Bracks won - Gunditjmara yet to score

In gaining acknowledgement of native title over an area of 269 square kilometres, the Wotjobaluk and Wergaia communities forfeited forever the opportunity to make any further claim over an area of about 6,200 square kilometres.

Non-Indigenous Victorians are not restricted in any way from gaining access to land covered by the agreement.

The inertia and secrecy of native title processes is the stuff of legend. The Machiavellian conclusion that the appearance of progress can be made to do duty for results is difficult to resist. While there is much muttering about the importance of “clarity” and “consistency” on the part of governments, there is a notable absence of commonsense explanation about how native title works.

The Bracks Government spent millions of dollars on a self-congratulatory advertising campaign around its marine parks. However, it can't find a fraction of this amount to defuse the needlessly divisive issue of native title.

Rob Hulls spoke plainly and bravely at Horseshoe Bend, observing that "dispossession was a deliberate policy ... of intentional estrangement of this land's custodians from their country".

Using language that might have warmed the great Eddie Mabo's heart, Hulls' conclusion allowed for no ambiguity: "We are complicit in this atrocity unless we find ways within our means to set it right."

The task remains to match this laudable rhetoric with tangible results.

Away to the south-west of Victoria around Portland and Warrnambool is the country of the “fighting” Gunditjmara. Whether this epithet pays testimony to the warrior spirit of the community, or to the Gunditjmara men who eked out a living in Jimmy Sharman's boxing tents is uncertain. But there is no doubt surrounding the plentiful evidence of Indigenous custodianship over this country.

For thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans the Gunditjmara practised ceremony, and farmed eels and fish through a sophisticated system of dams and channels. This community is well-advanced in its native title negotiations with the state government, conducted as ever under a veil of secrecy.

However, it's a racing certainty that the interests of pastoralists, miners, beekeepers and bushwalkers will not be adversely affected by any agreement.

Mr Hulls must seize this further opportunity to help set things right.