21. A Treaty Needs a House: Emplacing First Peoples’ A Priori Rights in Wurundjeri Country, Metropolitan Melbourne

Within Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander societies, each Indigenous language group has a defined area of land or Country that each group is connected to, both geographically and spiritually. A group’s (or person’s) land, sea, sky, rivers, sites, seasons, plants and animals; place of heritage, belonging and spirituality; constitute their ‘Country’ with connections to Country seen as a fundamental pillar of Aboriginality (Liddle 2015).

The Reconciliation Australia fact sheet differentiates between the ‘Welcome’ and the ‘Acknowledgement’ as follows: the ‘Welcome to Country’ adapts protocols historically extant among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures for requesting permission and entering another group’s Country across established boundaries. When permission was granted, the hosting group welcomed visitors and offered them safe passage and protection of their spiritual being during the journey. The contemporary practice of a ‘Welcome to Country’ occurs at the beginning of a formal event and is delivered by Traditional Owners or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have been given permission from Traditional Owners to welcome visitors to their Country. An ‘Acknowledgement of Country’, in contrast, can be given by both non-Indigenous and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and is an opportunity for anyone to show respect for Traditional Owners and the continuing connection of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander people to country. This usually takes the form of a statement made at the beginning of an event or formal occasion and includes an acknowledgement of the Traditional Owners of the land on which the event is held and pays respect to elders past.

In Australia, the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title is referred to as Native Title, which is the recognition that “Indigenous people continue to hold rights to their land and waters, which come from their traditional laws and customs” (National Native Title Tribunal 2010: 4).

Following the first ‘Welcome to Country’ (conducted by Matilda House at the opening of the 42nd Federal Parliament on 12 February 2008) (see Australian Broadcasting Commission 2008), the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an argument for its general adoption, and it was adopted thereafter. In 2010, Liberal Senator Julian McGauran asked for it to be dropped, a position supported by Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott who described it as out-of-place tokenism, prompting heated discussions on this issue.

Gary Murray and Lidia Thorpe, ‘Clans, First Nations and Language Groups’, presentation for VTOLJG on 3 August 2016.

Constitutional change has been overtaken by a focus on Treaties particularly in Victoria and South Australia where First Peoples welcome the dialogues supported by their State Governments. The key issues for constitutional change to be sought through a referendum include symbolic recognition, prohibition of racial discrimination and the power to make laws with respect to the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander peoples, but not so as to discriminate against them. The push for a Treaty is gathering momentum, and many Nations and clans are seriously questioning the Referendum process and the failure to scope the question or questions. There is strong support for a Treaty-based referendum question such as ‘Do you approve the Australian Parliament entering into a Treaty with the First Peoples?’. Subsequently, if Treaty is our business then it will need a facility to house it.

The VTOLJG is a clan-based organisation of First Peoples Nations and clans in Victoria and southern New South Wales.

Some examples are the Royal Proclamation of 1763, and eleven numbered Treaties of Canada dated from 1871 to 1877.

The Treaty of Strömstad (1751) had a codicil dealing with the rights of the Lapps to move their reindeer across borders.

This study was integral to a broader Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project entitled Indigenous Place-making in Central Melbourne: Representations, Practices and Creative Research (2010–2012) conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, led by Janet McGaw with Anoma Pieris and Graham Brawn, and Emily Potter from Deakin University’s School of Communication and Creative Arts. Partner organisations were the Victorian Traditional Owners Land Justice Group, the Melbourne City Council and Reconciliation Victoria.

The cultural centres described in this essay were studied in greater detail in dedicated chapters in these previous publications as indicated.

The Treaty between John Batman and a group of Wurundjeri Elders was declared void later that year (see, for example, Attwood 2009 for further detail, and authors such as Kenny 2008 for alternate views of the relationship between the two parties).

The White Australia Policy was a series of policies which were formalised soon after Federation through the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (Cth) and the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 (Cth), and remained in place to exclude Asiatic and Pacific Islander immigrants until the Migration Act 1966 (Cth). The policy was abandoned in 1973.

The six reserves were Ebenezer, Lake Tyers, Coranderrk, Cummeragunja, Framlingham and Lake Condah.

Following a 1981 freehold land grant for a site in Thornbury (the first land grant to an Aboriginal group in Victoria) and another for the adjacent Sir Douglas Nicholls Reserve in 1989, the VAAL established its offices at Thornbury and in 1999 the Victorian Government funded the renovation of the Leagues offices to include a range of community facilities. Its creation would lead subsequent efforts at recognising and marking places and institutions that were created and used by Victoria’s Aboriginal communities.

Although no longer populated by the community or many of their former organisations, these places are still recognised by the Yarra City council’s markers along the Fitzroy Aboriginal Heritage Walking Trail.

The government under John Howard officially dropped the term ‘multicultural’ from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs in 2007 and replaced it with the title Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Subsequent Federal Governments did not prioritise its resumption although State Governments have had independent multicultural policies. These concerns returned to centre stage with a new multicultural policy announced by the then Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen in 2011.

Gary Murray, ‘First Peoples Multifunctional Economic and Cultural Facility’, presentation on 24 July 2016.

The letter written on 24 July 2016 by the VTOLJG Co-Chairs, Robert Nicholls and Annette Xiberras, was sent to Hon. Natalie Hutchins MP, the Victorian Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in 2016.

These included the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust, the Goolum-Goolum Aboriginal Co-operative (Horsham), the Gunditjmara Aboriginal Co-operative (Warrnambool), the Lake Condah and District Aboriginal Cooperative Limited and the Kerrup-Jmara Aboriginal Elders Corporation (Lake Condah) and the Warrnambool, Portland, Hamilton, and Heywood Communities, as well as representatives from the Victorian Archaeological Survey, the Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands, the Ministry for Planning and Environment, the Aboriginal Development Commission and the Victorian Tourism Commission.

Personal communication, June 2017.

There are currently believed to be thirteen Indigenous architects or architectural graduates in Australia, according to the Indigenous Architecture and Design Victoria (IADV u.d.).