"We're tired of being under this white law system, we're tired of our people dying, tired of the violence and the breakdown in our own law system and our land being destroyed, we're tired of being homeless in our own Country, that is why we're going home".
Susan Rankin, 2004.

CULTURAL/SPIRITUAL/HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In Jaara Country (just outside of Daylesford, Central Victoria) - Jaara descendant Susan Rankin has reclaimed her traditional sovereign rights to land. On Sorry Day, the 26th May 2004, a new Jaara 'Going Home' camp was established at the Franklinford Community Centre to highlight 'unfinished business' between the Australian governments and Aboriginal people. Franklinford is part of the original Aboriginal Protectorate of the mid 1800s. Despite recognition in 1861 that this land was "indeed their own", Jaara people were forcibly removed from their Country and have been struggling ever since to have their rights to land recognised.

Like other Indigenous elders Australia wide, Susan Rankin is now asking the government's of today to fully recognize Jaara sovereignty or produce the formal written documents of consent to occupy Jaara Lands. The Department of Sustainability and Environment, which oversees the management of the said Crown lands at Franklinford, has already stated that they are not "in possession of any such documents, if indeed they exist".

It is this continual failure of Australian Governments to give proper and adequate recognition of Aboriginal Sovereignty that has meant Aboriginal people must continue take their own steps to ensure they can establish their own economic base and have access to their land, history, culture, and places of spiritual importance. Franklinford is a highly significant location in all these aspects.

Aboriginal sovereign rights were given by Bunjil - "the author of nature" and cannot be broken. Without land justice and treaty; the Genocide continues