Cathy Hunt

I grew up in NSW in the 1970s and my education about First Nations history was limited to picture books about Dreamtime stories, grotesque misinformation such as ‘nearly every Aboriginal person in the Sydney basin died within two years of the first fleet arriving of the common cold’ and very generic information that did not do the complexity and nuance of Aboriginal languages and cultures justice. At high school we learned about the stolen generations. At UNSW I did a general studies course called Aboriginal Australia taught by First Nations people and first heard the term ‘invasion’ and heard about armed resistance to colonisation by First Nations people such as the warrior Pemulwuy. At the State Library of Victoria I have taught a workshop to primary school students about Colonial Victoria that mentions William Barak and which encourages students to imagine themselves being put in the position of First Nations people having their country overrun and colonised. Since coming to live in Victoria ten years ago and working at the State Library of Victoria I have learnt a bit more about how the state was colonised, later than NSW – I heard about Coranderrk and William Barak even before coming to live here. I researched more about Tunnerminnerwait and Malboyheener in relation to their time in Port Phillip with Truganini and the relationship between their resistance, what happened to them here and how it was connected to massacres witnessed and survived when young in Tasmania. I don’t know enough in detail yet but The Australian Wars documentary by Rachel Perkins taught me more about what happened here in contrast with the other states.

We can contribute to this truth-telling and treaty by genuinely listening, by supporting wholeheartedly, by respecting the process, by exercising our democratic rights to vote for political leaders who support treaty and truth telling. We can deeply want things to change and want First Nations people to lead here in this state. We can be on the side of making reparations and paying rent for land, in giving land back, in unlearning embedded assumptions, educating ourselves. Learning language and using names of seasons from cultural owners of the area. Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung seasons make so much more sense to what the weather is in Melbourne. Renaming. Intervening with colonial institutions like the State Library of Victoria. Taking down statues of colonial people like La Trobe. Renaming streets. The Yarra. Overlaying the other knowledge back on top of the constructed version of the city.. I would like to learn more. Exhibitions like the Treaty exhibition at the State library.

We can contribute to this truth-telling and treaty by genuinely listening, by supporting wholeheartedly, by respecting the process, by exercising our democratic rights to vote for political leaders who support treaty and truth telling. We can deeply want things to change and want First Nations people to lead here in this state. We can be on the side of making reparations and paying rent for land, in giving land back, in unlearning embedded assumptions, educating ourselves. Learning language and using names of seasons from cultural owners of the area. Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung seasons make so much more sense to what the weather is in Melbourne. Renaming. Intervening with colonial institutions like the State Library of Victoria. Taking down statues of colonial people like La Trobe. Renaming streets. The Yarra. Overlaying the other knowledge back on top of the constructed version of the city.. I would like to learn more. Exhibitions like the Treaty exhibition at the State library.