THE Yoorrook Justice Commission recently handed down a damning report on the impacts of Victoria’s child protection and criminal justice system on First Nations peoples. 

The Yoorrook for Justice report contains 46 recommendations, calling on the Victorian government to ‘transform Victoria’s child protection and criminal justice systems to address systemic injustice against First Peoples.’ 

Professor Eleanor Bourke, a Wergaia/Wamba Wamba Elder and Chair of Yoorrook, told the Koori Mail that the commission “is appointed as a Royal Commission, which is the highest level of inquiry and we’ve ever had into Aboriginal matters in this country.” 

She said that the aim of their work is “to achieve truth, understanding and transformation” by investigating the historical and ongoing impacts of colonisation on First Nations peoples in Victoria. 

As such, this is the first time in the nation’s history that a government will be forced to respond to recommendations for major reforms handed down by its own truth-telling commission. 

Yoorrook was established in 2021 as a recommendation from the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, who called for a comprehensive truth and justice process. 

A series of ongoing public…