Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

For Scott Morrison, one protester’s free expression is another’s dangerous activity | Katharine Murphy

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As the prime minister says, when it comes to coronavirus advice, consistency is important

I know it is probably mad to yearn for consistency from political leaders, but indulge my winter madness for a few minutes while we review some recent events.

On 8 May, Scott Morrison was keen to convey the news that Australia would be reopening in stages between that Friday and July. The prime minister acknowledged that tracking back to normal would likely spark new Covid-19 infections but he said, more than once, this wasn’t something that should slow the trajectory. “Outbreaks are not a reason to slow things down,” Morrison said. “Outbreaks are going to happen, all premiers and chief ministers understand that.”

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Coronavirus Australia update: warning of severe Covid-19 economic shock as ‘double-hit scenario’ looms – politics live

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Australia’s GDP could fall by 6.3% this year if hit by a second wave of infections, the OECD says in a new report. Follow live updates

Scott Morrison is now calling on all the closed states to nominate the date they will re-open in July.

Because he is getting “frustrated” at the interstate border closures.

“People who rallied this [past] weekend, showed great disrespect for their neighbours,” Scott Morrison says.

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BHP to destroy at least 40 Aboriginal sites, up to 15,000 years old, to expand Pilbara mine

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Exclusive: WA minister gave consent to BHP plan just three days after Juukan Gorge site was blown up by Rio Tinto in a move that has horrified the public

Mining giant BHP Billiton is poised to destroy at least 40 – and possibly as many as 86 – significant Aboriginal sites in the central Pilbara to expand its $4.5bn South Flank iron ore mining operation, even though its own reports show it is aware that the traditional owners are deeply opposed to the move.

In documents seen by Guardian Australia, a BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago and noted that evidence in the broader area showed “occupation of the surrounding landscape has been ongoing for approximately 40,000 years”.

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Essential poll: most Australians believe there is institutional racism in the US but not Australia

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Almost 80% of those surveyed agree US authorities have been unwilling to deal with racism and that is why incidents continue to occur

A significant majority of Australians in the latest Guardian Essential poll sample believe Americans are correct to demand better treatment for African Americans in their society – but only 30% believe there is institutional racism in Australian police forces.

The latest survey of 1,073 respondents shows the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police – an incident sparking fury that spilled over into mass protests in a number of US cities, including the capital Washington – resonated strongly in Australia.

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Black Lives Matter protests: Sydney rally given green light as court ruling overturned

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Thousands gather in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane to protest against Indigenous deaths in custody

The Sydney “Stop All Black Deaths in Custody” rally has been declared an authorised public assembly after a late decision by the court of appeal as thousands of protesters rallied in cities and towns across Australia to march against Indigenous deaths in custody and the killing of unarmed US man George Floyd.

The decision came minutes before the rally’s scheduled start at 3pm outside Town Hall on Saturday.

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‘Show respect and listen’: scenes from Australia’s first Indigenous-run police station

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Amid growing global civil unrest against police brutality and racism, a small station 330km west of Uluru is trying things differently

As protests against police brutality and racism have spread around the world in the wake of the death of George Floyd, two new films demonstrate the extremes of police dealings with Indigenous Australians.

The first, which surfaced earlier this week, is the now notorious mobile phone footage of a violent encounter between a New South Wales police constable and an Aboriginal teenager in Surry Hills, Sydney.

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‘Deaths in our backyard’: 432 Indigenous Australians have died in custody since 1991

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Aboriginal people whose family members have died in custody express solidarity with people on the streets of US cities protesting against the death of George Floyd

Australia’s track record on deaths in custody is again under scrutiny, as Aboriginal people whose family members died in similar circumstances to George Floyd express solidarity with protestors on the streets of major US cities following the death of the unarmed black man.

The family of 26-year-old David Dungay, a Dunghutti man who said “I can’t breathe” 12 times before he died while being restrained by five prison guards, said they have been traumatised anew by the footage of Floyd’s death.

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Rio Tinto apologises to traditional owners after blasting 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site

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Mining giant detonated explosives at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia, destroying two ancient rock shelters

Mining giant Rio Tinto has apologised to traditional owners in Western Australia’s north after destroying a significant Indigenous site dating back 46,000 years, saying it is urgently reviewing plans for other sites in the area.

Rio detonated explosives in a part of the Juukan Gorge last Sunday, destroying two ancient rock shelters, which has devastated the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people.

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Juukan Gorge: Rio Tinto blasting of Aboriginal site prompts calls to change antiquated laws

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Conflict between mining and Aboriginal heritage in WA has spawned a system of suffocating bureaucracy and lopsided agreement-making

A 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site destroyed by Rio Tinto this month is one of more than 463 sites that mining companies operating in Western Australia have applied for permission to destroy or disturb since 2010.

None of those applications have been refused. And under the state’s 48-year-old Aboriginal heritage laws, only the land or lease holder has the right to appeal – traditional owners do not.

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Coronavirus and culture: ‘Some good things will come out of this’

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Travel restrictions from Covid-19 have made seasonal traditional practices – and being on country – difficult for one Tasmanian artist

Lola Greeno collects delicate, pearlescent shells she turns into jewellery, the way Tasmanian Aboriginal women have been doing for thousands of years.

But this year Greeno has missed the spring tide on Flinders Island, one of the very few times to harvest them, because of Covid-19 travel restrictions.

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Commemorating James Cook’s arrival, Australia should not omit his role in the suffering that followed | Paul Daley

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He arguably paved the way for the terrible experiences of generations of Indigenous people

James Cook’s critics can relish the irony that a global pandemic has diminished the planned lavish commemorations of his east coast Australian arrival 250 years ago today.

Many Indigenous people and supporters of their causes and sensibilities rightly view the lieutenant as the doorman for so many ills that followed, including the smallpox epidemic of 1789 that killed as many as seven in 10 Aboriginal people of the new colony for which Cook’s arrival paved the way.

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Teachers hand deliver lessons to Aboriginal students lacking internet access

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Fewer than three out of 15 families in NSW far west have broadband, making digital classrooms unviable

Teachers in far western NSW say they have been hand-delivering lessons to Aboriginal students at home because families don’t have reliable access the internet and many don’t have computers for their children to work on.

To allow children to keep learning, Wilcannia central school teachers have been making lesson packs for their students and delivering them in person every few days, on a 9km round trip in the school minibus.

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‘Never too late’: Victorian government pledges $10m for stolen generations redress scheme

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Scheme will involve measures including counselling, funeral or memorial fund and redress payments

The Victorian government will put $10m into a stolen generations redress scheme that the premier, Daniel Andrews, says is a step to right history’s wrongs.

Announcing scheme with the premier, Victoria’s Aboriginal affairs minister, Gavin Jennings, said on Wednesday that Aboriginal families were historically “torn apart by parliaments like this one”.

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Aboriginal people who work for dole told to attend group activities despite coronavirus risk

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Minister’s spokesperson says arrangements ‘consistent with other employment programs’ but few require group activities

Aboriginal people who work for the dole will have to show up for group activities as usual, despite the government telling service providers that there is a “high likelihood that larger scale community outbreaks [of Covid-19] will occur in the near future”.

The National Indigenous Australians agency (NIAA) wrote to CDP (community development program) providers on Monday to tell them “mutual obligations remain in place at this stage”, meaning that Aboriginal people will still be expected to turn up for work or risk losing their welfare payments.

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How Spanish flu nearly ripped apart Australia’s fledgling federation | Paul Daley

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A nation supposedly forged in the hellfire of war almost crumbled in the face of a virulent threat at home

Newly federated Australia, with its population not yet 5 million, was still enduring shocking fatalities on the European western front when its authorities began paying attention to the virulent strain of pneumonic influenza sweeping Britain.

Early Australian awareness of the “Spanish influenza” – an epidemic in Britain by mid to late 1918 – came with an acknowledgment that the new states grown of old colonies would need to stick together should the virus reach this isolated continent.

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Power cuts that left Aboriginal people on NT islands with no food were widespread

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Population received no emergency support and scant information during three-day outage in Northern Territory, says resident of one of the areas hit


Telecommunications outages that left Aboriginal people living on islands off the Northern Territory coast without food, fuel and essential supplies for almost three days last week were more widespread than originally reported, fuelling concerns about the network’s ability to support contact with remote communities as fears over coronavirus spread.

Telstra has confirmed the NT mainland communities of Borroloola and Numbulwar were affected by the same outage, while the Cape York community of Kowanyama was also without telecommunications for three days.

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WA RSL drops ‘offensive’ ban on Welcome to Country and Aboriginal flag at Anzac Day ceremonies

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WA Indigenous affairs minister Ben Wyatt said decision was ‘regrettable’ and Greens senator Rachel Siewert called it ‘hurtful’

The Western Australian branch of the RSL has withdrawn its ban on the performance of Welcome to Country ceremonies and the flying of the Aboriginal flag at all of its Anzac and Remembrance Day services.

In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, RSLWA had said that while it supported the right to fly the Indigenous flag and make a Welcome to Country dedication at official ceremonies, “What RSL is not supportive of is the use of Welcome to Country as part of the actual service itself in terms of the Dawn Service of ANZAC Day and the 11am Service at Remembrance Day”.

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Morrison vows new approach to Closing the Gap as he says latest results ‘not good enough’ – politics live

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Prime minister says reality for Indigenous children a ‘national shame’ as Senate turns up the heat on the government to release the PM&C report into the sports grants affair. All the day’s events, live

Scott Morrison:

There remains much to do.

And we will do it differently by working together. By moving from a fixation with what is going wrong to a focus on strength.

Scott Morrison:

I am saddened that we have not met the target for child mortality but I draw hope and result from the fact that we are making progress in tackling the risk factors.

More Indigenous mothers are attending antenatal care in the first trimester and more are going to at least five antenatal sessions.

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Counting the cost of Australia’s summer of dread

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Australia’s catastrophic bushfire season has taken 33 lives, destroyed thousands of homes, shrouded cities in smoke and devastated the country’s unique wildlife. Guardian Australia surveys the damage

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