Claudette Lovett – Shared Understanding
In this submission Claudette reflects on various issues including what meaningful truth-telling and recognition of the harms of colonisation might look like, Claudette’s experiences of economic hardship while at school, and the lack of adequate education around the history of colonisation in schools and among the Victorian government.
Submission Transcription
Colonisation has been a devastating blow to my people with mass destruction they bought, it’s not enough to as for a formal apology. Make things right and stop deflecting your chance to make things right for my peoples future instead of tit for tat responses. Colonialists adults need to understand what was taken for us and know we can never heal until they admit what had happen. Just like the justice system will not free our mob until our mob own the wrong do.
Growing in Victorian Education, my experience is I lived it while my family lived in a run down house which was ready for destruction, my grandparents and father struggled to keep food on the table. The community gave us nothing but pity because of their families destroyed our pride, dignity and rights to exist. It’s not good enough to say they feared the unknown because to our mob fear the unknown as white Australia governs our right to continue to exist. Our people are sentence to the reminder that they will never free us and the yes and no votes demonstrated the very lack of their education system.
The Victorian government need to go back to the drawing board and learn to understand histories destruction on Aboriginal and why their barrack behaviour should never have been the price my people had paid. Educate them on how to bring about a better social system so our future doesn’t have to keep fighting to just simply survive.
Take the fear and consequences away for truth tell and let us not continue this conversation in another 40 years as my grandfather, father and myself have had to endure. Make our future count this time, I am tired of hearing it takes time for them to catch up. It didn’t take time for them to destroy us.
Take the fear and consequences away for truth tell and let us not continue this conversation in another 40 years as my grandfather, father and myself have had to endure. Make our future count this time, I am tired of hearing it takes time for them to catch up. It didn’t take time for them to destroy us.
Truth-teller consent
Contact us about this submission
Contact us if you’d like to discuss this submission.
Similar submissions
Explore submissions from other witnesses that discuss similar topics.
Viki Sinclair (Fowler)
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... more
Prof. Mark G. Brett
Prof. Mark G. Brett's paper, "Reinventing Waste Land as a Colonial Legal Fiction," explores the historical development of the concept of waste land fr... more
Barbary Clarke
Barbary Clarke and Jason Clarke, descendants of Alfred Deakin and William John Turner, also known as Big Clarke, discuss aspects of their family's his... more
Reports and Recommendations
Read the official reports and recommendations of the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
Yoorrook for Transformation
Third Interim Report: A five-volume comprehensive reform report presenting evidence and findings on systemic injustices, and specific recommendations for meaningful change to transform the future.
Truth Be Told
An official public record that documents First Peoples experiences since colonisation, preserves crucial testimonies for future generations and creates an enduring resource for education and understanding.
Recommendations for change
Yoorrook Justice Commission’s recommendations for truth-telling, justice, and systemic reform in Victoria.
