We are delighted that Professor Kate Auty will deliver the Society’s second Paul Mullaly History and Law Lecture.

In this lecture Professor Auty considers a fraction of the history of First People’s exposure to the ‘Port Phillip’ legal culture that stripped them of their country. She specifically examines the corruption that made colonial land theft, occupation, and ‘entitlement’ possible. She uses the activities of corrupt squatter – Peter Snodgrass – as her launching pad. He was one of many. He was involved in and led some of the earliest arbitrary reprisals in north-east Victoria. He was a highly significant proponent of the corruption associated with squatters’ opposition to the Nicholson Land Acts. More specifically he was corruptly and cynically instrumental in the machinations that led to the theft of Taungurung country at Acheron, a place to the east of Euroa, where Professor Auty lives.

Professor Auty lives and works on Taungurung country in north-east Victoria and she acknowledges the Taungurung people, pays respect, and dedicates this paper to their place on country.

It is because of the struggle and commitment of First Peoples and their allies that our jurisdiction has striven to be a leader in respect of justice initiatives. In relatively recent times (compared with First Nations time of occupation of country), building partnerships, we established an ALS. We committed to on-country community consultation at the broadest scale during the RCIADIC. We established an Aboriginal Justice Agreement which has led to elders, respected persons, and Koori justice workers guiding Koori Courts across the state. Kooris also started the legal push for repatriation of cultural material, and then remarkably Budj Bim was appropriately declared as a world heritage site, it being a place that celebrates the oldest living culture and also that of the colonial squatting class. More recently the Yoorrook Justice Commission was established to listen, confer, and report on the truths that underpin our colonialist past and its present and continuing impacts. First Peoples are now leading the work of crafting a Treaty to recognise their entitlement to economic justice. These achievements have often involved the law. They all rest upon the robust bedrock of First Nations resilience and resourcefulness and they respond in various ways to the great inequity of the colonial and post-colonial culture of entitlement.

Today the Taungurung and others are resuming control of their country. Treaty and truth-telling are making this possible. It is time. Professor Auty hopes this paper contributes to their just claims.

His Honour Paul Mullaly QC

The Royal Historical Society of Victoria was much saddened at the death of long-serving member, His Honour Paul Mullaly QC, in 2022 just shy of his 93rd birthday. Paul contributed substantially to the RHSV over many years and in many ways however his greatest contribution has been his transcription and annotation of Judge Willis’ Port Phillip Casebooks, for which legal scholars will always be in his debt. Paul’s work can be found on a mini-website within the RHSV website here: The Judge Willis Casebooks . To honour Paul’s contribution we have established this biennial lecture on history and law in our Distinguished Lecturer series.

Speaker: Professor Kate Auty

Barrister, historian, environmentalist, active community member in regional Victoria, and author, Professor Kate Auty is passionate about diversity and inclusive community development. She is involved in a number of community-based intermediary organisations in respect of environment, climate change, energy and Indigenous matters. She is a member of the Australian Accountability Roundtable; co-chair of the Australian Open Government Partnership Multi-Stakeholder Forum; chair of the governing board of the Victorian Environmental Protection Authority; Professorial Fellow School of Law University of Melbourne and Senior Research Fellow with Melbourne Energy Futures.

She was the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability in Victoria from 2009 to 2014. She has formerly held appointments as a magistrate in Victoria and in the goldfields and western desert of Western Australia, in both positions establishing Aboriginal sentencing courts in consultation with Aboriginal people.

Kate holds tertiary qualifications in environmental science, law and history, having graduated from University of Melbourne (Arts Hons/Law), Monash University (Masters in Environmental Science), and La Trobe University (PhD in Law and Legal Studies). She also holds a Diploma of International Environmental Law from UNITAR. Kate is member of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand and is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Kate continues as a barrister in Victoria (1992 – ).

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