By Cara Waters
Uncle Robbie Thorpe stands warming himself by the fire at Kings Domain, adjacent to the Botanic Gardens.
From this hilltop, where the fire burns next to two tents known as Camp Sovereignty, you can see the Yarra River stretching out below and the CBD’s skyscrapers glittering in the winter afternoon sun.
Aboriginal elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe at Camp Sovereignty.Credit: Justin McManus
The area is believed to have been a corroboree space for tens of thousands of years for First Nations people, and in 1985 it became a burial ground for the remains of 38 Indigenous people who were repatriated by the Museum of Victoria.
The remains, from tribes across Victoria, are marked by a granite rock on the side of the steep hill and a small bronze plaque that is largely hidden from the road and walking track below.
“It’s sort of symbolic of what’s happened to Aboriginal people in this country,” Thorpe says. “It’s out of sight, basically, and out of mind.”
Thorpe, a Gunaikurnai man, and other Indigenous advocates want the area, which is known as Kings Domain Resting Place, to be recognised as a ceremonial space and to be made more accessible.
Indigenous elders struggle to attend the burial site because of its location, and Thorpe says anyone in a wheelchair has “no hope” of visiting it.
Advocates have worked with architects Fender Katsalidis on a proposal for a curving walkway enabling access to the burial site, a permanent space for the ceremonial fire, indigenous plantings and a temporary pavilion.
“There needs to be more than a bronze plaque,” Thorpe says. “Our heritage is something that’s alive, not something in the past ... rather than a preservation of our culture, we’re talking about the maintenance of our culture.”
Thorpe wants to see storytelling at the Kings Domain Resting Place and other sites revisited and made relevant.
Aboriginal elder Uncle Robbie Thorpe at the granite rock that marks the burial ground of 38 First Nations people.Credit: Justin McManus
He says the City of Melbourne and Lord Mayor Nick Reece have failed to meaningfully engage with proposals for the site, which were outlined in a letter sent to chief executive Alison Leighton in January 2024.
The letter from Keiran Stewart-Assheton, national president of the Black Peoples Union, called for the section of Kings Domain that is home to the remains and the ceremonial fire to be returned to First Nations ownership and management, and for Kings Domain Resting Place to be renamed with a more appropriate local traditional name.
Representatives from the council attended a meeting at Kings Domain Resting Place in February and after that meeting provided a shipping container to keep firewood for the ceremonial fire and a permit for the fire, but otherwise advocates say they have been ignored.
“They have been very reluctant to deal with it at all,” Thorpe says. “They’ve been obstructionist. They don’t really want to hear what we want to do.”
Reece says the council is engaging with “local stakeholder groups” on proposed landscape upgrades at Kings Domain.
“Recognising our traditional owners, and their enduring connection to Country for over 2000 generations, is a key part of reconciliation,” he says.
“During development of our draft M2050 vision, we’ve heard strong community support for Melbourne to be grounded in First Nations knowledge and culture – and we’re working to bring this to life.”
An artist’s sketch of a proposed access path and pavilion at the Kings Domain Resting Place. Credit: Fender Katsilidis
The Kings Domain has a long First Nations history. Land that is now partly occupied by the Botanic Gardens was one of the first Aboriginal missions or reserves in Victoria, known as Langhorne’s Mission.
In 1842 in the Lettsom Raid, the military rounded up all the First Nations people in the Melbourne area and locked them in the barracks on St Kilda Road.
“They killed people, and they disappeared them,” Thorpe says.
With Indigenous people dispossessed, the Botanic Gardens were officially established in 1846 as a public space.
The Botanic Gardens precinct has many monuments, including a King George V statue, which was beheaded last year, and a statue of Queen Victoria, which is covered in hoarding, but there is little recognition of Indigenous history besides the granite boulder and bronze plaque in Kings Domain.
A heritage review commissioned by the City of Melbourne has found the area contains “a heavy concentration of public monuments and memorials that do not represent Aboriginal people”, are dedicated predominantly to white men and are largely silent about Aboriginal people and the significant Aboriginal history of the area.
“The wealth and elevated social status of many of those honoured in various monuments in the review area was achieved as a direct result of the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the exploitation of Aboriginal land,” the review states.
A ceremonial fire was first lit at the site during the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, and it again became a place for gathering and for memory.
The fire was lit again on Australia Day, January 26, 2024, and Thorpe and other Indigenous advocates have been maintaining a presence at the site since then.
The area and burial place was recognised in the National Heritage List in 2018 and was included in the Yoorrook Walk for Justice.
“We’re not going to go away,” Thorpe says. “We’re going to perpetuate or maintain our presence there until we get some sort of results.”
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