Category Archives: Indigenous Australians

Australia to be sued over mining project’s ‘unmerciful’ destruction of Indigenous land

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Galarrwuy Yunupingu taking legal action for loss of native title as well as destruction of dreaming sites

The federal government is facing a lawsuit over damage done to Indigenous land by the decades-old mining project that sparked the Yirrkala Bark Petitions.

Gumatj leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu revealed on Saturday that he and his people were taking legal action against the commonwealth, seeking compensation for the loss of native title over the minerals exploited by mine operator Nabalco and its successor, Rio Tinto, as well as the destruction of key dreaming sites.

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Yothu Yindi Foundation chief says Australian governments ‘dining out’ on Aboriginal misery

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Denise Bowen says governments spending money on urban centres and tourists instead of tackling disadvantage

Aboriginal people are prisoners to incompetence and maladministration by governments that spend on urban centres and tourists instead of tackling rampant disadvantage, the head of the Yothu Yindi Foundation has said.

Speaking at the Garma festival in northeast Arnhem Land, the chief executive of the foundation, Denise Bowden, took aim at the Northern Territory government and the commonwealth, which she said had responsibility for the NT, and for the “rivers of gold” that its GST formula sends to Darwin.

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Chinese-Australian history predates the first fleet – and my family helped me find out how | Benjamin Law

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When you’re the child of migrants, your forebears may as well have come from the moon. So I set out to rediscover mine

Growing up in Queensland as ABCs (Australian-born Chinese), my siblings and I would get our backs up whenever strangers complimented us on our English – which was often. “Why wouldn’t I be fluent?” I’d think, fuming. “I was born in Nambour.” It didn’t matter: white Australians around us seemed as impressed by our English, as much as our Hong Kong relatives pitied our butchered Cantonese.

Yet I have an admission. Whenever I saw or encountered other Chinese-Australians speaking fluent English myself, my jaw would hang in disbelief. Seeing Chinese-Australians – or any Asian-Australians, really – on TV was rare in the 1980s and 1990s. But when people like Annette Shun Wah presented on SBS, Elizabeth Chong showed Bert Newton how to stuff a chicken with spring onions, or Dr Cindy Pan discussed prophylactics on Sex/Life – and with Australian accents, like mine! – my brain couldn’t process it. Weren’t my family the only ones?

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Tourists are rushing to climb Uluru before ban takes effect

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Crowds of tourists are scaling the world heritage-listed site against the wishes of the traditional owners

Tourists are travelling to Uluru to climb the rock, against the wishes of the traditional owners, to get in before the practice is banned in October.

Parks Australia said there were “certainly visitors travelling with the intention of climbing Uluru before the climb closure comes into effect”.

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Death in custody: police failed to see Indigenous man no longer needed restraining, coroner says

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Shaun Coolwell died in hospital after being handcuffed and injected with the sedative midazolam

Queensland police and paramedics dealing with an Indigenous man during a violent, drug-induced episode failed to recognise the sudden deterioration of his health, a coroner has said.

Shaun Charles Coolwell died in hospital after being sedated and restrained in his sister’s Logan home, south of Brisbane, in October 2015.

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Western Australian police stations to fly Aboriginal flag in reconciliation move

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Indigenous community welcomes plan but warns against prioritising symbolism over action

Western Australia will become the first state in Australia to permanently fly the Aboriginal flag outside every police station as part of an attempt to address long-standing divisions between police and Indigenous communities.

The proposal forms part of WA police’s first ever reconciliation action plan, released on Tuesday, which also includes a promise to increase Indigenous staffing levels in the organisation, develop protocols for delivering a Welcome to Country at police events, and “look into the feasibility of offering Aboriginal language lessons to staff”.

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There’s no such thing as an Aboriginal ‘alien’ – and the high court should say so | Micah Kickett and Julian R Murphy

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Deporting Indigenous peoples strips them of their identity and right to country and devalues their cultural obligations and responsibilities

Aboriginal people have occupied the continent of Australia for more than 60,000 years, so why does the Australian government feel justified imprisoning them in immigration detention centres and threatening them with deportation?

Australia’s indefinite detention of asylum seekers in inhumane conditions has long been a public concern, but only recently have we learned that the government is prepared to treat its Indigenous people in a similar manner. This week, two Aboriginal Australians who have experienced such treatment brought their cases to the high court, asking the court to rule that the federal government’s constitutional power to make laws with respect to “aliens” (essentially, foreigners) cannot apply to Aboriginal Australians.

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Authorities at odds over claim Adelaide Oval staff told not to admit Aboriginal people

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Instructions not to sell tickets were reportedly received before last year’s Naidoc Week AFL game

Box office staff at the Adelaide Oval were reportedly directed to stop selling tickets to Aboriginal people while fans gathered before last year’s Naidoc Week AFL match celebrating Indigenous culture.

The box office and Oval management said a supervisor “misinterpreted” an instruction from the police and security not to sell tickets to a specific group of people who were intoxicated and had been refused entry.

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Cyclone Trevor: racism claims denied as Northern Territory begins clean-up

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  • Claims fly-in fly-out workers given better accommodation than Indigenous evacuees
  • Cyclone Veronica continues to threaten WA’s Pilbara region

As the Northern Territory begins its big mop-up after Cyclone Trevor, local authorities have hosed down racism claims concerning evacuation efforts.

Trevor forced mass evacuations before it made landfall on Saturday morning as a category four system, with destructive winds gusting up to 250km/h.

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Hotel giant Accor accused of segregating Aboriginal guests into lower-quality rooms

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Australian government to investigate claims French-owned Ibis Styles in Alice Springs reserved poorest accommodation for Indigenous visitors

The international hotel giant Accor has launched an investigation into allegations that staff at one of its Australian hotels have been segregating Aboriginal guests in lower quality rooms.

The French multinational company said on Friday it was “extremely saddened and disappointed” at the revelations, which were reported by the ABC’s Background Briefing program.

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The Killing Times: the massacres of Aboriginal people Australia must confront

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Special report: Shootings, poisonings and children driven off cliffs – this is a record of state-sanctioned slaughter

• A massacre map of Australia’s frontier wars – interactive

The truth of Australia’s history has long been hiding in plain sight.

The stories of “the killing times” are the ones we have heard in secret, or told in hushed tones. They are not the stories that appear in our history books yet they refuse to go away.

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Nigel Scullion’s intervention in Northern Land Council denounced as ‘irresponsible’

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Indigenous affairs minister uses powers under the NT Lands Right Act to force the council to meet over an alleged conflict of interest

In an unprecedented move, Nigel Scullion has used his powers under the Northern Territory Land Rights Act to compel the Northern Land Council to meet to resolve a perceived conflict of interest involving some of its senior executives.

It’s the first time since the Land Rights Act was introduced in 1976 that a minister for Indigenous affairs has used his powers in this way.

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Citizenship report puts national security reform on back burner – politics live

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Joint committee calls for further review of bill stripping terrorists of citizenship, as PM hands down Closing the Gap report and Coalition keeps up medical transfers scare campaign. All the day’s events, live

The attorney-general’s office released the transcript of his interview with Kieran Gilbert on Sky News this morning.

It includes this exchange between Christian Porter, as the first law officer and Gilbert:

Chris Bowen and Mark Butler have held a press conference to blast the government for dumping the big stick.

Labor doesn’t support this policy but the Bowen/Butler argument is the government did, and this is yet another energy policy that has now bitten the dust. The government says it will take the policy to the coming election, and seek a mandate.

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Truth-telling: 80% say past injustices against Indigenous people should be recognised

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A biennial report shows attitudes shifting in support of key aims of the reconciliation movement

An overwhelming majority of Australians support a formal “truth telling” process to acknowledge past injustices against Indigenous people, the latest survey on community attitudes towards reconciliation shows.

The reconciliation barometer survey, conducted by Reconciliation Australia every two years, shows attitudes shifting in support of some of the key aims of the reconciliation movement.

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Yumi Stynes calls Kerri-Anne Kennerley racist in on-air clash over Australia Day

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Studio 10 panellist accuses TV veteran of racism after she refers to rape during discussion about Invasion Day protests

The Studio 10 co-host Kerri-Anne Kennerley has been accused of racism by fellow panellist Yumi Stynes after the veteran presenter talked about sexual violence in Indigenous communities during a discussion about Invasion Day protests.

Kennerley attacked the motives of the protesters who want the date of Australia Day changed by implying they were ignoring the alleged rape of children and women in the “outback”.

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Huge crowds attend Invasion Day marches across Australia’s capital cities

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Scott Morrison talks of his ancestor’s arrival on the continent, and defends celebration of Australia Day

• Hundreds attend first dawn service to be held on Australia Day

Scott Morrison has said 26 January 1788 was “pretty miserable” for his ancestor, in a speech defending the celebration of Australia Day, while tens of thousands of people joined Invasion Day marches around the country calling for the public holiday to be abolished.

Morrison told a citizenship ceremony in Canberra that his fifth great grandfather, William Roberts, arrived with the first fleet in a group that was “wretched, naked, filthy, dirty, lousy, and many of them utterly unable to stand, or even to stir hand or foot”.

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Warren Mundine picked by Scott Morrison to stand in marginal seat of Gilmore

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Indigenous leader and former Labor boss to be parachuted in as a Liberal in the NSW electorate held by retiring MP Ann Sudmalis

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine will be parachuted in to contest the marginal seat of Gilmore under a Scott Morrison-endorsed plan being considered by the New South Wales Liberal party executive.

On Tuesday the state executive voted to block the preselection of real-estate agent Grant Schultz, who had been picked by local members to contest the seat held by the retiring MP Ann Sudmalis.

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Councils ask Morrison to pay for citizenship ceremonies on 26 January

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PM says ceremonies must be held on Australia Day, but some councils say they are too small, or too hot

The federal government has been told to put its money where its mouth is on the question of Australia Day. Councils are arguing they should be financially compensated if they are forced to hold citizenship ceremonies on 26 January.

A day before he launched a rebrand of his Coalition government, Scott Morrison on Sunday said he was “prime minister for standards” as he spruiked a new rule that would force councils to oversee the ceremonies on Australia Day. The government will also ban “board shorts” and “thongs” from those events.

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