Paul Wright
Paul Wright is the National Director, Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation. He has nearly 2 decades of experience working in both Government and non-government sectors – covering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, health, immigration and social services.
Paul's recent articles
3 August 2023
No joy in I told you so: the Productivity Commissions 2023 Closing the Gap Report
Last week the Productivity Commission released its draft Review of the National Closing the Gap Agreement. The National Agreement on Closing the Gap was launched with a lot of fanfare in July 2020, promising a new era of reform and a genuine commitment of governments to work in partnership with First Nations peak organisations.
18 May 2022
Uluru-Legacies, political capital and ending the procrastination
You know the feeling you get when something is bleedingly obvious, staring you in the face and because no one else seems to recognise it, you begin to doubt what you see?
3 April 2022
Let them eat cake
In closing the gap between First Nations peoples and their fellow non-Indigenous Australians, this budget has nothing worthwhile.
24 March 2022
History repeating: expecting injustice
When are we going to get justice? Ned Jampinjinpa Hargreaves, Warlpiri elder
15 May 2021
Budget Blues and what's not in the news
This week we had Budget night, with the anticipated cash splurge which is expected to set the Government up for re-election in the next 12-months. The last budget was in October 2020, with special emergency budgeting required to manage Covid-19 over the last 12 months. Just 7 months later, and despite the much improved economic and budget position, I could just as easily have copied and pasted my comments from October last year as the analysis for what we saw announced last night.
11 April 2021
Nationhood and the deadly incarceration pandemic of our First Nations people
For the vast bulk of our people the legal system is not a trusted instrument of justice. It is a feared and despised processing plant that propels the most vulnerable and disabled of our people towards a broken and bleak future.
11 March 2021
The biggest step yet in Truth Telling about Australias history since colonisation
Focus has rightly been on the very serious issues of sexual violence that have been raised regarding the Federal Parliament and historically with the Attorney-General, Christian Porter.However, there is already a risk that the profound importance of what has been announced in Victoria this week by the First Peoples Assembly and the State government the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission which will be the most comprehensive Truth Telling process in Australia since colonisation began in 1788, might be missed.
26 January 2021
A Rightful Place, from colonisation to reconciliation
In the lead up to Survival Day this year, three key reports have been released, the interim Report to the Australian Government by the Indigenous Co-Design team on the Voice; the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2021; and the 2021 State of Reconciliation in Australia Report released last week by Reconciliation Australia.
13 December 2020
Who are we now? Sovereignty and confidence
Its gone a bit quiet this week, with our federal parliamentarians deciding to keep their heads down and not further antagonise their Chinese Government counterparts. But it was curious observing the Australian reaction and outrage expressed and on balance rightly about Chinas demands that would impinge on our sovereignty and independence.
7 October 2020
The Budget: record spending, but very little for First Nations peoples
So unless youve been off the grid or in a bunker since January, the 2020 Budget has been offered up by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last night (5 months late) with the historic backdrop being the cold, hard economic reality of living with a global pandemic.