Truth Telling Statement

Our reflections

Watch this video to hear reflections from AccessHC about the truth telling process.

The video features AccessHC Board Chair Gayle Austen, CEO Anna Robinson and Community Engagement and Inclusion Manager Katrine Gabb.

Statement on Our Organisation’s Shared Truths

Warning, this statement contains the names of First Peoples who have passed away and disturbing descriptions which may be upsetting to many.

Introduction 

For over 65,000 years, First Peoples have lived on, cared for and been part of Country where Access Health and Community services are delivered. We acknowledge this land was never ceded. 

History, however, was written by colonists and to date has emphasised colonial truths which were based on preconceived bias, now considered racist views. First Peoples’ truths were broadly ignored.  Access Health and Community cannot ignore the truths of First Peoples if we are to contribute substantively to reconciliation. This is particularly relevant as our organisation was originally formed in 1869, less than 50 years after British colonisers first arrived in Victoria.  

Sharing these truths is one step AccessHC can take to contribute to the change required for First Peoples to experience equitable health and social outcomes. This is a commitment in our Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan and central to our ongoing support for Voice, Truth and Treaty.¹

Truth Telling 

Truth telling is a process of openly sharing historical truths after periods of conflict. It allows societies to move forward in a more inclusive way, based on justice and human rights². This process is guided by respect for First Peoples’ sovereignty, holistic wellbeing and self-determination in the present day and into the future.  

Access Health and Community acknowledges that there are simultaneous truths in our organisation’s history – the colonial history our organisation was founded within, and the truths that have always been known to First Peoples, many of which are now documented in the Yoorrook Justice Commission’s Truth Be Told report.³

To date, the documented history of our organisation has only focused on the benefits we have provided to selected people during and following colonisation.⁴ This statement addresses the truth that our organisation has not historically shared these benefits with First Peoples. One truth doesn’t replace the other, they exist simultaneously.  

We share here a summary of these untold truths for the purpose of being transparent, and as a step in our organisation’s truth telling and continued commitment to reconciliation and equity.  

We know that from our founding as the Richmond Dispensary in quo-yung (Richmond), the organisation has provided benefits for many people who would not have otherwise afforded healthcare. However, as we were founded in 1869, we also acknowledge that threads of our history are connected to and parallel to violence perpetrated on First Peoples.  

Our connection to Victoria’s first settlers 

In 1829, James Henty with his teenage brothers Stephen and John, sailed to Australia from the United Kingdom to establish the Henty family’s ‘colonial project’. The Hentys arrived in Western Australia but found farming conditions difficult there and conflicts were increasing with local Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, whose land had been dispossessed.⁵ The Henty brothers relocated to Launceston, Tasmania in 1831, followed by their father Thomas Henty.⁶ 

In 1834, Edward and Stephen Henty illegally squatted and claimed land on unceded Gunditjmara Country (Portland, Victoria) after whaling from Lutruwita (Tasmania) up into the Portland area.⁷

Around 1833-1834, the first recorded massacre in Victoria took place at the Convincing Ground, a beach in Portland.⁸ As local First Peoples grew up knowing, European whalers murdered almost all of the Kilcarer Gunditj clan (one of 59 clans of Gunditjmara), leaving only two survivors who escaped to Mount Clay.⁹ Although there is evidence of the Hentys refuting these claims, their involvement in the massacre is suspected, either directly or by design.  

The Hentys were recorded preparing to visit Portland Bay in December 1833 by the skipper of their vessel, The Thistle. While the written documents place the Henty family in the area around the time of the massacre, they do not state that the Henty family members or others on board were involved in the Convincing Ground massacre. At the Yoorrook Justice Commission, a descendant of The Thistle’s skipper suggested that this was by design. Skipper James Liddell was known to keep meticulous records, however his records on the dates and activities relating to the Convincing Ground appear unusually vague. The skipper wrote: “On our return to Launceston, picked up the whale boats and crews and what sealskins they had got. Thomas Henty and his son Edward both returned with the vessel, and we called at Portland Bay on our way back. My instructions from James Henty and Co. were to leave a boat and crew at Portland, but it was not done; I forget the reason why.”¹⁰ His descendant Dr Katrina Kell told the Yoorrook Justice Commission she believes Liddell would have remembered why he didn’t leave the boats – she shared her theories as to why this record is vague: that they witnessed the massacre, were involved in the massacre or didn’t want to be associated with it so withdrew their boats.  She noted that evidence she has collected suggests that her ancestor and Henty family members were there at the time of the Convincing Ground Massacre.¹¹ This incident was followed by other murders and enslavement of First Peoples, which led to the Gunditjmara people fearing white settlers.¹² As Auntie Denise Lovett (Gunditjmara) described, when the Henty family came the ‘whole [First Peoples] society was shattered.’¹³

From 1851, James Henty lived in quo-yung (Richmond), where he built a house and was an elected Member of Parliament in Victoria between 1853 and 1882. In 1858 he was made a member of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on The Aborigines.¹⁴

In 1868, James Henty became the Richmond Dispensary’s first financial subscriber (providing a founding £50, which was worth more than an average annual professional salary at that time), as well as becoming the Dispensary’s first patron and second president.¹⁵ The Richmond Dispensary was the early predecessor of the service that became Access Health and Community (AccessHC).  

Today, Access Health and Community acknowledges the organisation was at least partially founded on stolen wealth that had come from the forced removal of First Peoples from their cultural lands. This wealth was re-distributed to non-First Nations peoples.  

We acknowledge that the holistic health and wellbeing of First Peoples today are impacted by these harms to previous generations that were passed onto current generations as intergenerational trauma (distal risk factors), as well as experiences in contemporary times (proximal risk factors).¹⁶

Social and healthcare context 

Access Health and Community was founded during a time when First Peoples were recently forced off Country. In the 1800s First Peoples were dispossessed and forcibly removed from their traditional lands so colonial ‘settlements’ could be created. This includes the land where Access Health and Community was established in quo-yung¹⁷ (Richmond). Before colonisation, Wurundjeri clans had called quo-yung home since time immemorial¹⁸.  Post colonisation, Richmond became a working-class suburb, known for its poverty and unsanitary conditions.  

After being forcibly removed from Country, Simon Wonga, leader (Ngurungaeta) of the Wurundjeri clans^19,20, secured land in 1863 on Coranderrk Station in Healesville, northeast of Melbourne.^21,22,23 

In 1869, Access Health and Community was established by the settler community to provide access to health services for those most in need in the Richmond community. However, this does not appear to include First Peoples.  

In 1881, beruk²⁴ (English name William Barak, who became Ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan after his cousin Simon Wonga²⁵) had to seek permission from the station manager to travel 130km from Coranderrk to a (Naarm) Melbourne hospital, to seek medical treatment for his son, David. Initially beruk and David were refused entrance to the hospital and beruk requested Ann Bonn’s assistance at her home in Kew in Melbourne’s east.^26,27 Ann Bonn was a settler woman who had strong links with beruk as well as other First Peoples. Ann Bonn advocated on David’s behalf for him to be treated, but the hospital would still not grant entry to beruk. It is recorded that David cried out for his father, but died alone there on 8 August 1881.^28,29,30 

This gives a sense of the healthcare environment at that time in history, and the colonialist settlers’ approach to withholding and controlling healthcare relating to First Peoples. 

Beruk’s resilient family line remains strong today, which is a remarkable feat, considering that only one of the original seven to eight woi-wurrung clans remains today, due to the impacts of colonisation.³¹ Barak’s nephew Wandoon (Robert Wandin) was the only surviving son of his sister Annie Borate. Today’s Wurundjeri are all descendants of Wandoon.³²

Pre-colonisation, Victoria was home to about 60,000 First Peoples, comprising 300 to 500 clan groups, and speaking over forty First Peoples languages.³³  By the time Victoria was founded as a colony in 1851, 2,000 First Peoples remained.³⁴ In the census of 1857, only 17 Wurundjeri peoples remained.³⁵ 

From 1869, First Peoples were subjected to the ‘Aborigines Protection Act’ and from 1886, to the ‘Half-Caste Act’ that broke up families, stole connection to culture and deprived Coranderrk of its young workforce.³⁶  

Over the following century that ensued, First Peoples weathered many abuses of human rights, including the practice of removing light-skinned children from their families to be raised in orphanages. As the children became old enough, they were indentured as unpaid workers:  girls and women as domestic help and boys and men as farm labourers. Many of these children were sexually or physically abused. They became known as The Stolen Generations. The enabling policy caused untold damage to individuals, families and culture, and its impacts are still felt today.³⁷ In 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to people from the Stolen Generation³⁸ for the forced child removal and assimilation they had been forced to endure. Access Health and Community observes and acknowledges Sorry Day publicly and internally every year. 

150 years of Access Health and Community 

In 2019, Access Health and Community celebrated 150 years of the organisation providing health care for the community. Part of the celebrations included staff and management wearing colonial dress, like that worn at the time Access Health and Community was established in 1869. The gathered party paraded through the streets of Richmond to the Town Hall to be greeted by the mayor of Yarra City Council.  

With our current understanding of these shared truths today, we understand the negative and traumatic impact that one-sided colonial celebrations continue to have on First Peoples. We acknowledge here that we would not celebrate our colonial history in the way we did in 2019 with the understanding that we have now. This celebration was conducted in stark contradiction to what the organisation now understands and seeks to achieve.  

We now look forward to achieving our purpose of building healthier lives together, embracing our First Peoples and providing health care which acknowledges past trauma and holistically adapts to their needs and concerns. We share this as an important and essential outcome of our truth telling.  

Looking forward 

Access Health and Community acknowledges that since we were founded, the organisation has financially benefited from the proceeds of stolen lands, and until recently has been silent and often culturally unsafe for First Peoples to seek healthcare. This is unacceptable, and we are proactively working to remove barriers and change our approach. 

The process of truth telling for Access Health and Community is a journey. This journey has the sole aim of improving the self-determined wellbeing of First Peoples in the present day and for the future. This includes simultaneously acknowledging the benefits the organisation has provided to many people, while we challenge the continued influence of colonisation within our organisation.  

We commit to this journey towards intentional equity of First Peoples both as colleagues and as clients. Some of the concrete actions we have already implemented that improve health outcomes and access for First Peoples include: 

• Prioritising access to health and community services for First Peoples 

• Providing free health and community services (no gap fees) wherever possible and permitted by our funders 

• Regular Cultural Consultations to seek direction from Traditional Owners and partnerships with Aboriginal Controlled Community Organisations, including seeking direction for self-determination 

• Outreach services – providing care in community and supporting access 

• Taking advice from community on how to create specific culturally safe services for young people and pathways for further health supports 

• Implementing the Child Safe Standards, including establishing a culturally safe environment in which the diverse and unique identities and experiences of Aboriginal children and young people are respected and valued 

To learn more about Access Health and Community’s Reconciliation, equity and justice actions, visit: https://accesshc.org.au/reconciliation  

For more information or to speak to us about this statement, please contact info@accesshc.org.au  

If you need support, please contact the following services: 

• 13YARN on 13 92 76 (24 hours/7 days) and talk with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Crisis Supporter. Free and confidential. 

•  Yarning SafeNStrong (YSNS) 1800 959 563 is available to people and families who need to have a yarn with someone about their wellbeing. We have culturally suitable counsellors you can yarn safely with ‘who get it’, no matter how big or small the challenge. Yarning SafeNStrong helpline is available 24/7. Email ysns@vahs.org.au
  Facebook @YarningSafenStrong 

• 1800RESPECT is available for free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to support people impacted by domestic, family or sexual violence. 

• Lifeline call 131114 or text 0477 13 11 14 (24 hours/7 days). Free and confidential. 

• Or visit Support Services | Yoorrook Justice Commission for other support options.