Victoria's Indigenous truth-telling commission has laid out a long-awaited roadmap to formal public hearings and on-country visits to hear from elders.
Following COVID-19 disruptions, the Yoorrook Justice Commission on Monday announced it will launch on March 24 with a ceremonial sitting before hosting public hearings from April 26.
In between those key dates, select commissioners will travel across Victoria for a series of "elders' yarning circles" to offer them and traditional owners the chance to provide insights into the inquiry.
"This is what we want to underpin the terms of reference because it will inform back as far as we can with oral history in families," chair Eleanor Bourke told AAP.
"Some of that is complemented by the public record; not everything but there is so much on the record that helps with telling the story of colonisation's impacts and filling in the gaps."
Yoorook is Australia's first truth-telling inquiry to investigate injustices against Aboriginal people and follows similar processes set up in more than 30 other countries, including Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.
Professor Bourke acknowledged it had been a long road to the unveiling of the five-phase roadmap and said elders were keen to share their stories following the delays.
"It's been particularly frustrating because we thought we'd have one round of on-country visits completed and probably onto the second one in normal times," she said.
"We've had to cut our cloth."
She is confident the release of the commission's interim report, due on June 30, won't be pushed back by its compressed timeline.
The Wergaia and Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba elder said it was the commission's goal to dig as deep as possible with the time and funds they'd been afforded.
Yoorook, the word for truth in the Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba language, was given $44 million as part of the Victorian government's 2021/22 budget.
Prof Bourke conceded the commission's shortened timeline would undoubtably squeeze resources, but it was too early to say whether more funding would be needed.
"There could be some issues but we'll deal with those as we go," she said.
"It's going to happen in a shorter space of time, which means we do have those extra people on. That's going to test us."
Yoorook has a three-year timeframe to establish an official public record of Indigenous experiences since the start of colonisation and recommend reform and redress, with its findings to guide Victoria's treaty negotiations.
The 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart called on governments across Australia and Indigenous people to work together to establish processes for truth-telling.
