Whether it’s talking to elderly relatives and community members before they pass away, or joining genealogy groups, thinking about history can also help us better understand the present.
We may all want to consider this, particularly when we have questions about our family and community histories.
In the wake of the initiative taken by Victoria’s Government to set up the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the Anglican Church has embarked on a program of journeys to assist Anglicans and Anglican office holders in their understanding of Victoria’s post-colonial Aboriginal history.
Reverend Canon Shannon Smith and Ken Hutton (executive officer Archbishop of Melbourne) organised the Walkabout 2025 journey which left St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne at 8am. At their first stop in Morwell, they attended sorry business at the invitation of Bishop Treloar after which they drove to Bairnsdale where they visited Krowathunkooloong, The Keeping Place, before overnighting at Lake Tyers.
Over the following eight days they visited Lake Tyers, Wangaratta, Bendigo, Echuca, Dimboola and Halls Gap, Portland and Warrnambool before returning to Melbourne.
“I was nervous because it was our first Victorian Walkabout,” Revd Canon Shannon Smith said.
“The tour guides were all wonderful and what we learnt went beyond our expectations – about medicine, nature, scars on trees, birthing trees and of course terrible massacres. Being in the places where
these things happened was very intense. But we felt the spirits – it brought us closer to our ancestors– gave us a sense of peace.
“I had a very special moment in the Grampians with a young woman – she told me that it was only sitting around a campfire that she felt her questions could be properly answered.
The Yoorrook Justice Commission
and the Anglican Church
The Commission investigated the Anglican Church’s historical complicity in the dispossession and cultural genocide of First Peoples in Victoria.
In both the May 2024 hearings and a July 2025 statement following the final report, the bishops of the Anglican Province of Victoria publicly reiterated apologies for their church’s historical actions.
In a joint statement Bishops Genieve Blackwell, Matt Brain, Clarence Bester, Garry Weatherill and Richard Treloar reiterated the apologies made to First Peoples throughout the Commission.
Anglican bishops acknowledged that “systemic racism and structural disadvantage persist in our communities and our churches. The bishops also acknowledged their church’s role in implementing state policies that caused trauma and injustice.
What does Yoorrook mean?
The word “Yoorrook” means “truth” in the Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba language. It is the name given to Victoria’s formal truth-telling inquiry into the historic and ongoing injustices faced by First Peoples since colonisation.
The Victorian State Government was the first Australian State to formally establish an Aboriginal truth-telling body.
