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There’s been a lot of heartfelt chatter in Australia about reconciliation – that noble-sounding term which I always took to mean “coming together,” but now apparently translates to “invoices”.

Lots and lots of invoices.

Thanks to Australia’s first-ever Indigenous Truth Telling Inquiry – an expensive guilt parade funded by the colonisers – we finally have a clearer picture of what reconciliation really means.

The Yoorrook Justice Commission – which spent four years finding new and inventive ways to blame the British for everything short of Melbourne’s weather – tabled its final report in the Victorian Parliament late Wednesday, making 100 recommendations.

I’ll go through some of them for you in a moment.

But I want to give you some time to grab a tissue, because – seriously – these will make your eyes water.

Starting Assumptions

While you’re bracing yourself for the recommendations, let’s start with the commission’s foundational thesis.

Victoria was never discovered by the British, never settled, and certainly never founded.

No, according to the report, it was illegally occupied.

The report says…

“The taking of country and resources was violent as First Peoples were displaced and massacred by European settlers in the pursuit of their land and waters.”

The report insists that 237 years after the British set foot on these shores…

 “The legacy of colonisation is still manifest in every aspect of life.”

And no, they’re not referring to roads, plumbing or electricity.

Then the report makes this claim…

“All major political parties, whether in government or in opposition, have perpetuated and compounded the trauma, injustice and suffering of First Peoples.”

Well, with that broad-brush stroke of moral condemnation complete, the report launches into 100 recommendations so ambitious, even Santa Claus would’ve thought twice about drafting this list.

Nations Distinct from Australia

The most stunning recommendation, to me, is that Indigenous tribes are to be treated as nations, distinct from Australia.

Not just separate culturally, but legally. Diplomatically.

The Victorian government, the report insists, should now conduct relationships with Indigenous communities on a nation-to-nation basis.

Penny Wong is going to have her work cut out for her.

The report notes…

“Sovereignty of First Peoples in Victoria has never been ceded and continues to exist”.

So their plan is to heal the nation by breaking it into smaller ones.

Can’t you just feel the reconciliation!

Here I was thinking the goal was to bring us all together. You know, Australians all let us rejoice for we are ONE and free.

Instead, it means Indigenous Victorians will be regarded and treated as completely separate to their neighbours. As members of different nations, with different rights and with an entirely different relationship to the government.

Reconciliation? Or Increased Separation?

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was asked if she thought recommendations, like that, might be… oh I don’t know, divisive?

“Look, I think the recommendations and indeed the findings, i do acknowledge they are incredibly challenging…”

Indeed, since the 2007 Kevin Rudd National Apology, the rate of removal has more than doubled. Is Jacinta Allan saying that we’re still stealing Indigenous children today?

And If not, could they also not have been ‘stolen’ in the past?

But let’s have a look at some more “challenging” recommendations, the adoption of which the Victorian Premier is refusing to rule out.

The report recommends that Indigenous Victorians should be exempt from taxes, rates and charges relating to water.

Because, as the report notes, the resources belonged to them in the first place.

Which raises the obvious question: If ownership precludes you from paying tax, why is no one proposing homeowners no longer pay stamp duty? I digress.

Of course, colonially tainted citizens will still be paying tax.

But here’s the twist. And it’s a beauty…

A fixed portion of non-Indigenous revenue would go directly into a self-determination fund for Indigenous people.

And there’s no expiry, or time limit. A bit like Netflix subscriptions, and government incompetence.

It’s a financial forever-tribute paid by non-Indigenous people to atone for the alleged crimes of their great-great-great-grandfathers.

So much for “closing the gap.”

Turns out it’s not a gap to be closed. It’s a direct deposit in perpetuity.

But the Yoorrook Commissioners, well, they were just warming up.

Reconciliation Means Rejecting ‘Colonial Construct’ Behavioural Standards

If the Victorian Government adopts their recommendations – and you wouldn’t put anything past the Victorian Government – the pay of senior public servants would not be tethered to performance, but to how successful they were at employing and promoting Indigenous staff.

Want a pay rise in the Victorian public service? Better start keeping a racial hiring ledger.

The demands don’t stop there. Churches, too, are in the crosshairs. 

Any land gifted by the government – sorry, illegally transferred by the colonising state – should now be handed back.

The logic here appears to be: “What’s yours is ours, and what was once ours must still be ours, even if we gave it away and you built a school on it.”

Which brings us to education. Now brace yourself, because this one’s a doozy.

The Commission recommends that Aboriginal children be exempt from school attendance requirements. 

Nothing says ‘school is important’ like ‘you don’t need to be in school’.

And in the event that an Indigenous student does turn up for class – don’t even think about suspension or expulsion.

Apparently, behavioural standards are colonial constructs. And Indigenous children would be subject to different behavioural standards.

By the time we get to the comparatively tame demand that Victorian maps and signage reflect traditional Indigenous names, it almost feels like a reasonable ask – you know, in comparison to “nationhood” and tax immunity.

There are of course many more recommendations.

Mandated quotas of Indigenous people on company and government boards.

The establishment of an Indigenous fire authority. Really.

Recognising waterways as living entities that are, of course, spoken for by Indigenous people.

And Victorian universities should recognise and compensate Indigenous staff for the additional ‘colonial load’ they bear. Whatever that means.

On and on it goes.

How Reconciliation is Defined: Divorce, Separation and Fragmentation

But, to summarise…

Reconciliation now involves permanent tax-free status, endless reparations, diplomatic independence, separate rules for schooling, a financial tithe from the general population, and a forced ecclesiastical garage sale.

And I haven’t even mentioned the Indigenous Voice to Parliament that Jacinta Allan is determined to instigate, despite a majority of people voting against it less than two years ago.

For her part, the Victorian Premier says her government shares the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s goals of “truth and justice”.

Well I think everyone would support truth and justice. The problem is how the Victorian Premier – who can’t say what a woman is – defines truth.

As for justice? I’m not so sure the majority of Victorians will find the Commission’s recommendations particularly just.

They read less like a plea for justice, than like a shopping list drawn up by opportunists holding someone else’s credit card.

But at least we now know what reconciliation means.

Less a coming together, more a constitutional divorce.

Less unity, more tax redistribution.

Less about living as one, more about creating parallel systems, with separate rules, rights, and bank accounts.

Jacinta Allan handed Indigenous activists a blank cheque and a pen. And now they’ve come to collect.

She says the report lays the foundation for a better future for all Victorians.

There’s no way she can believe that, let alone go along with any of it, let alone implement the recommendations and expect to be re-elected.

Then again, we are talking about Victoria.

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report.

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Image via YouTube/Sky News.