We are a grassroots organisation campaigning for justice and fairness for Aboriginal Peoples in Victoria.

“We want to walk with you, we don’t want to walk alone...”
— Pastor Doug Nicholls



ANTaR Victoria focuses on activities and issues specific to Indigenous people in Victoria, while also supporting national campaigns and priorities.

 

ANTaR Victoria activities include:

  • On local and state levels throughout the community

  • Lobbying and producing submissions to government

  • Supporting Victorian land title claimants in pursuing negotiated agreements, as well as supporting initiatives such as National Parks having indigenous ownership and leaseback

  • Regular networking sessions and access to resources supports local reconciliation groups work with their local communities and councils

    Find your local group

  • Non-indigenous community education on the current Victorian treaty process

  • Educating the next generation of Australians about supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

    In order to heal we must realise our history and how the past has influenced modern Australia. This begins in the classroom. Education promotes healing, harmony and change.

    Our team of dedicated volunteers lead students through a one hour session about:

    • The history of Australia going back more than $60,000 years

    • Diversity of First Nations

    • Events and movements which have changed history

    • Social and economic effect of Australian history on Aboriginal people today

    • Our role as Australians in learning about Traditional Owners and taking action towards reconciliation

  • Installations at community events

Our goals are:

1.  To support Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples’ public voice on issues of:

  • self-determination

  • land rights

  • disadvantage

  • treaty/treaties

  • cultural respect

2.  To promote respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures among non-Indigenous Victorians.

We achieve our goals through community-awareness raising projects such as school engagement projects, community stalls, provision of resource packs, facilitating networks of individuals and community organization, and through state and nationally-generated grassroots campaigns, such as Sea of Hands.

Our outlook

We acknowledge that at the time of European invasion the totality of lands now known as Victoria were occupied by sovereign Indigenous nations who owned, cared for and enjoyed them in accordance with their laws, customs and traditions. The Indigenous nations’ sovereignty as well as their right of ownership, occupation, use and enjoyment of lands have not been ceded. 

The impact of invasion forced drastic changes on Indigenous peoples, including where and how they lived, their languages, religion, health, economic status, freedom of movement and association, and in some cases their very survival. 


We acknowledge all Indigenous peoples in Victoria today, including the original language groups as well as all clans, family groups and land owning groups; as well as their rights to their lands, self determination and control over their culture and traditions.

In order to achieve these goals, we actively seek guidance from and engagement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community of Victoria, including with leaders, Elders, activists and other organisations. Read about our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consultation principles here.

Our Vision: Tomorrow Australia

Tomorrow Australia encompasses ANTaR Victoria’s new direction as we walk towards the future.

A home for us all without negating history and truth. Sharing the strength and resilience of First Peoples past and present as we move to Tomorrow Australia.

Uncle Richard Frankland, Gunditjmara man and ANTaR Victoria patron, has helped to guide these early stages of ANTaR Victoria’s new direction.

Tomorrow Australia

Poem by Uncle Richard Frankland

Once we get through this dark period

We will be able to say

We are bound together

We will have reawakened old skills

Reimagined old values

Dusted off old memories and created new ones, golden ones

We will remember

The pain, the loss, the suffering, the fear

And be grateful how these things have bound us together

Tighter, stronger, with more appreciation of our individual and collective humanity

We will remember gentle smiles, hands that have reached out to others with friendship and love

A gift of food, of milk, of a smile or a gentle word

We will look forward to a new day dawning with great hope

These acts will inspire us and from this we will have opportunity to build something new and far more balanced than the system we have come from

Once we get through this dark period

We will be wiser, stronger, walk more gently on mother earth

We will see the truth in each other

For some of us, some truths will terrify us

There will be other truths

We will unravel the cultural tapestry of a nation

And weave together a new tapestry

A new way

We will take the best of the old

We will rise up from the darkness

We will have a home for us all.