Submissions

Viki Sinclair is a direct descendant of one of the original settlers of Gippsland, Colin McLaren. In this submission, she tells her personal story of her family’s part in white settlement enacting genocide on the original Aboriginal peoples in Gippsland. She hopes her submission brings about real and lasting change to Gippsland’s documented and accepted history and invites other descendants of settlers to look hard into the limited versions of their ancestry.

This submission is from Mary Hassall, a descendant of James Hassall, after whom the Hassall creek on Gunditj Country is named. It discusses her research and exploration of the Hassalls’ history as settlers of Gunditjmara Land and the Hassalls’ relationships with First Nations Peoples.

The Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930 project is to create a database and map of known massacres of 6 or more people across the whole of Australia from the first, on the Hawkesbury in 1794, to the last at Coniston in 1928.

This document is a print version of an oral presentation to the Yoorrook Justice Commission on 27/03/2024 with some additional detail. As work on the Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930 project recently concluded, some of the figures and details have been updated.

Gayle Carr makes this submission on behalf of herself, Kathryn Williamson and the late Diana Halmarick. It outlines the range of historic reference materials available to learn more about the colonisation of Victoria and its impacts on First Peoples, based on one family’s search for their own ancestors’ role in the 1842 Mustons Creek massacre. It advocates that the teaching of frontier history becomes a mandatory part of the Victorian School Curriculum.

This submission from Julianne Negri is an essay by Peter Gardner titled ‘Another Gippsland Massacre – Holland’s Landing?’ which was originally accepted for publication in the Gippsland Heritage Journal in 2008.

It outlines an account of a massacre that took place at Holland’s Landing in Gippsland in 1842.

Gerard Finnigan is a non-Aboriginal person who grew up on Gunditjmara Country and has been mentored by and worked with First Peoples throughout his life. His Irish ancestors arrived in Gunditjmara Country in the 1850s and in his submission he pays respect to the area’s Traditional Owners, explores the impacts of colonisation on First Peoples, and the need for greater education around the truth of this history.

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. 

Barrie Taylor highlights the betrayal of Batman’s treaty by the colonial government and notes that he only began appreciating the reality of early colonial times in retirement. He calls for looking outside Victoria to restore language, culture, and country, asking for forgiveness rather than reconciliation, and promoting First Peoples’ history by identifying massacre sites and elevating them to RSL status.

Dr. Nadia Rhook, a historian and poet, discusses her paternal ancestor, Matthew Rhook (1816-1903), and his history on Gunditjmara Country. She reflects on her family’s involvement in settler colonialism, acknowledging their complicity in the violent processes of dispossession. Dr. Rhook and her family express a shared pain of the history of invasion and a desire for justice and land back, stating, “To say that I am sorry for my ancestors’ role in colonising Country is never enough.”