Plans to sell a deconsecrated church have been resurrected after a “ground-breaking” agreement was struck to address Indigenous dispossession.
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A year-and-a-half ago the Anglican Diocese of Bendigo was planning to sell the church in Glenlyon.
The land was on the market but there was a public backlash, including from Dja Dja Wurrung people.
The state government stepped in, requesting the diocese withdraw the land from auction.
Related: Anglican Church sale postponed
The controversy surrounded a 2013 recognition and settlement agreement signed by the state government and the Dja Dja Wurrung people. That agreement pledged the state to developing an equal and meaningful partnership with the Dja Dja Wurrung.
A year later the diocese successfully applied for the freehold title to the church land. It had a right to the land under state legislation passed in 1871.
The diocese’ decision in 2017 to go to auction triggered questions about compensation for traditional peoples and the specific rights they and the Anglican Church had to the Glenlyon land.
Even though recent legal advice indicated traditional owners had no right to compensation, the sale started an at times heated community conversation culminating in a deal to work together on a new reconciliation action plan.
Meanwhile, the Anglican Church now has the go-ahead to sell the land, raising money for Daylesford parish programs tackling local community needs.
The agreement has been billed as the first step in the diocese and Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation’s long term plans.
“We are so pleased that the Anglican Church has chosen not to rely today on an archaic law to make a quick quid while the economic disadvantages which result from their unwilling dispossession are experienced by the Dja Dja Wurrung every single day,” DDWCAC chairperson Trent Nelson said.
Bendigo Bishop Matt Brain said those who inherited the benefits of land cared for by Indigenous people have often been blinded to the effects of dispossession.
“We do not realise the relational and economic cost of what we enjoy,” he said.
“We (the diocese) want to recognise what has happened in the past, ask for ways that Dja Dja Wurrung would welcome our involvement and then work together on an enduring, reconciled relationship.”
This type of agreement was new to the region, Bishop Brain said, and followed broader efforts between Indigenous people and the Anglican Church to come closer together in other parts of the country.
While proceeds from the church’s auction will not go to the Dja Dja Wurrung, the agreement laid ground to identify projects, with the diocese pitching in.
“So it’s not a direct trust (set up) for the Dja Dja Wurrung. It’s a utilisation of some of the capacity we have as a diocese to help them achieve some of their plans and hopes,” Bishop Brain said.
Any projects funded through the agreement would go through the DDWCAC’s community support program, the group’s CEO Rodney Carter said.
Work was still needed to figure out the practical application of the agreement, but Mr Carter said members of the Dja Dja Wurrung could apply through the program to use for things like education, support, relocation to country support, microfinance for small businesses and support for bereavement.
The diocese is also turning its attention to selling the Glenlyon church.
Bishop Brain said the diocese was planning to make that move “imminently, this year”.
Those wondering how much a church in Glenlyon might sell for will have to wait and see, with Bishop Brain not wanting to be drawn on exact figures.
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Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
