The Declaration is the foundation of Council's work
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the significant Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.
However, there is still much to be done in realising this commitment and Council calls for all Victorians to join us in affirming that:
Indigenous Peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognising the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such.
We all have a part to play
We ask that each of us recognise in ourselves, our workplaces and our institutions, that Indigenous Peoples have the Right to:
- Self-determination.
- Self-government in matters relating to their internal affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.
- Not be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.
- Not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories.
- Practise and revitalise their cultural traditions and customs.
- Manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies.
- Maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites.
- The use and control of their ceremonial objects.
- The repatriation of their human remains.
- Revitalise, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures.
- Designate and retain their own names for communities, places and person.
- Participate in decision-making through representatives chosen by themselves, in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to their own decision-making institutions.
- Maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources.
- Maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.
- The manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts.
Downloadable Posters
Council has produced four A4 sized posters for you to download and print. The posters reflect the shields in Council's logo and represent the four environments that make up our Country:
- gold and ochre represent desert sands and dry country
- green for the forests and grasslands
- blue for the waters, rivers and lakes
- purple represents our Countries in the metropolitan regions as well as in the basaltic and volcanic plains
Dry Country
VAHC UNDRIP A4 Poster_Ochre
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Forest and Grassland Country
VAHC UNDRIP A4 Poster_Green
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Water Country
VAHC UNDRIP A4 Poster_Blue
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Metropolitan and Volcanic Country
VAHC UNDRIP A4 Poster_Purple
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