THE State Government this week tabled the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s final reports, documents which are littered with violence against the indigenous people of the Gippsland region.

The high-profile massacre of as many as 150 Gunai/Kurnai people at Warrigal Creek, north east of Yarram, at Darriman, in 1843, is just one of them.

The release of the reports has been described as an “historic moment on our path to truth-telling and Treaty”, by the State Government.

The reports conclude the work of the Commission, established by the State Government in partnership with the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria to investigate injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria since colonisation, including the impact of past and current government policies and actions.

Premier Jacinta Allan has welcomed the tabling of the reports as a significant moment on the path to reconciliation.

“Thank you to the Commission for these historic reports. They shine a light on hard truths and lay the foundations for a better future for all Victorians,” said Premier Allan.

“Victoria’s truth-telling process is a historic opportunity to hear the stories of our past that have been buried – these are stories that all Victorians need to hear.”

According to the statement by the government, this is the first formal truth-telling inquiry of its kind in Australia, and the Commission’s work will have significant impact in helping all Victorians better understand our history.

“The Government acknowledges the immense undertaking of the Commissioners and Commission staff in preparing these historic reports. We acknowledge the strength and courage of those who made submissions and gave evidence to the Commission over the past four years. We share the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s goals of truth and justice and will carefully consider the Commission’s final findings and recommendations.”

On the ‘timeline of colonisation of Victoria’, there are numerous references to incidents in Gippsland:

• 1840 - Angus McMillan invades Gunaikurnai Country (present-day Gippsland). Latrobe Valley massacre. Boney Point, Gippsland massacre.
• 1841 - Butchers Creek, Gippsland massacre.
• 1842 - Tambo Crossing massacre. Eumeralla massacre. Hollands Landing Gippsland massacre.
• 1843 - Grazing licences introduced to ‘preserve the rights of the Crown to the lands’. Warrigal Creek Gippsland massacre. Warrigal Creek Mouth massacre. Bruthen Creek Gippsland massacre. Freshwater Creek Gippsland massacre. Gammon Creek Gippsland massacre. Victoria Range massacre.
• 1846 - Snowy River massacre.
• 1862 - Ramahyuck Mission established by German Moravian missionaries and Presbyterians on Gunaikurnai Country at a known massacre site (Boney Point).
• 1908 - Ramahyuck Mission closed. Lake Tyers Aboriginal Reserve transferred to Board control.

According to the ‘Yoorrook Truth Be Told’ report, the violence left no region untouched. On Gunaikurnai Country, the Warrigal Creek massacres wiped out as many as 150 lives, while 15 were lost at Milly Creek. On Wadawurrung/Wathaurong Country, Mount Cottrell became the site of another massacre, with 10 killed.

The Murray River and its surrounds carried their own burden of tragedy. At Moira Swamp, twenty-six Yorta Yorta people were murdered, and seventy were killed where the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers meet.

In its submission to Yoorrook on land injustice, the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) noted how the very vocabulary of these sites is haunted to this day: “We are continually reminded of the atrocities committed against our people in the pursuit of land and the establishment of the colony by places bearing name of what happened: Convincing Ground, Skull Creek, Murdering Gully, Poison Creek, Butchers Ridge, Butchers Creek.”

As Uncle Rob Hudson (Gunai Kurnai, Monero Ngarigo) explained in VACCHO’s submission, most of these sites are named after what happened there. The record of individual brutality is no less chilling. Rolf Boldrewood, a colonist and author, wrote with casual candour that “for one reason or other the gun was rarely a day out of our hands”.

Gippsland colonist Agnes Buntine whipped Gunaikurnai people and forced them into the sea. Patrick Coady Buckley put a rope around a Gunaikurnai man’s neck and made him run into the surf for four hours.

Cannons were fired into camps. Bungelene, another Gunaikurnai man, was chained to a tree outside Native Police headquarters.

Some survived the horrors to bear witness. Alice Dixon escaped one of the massacres at Konongwootong. Billy Thorpe carried the memory of Warrigal Creek. Charlie Hammond, a child captured after the Milly Creek massacre, was taken to Buchan and forced into labour on a station. Their lives, shaped by unimaginable grief, ensured these atrocities would not be lost to time.

Elizabeth Balderstone, regarded as a “caretaker of land on Gunaikurnai Country where the Warrigal Creek massacre was carried out in 1843” appeared before the Commission.

According to the report, she spoke not of ownership, but of responsibility.

“I have, over the years, felt a growing awareness of the responsibility and gravity of caring for the massacre site in the gentlest and quietest way possible,” she told the Commission.

According to the report, her hopes for protection of the site, for restitution, for truth to be told, was not framed in grand declarations, but in steady commitment.

“We would be very happy to hand back Traditional Ownership,” she is reported to have said.

“We’ve all got a duty to do it, as Victorians and Australians.”

That duty, according to the report, is now etched into the record.

Read a copy of the report HERE.