15 October 2026: Rachel Perkins talks to Charles Pakana about the Australian Wars:
Look, I think more and more we are accepting that it was a violent settlement. And I think most people sort of agree and understand that it was. Of course, in these frontier situations, there’s always a mixture of experiences, you know. It’s not always violent. And so, in like Melbourne, in Naarm, where you are, it was relatively peaceful occupation of the country, but at the same time, you’ve then got the sort of civil rights movement, land rights movement that William Barak and Simon Wonga led to try and get some land there.
So, it was never not contested. The level of violence really depended on the environment and the circumstances, but I think that we are getting to the point now where modern Australia is accepting that it was violent, because of course back in the period, everyone knew it was violent ...
I think it was really towards Federation that we sort of constructed this myth that, you know, Australia was just a peaceful, fabulous settlement, and it was fabulous in many ways, but it was not the greatest experience for Indigenous people at the time.
Victorian Aboriginal News continues to produce interesting VAN Talks podcasts, where editor Charles Pakana interviews First Nations and other folks. Our earlier post.
Richard Frankland, Gunditjmara
Richard recently gave an Elder in Residence Oration on NITV, covering in more detail the points in his VAN Talk. Main points from his VAN talk:
[T]he nursery version [of Australian history] is a lack of acknowledgement of the frontier wars, of the massacres, the battles, the murders, the language destruction, the pulling down of social orders, cultural authorities.
But today there is resilience among First Nations and a chance to plant seeds for the future, '[w]here the oldest living culture in the world becomes part of Australia's history, not just First Nations history'.
A key recommendation from his NITV oration related to the role of the Australian War Memorial.
I think the first thing the War Memorial should do is recognise the negativities of their own terminology. There wasn’t just massacres or occasional battles; there were battles, there were massacres, and there were murders ... Institutions like the War Memorial have an unequivocal obligation to advance our nation by recognising the wars that happened on this nation’s very grounds.
Richard's other recommendations were about the need for Elders Governance committees in cultural agencies, racial discrimination as a mental health issue, trauma programs addressing trauma experienced by First Nations people, and a Royal Commission into First Nations youth suicide and self-harm.
Emma-Jaye Gavin, Garrwa
Professor Gavin recently took up a post at Monash University as Professor of Politics and International Relations. She was previously at Federation University as Professor of Truth-telling. She will be creating a First Nations Truth and Reconciliation Partnership Hub at Monash. She and co-authors recently brought out a book, Barriers to Truth and Justice in Settler-Colonial Australia: Why Won't Settlers Listen?
Main points from Professor Gavin's VAN talk:
Creation and dissemination of research helps produce changes in people's attitudes and in policy.
Yoorrook Commission in Victoria did important work on Truth-telling, other states are moving in the right direction, but Queensland has gone backward.
She disputes that systems are broken, leading to failures like Closing the Gap.
The institutions are not neutral. They were designed through dispossession of First Nations peoples, through imprisonment, rape, destruction of country and lands and laws and languages ... So when we say they’re not broken, well, they’re operating the way they should. They are operating in the defence of the primary population, which is not First Nations peoples. So when we look at the failures such as Closing the Gap, or we look at First Nations incarceration rates, that is not the justice system failing. That is the justice system operating by design.
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