Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

High court rules Aboriginal Australians are not ‘aliens’ under the constitution and cannot be deported

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The four-to-three split decision giving Aboriginal Australians special status is a major defeat for the deportation powers of the home affairs department

The high court has decided that Aboriginal Australians are not aliens for the purpose of the constitution, a major defeat for the deportation powers of Peter Dutton’s home affairs department and a significant development in the rights of Indigenous Australians.

In a four-to-three split decision on Tuesday the high court ruled that Aboriginal people with sufficient connection to traditional societies cannot be aliens, giving them a special status in Australian constitutional law likely to have ramifications far beyond existing native title law.

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Jacqui Lambie says people scared and confused by Coalition’s cashless welfare card plan

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Senator says after visiting remote Indigenous communities that many there feel they have not been properly consulted over new card

Independent senator Jacquie Lambie says “the government has a problem” with the rollout of its controversial cashless debit card, after her fact-finding visit to the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Lambie visited several remote Aboriginal communities to “get a view from the ground on how the card is functioning, before voting on the government’s proposed changes for its future”, she said. Most of the people she spoke to “didn’t know any change was being proposed at all”.

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Josephine Cashman sacked from Indigenous advisory body after letter published by Andrew Bolt

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Indigenous affairs minister says Cashman’s membership of advisory group on voice to parliament is untenable after letter is used to discredit Bruce Pascoe

The Aboriginal businesswoman Josephine Cashman has been sacked from her government advisory role, after allegations that she provided a faked letter from a senior Aboriginal leader as part of a campaign to discredit the author Bruce Pascoe.

In a brief statement the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Ken Wyatt, said Cashman’s actions were “not conducive to the constructive and collaborative approach” needed on the advisory council on an Indigenous voice to parliament.

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Ken Wyatt says Australia Day should stay on 26 January

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Minister says that instead of rallying to move the date, Australians should engage in a new generation of ‘truth telling’

The federal government frontbencher Ken Wyatt says Australia Day should remain on 26 January but commemorations around the country should mark both the “good and the bad” of the nation’s history.

Wyatt, the first Indigenous man to be minister for Indigenous Australians, told Nine newspapers “dark beginnings” must be recognised in communities across the country.

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Claims of exploitation of Aboriginal artists ‘intentionally fabricated’, art dealer says

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John Ioannou confirms visit from NT police and denies allegations made against him by the APY artists collective

A private art dealer in Alice Springs has said allegations that he had taken elderly Indigenous artists from their communities to paint for him and that one was being forced to paint away a $20,000 debt for her son were being “intentionally fabricated”.

The dealer, John Ioannou, contacted Guardian Australia through a friend to provide his defence to allegations made against him by the APY artist collective in a letter to the federal ministers for Indigenous Australians and the arts, and the South Australian premier.

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Ken Wyatt promises greater penalties for art dealers exploiting elderly Aboriginal artists

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Minister says he does not believe Indigenous artists are choosing to seek better economic opportunities in working for private dealers

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, says he intends to take stronger sanctions against private art dealers or “carpetbaggers” who are exploiting vulnerable and elderly Aboriginal artists in central Australia.

Speaking on ABC radio in Alice Springs on Wednesday, Wyatt said he thought the current system, under which dealers voluntarily join the Indigenous Art Code (IAC), was not working.

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Absence of Morrison at Uluru event ‘more than an insult’ to Indigenous Australians

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Exclusive: Labor senator Pat Dodson says PM’s failure to show up to climb closure celebrations demonstrates his ‘shallowness’

Labor senator Pat Dodson has blasted the prime minister for his absence at Sunday night’s celebrations of the closing of the climb at Uluru as “more than an insult” to First Nations people.

Sitting alongside Labor colleagues Linda Burney, Malarndirri McCarthy and Warren Snowdon, Dodson chastised Scott Morrison’s failure to progress the Uluru Statement from the Heart, saying it demonstrated he’s a man in need of “an epiphany”.

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New dawn for Uluru as climb closure ends decades of disrespect

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It was an eerily quiet morning at the Anangu sacred site after the hubbub of the past several months

As the sun rose over Uluru this morning, on the first day since Anangu closed the climb, traditional owner Sammy Wilson said the rock would finally have a “well-earned rest”.

Small groups of people were walking quietly around the base, in and out of the spinifex. Police and park rangers stationed in the climb carpark said it was an eerily quiet morning after the hubbub of the past several months.

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‘Respect is given’: Australia closes climb on sacred Uluru

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Indigenous Australians watch tourists make last climbs after years of asking for closure

Australian Indigenous traditional owners have watched tourists climb over their sacred rock Uluru for the final time after years of pleading for people to respect their culture and only walk around the base.

At 4pm on Friday, Parks Australia closed the climb permanently, 34 years after the government officially returned the site to its traditional Anangu owners.

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Shackling dying man Eric Whittaker to bed was ‘horrific’, coroner hears

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The NSW coroner hears that Aboriginal prisoner Eric Whittaker was unconscious and would not have been able to move

The NSW coroner has heard it was “horrific” that Aboriginal man Eric Whittaker, who died in hospital after suffering a brain haemorrhage in prison custody, had been shackled to the bed in the last days of his life despite being unconscious and unresponsive.

An emergency medicine researcher from the University of New South Wales, Anna Holdgate, went on to tell the court “we would only use restraint as a last resort” and “for the briefest time possible”.

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Captain Cook’s legacy is complex, but whether white Australia likes it or not he is emblematic of violence and oppression | Paul Daley

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British and Australian regret over Cook’s treatment of Indigenous people would go a long way to enhancing understanding of the continent’s shared history

The British government has issued an oh-so-carefully worded expression of “regret” for the killing of Māori in Aotearoa, today’s New Zealand, at the point of first contact during Lieutenant James Cook’s “voyage of discovery” 250 years ago.

Regrets! The old empire certainly has had cause for a few when it comes to the violence it has meted out to the indigenes of the places it took during Britain’s colonial expansion.

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Liberal senator to outline a model for an Indigenous voice to parliament

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Andrew Bragg wants to honour the Uluru Statement of the Heart and uphold parliamentary sovereignty

The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg says an Indigenous voice to parliament should be formed by a network of Indigenous communities across the country, in a “bottom-up” approach that would ensure First Nation voices had a direct say to parliament.

Bragg, who has strongly endorsed constitutional recognition, will use a speech in Canberra today to build the case for an Indigenous voice to parliament, outlining a model that he says would honour the Uluru Statement of the Heart, while also upholding parliamentary sovereignty.

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Exiting the cashless welfare card trial is almost impossible, critics say

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Government accused of ‘demonising vulnerable people’ after only 100 of the 5,000 people on the program allowed to leave

Only 100 of the more than 5,000 people on the cashless welfare card trial have been allowed off the scheme, and the process for exemption has been labelled humiliating and hard to understand.

The government argues the card, which stores up to 80% of a welfare recipient’s payment for use at selected stores, leads to a reduction in violence and harm related to drinking alcohol, illegal drug use and gambling.

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‘I don’t know how we come back from this’: Australia’s big dry sucks life from once-proud towns

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Guardian Australia reports from three communities hard hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory

Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, resulting in desperate water shortages across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland. Dams in some parts of western NSW have all but dried up, with rainfall levels through the winter in the lowest 10% of historical records in some areas.

The crisis in the far west of the state became unavoidable after the mass fish kills along the lower Darling River last summer, but now much bigger towns closer to the coast, including Dubbo, are also running out of water.

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Labor labels Coalition’s drug-testing plan ‘demeaning’ – politics live

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Scott Morrison accused of trying to force jobseekers to pee in a cup because he wants to pick fights with the opposition. All the day’s news, live

George Brandis has been spotted in the building.

We are not sure why our man in London is here, but no doubt it is all very terribly important.

Pauline Hanson is speaking to Sky News about a speech she is giving on family law reform, where she is calling for 50/50 joint custody of children, from the moment of separation.

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Tanya Day’s family win bid to release CCTV footage to combat ‘invisibility’ of her suffering

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Inquest agrees that family’s advocacy and public interest outweighs concerns about privacy and dignity

The family of Aboriginal woman Tanya Day has persuaded the coroners court to release footage of her final conscious hours, saying that not releasing it would render her suffering – like the suffering of so many Indigenous people – invisible.

Coroner Caitlin English announced on Friday that she would release selected footage of Day’s time in the cells of Castlemaine police station. She said the public interest and the possibility that it could prevent further deaths in custody outweighed her earlier concerns about protecting the 55-year-old’s privacy and dignity.

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White women were colonisers too. To move forward, we have to stop letting them off the hook | Ruby Hamad

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We will never understand the impact of colonial oppression if we underestimate white women’s role in it, writes Ruby Hamad

On 21 September 2018, at the peak of the #MeToo movement that had supposedly shattered the silence around the sexual assault and harassment of women, 75 women, most of them white, convened in Washington DC to profess their support for the embattled supreme court justice nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

A psychology professor, Christine Blasey Ford, had claimed Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her decades earlier when she was just 15. Ford’s testimony was buttressed by two other women with similar allegations, but this was not enough to stop Kavanaugh being confirmed.

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Tanya Day’s arresting officer tells inquest he didn’t think she needed medical attention

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Constable dismisses suggestion that according to police checklist he should have taken her to hospital

The police officer who arrested Tanya Day at Castlemaine train station said he did not think she needed medical attention despite police guidelines stating that intoxicated people who cannot provide intelligible answers should be sent to hospital.

Senior Constable Stephen Thomas told an inquest into the 55-year-old Yorta Yorta woman’s death in custody that he also did not tell her she had been placed under arrest, saying it was “the most low-key arrest I have ever done”.

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Australia entering ‘second convict age’ as imprisonment rates soar

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Incarceration rates have risen 130% since 1985, according to new research by Labor MP and economist Andrew Leigh

Indigenous Australians are now more likely to be in prison than African-Americans, according to new research by Labor parliamentarian and economist Andrew Leigh warning that Australia has entered “a second convict age”.

Leigh’s new working paper finds that in 2018, around 43,000 Australians were in prison, a rate of 221 for every 100,000 adults – which he says is a significant jump since incarceration rates began climbing in 1985.

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WA Labor conference: chaos after walkout during Welcome to Country

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WA Labor president apologises to Indigenous Australians for walkout by right faction union delegates

Western Australia’s Labor conference has turned chaotic after a large number of delegates walked out during a Welcome to the Country ceremony and tribute to the former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke.

It was reported a large portion of the crowd heckled Perth MP Patrick Gorman and the WA Labor president, Carolyn Smith, before storming out of the complex.

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