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Lynch mobs rather pointedly do not keep accounts: in a sense, they seek to negate history itself1 In June 1926 in the river, plain and ravine country of the Forrest River district of the Kimberley, Western Australia, some carvings on the limbs or trunks of two trees of indeterminate genus and age formed one of the impermanent residues of a police patrol's actions at police camp No 2. The 1927 Royal Commission of inquiry into alleged killing and burning of bodies of Aborigines in East Kimberley, and into Police methods when effecting arrests was established to inquire into what had occurred throughout that patrol.2 3 In the current 'history wars', controversy is overtaking the Report of the Royal Commission.

The floodplain wetlands of northern Victoria are crucial for conservation of biodiversity and the livelihoods of people. Extensive ecosystem degradation and recent extreme floods and droughts have highlighted the urgent need for more sustainable management. We draw on expertise in ecology, hydrology, climatology and governance to synthesise key knowledge and options for enhanced conservation of the floodplains. A key finding is the need for more flexible mechanisms for delivering water to the diverse array of wetlands. A key option is ‘relaxing constraints’ that involves agreements with selected landholders to enable pulses of environmental water to fill river channels and safely spill onto low-lying floodplain wetlands. This should improve conservation of biodiversity, better manage flood risk and support a diverse range of local agricultural and recreational industries. These options may aid Victorians to find better ways of managing the rich lands, waters and biota of the floodplains in the southern part of the Murray–Darling Basin.

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Transformative urban development is urgent to achieve future sustainable development and wellbeing. Transformation can benefit from shared and cumulative learning on strategies to guide urban development across local to national scales, while also reflecting the complex emergent nature of urban systems, and the need for context-specific and place-based solutions. The article addresses this challenge, drawing on extensive transdisciplinary engagement and National Strategy co-development processes for Australia. This includes generation of two frameworks as boundary objects to assist such transdisciplinary strategy development. An ‘enabling urban systems transformation’ framework comprises four generic overarching transformation enablers and a set of necessary underpinning urban capacities. This also built cumulatively on other sustainability and urban transformation studies. A complementary ‘knowledge for urban systems transformation’ framework comprises key knowledge themes that can support an integrated systems approach to mission-focused urban transformations, such as decarbonising cities. The article provides insights on the transdisciplinary processes, urban systems frameworks, and scoping of key strategies that may help those developing transformation strategies from local to national scales.Science highlights• Transdisciplinary national urban strategy development is used to distil generic frameworks and strategy scopes with potential international application.• The frameworks also build on other published framings to support convergent, cumulative and transdisciplinary urban science.• The ‘enabling transformations’ and ‘urban knowledge’ frameworks include the perspective of those developing sustainable urban systems strategies.• The enabling framework also informs ‘National Urban Policy’ and ‘Knowledge and Innovation Hub’ strategies, and prevailing power imbalances.• The knowledge framework can help frame urban challenges, missions and knowledge programs.Policy and practice recommendations• An urban ‘transformation imperative’ and ‘strategic response’ can be co-developed from local to national scales.• Local initiative is crucial to drive urban strategies, but sustained national leadership with coherent policy across sectors and scales is also key.• Diversity in engagement participation and processes generates whole-of-urban-systems and local-to-national perspectives.• Urban solutions are context-specific but generic frameworks can help collaborative issue framing and responses.• Collaborative issue framing informed by generic frameworks can bring broader perspectives to context-specific and contested policy and practice issues.