ABSTRACT
Like all Australian cities, Melbourne is built on the unceded and unrecognized country of Aboriginal nations, with Melbourne’s built-up area largely over the country of Wurundjeri people. While there is often quite prominent symbolic recognition of this, there is no formal recognition of rights and title, and indeed little prospect of such recognition given the constraints presented by the native title regime (see Chapter 4). Moreover, Indigenous people in Melbourne experience quite profound marginalization – they are usually poorer, experiencing high levels of unemployment and homelessness, much like the urban experience of many Indigenous peoples in other settler states.
