1 May Sport Stamps

   

   Australia Post commemorates the 150th anniversary of the first international cricket tour of England in 1868 by a team of 13 Aboriginal cricketers, most of whom were Jardwadjali, Gunditjmara and Wotjobaluk men from the Western District of Victoria. They played 47 matches, won 14, drew 19 and lost 14. A men's and women's Aboriginal XI squad went on a commemorative tour of England in June 2018 to celebrate the anniversary.

2. 7 June Treaty

   The lower house of the  Victorian government passes the Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Act 2018 to create the framework for the treaty process. It is the first time legislation committing to treaty negotiations has ever been considered by an Australian parliament. ^[3] The framework will establish an Aboriginal representative body which in turn will help establish the process for the negotiation of a treaty, or treaties, between Aboriginal people and the state of Victoria.

3. 3 July Treaty

   The Victorian parliament passes the Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Act 2018, Australia’s first ever treaty law. It outlines future elements to support treaty negotiations (e.g. a treaty authority and negotiation framework), a mechanism to recognise a representative body, guiding principles for the treaty process and reporting obligations.

2019

1. 11 April Treaty

   Victoria sets up the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, an independent body that will be the voice of Aboriginal people in Victoria in the future treaty process and tasked to negotiate a framework for a treaty. It is a not-for-profit company with 33 elected representatives from 5 voting areas (four in regional Victoria and the fifth in metropolitan Melbourne) and 12 nominated representatives, one from each of the 12 formally recognised traditional owner groups in the state.

2. 21 May Recognition

   The International Council on Monuments and Sites, which works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world, officially recommends world heritage status for the Budj Bim cultural landscape, a 6,600-year-old, highly sophisticated aquaculture system developed by the Gunditjmara people in south-west Victoria. If successful, it would become the first Australian site listed exclusively for its Aboriginal cultural value.

3. 6 July Land & land rights Recognition

   After a 17-year campaign, the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape near Portland, a 6,600-year-old Aboriginal aquaculture site in south-west Victoria, is added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Older than the pyramids, the site proves that Aboriginal people built channels and pools to harvest eels, and also permanent stone houses. The site is considered one of the largest and oldest aquaculture sites in the world and became the first Australian World Heritage site to be nominated exclusively for Aboriginal cultural values.

4. 16 September Treaty

   Voting opens for representatives to the First Peoples’ Assembly in Victoria, which will help determine the framework for a treaty. More than 30,000 Victorian Aboriginal people are eligible to vote for 73 leaders until 20 October. It is the first time Aboriginal people have ever been able to vote for such an assembly. ^[4]

   We cannot underestimate that power the assembly will give to that [treaty] negotiating. For the first time, we have an elected voice in Victoria.

   — Jill Gallagher, treaty advancement commissioner ^[4]

5. 1 October Prison

   Victoria introduces the Custody Notification Service (CNS) that obliges police to contact the Aboriginal Legal Service after taking an Aboriginal person into custody. Western Australia follows one day later.

6. 10 December Treaty

   The First People's Assembly of Victoria holds its inaugural meeting in the Victorian Parliament. The Assembly sets up six committees: Cultural Governance, Elders’ Voice, Self-Determination Fund, Treaty Authority and Interim Dispute Resolution Process, Treaty Negotiation Framework, and Truth-telling.

2020

1. 18 March Stolen Generations

   Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gavin Jennings announces a new $10 million Stolen Generations Redress Scheme to support counselling services, a funeral or memorial fund and redress payments for survivors.

2. 20 June Politics

   Victorian Greens members elect Gunnai-Kurnai/Gunditjmara woman Lidia Thorpe as the new (and first Aboriginal) Greens senator for Victoria, replacing the outgoing senator and former Greens leader Richard Di Natale. Thorpe is an Aboriginal leader and activist and was previously the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian parliament. She formally joins the Senate on October 6.
   

   Thorpe’s appointment brings the number of Aboriginal politicians in the federal parliament to five: Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Ken Wyatt (Coalition), Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services and for Preventing Family Violence, Linda Burney (Labor), and Labor senators Pat Dodson and Malarndirri McCarthy.

3. 11 July Treaty

   The Victorian government commits to create a truth and justice commission to "formally recognise historical wrongs and ongoing injustices" against Aboriginal people, the first state or territory to do so. ^[5] The commission will work in parallel with the treaty process already under way, and will be designed and led by the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.

   Truth telling is critical to everything we need to move forward, to heal as a state.

   — Marcus Stewart, co-chair, Taungurung Assembly ^[5]

4. 3 August Treaty

   The Victorian government meets with the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria for the first time to officially begin formal treaty negotiations and establish a framework for further discussions.

   We’ve never seen this before. It’s never been something so tangible that you can feel you can reach it.

   — Marcus Stewart, Taungurung assembly co-chair ^[6]

2021

1. 9 March Reconciliation

   The Victorian government announces an inquiry into the ongoing effects of the violent dispossession and genocide of Aboriginal people during colonisation by the British empire and racist policies by Australian governments. Named the Yoo-rrook justice commission, after the Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba word for ‘truth’, it will investigate both historical and ongoing injustices against Aboriginal people and it part of the truth-telling process the Uluru Statement From the Heart called for.

   It’s the first commission of its kind in Australia and will be given the powers of a royal commission, meaning it will be able to compel evidence under oath.

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References