Charles Pakana: On 19th March 2026, the Djaara Corporation, representing the Dja Dja Wurrung clans in Victoria and the city of Greater Bendigo, signed a five year renewal of a groundbreaking agreement between the Traditional Owners of Country and one of the largest regional local government authorities in Victoria. The agreement, named Yilingga Marna or “Shake hands and walk Together”. To talk about this on today’s program, I’m joined by the interim CEO of Djaara, Cassandra Lewis, and the CEO of the city of Greater Bendigo, Andrew Cooney. Cassandra, thanks for joining us today.

Cassandra Lewis: Thanks for having me.

Charles: And Andrew, you as well. Thanks so much indeed for your time.

Andrew Cooney: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

Charles: Cassandra, I’ll start with you because partnerships at various levels have existed between local governments and Traditional Owners for decades. From the Djaara perspective, what is it about Yilingga Marna that differentiates it from other agreements and MOUs that have gone before?

Cassandra: That’s a really good question. I think Yilingga Marna is fundamentally different because it’s principles based, long term, and designed to change how decisions are made, not just how organisations interact. And unlike other MOUs, this agreement embeds shared responsibility, mutual accountability and ongoing governance rather than one off commitments or project by project transactions.

Charles: Andrew, this goes back to something that you and I spoke about before the interview where it’s more about embedding a change, and I’m paraphrasing somewhat, within the organization rather than just going along, as Cassandra mentioned, on this project by project. What I’m interested to find out though is just what’s the genesis of this project? Because as I mentioned at the beginning, this is a renewal of an agreement, but it’s been going for a couple of years beforehand. So from Bendigo’s perspective, what led you into this and what’s the brief history of it?

Andrew: Yeah, so the brief history; we had a strong foundation of working with Dja Dja Wurrung and the city of Greater Bendigo. There were some challenges with implementing and interpreting different rules though. And when we think about the Recognition and Settlement Agreement and the obligations that that imposed, rightly so, around councils and the opportunities that it provided for Djaara, the application of that, it became challenging and it started driving what we thought was an unhealthy wedge between the organisations. And years of goodwill and years of positive intent were all of a sudden at risk because we couldn’t agree on an obligation or a compensation payment amount. And so rather than continuing to get into the depths of us not being able to agree between Cassandra and myself at the time, we thought that there’s got to be a better way. And it was a different way and a leap of faith, but it really helped restore a pathway and an escalation point for our teams that were caught in this web of trying to do the right thing for each organization, but not necessarily delivering the right outcome.

Charles: Cassandra, I want to ask you, because you’ve been involved in this from the very, very beginning, you were part of the initiation project. When this idea came up, what was it that you really wanted to achieve through this relationship with the local government?

Cassandra: I think when you’re in a sense negotiating your rights, those relationships become very transactional and it doesn’t- It’s not the basis for a good partnership. So I saw this as a really good opportunity to move away from that transactional nature, focus on the relationships and the outcomes.

Charles: I’m interested; this started post the modern Treaty era. Now you must be expecting this question, for goodness sake. Given that there was an indication already that local Treaties were going to be brought into place and that local governments may well be brought into those local Treaty negotiations, was there any stage where you would have thought, well, you know, let’s just wait and see what happens with local Treaty and if not, ‘cause you’re shaking your head here, if not, why not?

Cassandra: There was a lot of uncertainty around time frames. Djaara, as you may know, are always pushing the boundaries and we don’t want to stop. It’s a dangerous game, I think, to stop the momentum and to wait for something that’s not fully known or understood in terms of timeframe. So it’s never our preference to wait and put decisions in the hands of others.

Charles: Andrew, you made mention when you were speaking earlier about challenges within the project and setting this up, would you care to elaborate on some – not all – some are off the record and I recognise that, but some of the key challenges? And I think this is important for other local governments that may wish to replicate a similar agreement down the track.

Andrew: So when I talked before around the toing and froing our teams were having, they couldn’t find the common ground for all the reasons trying to do the right thing by each organisation. Cassie and I have done these sorts of discussions a few times. I heard Cassie sit at a natural resources forum talking about an aspiration for the future, I think was a question you asked and it was your response, and I’m going to paraphrase but it was, “I don’t want my kids to have to fight for their rights like I’ve had to fight for my rights. I don’t want my kids to have to keep telling the story.” And that was a bit of an eye opening moment for me to think what’s the systemic change that we can try and influence, try and make so that the system does part of that talking and part of that rights recognition rather than relying on individual leaders who it must get pretty tiresome to have to go back and tell your story all the time and talk about what’s rightfully yours. So that was an eye opening moment for me. I had the privilege of riding on this journey for a couple of years and it was really –  no time bound, we didn’t say how long we wanted to take before we got to a point of having something that we could present to our, our boards, my counsel and Cassie’s board around an agreement. And it was a bit of a journey of discovery to understand, you know, what self determination means for Djaara, what’s leading to this aspiration, how can we keep up with all the great work, keep up at best, but certainly not stand in the way of the progress Djaara’s making. I got a chance to sit with that. We developed an agreement that made sense to both of us with a 12 month period. When it got agreed by the council, I turned to our teams who had the role of actually then turning it into living projects, living work. There was some gaps for them and I guess in my reflection is, that initial part of the 12 months. So it was a ‘dip the toe in the water and see how it goes’. It probably wasn’t enough. The team felt pretty pressured to turn around and actually take what was a pretty simple set of commitments into a pretty complex arrangement. And my reflection is the challenges there. It was deliberately simple because it made sense to us, but the teams had to go and then embed it, there were some bits missing.

Charles: We will talk a little bit later about some possible political and bureaucratic challenges. But before we get there, Cassandra, I’d really like to dive down a little bit more on the initial parts of this agreement: and that is the first 12 months. And for our audience, I believe it was a 12 month start, then there was a 12 month extension and today marked the five year signing for that extended agreement. During that first 12 months, Cassandra, what were you really aware of and what were some of the things that stuck out in your mind that, ‘oh my gosh, if we’re going to continue this, this has got to be resolved and remedied?’

Cassandra: I think as Andrew mentioned, there were some challenges in the implementation. And I guess it’s easy for us to sit in a room and we had a lot longer to sit with this agreement during the development of it. And then when it’s handed over to others to implement new ways of working, it is quite a challenge. But I always had faith that we would get there. I always speak to staff about the importance of the long game, investing in relationships, not just outcomes. Outcomes come from positive relationships, but you have to invest the time, you have to build trust. Exercising Djaara’s rights are part of an organization, not an add on. So there were challenges getting through that. There wasn’t anything specifically that I thought this must change in the review or this, this wasn’t the right way to go. I think very broadly, it had everything it needed. It just needed time, it needed patience that needed relationships to grow.

Charles: What about support from within the Djaara community? How important was it to get that support from community? And obviously the ongoing consultation within community prior to actually starting to develop that very first iteration of Yilingga Marna?

Cassandra: Well, as this agreement stemmed from, obviously, obligations around the land use activity agreement, it was something that had to be done anyway. But it was very compliance based. It was- people were regulated to do certain things. And I think all of the community would agree that after 10 years of having our recognition and settlement agreement, it was time for others to take off the training wheels. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Cassandra: The RSA should be looked at as a minimum standard. And Djaara have spent many years delivering really great outcomes, showing that we can partner, we can be professional, we can be respectful. We add value to what happens on Country. And so others should be at a place where they’re working with Djaara, not because they have to, but because they want to, because of the brilliant outcomes that we’ve done together over the years that started from being compliance based and moving to something that’s more like a Treaty agreement. You know, this is kind of Treaty in action. We work together because we want to note, because we have to anymore.

Charles: Does it help form the foundation for the local treaty processes? Because Djaara, as most of Victoria, or most of well informed Victoria would know, were the very first traditional owners to engage with the Treaty Authority and register on that database as being ready to start negotiating Treaty. So just before we go back to Andrew, we’ll give him time to think about some more of the bureaucratic and political challenges, because this is a learning experience for other LGAs as well. But does it form part of a foundation going forward for Treaty? What are some of the learnings?

Cassandra: I think it’s a practical expression to Treaty’s principles right now, rather than waiting for future state based outcomes. In models what Treaties look like at a local level is recognition of sovereignty and authority, shared decision making and respect for each other’s law [lore] and governance systems. The agreement builds institutional muscle memory, helping organisations learn how to work in treaty-like relationships.

Charles: Andrew, I’ve given you time to think about it. So some of those specific political and bureaucratic challenges, obviously without compromising confidentialities. 

Andrew: Our Councillors have been on this journey with us, and as my starting point, we already had a good place to launch from. We had a strong foundation, there were strong levels of trust. We’ve seen Djaara build to where they’re at now. But there are challenges. I think we’ve been really open about what we’re trying to work through and the ‘why’ and getting people to understand why we’re doing this, and these aren’t handouts. This is about rights recognition and restoration of rights. This is about joined outcomes. This is about saying, “yes, we can do a project.” Not just bring Djaara in to say do you like what we’re doing? But to get Djaara in at the coal face and the early stage of a project actually help co-design it to help deliver part of it, to embed their wisdom. The project becomes a better project, delivers a better outcome and delivers a chance to tell a story and provide some education. So, I guess the political system and the bureaucratic system, we can use it as a shield to say why we don’t want to do things, or we can try and shift it a bit and open it up to be able to deliver better things. And I think that’s what we’ve been able to do. The bureaucratic system, if we followed the bouncing ball, wouldn’t have got us to this point. And I think Yilingga Marna in itself is a non-legal document and signal of intent that actually bridges the bureaucratic system that says, okay, the bureaucratic system is not delivering us the outcomes we’re looking for. So let’s create a bit of a leap of faith and do something a little bit different and create a different way, an innovative way that actually gets us where we want to get to. It wasn’t without its challenges, even some internal state parts said, actually what you’re doing might need ministerial approval because it’s a bit of a deviation from what the instruments and the RSA say. 

Charles: So how did you deal with that?

Andrew: We probably just pushed on and said, well you stop us if you want.

Charles: So fortune favours the brave.

Andrew: Well, I think so. And again, I think it was looking for reasons to do it, not reasons to not do it. Yeah, and I guess that’s the simple way of saying, if you have enough will and your intention’s pure and you’re focused on the outcome, then the bureaucracy, you can find a way through that. I won’t say around it, we found a way through it. The politics, again, in our environment, we had a supportive political environment, we had a supportive Djaara board. And I think that we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of that either, that no one felt they were winning or no one felt they were losing. There was a bit about us just saying this is a good thing to do. And I think that’s a really important part of a political cycle to be able to work through.

Charles: Well, we’ve heard about it from the Djaara perspective and from the city of Greater Bendigo perspective. But what’s important for me to understand is also the benefits of the broader community, because obviously this is what both organisations are very aware of. I’ve worked with Djaara many times over the years and I’m fully aware of the obligations of local government authority. But if you were to pitch this to the broader community, what would you say, Cassandra, and we’ll start with you, would be the real benefits to the community as a result of

Yilingga Marna?

Cassandra: There’s some project outcomes that people can really interact with, and there’s a great example at the Bendigo Creek that was once essentially a dumping ground, a tip, and there were lots of properties in that vicinity that wasn’t necessarily part of this specific agreement, but part of the projects that we did with the City over time. It’s about incorporating traditional ecological knowledge and knowledge of how to restore Country that’s been handed down over thousands of years, incorporating that with Western ways of revegetation. And so that creek is now a series of frog ponds, there’s water in it, there’s life in it, the birds sing, you know, the insects are back and the community are interacting with that space in a way that they haven’t for a very long time. So I think there’s really tangible outcomes that benefit not just Djarra, not just the city, but the communities we both serve.

Charles: And what about – and I’ll stay with you, Cassandra – because an important thing, as I drove up here to Bendigo today to conduct this interview, was seeing the devastation of Country as a result of the recent bushfires, which everybody across the Country has heard about. What do you believe the cultural knowledge of the Dja Dja Wurrung people can bring more broadly to the environment to address some of these catastrophic situations that will continue to confront us at a more escalated level, for goodness sake, we know that?

Cassandra: Yeah, this is a subject, I guess, that becomes more important as we see these forms of natural disaster across Country. And I think again, as I mentioned, applying traditional ecological knowledge and traditional cultural land management practices that have been known and accepted that they successfully manage Country for thousands of years, about applying the tools that Country need at the time, applying fire when fire should be applied, not responding to crisis type situations. And I think that the more that Djaara are involved at the starting point of how we want to manage land on Country, I think we will be in a more proactive space rather than trying to react when something doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked. And I think that’s the value that Djaara can bring.

Charles: And Andrew, to you now, what are some of the things that you would say to the broader community, “Hey guys, this is what’s going to benefit you?”

Andrew: Well, just taking that example that Cassie was talking about and the frog ponds again, frog ponds are wonderful demonstration, I think of sure of what can be done. The frog ponds had a cultural burn done last season, I think. So frog ponds border onto housing and they had vegetation that needed to be reduced. Our traditional Western way, given its proximity to housing, would probably have been to spray it, to slash it. So we’d essentially destroy Country. Instead of doing that, we had a cultural burn. We let the community know about it and not a burn off like Western society thinks about a burn off. It was a very slow, safe, creeping low fire and had a wonderful outcome. The community knew what was happening. It wasn’t a massive fire, no one got concerned or complained. There was no damage loss. So instead of using a Western technology to essentially destroy Country, we actually used a Traditional Owner culture to actually restore Country. And so there’s parts of that that community can get an understanding that fire doesn’t have to be bad if it’s controlled and it’s done properly. If I then reflect on some of the other projects that we’ve done, we’ve got great examples at our municipal baths, which again was a barren wasteland on the edge of the city centre. Djaara Landscape Team, Djaare Design, we did some of the work on the waterway and shoring the waterway up from a dam perspective. Djaara did some great work around landscape and rejuvenation and it’s a beautiful landscape now that the community can use and enjoy. And then if I think about moving forward, we’re in a building called Galkangu which has got beautiful Djaara artwork on it. We’re looking across to a TAFE building which has got beautiful Djaara artwork. We can look across to the courts, which has got beautiful Djaara embossed Bunjil overlooking the city centre. So within 100 metres we can see three depictions of Djaara culture right in our face. And so to be able to restore language and restore culture and art on our building fabrics is, I think, a wonderful recognition of our history. But also it starts people talking about language and understanding and hopefully a bit of curiosity around. What’s Galkangu mean? What’s Guri Wanyarra mean (our aquatic centre)? What’s Ulumbarra mean (Our major theatre)? So we’re really lucky to have language on display and hopefully a bit of curiosity from the community to start understanding and being able to practice, get reacquainted with culture.

Charles: Andrew, I’ll just stick with you with the last question, and that is, I note that the partnership could really be an example to other local government authorities. So what specific elements of this agreement do you believe are the most replicable for other councils and to groups across the state or even further afield?

Andrew: I think the process of getting to the agreement for me is the most replicable and the most beneficial part of the agreement. The agreement’s got elements in it that have been negotiated between Djaara and the City of Greater Bendigo because they apply to the situation that we’re in and the aspiration that we’re jointly trying to get to. But my encouragement back to the other councils would be to open eyes, throw yourself into it, go on the journey and see what outcomes you can get for your community which is joint beneficial to your TO. And we’ve had councils come to us and say, “oh, we want one of them. How do we get one of these?” And our commitment back to Djaara from the start was, this is our agreement. 

Charles: Yeah.

Andrew: We’ll talk about as much or as little as you want, but I come back to the ‘if you’re going to do it, do it honourably, do it with the right intentions. Don’t try and do it for a commercial win, do it because you think it’s the right thing to do. That’s the two year part, the openness to the learning and the understanding of what is that joint beneficial? Where’s the common ground here? And that’s the most beneficial replicable part that any other council could go through.

Charles: Cassandra, what about you? From the other side of the negotiation table and also representing Traditional Owners, what are some of those more replicable features that you believe other Traditional Owner groups and local governments could really hook onto to bring about a similar situation.

Cassandra: I think some early lessons reinforce the importance of clear roles and responsibilities, investing in relationships, not just outputs, and allowing time for trust to deepen. And to Andrew’s point, we’ve also been approached to replicate. For Djaara, we’ve often been the first to do certain things and with that comes great responsibility. You’re, in a sense setting a precedent for others, so it’s critical to a bad agreement, you’re better to have no agreement. So I think taking the time, not rushing it, building relationships, ensuring that the opportunities for review allow for strengthening the agreement, strengthening the relationship. Yilingga Marna and my advice to others is, design it to outlast individual leaders. Its strength lies in being embedded in organisational systems and values, not in personalities. And, and I think other Traditional Owner groups would be aware, sometimes in partnerships you get a champion within an organization, someone who just gets it, does things because they’re the right things to do, but then they move on for different reasons and in a sense you have to start all over again. So just make sure that it’s strategically designed to outlast cycles and roles and elections.

Charles: Cassandra Lewis, CEO – or interim CEO, I should say – of Djaara, thanks so much indeed for your time.

Cassandra: Thank you very much.

Charles: Andrew Cooney, CEO of the City of Greater Bendigo. Thanks for your time as well.

Andrew: My pleasure.