Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Uluru statement campaigners welcome Albanese’s referendum commitment

Posted on by

Campaign director Dean Parkin says the prime minister flagging set referendum question brings ‘level of clarity’

Key players in the Uluru Statement from the Heart campaign have welcomed the PM’s commitment to a referendum question on an Indigenous voice to parliament and a form of words in the constitution, saying the proposal is almost identical to the wording they had put forward in 2018.

The From the Heart campaign director, Dean Parkin, said the announcement is a very promising step forward in a long campaign for change.

Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese reveals ‘simple and clear’ wording of referendum question on Indigenous voice

Posted on by

Prime minister uses Garma festival speech to suggest Australians should be asked a simple yes or no question on enshrining a voice in the constitution

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says the Australian people should be asked a “simple and clear” yes or no referendum question regarding whether an Indigenous voice to parliament should be enshrined in the constitution.

“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?’” Albanese said in a landmark speech at the Garma festival in Arnhem Land on Saturday.

Continue reading...

‘Momentum is building’: high hopes for an Indigenous voice to parliament as Garma festival starts

Posted on by

Anthony Albanese is first prime minister to visit Arnhem Land festival since Malcolm Turnbull in 2017

Momentum is building for an Indigenous voice to be enshrined in the constitution, an Uluru Statement from the Heart leader says, as the annual Garma festival begins in the Northern Territory.

The opportunity for a voice to parliament has arrived and if it is missed it may not return for another generation, Wiradjuri man Geoff Scott warned on Friday.

Continue reading...

Conservative Christian groups lobby federal MPs against territories’ assisted dying rights legislation

Posted on by

Australian Christian Lobby says it is ‘… completely inappropriate for the new government to prioritise a controversial bill such as this’

Conservative action groups are mobilising supporters against a government push to allow territories to make their own laws on euthanasia, raising concerns around potential impacts on Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory.

The Australian Christian Lobby is flooding federal MPs with emails in a campaign to block a private member’s bill to be introduced next week, but territories minister Kristy McBain says she’s confident it will pass parliament.

Continue reading...

Australia still failing to hit more than two-thirds of Closing the Gap targets, new data shows

Posted on by

Minister for Indigenous Australians says more is needed to address systemic disadvantage as data shows four of 13 targets on track

The nation is failing to address the systemic disadvantages experienced by First Nations communities, according to the latest Closing the Gap data released by the Productivity Commission on Thursday.

Four of the 13 targets are on track: the birth weights of Indigenous babies, preschool kids attending early childhood education, and youth detention rates are trending in the right direction, while gains are being seen in land and sea rights.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Gordon Copeland inquest: inspector says police would not have called off search if all details were known

Posted on by

Senior inspector who oversaw search for drowned Gomeroi man says she did not read officer statements before attending scene

A senior inspector in charge of the search for a Gomeroi man who drowned in a river has told the inquest into his death the police search was called off before officers knew all of the details.

Inspector Helen McWilliam coordinated the search for 22-year-old Gordon Copeland, who drowned in the Gwydir River in the early hours of 10 July 2021. Police called off the search after three days, and his body was not found until authorities reopened the search three months later in October after sustained community pressure.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Zoe Daniel and Sally Sitou call for climate action in first speeches to parliament – as it happened

Posted on by

Cash: No way the Coalition will support a lower emissions target

The next interview on ABC radio RN is with the shadow employment minister, Michaelia Cash, who has a lot to say about the scrapping of the ABCC. Cash, you may remember, was one of its biggest supporters while in government.

The Coalition won more votes than the Australian Labor party.

Continue reading...

Gordon Copeland’s friend says he feared police on night of NSW drowning

Posted on by

Jabour Clarke, 21, tells family during inquest he is ‘sorry’ and says he thought Copeland had been arrested or gotten away

A friend of a Gomeroi man who drowned in a Moree river has told the man’s family at an inquest he is “very sorry” for failing to tell authorities the deceased man, Gordon Copeland, was with him on the night he died, and that at the time he was scared of the police.

Copeland, a 22-year-old father of three, drowned in the Gwydir River in the early hours of 10 July 2021. The NSW coroner is examining the death, and counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer, told the inquest Copeland went into the water after police followed the vehicle in which he was a passenger, mistakenly thinking it was stolen.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Indigenous death in NSW jail from ear infection ‘the result of systemic failures’: coroner

Posted on by

Douglas ‘Mootijah’ Shillingsworth’s ear problems would have been picked up by proper procedures, coroner Joan Baptie finds

The death of an Aboriginal man from an ear infection while in custody was preventable and due to failures in the New South Wales justice system, a coroner has found.

Douglas “Mootijah” Shillingsworth, a Budjiti and Murrawarri man, died of a middle ear infection, known as otitis media, at the age of 44 on 15 February 2018 while incarcerated at the Silverwater prison in Sydney.

Continue reading...

NT minister says deaths of Indigenous woman and baby should have been ‘all over the news’

Posted on by

Deaths prompt renewed calls for attention on First Nations domestic violence victims and needs-based funding

The shooting of an Indigenous woman and her infant child should have been “all over the news”, the Northern Territory’s police minister has said, in a push for needs-based domestic violence prevention funding in the region.

The bodies of a 41-year-old man, a 30-year-old woman and a baby were found at an outstation 25km north of Alice Springs on Sunday, prompting renewed calls for more attention on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims of domestic violence.

Continue reading...

Queensland police misidentify domestic violence victims as attackers, inquiry told

Posted on by

Inquiry hears no effort was made to communicate with deaf woman wrongly identified as a perpetrator

Queensland police regularly misidentify the victims of domestic violence, with a lawyer telling an inquiry that a woman was subjected to a protection order due to scratches she inflicted in self-defence when her partner was strangling her.

In another case, officers wrongly identified a deaf First Nations woman as a perpetrator despite making no effort to communicate with her, a lawyer from the Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service told the inquiry.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Majority of Aboriginal souvenirs sold are fakes with no connection to Indigenous people, report finds

Posted on by

Productivity Commissions calls for mandatory labelling of inauthentic products to warn consumers and protect income of Indigenous artists

Two out of three “Aboriginal” souvenirs on the market are fake, with no connection to Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people, according to a new report by the Productivity Commission.

The commission is calling for mandatory labelling of these inauthentic products to help warn consumers, and curb the significant cultural harm that “Indigenous‑style consumer products” do to artists and communities, in its latest report released on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

NSW flood plain harvesting rules won’t protect environment, government advisers warn

Posted on by

Officials raised concerns water level targets would not ensure river health or meet needs of downstream communities, documents show

The Perrottet government has been warned by its own advisers that proposed flood plain harvesting rules will not adequately protect the environment or the needs of downstream communities in the Murray Darling Basin.

Documents obtained through parliament by independent MLC Justin Field show the government received advice that proposed targets meant to ensure river health were too low.

Continue reading...

Two-year wait for a wheelchair: inquiry hears of difficulty accessing NDIS for remote Indigenous communities

Posted on by

Royal commission told NDIA services and communications need to be tailored to meet the needs of First Nations people

An Indigenous person living with disability in a remote Northern Territory community had to wait two years for a wheelchair, a royal commission has been told.

A report into National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) performance at Ngukurr, 635km from Darwin, found mainstream models of delivery were not working, and would not work in other remote areas.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

‘Racism: It Stops with Me’ campaign funded by disaffected former Collingwood football club sponsor

Posted on by

Insurance firm redirected funding from club to Australian Human Rights Commission campaign after racism claims

A new campaign to tackle racism launched by the Australian Human Rights Commission was partly paid for by a sponsor who redirected funding from the AFL’s Collingwood football club after a report commissioned by the club found a culture of “structural racism”.

The AHRC said it hopes to tackle racism by appealing to those who have not experienced it.

Continue reading...

Indigenous boy featured in NDIS promotional material placed in state care after funding cut

Posted on by

Disability royal commission begins hearings in Alice Springs focused on NDIS for First Nations people

An Indigenous teen once featured in national disability insurance scheme promotional material was placed in state care after the agency running the NDIS cut his funding package, an inquiry has heard.

The disability royal commission on Monday began five days of hearings in Alice Springs, focused on the experience of the NDIS for First Nations people with disability in remote communities.

Continue reading...

NSW police accused of ‘oppressive’ tactics against subjects on secretive blacklist

Posted on by

Lawyers say the ‘preventive policing’ suspect target management plan, which disproportionately focuses on Indigenous youth, uses potentially unlawful tactics

The New South Wales police have been accused of using “oppressive” and potentially unlawful tactics on subjects of a secretive blacklist disproportionately used to target young Indigenous people.

Documents released under a parliamentary order have for the first time revealed how police in the state are instructed to use the suspect target management plan, or STMP, an opaque tool previously found to have utilised “unreasonable” and “unjust” tactics against its targets.

Continue reading...

Nation records 60 Covid deaths as SA reports first monkeypox case – as it happened

Posted on by

Nation records 60 Covid deaths; SA records first monkeypox case; Anthony Albanese meets Justin Trudeau at Nato summit. This blog is now closed

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has renewed his calls for China to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, declaring that Vladimir Putin “has made a strategic mistake because what his actions have done is unite the democratic world”.

Albanese – who has been in Madrid for a Nato summit – spoke to reporters yesterday after having a meeting on the sidelines with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

There we discussed the important focus of this Nato’s summit on the Asia-Pacific region. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has solidified the support amongst democratic countries for the rules-based international order and a determination to continue to provide support to the government and the people of Ukraine who are suffering as a result of this breach of international law and this brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Vladimir Putin has made a strategic mistake because what his actions have done is unite the democratic world and provide a real determination to make sure that the resilience being shown by the Ukrainian people is backed up by resilience and support from democratic countries, including Nato, but also countries throughout the world.

Well, what we saw is prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we saw a without-limits partnership between Russia and China. We’ve seen a failure of China to condemn any of the Russian aggression that has occurred against Ukraine. China must look at what is happening and look at the resolve that is there from throughout the world and should be condemning Russia’s actions.

Continue reading...

Census 2021: Australia’s millennial generation is overtaking baby boomers, new ABS data shows

Posted on by

Data released on Tuesday shows a snapshot of the nation during Covid-19 and reveals insights into religion, identity and how Australians live

New data released on Tuesday from the latest census shows that Australia’s millennial generation is becoming the nation’s largest, displacing the postwar baby boomers.

Both demographic groups comprise 5.4 million people but the 2021 statistics reflect a diminishing number of “boomers” compared with the 2016 survey.

Continue reading...

‘Final resting place’: sacred Indigenous objects returned to Australia from US university

Posted on by

Warlpiri delegation from Yuendumu, north-west of Alice Springs, has collected the seven objects from University of Virginia

Seven sacred Indigenous objects have been returned to central Australia from an American university.

A delegation of Warlpiri men from Yuendumu, north-west of Alice Springs, collected the objects after they were repatriated from the University of Virginia last week.

Continue reading...