Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Author of Hawthorn review says alleged mistreatment of Indigenous players ‘like a nightmare’

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Phil Egan says he has not heard anything like those allegations before at a football club and there should now be an audit of all clubs

The author of a damaging review into Hawthorn Football Club that contained allegations of serious mistreatment of First Nations former players has described the findings as “like a nightmare”.

The club engaged consultant Phil Egan, a former Richmond player, to conduct an external review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s experiences with the Hawks. The review will not be publicly released but the ABC has reported some of its findings.

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Australia news live: China meeting ‘constructive’, Penny Wong says; up to 9.8m Optus customers affected by data breach

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The foreign minister is in New York City for the UN general assembly. Follow the day’s news live

In New South Wales politics this has just happened:

The Senate is also up and about with a condolence motion being held in the upper house as well.

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AFL greats shocked at Hawthorn report into alleged racism

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Luke Hodge, Sam Mitchell and Shaun Burgoyne react to allegations First Nations players were mistreated

Hawthorn greats Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Shaun Burgoyne have expressed shock at allegations First Nations players were mistreated by the club, including distressing claims they were separated from their families.

The ABC on Wednesday reported the contents of a Hawthorn-commissioned review based on interviews with First Nations players, with the ABC’s report including an allegation that Hawthorn pressured one couple to terminate a pregnancy.

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Backlash grows over decision to scrap Victorian hospital’s Indigenous name in favour of Queen Elizabeth II

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Daniel Andrews defends plan to change name of Maroondah hospital from Woiwurrung word that celebrates the natural environment

Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly has accused the Andrews government of making a hospital in Melbourne’s east “culturally unsafe” for Indigenous Australians after it vowed to rename the site in honour of Queen Elizabeth II, dumping its Indigenous name.

In a pre-election pledge on Sunday, Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, promised to rebuild the Maroondah hospital, in East Ringwood, at a cost of $1bn and rename it to pay tribute to the Queen.

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Federal government urged to extend voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds and prisoners

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Submissions into 2022 election inquiry include calls for regulation of ‘electoral lies’ and stricter caps on political donations

The Albanese government is being urged to expand voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds and people in prison in submissions to an inquiry into the 2022 election.

The academic Prof George Williams has proposed voluntary voting for 16 and 17-year-olds, and regulating “electoral lies” to prevent “baseless claims” such as Donald Trump’s about unproven electoral fraud in the US.

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Kumanjayi Walker inquest hears ‘negative interactions’ between police and Aboriginal people could ‘normalise’ racism

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Senior constable says he has not heard officers use racist slurs but agrees unchecked frustration could lead to generalisations

• Warning: This story contains offensive and racist slurs heard in court

An inquest into the police shooting death of Northern Territory man Kumanjayi Walker has been told “negative interactions” with Indigenous Australians could to lead to “normalised” racism within the police force.

Walker, 19, was shot three times by the NT police constable Zachary Rolfe during an attempted arrest in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu in November 2019. Rolfe was found not guilty of murder and two alternative charges after a six-week trial in the supreme court in Darwin earlier this year.

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‘Racist and disgusting’: inquest into Kumanjayi Walker death hears of ‘shocking’ texts sent by Zachary Rolfe

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• Warning: this story contains extremely offensive language heard in court

Court hears police constable Rolfe talked of having ‘smashed’ Aboriginal community and described local people as ‘neanderthals’

An inquest into the police shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker has heard that Zachary Rolfe, the constable acquitted of his murder, was involved in text message exchanges in which officers described Aboriginal people as “losers”, “grubby fucks”, “coons” and “niggas”, and discussed using force to “towel them up”.

Walker, 19, was shot three times by Rolfe during an attempted arrest in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu in November 2019. Rolfe was found not guilty of murder and two alternative charges after a six-week trial in the NT supreme court in Darwin earlier this year.

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Indigenous man’s death in Victorian custody the second in a month

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Family of 38-year-old Gunditjmara and Wiradjuri man Clinton Austin say he was let down by police and justice systems

An Aboriginal prisoner in central Victoria has become the second Indigenous person to die in custody in the state in a matter of weeks.

Clinton Austin, a 38-year-old Gunditjmara and Wiradjuri man, died at Loddon prison near Castlemaine in Victoria on Sunday. Austin’s family has said they are devastated by his death.

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Condolences and condemnation: Indigenous people and people of colour react to the death of Queen Elizabeth II

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While some have offered unflinching takes on the damage of British colonisation, others say the monarch held ‘a special place’ in their hearts

The reaction to the death of the Queen among Indigenous people and people of colour, including those from Commonwealth nations, has been swift and, at times, unflinching.

For many the Queen was the personification of British colonisation and the damage it has wreaked in their countries – and they were not afraid to say so. Yet others expressed their condolences for the monarch who has long held “a special place” in their hearts.

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Kumanjayi Walker’s family feared another police shooting following his death, inquest told

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Cousin of NT man shot dead during arrest says she livestreamed as family gathered outside police station out of fear of media, police

A relative of Kumanjayi Walker has told an inquest she feared for the lives of her family following the 19-year-old’s death and said the shooting had led to deteriorating relations between police and the Aboriginal community.

Walker was shot three times by police officer Const Zachery Rolfe during an attempted arrest in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu in November 2019.

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City of Melbourne will lobby to change the date, but will keep 26 January ceremonies if unsuccessful

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Councillors vote to ask government to change the date to ‘celebrate what it means to be Australian’

The City of Melbourne will advocate for the federal government to change the date of Australia Day from 26 January, despite the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, saying there are no plans to shift the national celebration.

At a future Melbourne committee meeting on Tuesday evening, councillors voted to campaign for the Albanese government to change the date – a decision that can only be made at a federal level.

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Inquest to examine NT police shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker by Zachary Rolfe

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Rolfe was acquitted of murdering Walker in March, unleashing grief and anger in the remote community of Yuendumu

It’s already been the subject of a high-profile murder trial and now a coroner will examine the outback police shooting of Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker.

Walker died on 9 November 2019 when Const Zachary Rolfe shot him three times in the remote community of Yuendumu 290km north-west of Alice Springs.

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‘Where is the evidence?’: critics take aim at NT judge who says antiracism is becoming ‘a religion’

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Opponents say it is ‘surprising’ for Judith Kelly to claim that ‘on the whole, modern Australian society is not racist’, in speech on Indigenous domestic violence

Lawyers and academics have criticised comments by a Northern Territory supreme court judge that antiracism was becoming a “religion” preventing honest discussions about the “epidemic of extreme domestic violence” against Aboriginal women.

In the 26 August speech to a gathering of women lawyers, Justice Judith Kelly said there was a “cultural component” to the violence inflicted on Aboriginal women by Aboriginal men in the territory.

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Queensland police who arrested author Chelsea Watego did not also approach ‘aggressive white man’ at scene, tribunal hears

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Indigenous academic alleges treatment by two officers during 2018 arrest amounted to unlawful discrimination on basis of her race, a claim the officers and state government denies

Two Queensland police officers who arrested and handcuffed prominent First Nations writer and academic Chelsea Watego have told a tribunal they did not also approach or investigate an allegedly “aggressive white man” who was also the focus of nightclub security guards at the time they arrived.

The Queensland civil and administrative tribunal heard this week that police arrested Watego, a Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman, within 18 seconds of arriving at the front of The Beat nightclub in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley in 2018.

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Woman fatally struck by car in Alice Springs was lying on highway, police say

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Death is the 11th pedestrian fatality on Northern Territory roads in the past 18 months, majority of which have been Indigenous people

A woman lying on a highway in central Australia was killed when she was hit by a car, authorities say.

Northern Territory police said the 21-year-old woman was struck in Alice Springs’s southern suburbs in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

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How would an Indigenous voice work and what are people saying about it?

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In press conference with NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal, PM reveals he has been talking with sporting figures about supporting campaign

The Albanese government has put forward a preferred form of words to insert into the constitution to enshrine an Indigenous voice to parliament, starting with a simple question for us all to vote on.

“We should consider asking our fellow Australians something as simple as: ‘Do you support an alteration to the constitution that establishes an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice?’” Anthony Albanese said in July during a landmark speech at the Garma festival in Arnhem Land.

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

It may make representations to parliament and the executive government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The parliament shall, subject to this constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

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Shaquille O’Neal meets with PM in support of Indigenous voice to parliament

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Anthony Albanese announces the NBA legend will be part of the effort to mobilise support in the lead-up to a referendum

The prime minister is usually a towering figure in the national imagination, but on Saturday Anthony Albanese was quite literally dwarfed by Shaquille O’Neal during an announcement the NBA star would be lending his support to the campaign for an Indigenous voice to parliament.

The former LA Lakers centre is in Australia for a speaking tour and reached out to the government to inform himself about the proposal for the First Nations voice, Albanese said.

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How an Indigenous Australian artist ‘astonished’ a giant of American art

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Sol LeWitt never met Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who began painting in her 80s, but he was blown away by her work. A new AGNSW show celebrates their unlikely link

He was one of the 20th century’s pioneers of modern American art; she was the Anmatyerre artist who put Australian desert painting on the world stage.

Sol LeWitt and Emily Kame Kngwarreye never met, yet one had a profound effect on the work of the other, and led to one of the largest collections of Utopia art outside Australia. LeWitt became a huge fan of Kngwarreye, and of the distinct style produced by the Indigenous Australian artists working in Utopia, Northern Territory.

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Don’t let ‘low bar politics’ hold back Indigenous voice, advocate to say in Lingiari lecture

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Thomas Mayor compares current fight for constitutional recognition to 1960s Wave Hill walk-off that led to land rights

Australia should reject “low bar politics” and act with the courage of Indigenous land rights leader Vincent Lingiari to fight for constitutional recognition and a voice to parliament, Thomas Mayor will argue in the annual Lingiari lecture.

The Torres Strait Islander man, Uluru Statement from the Heart advocate and maritime union member will give the annual oration at the Freedom Day festival in the remote Northern Territory community of Kalkaringi on Friday evening.

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Indigenous group says Tanya Plibersek ‘hasn’t done her homework’ on Burrup peninsula fertiliser plant

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Save Our Songlines accuses environment minister of ‘false conclusions’ and ‘faulty reasoning’ about support for development and says it risks ‘another Juukan Gorge’

Traditional custodians opposed to a contentious $4.5bn fertiliser plant on Western Australia’s Burrup peninsula have accused Tanya Plibersek of “faulty reasoning” and drawing “false conclusions” about the views of local Aboriginal communities after she decided not to pause the development.

The environment minister decided work on the plant could go ahead after visiting the peninsula, in the state’s north, earlier this month. She said her decision was based on support for the development from the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, which she described as the “legally constituted and democratically elected group that safeguards First Nations culture in the Burrup area”.

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