Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Fertiliser company urged to halt plans to remove Burrup Peninsula Indigenous rock art

Posted on by

Environment minister Sussan Ley asks Perdaman not to go ahead until a review is carried out after traditional owners raise concerns

The federal government has asked a multinational fertiliser company to stop work on plans to remove Indigenous rock art from a world heritage-nominated area in the Burrup Peninsula after traditional owners raised concerns.

Perdaman is planning to build a $4.5bn fertiliser plant in Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula. The company is already contracted to buy gas used to make the fertiliser from Woodside Energy’s Scarborough gas field.

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

Continue reading...

Judge urges jurors to ‘guard against’ emotion when considering verdict in Zachary Rolfe murder trial

Posted on by

A jury has retired to consider its verdict in the case of the Northern Territory constable charged with the murder of Warlpiri man Kumanjayi Walker

The judge presiding over the murder trial of Northern Territory constable Zachary Rolfe has urged the jury to ignore emotion or sympathy that may have arisen during confronting evidence in the case when they consider their verdict.

Judge John Burns gave the jury his directions in the supreme court on Thursday. The jurors have now retired to consider their verdict after an almost five-week trial.

Continue reading...

Sydney is no place to build a Māori meeting house – it is disrespectful to Aboriginal people | Morgan Godfery

Posted on by

Marae embody deep connections to the land and are a statement of indigeneity – but Māori aren’t indigenous in Australia

When most New Zealanders hear the term “marae” they think of the typical Māori meeting house.

The angular facade, decorated in red and white carvings, and the open space for the “encounter” where guests arrive in the warmth of welcome, in the grief of a tangi (funeral), or in the uncertainty of a disagreement.

Continue reading...

Zachary Rolfe trial: other officer present when Kumanjayi Walker was shot begins evidence

Posted on by

Remote Sgt Adam Eberl tells court he did not consider Walker to be dangerous when police first encountered him

A police officer involved in the attempt to arrest Kumanjayi Walker before his death has told a court he was “surprised” other officers had not used their guns when the Warlpiri man threatened them with an axe during a seperate incident days earlier.

Remote Sgt Adam Eberl was the other officer in the room when Constable Zachary Rolfe shot dead Walker on 9 November 2019 in the remote community of Yuendumu, about 300km from Alice Springs.

Continue reading...

Aboriginal flag ‘colonised’: senators in heated exchange over government’s purchase of copyright

Posted on by

Lurita artist paid $13.75m for copyright of design while two non-Indigenous companies received $6.3m

The federal government has revealed it paid $13.75m to the creator of the Aboriginal flag, Luritja artist Harold Thomas, to assume copyright, and $6.3m to two non-Indigenous businesses who held licences to the design, amid a clash in Senate estimates over whether the flag had been “colonised”.

WAM Clothing received $5.2m and Wooster Holdings, $1.1m, a Senate estimates committee has been told.

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

Continue reading...

‘Beginnings got lost’: fabled Aboriginal art on show 40 years after disappearance

Posted on by

Important paintings lay forgotten in storage since the early 80s until their discovery, muddy and mouldy, but intact

Balgo is Country for all of us now. We were all born here, these generations here today. We are Wirrimanu kids. We belong to Balgo. That’s what we paint. That’s why we paint. This is our story.”
– Warlayirti artist Eva Nagomarra

John Carty opened his email and downloaded the images. They were photos of paintings, found in a shipping container somewhere in the Kimberley. They were muddy and water damaged, but recognisable.

Continue reading...

Australia news live update: nation records at least 74 Covid deaths; Invasion Day rallies begin; lockdown call for NT remote communities

Posted on by

Lockdown call for NT remote communities as nation records at least 74 deaths from Covid-19; Scott Morrison speaks at Australia Day ceremony in Canberra; Russian ambassador to Australia says country ‘doesn’t intend to invade’ Ukraine; Invasion Day protests begin. Follow all the day’s news

A leading health expert has warned of the potential spread of the virulent Omicron Covid-19 strain during events today as large crowds gather for protest or celebration, AAP reports.

Jane Halton, chair of the coalition for epidemic preparedness and former health department head, says the closer people pack together the more likely it is the virus will spread.

We know it’s highly infectious and the closer everyone gets together, the more the likelihood you’ll be close to someone whose got Covid and therefore the greater the likelihood you’ll contract it.

People should be careful. What we don’t want to see is a big increase in cases.

I don’t think we should be cancelling things. I just think people should be courteous, thoughtful, and a little bit careful.

Continue reading...

‘Fifty years of resistance’: Aboriginal Tent Embassy began with an umbrella and became a symbol of sovereignty

Posted on by

1972 was the first time many saw First Nations people confront the establishment. Now elders say it’s a legacy for future generations

In the middle of the night, four young Aboriginal men pitched a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House and sat down. When dawn broke on 26 January 1972, a police officer came over to ask how long they intended to stay.

“Until we get land rights,” one of the four, Billy Craigie, told the officer.

Above: Bobbi Sykes (with Gordon Briscoe) addresses a protest at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra, July 1972. Below: The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Parliament House in 1972. Images: Ken Whittington/National Archives Australia

Continue reading...

Australian government buys copyright to Aboriginal flag in $20m deal

Posted on by

Deal includes payment to designer Harold Thomas and terminates commercial licences, meaning flag now ‘belongs to everyone’, federal minister for Indigenous Australians says

The Aboriginal flag can now be reproduced on apparel and merchandise after the federal government secured its copyright to resolve a complicated legal dispute over the use of the emblem.

The Morrison government has paid more than $20m to obtain the copyright to the flag, plus terminate commercial licenses owned by companies which had limited the reproduction of the symbol.

Continue reading...

Elderly woman forced to isolate under a tree in remote community due to lack of facilities

Posted on by

Quarantine facilities desperately needed in Yuendumu where Covid has ripped through community, relative says

A resident of the remote community of Yuendumu, who is caring for a toddler and a partner on dialysis, is pleading with the Northern Territory government to provide a local quarantine facility, after her Covid-positive elderly relative was forced to sleep outside on the veranda and spend three days under a tree in order to safely isolate from the rest of the family.

The Warlpiri woman, who has asked not to be named, says she is “stressed and worried” that her child and partner remain exposed to the virus while the relative remains in their care. She says communication with health officials has left her confused about whether her relative will be sent to quarantine elsewhere or asked stay at home.

Continue reading...

Boy who died after going missing from remote NT community was mauled by dogs

Posted on by

Police say three-year-old’s wounds were ‘consistent with an animal attack’

A young boy who died after going missing from a remote central Australian desert community was mauled during a “horrific” dog attack, police say.

The three-year-old’s family reported him missing on Friday evening after searching Hermannsburg, south-west of Alice Springs, for several hours.

Continue reading...

Federal government to pay out $2m to settle class action over ‘racist’ work for the dole program

Posted on by

Indigenous leaders argued participants faced tougher welfare penalties than those in other parts of Australia

The federal government will pay a traditional owners corporation representing some of the poorest communities in Australia more than $2m after settling a class action that argued the remote “work for the dole” program was racist.

The Community Development Program (CDP) has required about 30,000 jobseekers in remote communities to work up to 25 hours a week to receive the dole. Participants, 80% of whom were Aboriginal, were said to have faced tougher welfare penalties than those in other parts of Australia.

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

Continue reading...

Vale David Dalaithngu: the inimitable actor who changed the movies, and changed us

Posted on by

The star has left behind a profound body of work – and a permanent, inimitable impression on his industry

In the 1976 classic Storm Boy, the great Yolŋu actor David Dalaithngu delivers a line that became immortalised in Australian cinema. “Bird like him, never die,” he says, describing the pelican Mr Percival.

The substance of that line can apply to the man himself, who will live on through the light and shadow of the cinema, on to which he left a permanent and inimitable impression.

Continue reading...

‘Unapologetically truthful and unapologetically Blak’: Australia bows down to Barkaa

Posted on by

After overcoming personal tragedy, the rapper has clawed her way back – with a politically potent debut EP dedicated to First Nations women

Baarka didn’t come to mess around. Born Chloe Quayle, the 26-year-old rapper was a former teenage ice addict who did three stints in jail – during her last, five years ago, she gave birth to her third child.

Now the Malyangapa Barkindji woman has clawed her way back from what she describes as “the pits of hell” and is on the verge of releasing her debut EP, Blak Matriarchy, through Briggs’ Bad Apples Music. She has been celebrated by GQ as “the new matriarch of Australian rap”; and has her face plastered on billboards across New York, Los Angeles and London as part of YouTube’s Black Voices Music Class of 2022. (“I nearly fainted when I saw [pictures of it],” Barkaa says when we meet over Zoom. “The amount of pride that came from my family and my community ... It was a huge honour.”)

Continue reading...

Amnesty UK accused of ‘spreading false information’ about Northern Territory Covid outbreak

Posted on by

NT Aboriginal health organisation and Amnesty’s Australian arm ‘extremely disappointed’ by UK office’s statement

Amnesty UK has been accused of “spreading false information” about the Northern Territory’s Covid outbreak in an extraordinary joint statement from the territory’s peak Aboriginal health organisation and Amnesty’s own Australian operation.

Disinformation about the Covid outbreak in Aboriginal communities near Katherine, spread by third parties online, was on Thursday described by the NT chief minister as “conspiracy theories” pushed by “tinfoil hat wearing tossers”.

Continue reading...

The Wheel of Time actor Madeleine Madden: ‘As an Aboriginal woman, my life is politicised’

Posted on by

The star of the new Amazon Prime fantasy series and granddaughter of Charles Perkins discusses her ‘dream role’, multiracial casting and finding freedom outside Australia

When she walked into the London casting room of The Wheel of Time, Madeleine Madden scanned the faces – a sea of white – and thought, “Yep, standard.”

To announce her presence, she politely inquired, “The Wheel of Time?”

Continue reading...

Australian corporations’ treatment of Indigenous customers to be investigated by inquiry

Posted on by

String of scandals involving some of Australia’s biggest business names prompts parliamentary probe

After a series of high-profile cases of corporate failures, the way big businesses in Australia treat Indigenous customers will be examined by a parliamentary inquiry.

The destruction of Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto was one of the most recent inexcusable acts, but it is not alone. Woolworths was forced to abandon plans to build a liquor warehouse near three dry Aboriginal communities. Earlier this year, Telstra was fined $50m by the federal court which found it had exploited Indigenous customers by signing them up for phone contracts they could not understand or afford.

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

Continue reading...

‘It hurts and it’s wrong’: family of Aboriginal woman shot dead by WA police officer speak out after acquittal

Posted on by

Supporters of JC say 30 years after the Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission there is still ‘no equality’

The family of a Geraldton woman shot dead by a Western Australian police officer has said there is “no equality” and “no justice” for Aboriginal people after the constable was acquitted of her murder on Friday.

“In terms of Aboriginal people, we don’t get no fairness, there’s no equality and this is evidence with what’s happened here,” Bernadette Clarke, the sister of the victim, known as JC for cultural reasons, said on the steps outside Perth’s district court.

Continue reading...

Police officer who shot dead Indigenous woman on WA street found not guilty of murder

Posted on by

First-class constable also acquitted of manslaughter over 2019 death of woman known as JC in Geraldton street

A police officer who shot dead an Indigenous woman carrying a knife on a suburban West Australian street has been acquitted of her murder.

The first-class constable faced a three-week trial in the WA supreme court over the September 2019 killing of the 29-year-old woman, known as JC for cultural reasons, in the state’s Mid West.

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

Continue reading...