Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Natsiaa 2025: Gaypalani Waṉambi wins $100,000 award for ‘exquisite’ artwork made with discarded road signs

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Waṉambi takes home Australia’s most prestigious First Nations art prize for her artwork Burwu, blossom, which saw her etch thousands of stringybark blossoms and bees

Gaypalani Waṉambi grew up surrounded by art, with her family home in north-eastern Arnhem Land doubling as a studio where her parents and siblings painted on bark and wooden poles. In her late teens, she started assisting her father, esteemed artist Mr W Waṉambi, who taught her how to paint the clan’s ancient designs, using traditional materials such as ochre. As he branched into more experimental forms such as animation and etching on metal, she too began to experiment with these new mediums.

On Friday night, the Yolŋu woman was awarded the $100,000 top prize at the 42nd National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art awards (Natsiaas), one of Australia’s richest and most prestigious art prizes, for an artwork that honoured his legacy while forging her own path.

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First Nations group launches federal appeal to block construction of main Brisbane 2032 Olympics stadium

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Application lodged for permanent legal protection of Victoria Park, where state and federal governments plan to spend billions on sports infrastructure

A First Nations group has applied to halt construction of the main stadium planned for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

The state and federal governments plan to spend $3.8bn on a 63,000-seat stadium at Victoria Park in inner-city Brisbane. It will host the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics events.

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Worsening Closing the Gap measures spark Indigenous calls for ‘real power shift’

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Latest report delivers bad news on targets including adult imprisonment rates, children in out-of-home care, suicide and childhood development

Without changing the approach to Closing the Gap, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will continue to “pay the price”, Indigenous organisations say.

Just four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track to be met, according to the latest data from the Productivity Commission.

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NSW police actions should be examined in Tammy Shipley’s death in custody, lawyer argues

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Court asked to consider whether the coroner has jurisdiction to examine Shipley’s arrest

The actions of New South Wales police during the arrest of an Indigenous woman who later died in custody should be examined, given officers did not identify her “acute mental illness”, a court has heard.

Tammy Shipley died in prison while being held on remand at Silverwater women’s correctional centre in December 2022.

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Labor and Greens unite to condemn One Nation senators for snubbing acknowledgment of country

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Indigenous affairs minister Malarndirri McCarthy says stunt by Pauline Hanson’s party was ‘incredibly childish’ and disrespectful

Labor and the Greens have united to condemn One Nation senators for turning their back on parliament’s acknowledgement of country statements, describing them as “incredibly childish” and “hurtful” stunts.

One Nation’s leader, Pauline Hanson, stood in the chamber as the Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, government Senate leader, Penny Wong, and Greens leader, Larissa Waters, all made statements criticising the rightwing minor party’s “deliberate acts of disrespect”.

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Native title win for Millewa-Mallee First Nations peoples in Victoria after decades-long fight

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Historic decision in Australia’s federal court gives traditional owners in state’s north-west the right to control access to their country

After a difficult journey spanning more than two decades, traditional owners say they’ve “weathered the storm” to finally have their native title rights recognised.

The federal court on Friday awarded the historic native title determination to the Indigenous peoples of the Millewa-Mallee from north-west Victoria, for the first time granting exclusive native title rights in the state.

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‘No empty words’: Kumanjayi Walker’s family prepare for coroner’s final report with call for ‘real action’

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Findings will be handed down almost five years after the Warlpiri man died during a bungled arrest in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu

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The inquest findings into the shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker will be handed down in Yuendumu on Monday, almost five years after the Warlpiri man died during a bungled arrest in the remote Northern Territory community.

Zachary Rolfe shot Walker three times while trying to arrest him on 9 November 2019 in Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs.

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Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly to be made permanent and granted decision-making powers under treaty bill

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Body will be able to advise ministers on issues directly affecting Aboriginal people in the state

Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly will manage the rollout of community infrastructure grants and have a direct line to ministers and the power to make appointments to government boards under legislation to be introduced to parliament this year.

As first reported by Guardian Australia this week, the Victorian government and the First Peoples’ Assembly have confirmed that the statewide treaty bill will establish the assembly as a representative body to provide advice to government.

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Coroner may call for prison unit where WA teenager Cleveland Dodd died to be closed

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Philip Urquhart tells the inquest into the 16-year-old’s fatal self-harming that the state justice department failed in its duty of care

Everything must be done to ensure no more children die in youth detention, a coroner has told an inquest into the death of an Indigenous teenager, including closing down the controversial prison unit where he fatally self-harmed.

Cleveland Dodd was found unresponsive inside a cell in Unit 18, a youth wing of the high-security adult facility Casuarina prison in Perth, in the early hours of 12 October 2023.

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Prison treatment of Indigenous teenager Cleveland Dodd was cruel, lawyer tells inquest

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The 16-year-old was subject to ‘institutional abuse’ by WA justice department staff, coroner in Perth hears

An Indigenous teenager who fatally self-harmed in detention was subjected to “cruel and inhumane” treatment, a lawyer for his family said after the inquest into his death resumed.

Cleveland Dodd was found unresponsive inside a cell in Unit 18, a youth wing of the high-security Casuarina prison facility for adults in Perth, in the early hours of 12 October 2023.

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Queensland public servants forbidden from including acknowledgments of country in email signatures, Labor says

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Government denies it issued directive, but opposition MP Leeanne Enoch says whistleblower has shared document outlining the decision

Queensland’s Labor opposition claims the state’s public servants have been issued a “strict directive” not to include acknowledgments of country in email signatures.

The shadow minister for reconciliation, Leeanne Enoch, tabled a partly redacted document in question time on Thursday which reads: “Departments are no longer permitted to add additional departmental branding elements such as the First Nations acknowledgement.”

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Cassius Turvey’s murder has ‘torn at the very fabric of our society’, his mother tells court

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Heinous and ‘racially motivated’ attack on Indigenous teenager left mother and community traumatised, court hears

The murder of an Indigenous teenager who was chased into bushland and beaten with a metal pole during a heinous racist attack has shattered lives and left a community living in fear, his heartbroken mother has said.

Cassius Turvey, a Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after he was deliberately struck on the head in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.

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Governments are leaving ‘heavy lifting’ on Closing the Gap to underresourced Aboriginal groups, review finds

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‘Inaction’ from governments and ‘baked in’ racism are hampering efforts to address entrenched disadvantage, according to first independent review

Australian governments are failing to do “the heavy lifting” needed to address entrenched disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, an independent review of the national Closing the Gap strategy has found.

The review by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney is the first to independently assess the implementation of the Closing the Gap agreement since its establishment in 2008.

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Federal Labor ministers at odds over contentious NT gas pipeline decision, internal document shows

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Exclusive: Agriculture minister Julie Collins and Indigenous affairs minister Malarndirri McCarthy expressed concern over Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction

Senior Albanese government ministers disagreed over whether a controversial Northern Territory gas pipeline should be allowed to go ahead without being fully assessed under national environment laws, an internal document shows.

An environment department brief from February shows representatives for the agriculture minister, Julie Collins, and the Indigenous affairs minister, Malarndirri McCarthy, were concerned about the impact of the Sturt Plateau pipeline’s construction on threatened species and First Nations communities.

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Walk for truth: hundreds of people join 486km trek from Portland to Melbourne for reconciliation

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Yoorrook Justice commissioner walked from the site of first settlement in Victoria to state parliament to promote truth-telling about Australian history

Travis Lovett began his 486km journey with a single step and a long-held hope to bring the people of Victoria with him on a journey through the state’s colonial past.

It’s a traumatic past that Lovett has been peering into for the past three years through his work as a commissioner and co-chair on the Yoorrook Justice Commission, the county’s first formal, Indigenous-led truth-telling process.

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Family of Warlpiri man who died after being restrained by police in supermarket demand independent inquiry

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Exclusive: Lawyer for 24-year-old’s family ask NT police to ‘appoint independent body from another state or territory to undertake investigation’ after Alice Springs death

An independent investigator must be appointed to examine the death of a Warlpiri man in police custody, family members say, while also demanding video footage be released.

The 24-year-old man with disabilities from Yuendemu died on Tuesday afternoon after police restrained him in an Alice Springs supermarket.

Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636

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‘Genocide’: Patrick Dodson condemns Australia’s Aboriginal youth incarceration rates

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Former Labor senator also says child removals are a way to ‘eradicate a people from the landscape’

Former Labor senator Patrick Dodson has condemned the country’s Aboriginal youth incarceration rates and child removals as an ongoing genocide against First Peoples and an “embarrassing sore” on the nation.

“It’s an assault on the Aboriginal people. I don’t say that lightly [but] if you want to eradicate a people from the landscape, you start taking them away, you start destroying the landscape of their cultural heritage, you attack their children or remove their children,” Dodson said.

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No one committed to Paris goals can seriously argue Woodside’s LNG project should operate until 2070

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Forty-year extension of North West Shelf gas project granted by environment minister Murray Watt will result in huge greenhouse gas emissions, putting the already degraded Indigenous rock art at risk

We don’t know all the evidence that the new environment minister, Murray Watt, had before him when he decided to approve a 40-year life extension to one of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel developments so that it could run until 2070.

But we do know this. The decision largely turned on whether the North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) development on the Pilbara’s Burrup Hub can coexist for decades into the future with an incredible collection of ancient Murujuga rock art, some of it nearly 50,000 years old and unlike anything else on the planet.

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‘A lot of pride and joy’: the First Nations team representing Australia at the Venice Biennale of Architecture

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These seven architects hope to show First Nations design and connection to Country at the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition

Australia’s participation in next year’s Venice Biennale remains under a cloud. With Creative Australia holding fast to its decision to cancel its commission of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Australian Pavilion might remain dark in 2026.

It is an added weight for the First Nations team who have unveiled their new creation inside the pavilion as part of Venice’s other biennale: the Venice Biennale of Architecture, held every other year in the Giardini.

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Woman who claims to be Gina Rinehart’s niece calls on billionaire to ‘resolve any doubts’ with DNA test

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Naydene Robinson says she hopes to reach an ‘amicable’ settlement that recognises her mother as Lang Hancock’s child

  • Warning: This article contains outdated offensive language and references to events that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people may find distressing, as well as the names of Indigenous Australians who have died
  • Listen to the update Gina: The DNA request

An Aboriginal woman who believes she is Gina Rinehart’s niece is calling on Australia’s richest person to take a DNA test to prove their family connection.

Naydene Robinson, the daughter of Sella Robinson, who claimed she was fathered by Lang Hancock at Mulga Downs station in the 1930s, says she wants to meet Rinehart and “resolve any doubts” about her links to the Hancock family. Sella’s mother worked as a musterer and in domestic labour at Mulga Downs.

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