Category: Indigenous affairs

It was a dramatic return to the political stage! With the election underway, indigenous activist Noel Pearson broke a self-imposed silence which he had kept for 18 months since the failure of the referendum on the voice to parliament. (more…)

The passage 50 years ago of the Racial Discrimination Act, Australia’s first substantial piece of human rights legislation, laid the basis for the recognition of native title in the common law in the 1990s. (more…)

On 25 April, a group of Neo-Nazi protesters booed Uncle Mark Brown’s Welcome to Country at the Melbourne ANZAC Day Shrine service. (more…)

Norms do not sustain themselves. They are shaped, modelled, and sometimes destroyed – publicly, rhetorically, politically. (more…)

“Sacrifice”, the ABC Four Corners episode of 10 March, was a train-wreck for the Australian War Memorial. Its spokespersons came across as dismissive, timid, or too clever by half. The critics of the Memorial, however, were passionate, regretful, and, in the case of Geoffrey Watson SC from the Centre for Public Integrity, downright angry. (more…)

Having a legal action one has lodged with a court being refused is not usually the ideal outcome. Yet, the recent attempt by Uncle Robbie Thorpe to launch a private prosecution against so-called King Charles III for the crime of genocide being denied by the Victorian Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Krauatungalung elder to take the matter to a higher court beyond local borders. (more…)

In the 1860s, as the new colony of Victoria boomed following the discovery of gold, First Peoples were being moved onto missions and reserves, where their lives were tightly controlled. (more…)

Humphrey McQueen (Pearls and Irritations, ‘The lucky Aborigines’ 26 January 2025), has reminded us of John Howard’s opinion that “the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British. Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent than other European colonisers.” (more…)

“I do hold the view that the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British,” he said. “Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent colonisers than other European countries.” – John Howard, October 26, 2023. (more…)

I have been reading Stan Grant’s beautiful new book, Murriyang song of time (Bundyi: Sydney 2024). There is in it a sentence pertaining to the Uluru Statement of the Heart and the subsequent failed Referendum. Stan Grant says, poignantly, that ‘the Uluru Statement spoke from the afflicted to a nation that has never loved us.’ (more…)

The increasing global demand for rare earth elements (REE) is driven by clean energy technologies. The electric vehicle in particular, is a strong driving force. The un-ceded sovereign lands of hundreds of First Nations – now colonised and called Australia – hold at least four per cent of the world’s rare earth element reserves. (more…)

The decision by Australia’s federal Opposition leader to avoid standing by the Aboriginal flag is a dangerously divisive and cynical move. (more…)

It’s true.

The night fears have come to pass.

The evidence is too great to ignore any longer. My country, our nation, is racist. (more…)

The visit of the British royals was for many Australians a non-event, an almost unreal formality that has to be experienced and processed. During the visit, Lydia Thorpe felt compelled to very publicly state: “You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. … We want a treaty in this country. This is not your land.” A stark reminder of unfinished business in the Australian colony. (more…)

In 1962, a columnist with the Melbourne Herald noted that a 16th century sculpture of Madonna and Child would be on that year’s Christmas stamp. He went on to praise ‘Our Lady of the Aborigines’ as ’a real Australian Madonna and Child,’ before asking, ‘How about it for next year?’ (more…)

So Bridget McKenzie thinks Lidia Thorpe’s protest against King Charles raises some “quite tricky constitutional questions”. Yes it does, but not the ones she thinks. (more…)

“It was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol.” – Paul Keating, Redfern speech. (more…)

One year on from the defeat of the ‘Indigenous Voice’ referendum of 14 October 2023, some myths have arisen about the process and the outcome. These deserve further discussion. (more…)