The Minutes of Evidence Project: “Doing Structural Justice”

Notes

1. The Minutes of Evidence Coranderrk Curriculum and Teacher Resource Package was finalised in February 2017 and available from Term 3 2017 for Victorian high school teachers to use in teaching Years 9 and 10 curriculum modules: History and Civics & Citizenship in government and non-government schools. The curriculum was trialled in three schools (Worawa Aboriginal College, Healesville High School and Melbourne Girls’ College) and includes the production of a DVD comprising individual testimonies from the 1881 Parliamentary Coranderrk Inquiry that was at the core of the MoE project, designed to complement the verbatim script of Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country. The Curriculum modules also include protocols for engagement with Indigenous communities around these educational resources. It was produced by Social Education Victoria and overseen by project partners Department of Education and Training and the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated in consultation and engagement with Indigenous and non-Indigenous stakeholders.

2. Production of the verbatim theatre performance of the “minutes of evidence” of the 1881 Parliamentary Inquiry into the Coranderrk Station, Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country (in collaboration with partners Ilbijerri Theatre Company, La Mama Theatre and Koorie Heritage Trust), has been performed to sold-out seasons at La Mama Theatre, the Sydney Opera House, on Country and included a regional and metropolitan school tour. The original pilots were presented “on Country” before descendants of Coranderrk residents and other community members in Healesville, and in Melbourne at La Mama Courthouse and the University's Melba Hall in 2010 and 2011. Further sold-out seasons were held at La Mama in November 2011; as part of the City of Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival in February 2012; at the Indigenous Arts Festival at the Sydney Opera House in June–July 2012; a reading was held at Parliament House Theatre in Canberra in June 2015; a sold-out season at La Mama Courthouse Theatre in August 2015 and August 2016; and a Coranderrk On Country performance was held in February 2016. A proportion of box office takings supported the Coranderrk Cemetery Restoration Project.

3. Young (2011).

4. The first Victorian Aboriginal Justice Agreement was established in 2000, and there have been two negotiated since then, in 2003 and 2006, aimed at improving justice outcomes for Aboriginal Victorians. See http://www.justice.vic.gov.au/home/your+rights/aboriginal+justice+agreement/. The Victorian government is also engaged in a Treaty Process: see https://www.vic.gov.au/aboriginalvictoria/treaty.html.

5. In dismissing the native title claim of the Yorta Yorta of north-eastern Victoria, Justice Olney relied on the memoir of the member of the Board of Protection Edward Curr, whose prejudices come out clearly in his testimony to the Coranderrk Inquiry, rather than the oral testimony of the Yorta Yorta on their connection to land: see Wayne Atkinson (Yorta Yorta Native Title Claimant) ( 2000) “19 Seconds of Dungudja Wala (Yorta Yorta word for Big River): Reflections Paper on The Yorta Yorta Native Title Judgment”, http://www.kooriweb.org/sljr/dungudjawala.htm.

6. The Aborigines Protection Act 1886 (Vic), known as the “Half-Caste Act”, was an amendment to the Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 (Vic): “An Act to provide for the Protection and Management of the Aboriginal Natives of Victoria.” Its intention, as stated by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, was to erase Aboriginal identity, and its impact was the breaking up of Coranderrk station.

7. With respect to the constitution of proximity, see Tuathail (1996: 220–221).

8. Tony Birch's filmed address to the audience can be found on the Minutes of Evidence website: http://www.minutesofevidence.com.au/performance/.

9. Nanni and James (2013).