Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has welcomed Victoria’s former Yoorook justice commissioner Travis Lovett to the forecourt of Australian Parliament House at the culmination of the First Nations statesman’s 800km walk from Portland, in Victoria’s south-west, to deliver the “walk for truth” petition calling for an Australia-wide truth-telling project.
Dressed in a kangaroo-skin cloak and holding up a kangaroo-skin petition, Lovett told the crowd: “This is the moment that has come to meet you. This walk has reached the steps of Parliament, but it must not be allowed to end at the stone and glass of this place.
Let this be where the country turns its face towards the truth. Let this be where the delay ends … I ask this country to walk the next part with us.”
In August 2024, following the 2023 defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, Albanese told the ABC his government had not committed to creating a formal truth-telling commission, despite providing $5.8 million towards establishing a Makaratta commission to explore truth-telling and treaty.
“That’s not what we have proposed,” he told the ABC’s Insiders program. “What we’ve proposed is Makarrata just being the idea of coming together.”
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.