Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Ellie Goulding admits error over promoting diamonds from controversial Australian mine

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Singer ‘mortified’ about wearing diamonds from Argyle mine at centre of environmental concerns about Indigenous land

The singer Ellie Goulding has admitted her error at having promoted diamonds at the centre of environmental concerns about Indigenous land in Australia, despite having spent years campaigning on environmental issues – including the effects of mining on ancestral lands.

She appeared at a event in London earlier this month for the jewellery brand Boodles, modelling some of its newly acquired pink diamonds, some of which came from a controversial mine in Western Australia.

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Indigenous woman shackled to hospital bed while in labour in Queensland

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Birth happens days before Labor and Coalition block bill to ban ‘barbaric practice’ of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth

An incarcerated Indigenous woman was shackled to a hospital bed in Queensland while she was in labour last weekend, an advocacy group has said.

The birth happened just days before Labor and the Coalition blocked a bill to ban the “barbaric practice” of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth.

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Court overturns Tanya Plibersek’s protection order which stalled controversial NSW goldmine

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Federal court overrules decision by former environment minister for the McPhillamys goldmine development at Blayney

The federal court has overturned a rare protection order issued by former environment minister Tanya Plibersek under Indigenous heritage legislation, which the company said effectively blocked a controversial goldmine in the central west of New South Wales.

Regis Resources challenged the decision by the former minister to issue the order in 2024 under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.

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‘Catastrophic wildfire loop’ after colonisation left parts of Australia more at risk from bushfires, study finds

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Researchers found the shift from open woodland to dense forest after 1788 led to more intense fires, consistent with loss of cultural burning practices

The drastic land use changes wreaked by colonisation created a “catastrophic wildfire loop” that rendered south-east Australia more susceptible to climate-fuelled bushfires, experts say.

A team of researchers, working with the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, an organisation that represents traditional owners, reconstructed 1,000 years of vegetation and fire history at Purghagoolah, a lake surrounded by forest in Croajingolong national park in Gippsland, Victoria.

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Australia’s Indigenous population estimated at 2.2m before ‘demographic catastrophe’ of colonisation

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Study finds earlier numbers were underestimated, suggesting impact of diseases and massacres were much greater than previously thought

The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia before colonisation was dramatically underestimated, according to new research that suggests many more of them were killed.

Modelling by a national research group puts the population levels before the 1788 first fleet arrived at 2.2 million, compared with early estimates of 250,000 people.

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Pauline Hanson says she’s sorry ‘if I offended people’ with Indigenous Australians remarks

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One Nation leader had been condemned by figures from across the political spectrum over the resurfaced podcast comments

Pauline Hanson has made a qualified apology after describing Indigenous Australians as the “most primitive race on Earth”, saying she did not intend to upset people and said she was sorry “if I offended people”.

The One Nation leader has been under fire from figures across the political spectrum after the comments from a podcast released in September 2025 resurfaced.

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Pauline Hanson’s comments about Indigenous Australians condemned as ‘nasty’ and ‘derogatory’

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Indigenous senators have criticised One Nation leader saying the comments showed ‘wilful ignorance’

Federal parliamentarians from across the political spectrum have joined in condemning resurfaced comments by Pauline Hanson as “nasty” and “derogatory”, after she labelled Indigenous Australians the “most primitive race on Earth”.

The Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, a Yanyuwa and Garrwa woman, described the One Nation senator’s comments as “totally outrageous” while her opposition counterpart, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, said Hanson’s comments showed “wilful ignorance” and had “dragged the conversation into appalling territory”.

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NSW police settle trespass case after visiting Indigenous children’s home 150 times in 20 months

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Trespass case launched by two mothers settled after officers often went to families’ houses between midnight and 4am

Two Indigenous mothers have settled a trespass case against New South Wales police, after officers turned up at one of their homes 150 times in 20 months to conduct bail checks on her sons.

The case, which was launched against NSW police in April 2024, was settled on confidential terms three weeks before it was to go to trial in the supreme court.

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Australian boxing great Tony Mundine dies aged 75

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Father of former boxer and NRL star Anthony Mundine had a heart attack on Sunday

Indigenous Australian boxing great Tony Mundine has died, aged 75.

The father of former boxer and NRL star Anthony Mundine had a heart attack on Sunday.

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‘Staggering’: watchdog condemns police after Indigenous teenager on bus wrongfully arrested – then searched

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Ombudsman Iain Anderson says he is concerned police ‘had no clearly understood definition of racial profiling’

The commonwealth and ACT ombudsman has criticised the Australian federal police for failing to clearly define “racial profiling” after police in Canberra pulled guns on an Indigenous teenager who they mistook for a suspect in an aggravated burglary.

The scathing investigation, released on Tuesday, made eight recommendations to the Australian federal police (AFP) and ACT Policing after investigating the November 2025 incident. ACT Policing sits under the AFP as the community policing arm.

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‘My heart breaks into a million pieces’: emotional tributes to Kumanjayi Little Baby at Alice Springs funeral

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Hundreds gathered with flashes of pink to farewell the five-year-old girl, who was allegedly murdered in April

A sombre funeral service for Kumanjayi Little Baby has been attended by hundreds of people from the Alice Springs community and surrounds.

Wearing pink and some dressed in T-shirts bearing the face of the five-year-old girl, the crowd gathered under grey skies in the red centre capital on Saturday.

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A record number of First Nations people died in NSW prison custody last year. Advocates fear this year will be worse

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Exclusive: Karlene Whitton says her son Matthew Roberts took his own life three months into his jail term. ‘I keep picturing it every night’

First Nations advocates warn that prisons in New South Wales could exceed the record number of Indigenous deaths in custody set last year, after two men died this month.

Matthew Roberts, a 27-year-old Bundjalung, Yaegl and Gamilaroi man and father of two young boys, took his life inside Lithgow correctional centre on 7 July after he was remanded in custody in March. Another First Nations man, 21, died a week later at Clarence correctional centre.

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School in remote SA Indigenous community on list of places where accused paedophile worked

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Police investigating Hamish Tait – who faces 329 child abuse charges – have released list of 55 locations where he worked or attended

A federal police investigation into an accused paedophile facing more than 300 child abuse charges has expanded to a remote community in South Australia.

Hamish Tait, 35, faces 329 charges of child abuse between 2009 and 2025 while working across 62 centres.

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Here we Joh again? The spectre of Bjelke-Petersen still looms large over Queensland

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The LNP’s unapologetic moves on crime, transgender healthcare and police-led suppression of protests are a throwback to days many thought had come and gone

A sign stopped Aunty Sandra King in her tracks. The elder of the Yagara, Quandamooka and Bundjalung people, now in her 70s, spoke at a protest last month against plans to build an Olympic stadium in the heart of Brisbane’s Victoria Park.

In the crowd a man held aloft a homemade placard with the words “I Preferred Joh”.

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Pauline Hanson says she ‘had to have a conversation’ about immigration and the Aboriginal flag with new Farrer MP

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David Farley was told One Nation’s policy was to fly only the Australian flag, party leader tells conference

One Nation’s leader, Pauline Hanson, says she “had to have a conversation” with the new Farrer MP, David Farley, after he appeared to defy her policies on immigration and flying Indigenous flags.

Shortly before winning Farrer in May’s byelection – the first federal lower house seat One Nation has won outright – Farley said Labor’s current immigration intake of 306,000 was “probably not” too much.

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Death of Indigenous teen found on rail tracks with towel under head ‘suspicious’, NSW coroner says

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Police initially ruled Mark Haines’ 1988 death a suicide but coroner says investigation hindered by racism and deeply flawed

The police investigation into the death of Indigenous teenager Mark Haines in northern New South Wales nearly four decades ago was hindered by racism and deeply flawed, a coroner has found.

The body of the Gomeroi teenager was discovered on train tracks outside Tamworth on the morning of 16 January 1988.

A stolen Holden Torana was found crashed nearby.

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Government declines to protect Indigenous sacred site to be bulldozed for Brisbane Olympic stadium

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Environment minister Murray Watt decides against emergency declaration to halt construction but does not rule out ‘longer term protections’

The federal government has decided against an 11th-hour intervention to halt construction of an Olympic stadium and aquatic centre in the heart of Brisbane, in a park that traditional owners say is a First Nations sacred site.

The environment minister, Murray Watt, issued a statement on Sunday afternoon to say he had considered applications made under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act for him to stop construction in Victoria Park.

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Community shocked after Aboriginal rock shelter bulldozed for NSW power lines

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The heritage site was destroyed by contractors building transmission lines for the Central-West Orana renewable energy zone

Indigenous community members have described their shock and anger after an Aboriginal rock shelter was “damaged beyond recovery” by contractors building transmission lines for a New South Wales renewable energy zone.

The heritage site was destroyed by bulldozers in March during the construction of access tracks for the Central-West Orana renewable energy zone, a transmission line project located about 300km north-west of Sydney.

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Signs of ‘feeding’ ritual at dingo burial site shed new light on bond between First Nations people and canines

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Never documented archaeologically before, evidence points to First Nations people caring for and nursing the animal

The discovery of a millennium-old dingo burial site in western New South Wales, including evidence of a “feeding” ritual never before documented archaeologically, has shed new light on the longstanding relationship between the canines and First Nations people.

The dingo was buried along the Baaka, or Darling River, in Kinchega national park near the Menindee Lakes.

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Horrified Wagga residents call for proper sanitation at homeless camp where baby was found dead

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Tent where twins were born up to a 15-minute walk away from nearest public toilets or running water

The tent where a newborn baby was found dead at Wagga beach at the weekend was part of a homeless encampment up to a 15-minute walk away from the nearest public toilets or running water, with residents in a nearby apartment block saying conditions were “worse than a Syrian war camp”.

The tragedy has prompted fury in the community, with residents of Wagga Wagga calling on authorities to take urgent action to make the encampments safe and sanitary.

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