Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians split over voice vote despite memory of colonial horror

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But memories of colonial project to wipe out Tasmania’s natives boost yes campaign on island

Patsy Cameron stands in her dining room in Tomahawk – a small fishing village on the north-east coast of Tasmania, Australia. She tells a story – a few decades old – of how she boarded a plane back from Darwin, her hands full of cultural objects she had bought. The man next to her turned and said: “They should have shot them all like they did to the Tasmanians.” She started crying. He responded by offering her a piece of cake, and an apology.

Behind her is a cabinet full of shell necklaces and drawings of her ancestors. The home she shares with her husband, Graham, is filled with cultural artefacts that the historian learned to make by reading diaries and anthologies of colonisers. Piece by piece she has put history back together. Piece by piece she is reviving her culture.

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People power and a tsunami of ads: the yes voice campaign’s last-ditch effort for an unlikely victory

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Can the campaign for the Indigenous voice defy the polls and climb the ‘goat track’ of victory?

The yes campaign plans to staff every polling booth in the country with volunteers advocating for the voice, hoping their sheer numbers of supporters – and a renewed messaging focus on the consequences of a no vote on Indigenous Australians – can be enough to counter a no campaign that holds the advantage.

But despite talk in some quarters of the vote already being lost, voice supporters hope a final fortnight – including a tsunami of ads, an enormous pre-poll effort and the effects of the much-dissected “vibe” – will combine to carry the first referendum success in 46 years.

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Penny Wong refuses to release documents related to Qatar Airways decision – as it happened

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The foreign minister claims public interest immunity over Dfat advice. This blog is now closed

Rishworth won’t confirm adoption of any disability royal commission recommendations, ahead of report release

Families and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth has refused to confirm if the government will be adopting any of the recommendations made in the disability royal commission report ahead of its public release today.

I’m not going to comment on any specific recommendations.

Obviously, we need to also make sure people with disability have choice and control.

You never change a country for the better through fear, you change it through hope and optimism and compassion and justice.

That’s what this referendum is about.

This is a body that won’t provide funds, that won’t run programs, that will just give advice to the government, and that experience of past bodies, and issues that have arisen has been factored in by Indigenous Australians when they’ve made this request.

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Clive Palmer to launch million-dollar ad blitz for no vote in voice referendum

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United Australia party leader to especially target South Australia and Tasmania in reported $2m national campaign over fortnight up to 14 October poll

The campaign against the voice will be supported by millions of dollars from mining magnate Clive Palmer, who will reportedly launch an ad blitz against the referendum in the final fortnight.

Both the yes and no campaigns are preparing for a final sprint to the 14 October polling day, with major ad buys to target key states in the referendum.

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Voice referendum battlegrounds: digital ad spending surges in South Australia and Tasmania

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Yes and no camps have both honed in on two states considered to be critical to outcome, Facebook advertising data shows

Spending on digital advertising for the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum has surged in the key battleground states of Tasmania and South Australia, a Guardian Australia investigation shows.

An analysis of Facebook ad spending by prominent pages supporting the yes and no campaigns show that, adjusted for population, both groups are heavily focused on Tasmania and South Australia.

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China lifts trade restrictions as relationship improves – as it happened

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Trade minister Don Farrell welcomes ‘positive step forward’ but says Australia pressing for all remaining restrictions to be lifted. This blog is now closed

Chalmers also declared the government is not “currently contemplating” a fuel subsidy, as prices continue to rise.

It comes after new data released yesterday showed cost of living is still increasing, with fuel costs jumping 9.1% in August, gas up 12.9% and electricity 12.7%.

It’s not something that we are currently contemplating. And one of the reasons for that is we’ve got I think, a much better way of providing cost of living help for people.

Historically, what the Reserve Bank tries to do is to understand the overall direction of travel.

And the direction of travel has been really clear, inflation is moderating overall, we’ll get these bumpy and lumpy figures month to month from time to time, but it’s moderating overall.

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Australia news live: Jacinta Allan expected to become new premier of Victoria after Dan Andrews resigns; Tesla battery storage fire in Queensland

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Bill Shorten says Allan is a ‘leader in her own right’; rule quirk means Labor may have acting premier

Andrews’ handling of pandemic ‘a legacy of his strength’, Bill Shorten says

NDIS minister and former Labor leader Bill Shorten has spoken highly of outgoing Victorian premier Daniel Andrews while speaking to ABC RN this morning.

I think the pandemic was the most unusual period in Victoria … and I think that we were learning a lot as we went along during that.

When I think back to those first few days, in March 2020, I think the aim was to ensure that we had enough hospital space to be able to treat people if they got very sick, and that required, I think, a high degree of central leadership.

Police will continue to monitor the situation as there are a large number of batteries on site … Nearby residents are urged to monitor [social media] and be prepared for police to door-knock homes in the area if the situation worsens.

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Deputy premier puts hand up for Victoria’s top job – as it happened

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Canterbury Road fire: firetrucks wetting down area

Supt Adam Dewberry with Fire and Rescue NSW has just provided us with an update on the factory fire on Canterbury Road in Sydney’s south-west.

Vacancy rates under 1% in most of these suburbs show the immense strain on housing availability. When you’re allocating nearly half your income on rent … the financial stress becomes unbearable.

Our index is more than just numbers; it’s a call to action. Policymakers and stakeholders need to acknowledge this growing crisis.

The relentless climb in rent and plummeting vacancy rates are not just statistics but indicators of a quality of life that is rapidly deteriorating for Australian renters.

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Anthony Albanese tells Peter Dutton he will set up bipartisan committee to legislate on voice to parliament if yes vote succeeds

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Speaking at the same Yes23 campaign launch in Sydney, Julian Leeser says ‘Australians aren’t a perfect people … but are good-hearted’

Anthony Albanese has sought to allay concerns about the design of the voice by telling Peter Dutton he will set up a bipartisan committee to legislate the advisory body, if the referendum is successful.

The prime minister revealed the move at the launch of the Uniting Church’s Yes23 campaign in Sydney on Sunday. At the same event the Liberal MP and voice advocate Julian Leeser urged Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to move from “being strangers from each other to being siblings of this great land”.

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Smorgasbord of conspiracy theories join forces at Sydney’s unofficial no rally – as it happened

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And now that I’ve introduced you to the “wanking off the dolphin” story, I’m going to skedaddle. Jordyn Beazley is set to steer the mighty blog ship for the next little bit, enjoy!

Our reporter Ben Doherty has been following developments at the UN this week and here’s the top of his story on Penny Wong’s speech, which was delivered in New York this morning Australian time.

With its special responsibility as a permanent member of the security council, Russia mocks the UN every day it continues its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.

The rest of the permanent members and all member states must be unyielding in our response to Russia’s grave violation of Article II of our shared UN charter.

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Lidia Thorpe may ‘pull back’ on voice opposition if Labor does more on Indigenous deaths in custody

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Exclusive: Independent senator says Anthony Albanese ‘needs to act’ on recommendations of 1991 royal commission

The independent senator Lidia Thorpe has said she could “pull back” on opposing the voice if the government commits to implementing recommendations of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, urging Anthony Albanese to announce action before referendum day.

Thorpe told Guardian Australia this week that she was “not necessarily campaigning” against the voice but was hoping for a no result, and agreed with no campaign leader Warren Mundine’s claim that treaties would be more likely in the event the referendum fails.

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Uluru Dialogue accuses Dutton of ‘deception’ over voice – as it happened

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Jim Chalmers is now on RN Breakfast, where he was asked by host Hamish McDonald whether he was reconsidering the stage-three tax cuts given much of the $22.1bn budget surplus comes from the taxes of “hard working Australians”.

Chalmers said the government has not changed its view on the tax cuts, which recent data showed will flow disproportionately to high-income earners and men:

Well, first of all, it’s partly a function that people are working more and earning more. The labor market is incredibly resilient given what’s coming at us from around the world. And so unemployment is lower than what many people anticipated. And wages have began growing again, and that’s a good thing too. And that’s one of the reasons why the budgets in better nick but also getting good better prices for our commodities and what that means for company tax.

We haven’t changed our view about the stage three tax cuts, but we have found a way to provide substantial cost-of-living relief for people on low and middle and fixed incomes, because we recognise people are doing it tough and they’ve been our priority.

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AEC struggles to get Twitter to remove posts that ‘incite violence’ and spread ‘disinformation’ ahead of voice

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Exclusive: Documents reveal platform has repeatedly ruled tweets reported by the Australian Electoral Commission are not against its terms of service

The Australian Electoral Commission has struggled to get Twitter to remove posts that it says are inciting violence against staff and promoting disinformation about the electoral process ahead of the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, documents reveal.

Correspondence between the agency and social media company – now known as X – obtained under freedom of information laws, show frustration over “nil actions” by Twitter on AEC reports in April and May, with a referral left pending for up to 15 days and some appeals left even longer.

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Australia news live: Central Land Council executive condemns Jacinta Price’s ‘denial of history’ in press club comments as ‘disgraceful’

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The CLC executive – 90 elected members who represent 75 communities across nine regions – said comments insult survivors of 1927 Coniston massacre. Follow the day’s news live

New report combats ‘inaccurate assertions’ about teaching courses

Almost three-quarters of Australian teachers are satisfied with their training programs, a new report has found, undermining the suggestion poor course content is leading to workforce shortages in the field.

Rather than focusing on the unsubstantiated claim that teachers are generally dissatisfied with ITE programs, we should instead focus on the willingness and capacity of ITE providers to continually improve these programs.

This will require a shift in focus from policymakers - away from the overwhelming emphasis on ITE and towards effective, system-wide [development] that becomes a regular part of teachers’ workload rather than a bolt-on.

Not a preamble. Not a footnote in the Constitution. First Nations people want structural change that can make a practical difference.

A mechanism that can make children’s lives better. Not just something that will feel good - something that will do good.

As the Minister, I will go to the voice and say: ‘this school attendance program isn’t working’. Help me to get the best possible advice to fix it … From every corner of the country – about how we can do better.

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Indigenous and culturally diverse Australians more likely to attend arts events, study finds

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Diversity advocates say more funding and leadership opportunities are needed to match the high participation rates

Advocates representing diverse Australian artists have called for more funding after a landmark study found that Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse (Cald) Australians were more likely than other Australians to create, attend and engage with the arts.

Results from the fifth National Arts Participation survey of 9,396 Australians aged 15 and above, conducted in September and October 2022, were released on Wednesday – the first survey to take place since the Covid pandemic decimated the arts industries.

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Australia news live: Victoria to spend public housing money on Carlton towers; RBA considered further rate hike

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Reserve bank considered a 25 basis point hike before deciding to hold benchmark cash rate unchanged at 4.1%, minutes reveal. Follow the day’s news live

O’Neil: government response on cybercrime will not take away responsibilities of corporations to secure data

Clare O’Neil is asked whether the government is considering implementing a “safe harbour rule” like other countries have that would enable businesses to report what’s happened but then be saved from prosecution.

What’s really important to understand … is the way in which a cyber attack unfolds is quite different than other types of crime. So if you get something stolen from your house, the police can come in and you can identify the items that are gone usually pretty much immediately. Cybercrime is not like that. Often what is taken is invisible and it will take sometimes months to understand exactly what has happened.

So what what we are thinking about at the moment is how to make sure we’ve got as open disclosure as possible at the crisis point of the attack. So when we know there is an intruder on the system … we need to help companies [eject] them from the system as quickly as possible. That doesn’t take away from any responsibilities that corporations will have ultimately around the transparency of what has happened, and reporting that to government and to regulators.

We’ve got really good reason to believe that the cybersecurity environment is actually going to worsen. And I say that not to scare people, but to help them understand that we can see what is coming at us and that is why the government is so fiercely active on this issue.

What I mean by that is that cybercrime is a relatively new form of criminal activity. And I think what we’re seeing is countries around the world start to build and develop responses that will actually help us bring perpetrators to account …

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‘Very little has shifted’: watch house case a major concern for First Nations group advising Queensland police

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Exclusive: Leadership needs to act with urgency to address ‘culture of racism’ instead of focusing on ‘performative’ elements, says adviser

A key adviser to the Queensland police on First Nations issues says more urgency is required to fix racism in the ranks, amid concerns the service has failed to address widespread cultural problems exposed by a commission of inquiry.

Christine Thomas, the co-chair of the QPS First Nations advisory group, said the group “holds great concern that little has changed” since last year’s inquiry found a “failure of leadership” had allowed a culture of sexism, racism, fear and silence to take hold unchecked. The government responded by giving police $100m to enact reforms.

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First Nations groups demand immediate stop to killing dingos as control method

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Declaration signed by more than 20 Indigenous groups says dingoes are a ‘cultural icon’ and killing them is ‘killing family’

First Nations people around the country have called for the immediate end of lethal dingo control, following an inaugural national dingo forum held in Cairns on Friday and Saturday.

A national dingo declaration signed by representatives from more than 20 First Nations groups says “lethal control should never be an option”.

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Destruction of sacred Flinders Ranges sand hills ‘heartbreaking’, say traditional owners

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South Australia’s environment department apologises for damage done to sacred sites adjacent to Nilpena Edicara National Park

Traditional owners have described the destruction of sacred Aboriginal sites in South Australia during an attempt to fence off a national park as “totally heartbreaking”.

The damage to Flinders Ranges sand hills happened during work on a planned fence to stop stock from an adjoining cattle station from going into the recently established Nilpena Ediacara National Park, on the land of the Adnyamathanha people.

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Liberals say Warren Mundine’s stance on treaties and Australia Day could cost him Senate seat

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Senior party source says the leading no campaigner ‘made it very difficult for himself’ in race to succeed retiring NSW senator Marise Payne

Leading no campaigner Warren Mundine’s support for treaties with First Nations people and moving the date of Australia Day will likely sink his chances of taking a vacant Liberal Senate seat, party sources have said.

Mundine has been touted as a possible candidate for the New South Wales vacancy created by Marise Payne’s resignation. He has been supported by the former prime minister Scott Morrison and his centre-right factional ally Alex Hawke.

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