Beyond fear and false choices: Why loyalty to the major parties is no longer tenable
It's time for Muslims and allies to vote with principle, not fear.
Recent articles in Indigenous-Affairs
4 April 2025
The Frontier is the way ahead for the War Memorial
“Sacrifice”, the ABC Four Corners episode of 10 March, was a train-wreck for the Australian War Memorial. Its spokespersons came across as dismissive, timid, or too clever by half. The critics of the Memorial, however, were passionate, regretful, and, in the case of Geoffrey Watson SC from the Centre for Public Integrity, downright angry.
31 March 2025
The Pacific is fighting for climate justice: Will Australia listen?
The Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) participated in the final day of the Sydney Climate Action Week, on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and had the privilege of listening to Indigenous and First Nations stories, learning from their wisdom.
28 March 2025
Gove and the native title revolution
The High Court’s judgment in March 2025 in favour of the Gumatj people has reaffirmed the centrality of the Indigenous peoples of Gove in the Northern Territory in the native title revolution that was conceived in a case against mining company, Nabalco Ltd, in the 1960s and continued with the High Court’s Mabo and Wik judgements in the 1990s.
22 February 2025
Uncle Robbie Thorpe to raise Australian genocide claim to the International Criminal Court
Having a legal action one has lodged with a court being refused is not usually the ideal outcome. Yet, the recent attempt by Uncle Robbie Thorpe to launch a private prosecution against so-called King Charles III for the crime of genocide being denied by the Victorian Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Krauatungalung elder to take the matter to a higher court beyond local borders.
5 February 2025
The Henty legacy and its ongoing impact
In the 1860s, as the new colony of Victoria boomed following the discovery of gold, First Peoples were being moved onto missions and reserves, where their lives were tightly controlled.
30 January 2025
John Howard and British colonisation of Australia
Humphrey McQueen (Pearls and Irritations, ‘The lucky Aborigines’ 26 January 2025), has reminded us of John Howard’s opinion that “the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British. Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent than other European colonisers.”
26 January 2025
The lucky Aborigines
I do hold the view that the luckiest thing that happened to this country was being colonised by the British, he said. Not that they were perfect by any means, but they were infinitely more successful and beneficent colonisers than other European countries. - John Howard, October 26, 2023.
26 January 2025
Instead of noise and bluster, can January 26 be a day of loving awareness of those who are hurting?
I have been reading Stan Grant’s beautiful new book, Murriyang song of time (Bundyi: Sydney 2024). There is in it a sentence pertaining to the Uluru Statement of the Heart and the subsequent failed Referendum. Stan Grant says, poignantly, that ‘the Uluru Statement spoke from the afflicted to a nation that has never loved us.'
25 January 2025
After the theft of a continent, welfare benefits beat work
Land rights now! By a strange quirk of fate, I was working in the Minister’s Office in 1976 when Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. Great was our pride, and our expectations. In terms of securing title to land and sea the Act has been highly effective. But in terms of creating assets for wealth generation, and lifting household incomes, and providing the means for people to participate in the economic activity of the Country, not so much.
20 December 2024
Rare earths: a conundrum for our responsibility to care for country and kin
The increasing global demand for rare earth elements (REE) is driven by clean energy technologies. The electric vehicle in particular, is a strong driving force. The un-ceded sovereign lands of hundreds of First Nations - now colonised and called Australia - hold at least four per cent of the world's rare earth element reserves.
14 December 2024
Genocidal attitudes masked in the trappings of patriotism
The decision by Australia’s federal Opposition leader to avoid standing by the Aboriginal flag is a dangerously divisive and cynical move.
13 December 2024
Farewell fair go, hello despair
It’s true. The night fears have come to pass. The evidence is too great to ignore any longer. My country, our nation, is racist.
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