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T&T Project
The T&T Project selected the image Ancestral Memories by Vicki Couzens as it reflects the continuous link of Koorie knowledge through the generations – that the oral memories of our Ancestors continue with us today.
Ancestral Memories
Acknowledgement: Artist Vicki Couzens, Gunditjmara Tribe. Koorie Heritage Trust Inc. collection.

Exposure Draft Position Statement: Human Rights, Indigenous Communities in Australia and the Archives

Principle of the Right to Know the Truth and the Right of Reply

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHRC) adopted the Joinet-Orentlicher Principles to guide member states in dealing with human rights violations. They deal amongst other things with the inalienable individual and collective right of individuals and communities to know the truth about past events, the duty of the state to preserve and make accessible archives of repression and abuse as part of the collective memory, and the entitlement of individuals to know that there is a record about them, and to challenge its validity by exercising a right of reply.

Related Archival Requirements

  1. Identify Indigenous communities or individuals in records, contact them via appropriate representative bodies; and
  2. Disclose that there are records relating to them; and
  3. Develop procedures to enable them to exercise a right of reply - i.e. to set the record straight; make comments upon the inaccuracies or limitations of institutional records, to contribute family narratives which expand upon or give context to institutional records and to present alternative versions of events. An example would be a system that enabled use of annotations as a right of reply, and the extension of this right to descendants, which also enabled annotators to retain ownership of the annotations.

International Warrants

United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, (2005) Promotion and Protection of Human Rights: Impunity Report of the Independent Expert to update the Set of Principles to Combat Impunity, Diane Orentlicher, E/CN.4/2005/102/Add.1 8 February 2005

All persons shall be entitled to know whether their name appears in State archives and, if it does, by virtue of their right of access, to challenge the validity of the information concerning them by exercising a right of reply. The challenged document should include a cross-reference to the document challenging its validity and both must be made available together whenever the former is requested. (Principle 17 (b))

Domestic Warrants

Individual rights relating to correction are included in domestic FOI and health records legislation, for example Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) Part V Amendment and Annotation of Personal Records; Freedom of Information Act 1982 (VIC) Part V Amendment of Personal Records, Health Records Act 2001 (VIC) Schedule 1.6. However they do not extend to collective rights.

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