In July 2025, the Yoorrook Justice Commission, Australia's first formal truth-telling inquiry, released a report concluding that British colonists committed genocide against Victoria's Indigenous population. Established in 2021, the commission examined alleged systemic injustices faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, covering issues like land rights, cultural violations, health, education, and historical violence. The report, based on over 1,300 submissions and two months of public hearings, found that the Indigenous population in Victoria dropped from 60,000 to 15,000 between 1834 and 1851, a 75% decline attributed to mass killings, disease, sexual violence, exclusion, linguicide, cultural erasure, environmental degradation, child removal, and assimilation.

The report's genocide claim has sparked debate, especially after Australians rejected the Voice referendum, which proposed a constitutional Indigenous advisory body. While the commission's 100 recommendations aim to address these historical harms through reparations, education reform, health system improvements, and a government apology, three of the five commissioners, Sue-Anne Hunter, Maggie Walter, and Anthony North, disagreed with unspecified "key findings," raising questions about the report's conclusions.

Analysing the Genocide Claim

The commission's assertion that the population decline constitutes genocide hinges on the UN's 1948 Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as acts committed with "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group." These acts include killing, causing serious harm, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children. The report cites mass killings, sexual violence, and child removal as evidence, but the 75% population decline was driven primarily by disease, such as smallpox, which spread rapidly among Indigenous communities, often before direct contact with colonists. Historical records indicate diseases spread via trade routes, complicating claims of deliberate intent, a core requirement of the UN definition.

Population displacement is a recurring pattern in history when one group overtakes another, as seen in the Bantu expansion, Mongol invasions, or even modern Australia, where immigration is shifting demographics, to create the Great White Replacement. Australian Bureau of Statistics projections suggest that by 2050, non-European ancestry groups will form the majority of the population, reducing the Anglo-Celtic population to absolute minorities. Similarly, while colonial policies like dispossession and assimilation caused immense harm, equating them to genocide risks stretching the term beyond its legal scope, especially when compared to cases like Rwanda, where intent was explicit.

The dissent by three commissioners, though not detailed, suggests internal disagreement, possibly over the genocide label or its framing. This lack of consensus underscores the complexity of applying modern legal standards to historical events. Victoria's government, led by Premier Jacinta Allan, has promised to "carefully consider" the findings, likely prioritising less contentious recommendations like health funding or apologies to avoid backlash in a post-Voice political climate.

Implications and Potential Next Steps

The Yoorrook report is a landmark in Australia's reconciliation efforts, but its genocide finding has reignited debate over how to address historical injustices. The Voice referendum's rejection by 60% of voters signals public scepticism toward sweeping changes, yet truth-telling inquiries continue across states, with varying progress. Queensland's inquiry, for example, was cancelled after a government change, highlighting political vulnerabilities.

These "truth-telling' inquiries are modern forms of a woke inquisition, and it is not surprising that black arm band ideologies get canvassed. We can expect more of the same to come.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn413zlld4mo

"British colonists committed genocide against Australia's Indigenous population in Victoria, a landmark Aboriginal-led inquiry has found.

The Yoorrook Justice Commission found violence and disease reduced the local Indigenous population by three quarters in the 20 years after the state was colonised, in the early 1830s.

Its report included 100 recommendations to "redress" harm caused by "invasion and occupation" - though several of the authors disagreed with unspecified "key findings".

The Commission was set up in 2021 as Australia's first formal "truth-telling" inquiry, and tasked with examining past and ongoing "systemic injustices" suffered by the Indigenous people in the state.

It is part of a wider national push for Australia to engage in a reconciliation process with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which community leaders say should include inquiries into the nation's history, treaty-making, and granting First Nations people greater political say.

Held over four years, The Yoorrook Justice Commission gave Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the opportunity to formally share their stories and experiences.

The commission's brief covered a wide gamut of issues including land and water rights, cultural violations, killing and genocide, health, education and housing.

The inquiry found Victoria's Indigenous population dropped dramatically after colonisation.

The report found that from 1834, "mass killings, disease, sexual violence, exclusion, linguicide, cultural erasure, environmental degradation, child removal" as well as assimilation contributed to the "near-complete physical destruction" of Victoria's Indigenous community.

The population dropped from 60,000 to 15,000 by 1851.

"This was genocide," the report said.

The report, which drew from more than two months of public hearings and over 1,300 submissions, called for "redress" to acknowledge a range of human rights violations, which could include reparations.

Among its other recommendations were a significant overhaul of the education system to include greater input from Indigenous people, and a government apology for Aboriginal soldiers who served during the world wars and were excluded from a scheme gifting diggers land when they returned from the battlefields.

On the state's health system, the report found that racism was "endemic" and called for more funding for Indigenous health services and policies to get more Aboriginal staff in the system.

Three of the five commissioners - Sue-Anne Hunter, Maggie Walter and Anthony North - "did not approve of the inclusion of the key findings in the final report", however no further detail was provided.

In response to the report, Victoria's Labor government said it would "carefully consider" the findings, with Premier Jacinta Allan saying they "shine a light on hard truths".

Jill Gallagher, head of Victoria's peak body for Aboriginal health and wellbeing, said the genocide finding was "indisputable".

"We don't blame anyone alive today for these atrocities," she told the ABC, "but it is the responsibility of those of us alive today to accept that truth - and all Victorians today must accept, recognise and reconcile with these factual findings."

The commission's report is the first of its kind in Australia, though similar inquiries are happening in other states and territories with varying degrees of progress, depending on which party is in government.

For example, in Queensland, a truth-telling inquiry was cancelled after the Labor government was replaced by a new Liberal-National government.

In recent years, the national dialogue on how to recognise the traditional owners of Australia at all levels of governments has prompted heated debate.

Australians voted against a historic referendum in October 2023, rejecting a change to the constitution that would have created an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, a national body for Indigenous people to give advice on laws.