Submission – Rebecca Jane McCann

This submission reflects on the harms of colonisation including massacres and separation of families, and how these continue to impact on First Peoples today including through intergenerational trauma, and high rates of incarceration, poverty and ill-health. They characterise the education they received about First Peoples’ histories and cultures in the school system as abysmal. They call for deep and profound changes to the school curriculum, state and national treaties, and to see the Uluru Statement from the Heart fulfilled. They state that non-Indigenous Victorians can contribute to truth-telling and treaty by educating themselves about history, standing up to racism, and elevating First Nations voices and calls for change.