A NSW parliamentarian is calling for a museum in Bathurst to mark the frontier wars of 200 years ago.
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Upper House MP Jeremy Buckingham - a former Orange City councillor and Greens MP who now represents Legalise Cannabis NSW - says a state-significant Wiradyuri cultural and history facility is needed in Bathurst.
It comes as the city prepares to mark the 200th anniversary of the declaration of martial law in this region by Governor Thomas Brisbane.
In a speech this week in NSW Parliament partly in the Wiradyuri language, Mr Buckingham said it was time to speak the truth - or gari yarra.
He said the funding for the cultural and history facility could form part of the bicentenary commemoration this year of the NSW Legislative Council, which held its first meeting on August 25, 1824, 11 days after the declaration of martial law around Bathurst.
"This is far more than a history lesson," Mr Buckingham said.
"We cannot celebrate our proud democratic history if we don't also honour the Wiradyuri experience because they involve the same actors, at the same time and on the same Country."
Bathurst's Dinawan Dyirribang Uncle Bill Allen, a Wiradyuri elder, said he welcomed the speech.
"I would like to thank the Parliament for hearing this story and helping to make NSW a better place," he said.
"The history is important because it recognises that the food sources, the culture and the environment of the Wiradyuri people were heavily impacted.
"You had this clash of two opposing societies that didn't fit.
"For us, a keeping place is a way to return artefacts to Country. A large collection of our artefacts is currently housed in various Sydney institutions. We would like to see these items returned to Country."
At the ceremony held last year to mark the 199th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, the Bathurst branch of the National Trust's Iain McPherson said the organisation was deeply committed to being part of a community that tells the truth about what happened in and around the city.
"Our present and our future is built on our past and our future will be better if we have a true and proper foundation of memories and knowledge about our past," he said.
"It was a time of terrible battling between the colonial forces who were seeking to take the land of the Wiradyuri people and establish their idea of progress and, in the process, took Aboriginal land."
'Pretty remarkable'
ON ABC Central West on Friday morning, Yanhadarrambal Uncle Jade Flynn spoke about the potential establishment "of a bricks and mortar memorial museum to the frontier wars and to the Aboriginal people that perished as a result of the declaration of martial law".
It would be "pretty remarkable and, I think, quite exciting if it does come off", he said.
He also said Mr Buckingham's speech in the Upper House was a "bit of a moment in history".
"To have the truth of what's happened in our shared modern history recognised at such a high level, it's not really, to my knowledge, been done before in that way," he said.
