Tunnerminnerwait & Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee

e attending the ceremonies during those years. The 2007 commemorations were followed by a discussion which led to the formation of the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee (TMCC) to organise future commemorations. Seven of the participants present that day, Ellen José, Joy French, William French, Doug Chessman, John O’Brien, Rick Simpson and Joseph Toscano became the foundation members of the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee. Following a series of discussions by the foundation members – radical activists who had over 200 years of experience of radical activism between them, it was decided to:

1. Make overtures to radical elements of the indigenous community in Victoria who we had worked with on a number of projects in the past

3. Publish the material we had collected

5. Set up a website

6. Launch a political campaign attempting to garner support from interested parties

My late wife Ellen José and I had had a long relationship with Carolyn Briggs, a Boon Wurrung elder, and her husband for over 25 years. We asked Carolyn to become the Patron of the Committee as she had ancestral links with both indigenous people in Tasmania and the Boon Wurrung. Tunnerminnerwait, Maulboyheenner, Truganini, Pyterruner and Planobeena came from various parts of Tasmania and fought their struggle on Boon Wurrung land. The aims of the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee were set down:

• To hold a yearly commemoration on the 20th January at the site the ex*****ons took place (corner Franklin and Bowen St, Melbourne)
• To acknowledge the injustice of what happened in January 1842
• To highlight the unfinished business that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians
• To work towards the establishment of a significant monument to publicly acknowledge what happened on that fateful day

Once the aims were formalised the TMCC made a number of important decisions before we launched the 2008 commemoration. The committee decided:

1. To only use the indigenous names of those involved

2. To describe them as freedom fighters

3. To create a banner to launch the 2008 commemoration with the words “Lest We Forget” on it. Knowing full well it would create a public debate about the use of the words

4. To use the term “Lest We Forget” on our publicity material

5. To begin a dialogue with the Melbourne City Council – the authority that would ultimately be responsible for financing and maintaining the monument

6. To form an association with radical aboriginal activists like Robbie Thorpe, who we knew through our involvement with 3CR the Community Radio Federation

7. To never ask permission from the police or private security to hold the commemoration – we had already had confrontations with Victoria Police and private security when we held our commemorations in 2006 and 2007

The 2008 commemoration on the 20th January was addressed by our Patron Carolyn Briggs and a number of other radical speakers. No elected officials bothered to attend, let alone respond to our requests to attend and address the commemoration. As a direct result of the absolute refusal of any elected representatives to take up the TMCC invitation to speak, it was decided I stand as a Lord Mayoral candidate in the Melbourne City Council elections in 2008 to highlight our campaign and form the political alliances required to push our agenda to build a frontier wars monument. Armed with the “Lest We Forget” booklet, I launched myself in the campaign to become Lord Mayor of Melbourne knowing full well I had a snowflake’s chance in hell of being elected. Melbourne City Council elections are held by postal ballot, this means you are able to get your message across to the electors through the material you’ve written that the Australian Electoral Commission distributes to electors. As a candidate you are invited to address public meetings around the city. My participation in the Lord Mayoral race on behalf of the TMCC gave us a legitimacy we would have not been able to obtain through solely using direct action. It allowed me to make preference deals with candidates who had a chance of being elected as councillors or Lord Mayor. This campaign well and truly put our aims in the political and public domain. Fortunately, our preference deal with the Greens paid dividends and Cathy Oke, a great supporter of our campaign, was elected as a Melbourne City Councillor. This gave us the foot in the door we so badly needed. During 2009, 2010 and 2011 we were able to pile political pressure on the Melbourne City Council. Despite a relatively solid campaign by the conservative legacy media to derail our attempts, we were able to gain momentum for the construction of a monument despite resistance from the Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and influential sections of the Melbourne City Council bureaucracy. In 2011 the TMCC had expanded the nature of the commemorations on the 20th January by initiating a silent walk through Melbourne to the site in the Queen Victoria Market complex where the six people publicly executed in 1842, were buried.

• Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner – 20th January 1842

• Bushrangers – Charles Ellis (from England), Daniel Jepps (from USA) and Martin Fogarty (from Ireland) who were publicly executed on the 28th June 1842

• Figara Alkepurata – an aboriginal man from the Port Fairy region who was publicly executed for the murder of Patrick Codd (a squatter who had a history of murdering aboriginal people) was executed on 5th September 1842, although he was over 100 miles from the murder scene

I stood as a Mayoral candidate in 2012 to continue to promote the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner struggle as well as a number of other radical agendas. The political influence we were able to exercise in the Melbourne City Council grew as a number of the newly elected councillors came on board. The TMCC believed they had pinpointed the unconsecrated ground in the Queen Victoria Market where these six men are buried. Countless tales of the sound of aboriginal clapsticks and Irish jigs were recounted by people who passed by the unconsecrated burial site late at night. We asked ground penetrating radar be used by the Melbourne City Council (which runs the Queen Victoria Market) to ascertain if our findings were correct. To date, although the site which we have pinpointed has become a Queen Victoria Market information Centre instead of a market stall, we have had no success in getting the Melbourne City Council to examine the area with ground penetrating radar. If ground penetrating radar confirmed our suspicions, the bodies of the aboriginal men buried could be returned to their ancestral homelands. The bodies of the three bushrangers could also be reburied according to the wishes of any surviving relatives. In 2015, after lobbying by a number of Melbourne City Councillors, including Cr Cathy Oke, Cr Jackie Watts and Cr Rohan Leppert, the Melbourne City Council unanimously agreed to fund a significant public monument to honour Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner’s struggle. The TMCC had always requested that a public competition be conducted to select the monument design. Three indigenous groups were shortlisted by a Melbourne City Council committee. These artists were sent to Tasmania by the Melbourne City Council to meet local indigenous people that were familiar with the story of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner. The Melbourne City Council chose the artists Brook Andrew and Trent Walter who designed the installation which now stands at what most likely is the ex*****on site. Even during the construction phase of the monument, it became apparent that attempts were being made to water down the radical nature of the installation. Eventually a compromise position was reached re: the wording on the monument and the construction phase went ahead. In 2016, the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner monument at the corner of Victoria and Franklin St, Melbourne was officially opened. The Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee continues to hold yearly commemorations at midday on the 20th January to mark the anniversary of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner’s ex*****ons. The commemoration is followed by a silent walk through the streets of Melbourne to what we believe to be their final resting place. This country has thousands of stories of resistance to the colonisation process. Every inch of soil is soaked in the blood of the original inhabitants. Most have never been acknowledged, let alone named. They were involved, and their descendants continue to be involved, in the struggle against the colonisation process. It’s important you learn about the history of where you live. Make contact with indigenous organisations and individuals who are the custodians of that historical record. Form bonds to establish monuments to the frontier wars. Since 2020 the TMCC has radically shifted its focus. We hope to lead a campaign to mark the 20th January as National Indigenous Freedom Fighters Day. If it’s good enough that we have a day to mark the sacrifices of Australians who have died in wars mostly fought overseas, then it’s time those First Nations people who died defending their country, their way of life and their families be remembered. Finally, I’d like to pay my respects to all those people, both indigenous and non-indigenous, who made the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner monument possibly the first significant monument to the frontier wars in a major capital city in this country, a reality. I would especially like to pay my respects to four foundation members of the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee who have died –
Ellen José, Joy French, William French and Rick Simpson. Dr. Joseph Toscano / Convenor Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner Commemoration Committee