Travis Lovett is nothing if not determined.
After walking across nearly half of Victoria last year in the lead-up to the final report of the Yoorrook Justice Commission — Australia's first official truth-telling body — the Kerrupmara Gunditjmara man is now going a step further in the name of truth-telling.
Beginning this weekend, Mr Lovett will depart Victorian Parliament on Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Country and arrive at Parliament House in Canberra on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country 39 days later on May 27, walking more than 820 kilometres.
At the end of the journey, he will deliver a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling for a national truth-telling process to be established because, as Mr Lovett notes, "History has always been told by the oppressors".
Speaking on a cold morning in Naarm, he tells National Indigenous Times: "Truth-telling is about bringing people together."
"It's about listening and learning and understanding the lived experiences of First Peoples, but also not just the traumas that our people have been through, but the strength [and] the contributions that our people have made to this country."
Tall in stature and firm in his message, the inaugural executive director of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Truth Telling and Dialogue has called on people to join the walk for one leg or many to support the push for truth-telling.
Along the route, participants will hear from Traditional Owners, who will highlight the "science, the knowledge and understanding that our people have, not had, but have in caring for Country, even today".
"No matter how many injustices our people have been through, we've continued to advocate for our knowledges and our sciences to be incorporated into how we look and care for Country together," Mr Lovett says.
"That's a really important point of the walk as well — elevating knowledge science, but also connections to Country, to place."
Truth-telling more vital than ever
Mr Lovett said the importance of truth-telling can be measured in the number of people who ask, "Why weren't we taught this?" when confronted with the history of massacres and dispossession inflicted on First Peoples.
"The ongoing impacts of colonisation — the current policies and processes — are still deeply, deeply embedded in their colonial roots," he said.
"The walk is not about blaming people, about blaming everyday Australians for the situation that those people are in. What we walk for is for the institutions to be accountable for the institutional harm that they've caused our people. That's a really important distinction."
The Yoorrook Justice Commission heard evidence of significant wealth denied to Indigenous Victorians, including exclusion from $83 billion in water royalties over 13 years. Despite Native Title covering 40 per cent of the country, First Nations people hold rights to less than one per cent of all surface water.
The Commission also heard religious institutions take large swathes of land — much of which they still own — without compensation for First Peoples, whilst governments made laws impacting all aspects of Indigenous life.
Noting only four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track, Mr Lovett notes: "It's really important that we also ask the question, why is there a gap in the first place?"
Federal inaction under scrutiny
Mr Lovett's new walk follows his 513-kilometre journey last year, which drew more than 22,000 Victorians along the route from Portland to State Parliament, including more than 5,000 people who gathered at the finish line.
That walk came ahead of the historic Yoorrook reports. While many of the commission's recommendations remain unfulfilled, the Victorian government last year delivered a historic apology on behalf of the state; a key recommendation from the final report.
"The actions and inactions of the State — and the colony that came before it — carried out through words spoken and laws passed in the chambers of Parliament, resulted in profound and undeniable harms; the effects of which we are still grappling with today," Premier Jacinta Allan said in Parliament in December.
The apology came as a direct result of truth-telling, with Ms Allan admitting during her appearance before the commission that she had been unaware of many of the events that took place on the Country where she grew up.
It is something many, including Mr Lovett, argue must now be replicated nationally.
While the federal government supported the ultimately defeated 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum, the other two pillars of the Uluru Statement from the Heart — truth and treaty — remain unfulfilled.
Since then, the government has shown little inclination to commit to either truth-telling or treaty, arguing some states and territories are already implementing elements of both. This is despite both the Northern Territory and Queensland abandoning their own processes under the guise of the 2023 referendum result.
Calls have continued from Indigenous leaders for both treaty and truth-telling to be restored to the national agenda.
"We're not asking for any new election commitments," Mr Lovett said.
"What we're asking is for the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to deliver on the commitments that he's already made [to] our people; [one] he's already made to not just First Peoples, but to all Australians, about delivering on the Uluru Statement from the Heart."
At the end of the 39-day walk — which will take in massacre sites, cultural burns and talks delivered by Mob on their own Country — Mr Lovett will present an open letter to the Prime Minister on kangaroo skin.
It asks the Prime Minister and his government to "publicly commit to a national process of truth-telling led in genuine partnership with First Peoples" that is properly resourced and legislated. The letter notes that while the walk may be literal, it is also "moral and political".
While the walk through Victoria and New South Wales to the nation's capital is long, Mr Lovett said it is vital to draw attention to a truth that has not been hidden by chance, but deliberately denied the light of day.
"Choosing to hear what is hard to hear, to sit with discomfort and to stay at the table long enough for something better to be born," the open letter to the Prime Minister reads.
"A nation that can tell the truth about itself is a nation strong enough to heal, to repair and to imagine a different future. We Walk For Truth because this country is worth the effort of healing. We ask you to meet us on that path."
People can sign up for different legs of the walk and sign the open letter online.
