cover image: PROFESSOR ELEANOR A BOURKE AM, Chair MS SUE-ANNE HUNTER, Commissioner

20.500.12592/nvx0rp7

PROFESSOR ELEANOR A BOURKE AM, Chair MS SUE-ANNE HUNTER, Commissioner

11 Apr 2024

On behalf of Co-Senior 30 Counsel and Counsel Assisting and Solicitors in the inquiry, we too acknowledge the Wurundjeri people and all the First Nations of the State of Victoria who are looking to the work of this Commission to aid their dealings with the State of Victoria and ensure that truth is told in this place. [...] Today we are hearing from a panel of experienced academics and historians on the early colonisation processes and the circumstances that existed prior to the arrival of the British on these shores in the south of Australia, and 40 within the State of Victoria and the impacts on First Peoples. [...] I'm going to ask a number of questions before we get into the business of the arrival of the British on the shores and lands of the area 30 now known as Victoria, I'm going to ask about the existence of the First Nations, the Aboriginal people, who resided and owned these lands in that period. [...] I want to ask you some questions now to give the Commission some sense of what is understood to be the size of the Aboriginal population in Victoria at around the turn of the 1700s into the 1800s. [...] 25 MR McAVOY: Now, in trying to reach some estimate of the population of the area known - now known as Victoria - prior to the arrival of the British, I will prompt you with some information that has been published by a Mr Butlin in which he estimates the population to be something in the order of 60,000 people 30 prior to the arrival of the British.
Pages
60
Published in
Australia