A new report, launched today, has found community-led truth-telling initiatives have contributed to a shift in the national narrative about Australia’s colonial history, including a growing recognition of the frontier violence that accompanied colonisation.

The Recognising Community Truth-Telling: An Exploration of Local Truth-Telling report is based on a unique collaborative study with Reconciliation Australia documenting grassroots community truth-telling in Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have long called for truth-telling about the colonial past, most recently in the 2017 Uluru Statement. Numerous community projects have emerged to engage with these historical truths. However, few of these initiatives have been documented. The report seeks to highlight this important community work as it provides crucial lessons for how the vision of truth-telling can be realised.

ADI’s Dr Vanessa Barolsky, the report’s lead author, said local communities across Australia had shown significant leadership in driving processes for truth-telling. 

“The majority of the work has been led by First Nations communities and has required sustained effort over many years, often with few resources. This is an exceptional achievement” Dr Barolsky said. 

“However, there is still much work to do, with many critical historical events and First Nations achievements remaining substantially unrecognised.” 

The Recognising community truth-telling: An exploration of local truth-telling in Australia report documents 25 community truth-telling projects, including 10 in-depth case studies that illustrate diverse grassroots engagement with the truths of colonial history, including more recent colonial violations such as the Stolen Generations.

These case studies provide easily understandable examples of what truth telling looks like, what constitutes best practice and how to ensure safety and protection from re-traumatising.

The case studies come from across the continent and include:

• renaming of Moreland City Council as Merri-bek, Victoria

• 1816 massacre at Appin, NSW,

• Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home

• Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls, NSW,

• Freedom Day Festival, which celebrates the ‘Wave Hill walk-off’ in the Northern Territory, and

• the story of Barbara Thompson, a young British woman, shipwrecked in 1844, who lived with the Kaurareg on their Torres Strait homeland in Queensland.

The Deakin-ADI study offers important lessons for how the vision of truth-telling in the Uluru Statement from the Heart could be realised and supported to build a fuller understanding of Australia’s history and the need for lasting structural transformations.