For the first time in Australia's history, a truth-telling commission has begun investigating the nation's brutal history since colonisation, to lay bare systematic abuses against Aboriginal people.
The Yoorrook Justice Commission will begin hearing evidence in Victoria after holding a ceremonial sitting at Fitzroy in Melbourne.
The Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people welcomed the commission to country.
The commission opened with a moment's silence to remember Aboriginal ancestors and acknowledge past wrongs against Indigenous nations.
Yoorrook means truth in the Wemba Wemba/Wamba Wamba language, which is spoken in the north-west of Victoria.
Yoorrook has the full powers of a royal commission, meaning commissioners will be able to compel government bodies and officials to give evidence and produce official records.
It will make a formal record of two centuries of colonisation and oppression in Victoria.
Wergaia/Wamba Wamba elder and Yoorrook chair Professor Eleanor Bourke said Australia's official record of the impacts of white settlement was "incomplete".
"We wish to change that," she said.
She said the work of Yoorrook would seek "to underpin the rich history of [Aboriginal] truth-telling, in all areas since colonisation".
The nation's first Indigenous silk Tony McAvoy SC has been appointed as senior counsel assisting and said the work of the commission would uncover truths which "to date have been ignored".
"From the day the new world arrived here, it failed to listen. But the whispers remain, and there's a murmur that will always be here.
"This is an historic event … and it will also set the benchmark for similar inquiries."
Wurundjeri and Ngurai illum Wurrung woman and deputy chair Sue-Anne Hunter said the commission would also highlight the "strength and resilience" of Aboriginal people.
Trauma of Aboriginal people can no longer 'fall on deaf ears'
Truth-telling is a global concept which is designed to investigate systemic wrongs and to make recommendations towards reparations and healing.
Internationally there have been high-profile examples of investigations exposing human rights abuses, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up by Nelson Mandela in post-apartheid South Africa.
In Canada, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard evidence from survivors of residential schools and the inquiry led to disturbing revelations about that country's dark past.
Mr McAvoy acknowledged that First Nations people across Australia would view the hearings with "hope and cynicism", because too often, he said, Indigenous people had been let down.
Mr McAvoy said the trauma of Aboriginal people uncovered in the inquiry "cannot fall on deaf ears".
"That racism must be confronted in this inquiry, the Parliament, the Government and the community must not be permitted to turn its head away from the brutal ugliness that is visited upon First Nations people.
"While many people are in the process of learning, it's still very much the case that there are vast numbers of people in this state and this country who deny what has occurred."
In 2017, truth-telling was one of the major recommendations of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, a call to action released by hundreds of Indigenous people at an historic summit in Central Australia.
The Uluru Statement called for a federal Makarrata Commission to supervise truth-telling and agreement-making between First Nations people and governments.
Yoorrook will only look at evidence in the jurisdiction of Victoria, but Queensland and the Northern Territory are now in the early stages of a path towards a treaty or treaties.
The commissioners said they hoped it would lead to a powerful official record of the dispossession of Aboriginal people, to encourage other states and territories to hold similar truth-telling hearings.
There have been other wide-ranging inquiries and commissions in Australia which have investigated systematic abuses against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, including the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The Bringing Them Home Inquiry was also a form of truth-telling, which led to the National Apology to the Stolen Generations delivered in 2008.
The Yoorrook commissioners have said their mandate is broader than previous inquiries, because it will look at injustices in all areas of life, as well as consider the recommendations of past inquiries.
The commission was established after negotiations between the First People's Assembly of Victoria and the Victorian government.
The start of the commission's hearings were delayed last year due to the pandemic.
Aboriginal elders across Victoria will be the first to tell their stories to the commission as part of "elders' yarning circles".
The other commissioners are Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung elder Dr Wayne Atkinson, leading human rights advocate Professor Kevin Bell QC and Palawa sociologist Professor Maggie Walter.
An interim report is due in June, with a final report expected to be delivered in June 2024.
