National reconciliation week
Leanne here. When I went to Timor-Leste 🇹🇱 for work a couple of years ago one of the museums in Dili was an old Portuguese prison that was used by the Indonesians to hold dissidents. It had an exhibition called Chega!, named after the truth telling report that investigated and outlined the atrocities and deaths from the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste.
It was confronting - but very interesting to see how truth telling enables communities to move forward and onward with a shared understanding of the past that is openly acknowledged.
So I have been super interested in the glimpses that we have seen here in Victoria in our everyday media of the Yoorrook Justice Commission that has been set up under/alongside the First Peoples’ Assembly as part of our State’s commitment to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart (voice, truth, treaty).
Did you see the acknowledgements and apology of Shane Patton talking on behalf of the Victoria Police a month or so ago? And the accompanying apology by Daniel Andrews as Premier?
Here are two links you can read if you missed them:
A news report from the ABC on Shane Patton at the Yoorrook Justice Commission
A news report from the Shepparton News (because it won’t have a paywall and outlines the apology that Daniel Andrews made with some context).
The ongoing disproportionate structural discrimination that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face in Victoria today is also quite confronting isn’t it?
