The Koorie Heritage Trust Inc emerged through Jim Berg’s dedicated efforts to include Koorie identity into the community at large and in a series of litigation, legal grounds were established that Koorie people should have control over their ancestral material.
Established in 1985 by Jim Berg JP, the late Ron Castan AM QC and Justice Ron Merkel, the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc was initially located at the Museum of Victoria.
The Trust was incorporated in 1992.
In 1995, the Trust opened Koorie, a Keeping Place and permanent exhibition that detailed Koorie history and culture from time immemorial to the present. Koorie closed in 1997 due to the re-location of the Museum of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria.
Following a fire that destroyed the building that the Trust was only weeks’ away from moving into, the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc was re-located to a temporary home in Flinders Lane.
Finally on 24 March 2003, the Koorie Heritage Trust moved into a new, permanent, three-storey Cultural Centre!