Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

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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Peter Dutton urges respect for welcome to country but reaffirms stance on ‘one flag’ only

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Opposition leader repeats condemnation of dawn service interruptions but says if he wins election he won’t display Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flags at press conferences

Peter Dutton says he wants welcome to country ceremonies respected even as he reaffirms his push to unite Australians under “one flag”.

Dutton made the comments after disruptions at Anzac Day services and the sudden cancellation of a welcome to country ceremony at a major NRL match in Melbourne.

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Peter Dutton urges respect for welcome to country but reaffirms stance on ‘one flag’ only

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Opposition leader repeats condemnation of dawn service interruptions but says if he wins election he won’t display Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flags at press conferences

Peter Dutton says he wants welcome to country ceremonies respected even as he reaffirms his push to unite Australians under “one flag”.

Dutton made the comments after disruptions at Anzac Day services and the sudden cancellation of a welcome to country ceremony at a major NRL match in Melbourne.

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Hecklers and booers at Anzac Day welcome to country ‘must face the full force of the law’, PM says

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Anthony Albanese says disruption of ceremonies in Melbourne and Perth was ‘act of low cowardice on a day when we honour courage and sacrifice’

Anthony Albanese has condemned the booing and heckling of welcome to country ceremonies in Melbourne and Perth during Anzac dawn services as “a disgrace” and called for those responsible to “face the full force of the law”.

A small group of people booed and yelled throughout the welcome delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown in Melbourne. An acknowledgment in Perth was also interrupted by a person shouting obscenities.

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‘Disrespectful’ booing of welcome to country at Melbourne Anzac Day dawn service condemned

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Small group booed and yelled at Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown’s welcome and Victorian governor’s acknowledgement of country

A man is expected to be charged for offensive behaviour after a group including an alleged neo-Nazi booed and heckled a welcome to country at Melbourne’s main Anzac Day dawn ceremony.

A small group of people booed and yelled throughout the welcome delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown at the 5:30am service at the city’s Shrine of Remembrance.

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Stella prize 2025: shortlist entirely women of colour for the first time in award’s history

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Michelle de Kretser and journalist Amy McQuire among six authors in contention for $60,000 prize for women and non-binary writers

The Stella prize, Australia’s award for women and non-binary authors, has made history this year with a shortlist featuring only works by women of colour, for the first time since the award was established in 2013.

Announced on Tuesday morning, this year’s shortlist includes Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist Amy McQuire’s essay collection, Black Witness (winner of the 2025 Victorian premier’s award for Indigenous writing), about the failures of mainstream media and power of Indigenous journalism; two-time Miles Franklin-winner Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & Practice, a reckoning with fiction, memoir and colonialism; and playwright, poet and author Samah Sabawi’s family memoir, Cactus Pear For My Beloved, tracing her roots from British-occupied Palestine through to contemporary Queensland.

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Man accused of Cassius Turvey murder ‘is lying through his teeth’, court told

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Jack Brearley says his co-accused delivered fatal blows to 15-year-old but his version is challenged under cross-examination

A man accused of murder who blamed his co-accused for the death of Indigenous teenager Cassius Turvey has had his version of events challenged while giving evidence in his defence.

During testimony on Thursday at the West Australian supreme court, Jack Brearley, 24, told a jury that prosecutors had it wrong and he did not strike the 15-year-old in the head with a metal pole in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.

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Super fund took more than 500 days to approve death benefit for grieving widow, Asic says

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Landmark report makes 34 recommendations to overhaul the superannuation sector, citing delays, poor customer service and ineffective procedures

An unnamed superannuation fund took more than 500 days to approve a death benefit payment to an Indigenous woman grieving the loss of her husband and ignored her concerns about financial hardship and a confusing claims process.

The “distressing” case has been highlighted by the financial regulator as one of many “poor industry practices” by funds that have had “devastating impacts” on members experiencing “deep grief, vulnerability, frustration and genuine suffering”.

A “landmark” report released by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) on Monday has made 34 recommendations to overhaul the superannuation sector. The report investigated the conduct of 10 trustees, which are responsible for 38% of all member benefits in Australia.

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Aboriginal women are scared to seek help for fear their children will be taken, report finds

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Human Rights Watch spoke to 33 Aboriginal parents who between them have had 114 children removed and placed in out-of-home care

Warning: this story contains distressing descriptions of violence

Briana* was just starting to get a handle on the unpredictability of feeding, bottles and all that comes with a newborn when she received an email informing her she had lost custody of her three-month-old son.

Days later, child protection authorities took her child. With him, they took many of the milestones the 36-year-old first-time mother was looking forward to. “I’m going to miss those first words, the first rollover, everything,” she says.

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