• The Dhuluny Conference at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 August marks the 200^th anniversary of the 1824 declaration of martial law in Bathurst and is an opportunity to progress conversations about restitution and restorative justice for Aboriginal Peoples.

Charles Sturt University will host the Dhuluny Conference on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 August as part of a wider community commemoration of the 200^th anniversary of the 1824 declaration of martial law in Bathurst.

The two-day ‘Dhuluny 1824-2024: 200 Years of Wiradyuri Resistance Conference’ will examine the historical and contemporary impacts of frontier conflict, colonial violence and the dispossession of the Wiradyuri and Aboriginal peoples from their homelands, and speaks to the truth, or dhuluny, of Australia’s history.

Professor Mark Nolan Director of the Charles Sturt Centre for Law and Justice and co-organiser Wirribee Aunty Leanna Carr and other members of the Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation confirm that ‘Dhuluny’ (dhu-loin) means ‘truth, rectitude, that which is direct, straight, living, or gospel’, and the conference is part of a week-long series of truth telling events.

“Charles Sturt University welcomes the opportunity to support the Dhuluny Conference and the week’s events to reflect on the significance of this bicentenary for relationships between non-Indigenous Australians and Wiradyuri and First Nations peoples,” Professor Nolan said.

“The historic events of two centuries ago are still playing out in the national and local landscape and it is appropriate that we take this opportunity to commit to engagement in the spirit of yindyamarra winhanganha to make a world worth living in.”

The Declaration of Martial Law ‘in all the country westward of Mount York’ by then-NSW Governor Thomas Brisbane on 14 August 1824 followed two years of conflict or ‘gudyarra’ (meaning ‘war’)  (1822-1824) between Wiradyuri and colonists and their convict slaves in the Bathurst region.

This spiralled into the broader history of what Wiradyuri people call the ‘Wiradyuri homeland wars’, or the Australian (Frontier) Wars.

A series of community events will focus on the legacies of these events and their consequences for Wiradyuri people and colonial invaders of Wiradyuri Country in the Bathurst region.

The weeklong series of events will begin with a Welcome and Opening Ceremony at Kings Parade from 10am to 11am on Sunday 11 August followed at 11.30am by a Community Smoking Ceremony at the Macquarie River Peace Park. Then at 2pm, an Elders Celebration will be held at the ‘Dhuluny: the war that never ended’ exhibition at the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

On Sunday evening, the film ‘The First Australians: they have come to stay (episode 1)’ will screen at the Charles Sturt University Ponton Theatre from 6pm to 7.30pm.

The film presents the history of Australia from Wiradyuri and other Aboriginal people’s perspectives and starts with the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney, leading to the colonial occupation and stealing of sovereign and unceded Aboriginal lands spreading to Bathurst. Guest speakers include Dinawan Dyirribang Uncle Bill Allen Jnr, senior Wiradyuri Elder and descendant of Windradyne and Mr David Suttor, descendant of George Suttor from ‘Brucedale’ at Peel.

Details of all community events during the week can be found at the Dhuluny Events program.

These include more films at the Ponton Theatre at Charles Sturt University and the launch at Bathurst Library on Tuesday 13 August by award-winning Wiradyuri author Anita Heiss of Dirrayawadha: Rise Up, her historical novel about resistance, resilience and love during the Australian (Frontier) Wars.

Conference keynote speakers include:

• Dinawan Dyirribang Uncle Bill Allen (Charles Sturt University)
• Wirribee Aunty Leanna Carr-Smith (Charles Sturt University)
• Yanhadarrambal Uncle Jade Flynn (Charles Sturt University)
• Lynda-June Coe (Macquarie University)
• Professor Marcia Langton, AO (University of Melbourne)

Dr Stephen Gapps, adjunct historian in the Charles Sturt Centre for Law and Justice and author of Gudyarra – The First Wiradyuri War of Resistance, has noted the 1824 declaration was the first use of martial law against Aboriginal people in New South Wales.

He has previously said the bicentenary in 2024 of Governor Brisbane’s declaration of martial law has become an important locus of Wiradyuri pride in resisting colonisation and in acknowledging a period of resistance warfare, violence and massacres.

“While it is commonly misunderstood and assumed that martial law was imposed on the Wiradyuri, martial law was declared to cover all, both British and de facto British subjects (Wiradyuri), and to attempt to stop colonists taking the law into their own hands, as well as stop attacks on them,” he said.

“The bicentenary is an opportunity to progress reconciliation by marking these shared histories and how they are reflected in the broader history of the Australian (Frontier) Wars.”

Find more information about the wider Dhuluny Events program and to contact the conference organiser, enquire via dhulunyconference@csu.edu.au.