Individual or Group Submission05/04/24

Djaran Murray-Jackson

Djaran Murray-Jackson is the reserved seat holder representing Dja Dja Wurrung on the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria. He has strong connections to Wamba Wamba, Yorta Yorta, Dhudhuroa, Waywurru, Barapa Barapa, Wergaia and Wiradjuri. In this video submission, Djaran discusses his experiences as an Aboriginal person in Victoria, his hopes for more Aboriginal culture taught in schools, what self-determination looks like, and the challenges faced by Aboriginal people in housing.

Topics: Education, Housing, Treaty

Submission Transcription

What does it feel like to be an Aboriginal person living in Victoria?

Hasn’t always been easy. You know, growing up through school, I went for a lot of racism. And, you know, as, as most black kids do in school. It was a lot. And it had to sort of resort to physical violence, which I don’t really do. So but, you know, moving up to the point in my life now where I’m sitting on the assembly. And you can feel the momentum in the air with what Yoorrook’s
doing and what the assembly is doing. You can feel a big, momentous change coming soon, hopefully, once we start negotiating statewide treaties. So it’s an exciting time at the moment. Yeah.

What does self-determination look like to you?

Self-determination is putting us in the driver’s seat of our own affairs. So anything to do with us? We need to be making the decisions about it, and we need to be building the policy and  building it from the ground up.

What changes do you want to see for your children and grandchildren?

I’d like to see the rest of the state sort of accepting our culture and embracing us as a people. And hopefully one day it’ll be similar to New Zealand, had a sort of embraced a Maori culture in their language and stuff like that. So, yeah.

How else could we improve the Victorian education system for First Peoples?

Yeah, I think I’d like to see, you know, more of our culture taught in schools. You know, language even ceremony. I’d even like to see, like, our own sort of school of excellence just for black kids or something. That’d be excellent to see. Yeah.

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