British committed genocide of Indigenous Australians, finds truth-telling inquiry

Australia’s first truth-telling inquiry has found the British committed genocide of the Aboriginal people in Victoria during their colonisation of the country.

- MAROOSHA MUZAFFAR

The Yoorrook Justice Commission’s final report, tabled in the parliament on Tuesday, detailed atrocities like “mass killings, sexual violence, exclusion, linguicide, cultural erasure, environmental degradation, child removal, absorption, assimilation”.

The “decimation of the First Peoples population in Victoria”, the report said, “was the result of a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups. This was genocide.”

The report recommended that the Victorian First Peoples be compensated, including financially, and asked the government to use a treaty framework to “provide redress for injustice which has occurred during and as a result of the colonial invasion and occupation of First Peoples’ territories”.

This would entail redress for “all consequent damage and loss, including economic and non-economic loss for genocide, crimes against humanity and denial of freedoms” plus interest. The redress could also include initiatives like tax relief.

The arrival of British ships in 1788 marked the start of colonisation, which led to genocide and lasting harm to the Aboriginal people, the report said. Today, as a direct legacy of that colonial violence, they face shorter life expectancy, poorer education outcomes and higher incarceration rates.

“First Peoples in Victoria have been consistently excluded from opportunities to generate wealth,” the report stated.