Indigenous affairs
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Self-determination is a choice: The Voice Referendum and what follows
The truth is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people successfully governed themselves for over 60,000 years and Australia need only get out of the way so they can continue. Continue reading »
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“Yes” on the Voice is a vote for a better future
Despite their occupation of our continent for over 60,000 years, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are not recognised in the Constitution, the document on which our nation is founded. Continue reading »
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The Voice: walking with the Australian people for a better future
“For me, indigenous recognition won’t be changing our constitution so much as completing it.” – Tony Abbot, 2015. Continue reading »
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Pay the (colonial) rent?
Internationally-acclaimed Indigenous artist Richard Bell’s latest ‘Pay the rent!’ installation at the Tate Modern in London goes to the heart of some of the intractable problems of Australian white settlement. Continue reading »
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A Voice for On Country and one for the city
There is barely an Indigenous murmur in The Centre about the Voice from the Heart. Continue reading »
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A ‘Statement From The Heart’ should always be cherished
How is it that the Uluru Statement from the Heart is even slightly controversial? Continue reading »
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What the Voice means for Australia’s reputation
The outcome of the Voice referendum will affect Australia’s reputation – a fact voters should consider, writes John McCarthy. Continue reading »
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3 ways the Victorian government’s bail reforms fall short – and why it must embrace ‘Poccum’s Law’
The bail reform bill tabled in the Victorian parliament this week seeks to undo some of the worst parts of the Bail Act, which was condemned as a “complete and unmitigated disaster” in the coronial inquest into the passing of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson in 2020. Continue reading »
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Betrayal: The threat to life on Earth
It has been overlooked during Garma festival that, under current policies, global warming would render aboriginal lands in central and northern Australia unliveable and the top-end a nuclear target… Continue reading »
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The Voice debate is about more than who wins: this is a battle for fundamental values
We need to return to respectful dialogue. We are facing a critical test of Australian democracy and the resilience of the peaceful infrastructure of the public sphere and civil society. Continue reading »
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White Australia’s moral backwardness
White Australians like to think of themselves as an egalitarian and frank people, despising pretentiousness, while basking in a reputation for larrikinism and mateship. But this is all a front, papering over a culture that is deeply racist, excessively masculinist, and incorrigibly populist. Indeed, from its very beginnings, white Australia has been a morally backward Continue reading »
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On the Voice, supporters urged to be “loud and proud”
Campaigners for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament believe the referendum may be just 75 days away, and have urged supporters to step up, and be “loud and proud” in championing a yes vote. Continue reading »
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No joy in ‘I told you so’: the Productivity Commission’s 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. Continue reading »
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A twentieth century Terra Nullius: Crimea, Canards and Confabulations
A reading of history, including the genocide and forced exile of the indigenous Crimean Tatars, debunks apologias for the Russian annexation of Crimea based on the support of the local Russian majority. Continue reading »
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Iron ore wealth – inequity through reversible governmental failure
It is time for the Australian citizenry and First Nations to resume their rightful ownership and custodianship of the land’s eco-geology. Continue reading »
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Kindergarten mentality: a higher standard required from those who govern us
Some politicians have decided to do what is better for them and their re-election and position rather than what’s good for Australia. They think the smart thing to do is trash the whole idea of the Voice. Ego, power, position and privilege have nothing to do with the Voice. It has to do with Australian Continue reading »
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What gets some whitefellas angry and anxious
There is nothing that agitates some whitefellas more than an intelligent, articulate and charismatic blackfella. Continue reading »
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Indigenous Australia and Southern Culture
In terms of the long-term survival of our species, the ritualisation of war the First Peoples of Australia achieved should be celebrated as a great advancement in human relationship. Rather than just celebrating the longevity and attachment to land of aboriginal people, we need to recognise that all their various cultures achieved one of the Continue reading »
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The Voice: the game-changer everyone yearns for?
Against the background of reconciliatory legal and political gestures from Canberra over the past 30 years, and in view of the Voice being proposed as an organic instrument ‘from the heart’ of Aboriginal Australia (rather than a top-down ‘advice’ – device of bureaucratic convenience), it may well be the game-changer everyone yearns for. Continue reading »
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The Voice and the problem of race
Defeat for the Voice referendum will reverberate internationally. Surviving suspicions about our racist past will be refreshed. It will come at the same time as our renewed embrace of our ‘forever friends’ in Britain and the United States and our growing enthusiasm for closer ties with NATO. Continue reading »
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Making Voice a referendum on the Labor government
By the time of the referendum on the Voice, No campaigners look likely to have turned it into a referendum on the Albanese government, and, probably into “wokeness.” It may be a tragedy if they do, whether for First Australians or the nation generally, because it will inevitably exacerbate divisions in the community. Continue reading »
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War service did not stop the racism
Noel Turnbull’s article about the treatment of black warriors who wore the Australian uniform make for some uncomfortable reading for those Australians who think Indigenous peoples have no need to control their own destinies. Historically, we have applied the claim that veterans are heroes very selectively. Continue reading »
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Voice needs a serious rattle of spears
The biggest risk to the success of the referendum on Aboriginal recognition is the Albanese government’s lack of resolution. It has strongly promoted the voice, successfully in parliament, but far less effectively within the broader community. There is a serious prospect that the various proponents of the No case will win by default, mostly because Continue reading »
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How were Indigenous warriors who did wear ‘the uniform’ treated?
While there are some – such as Major General Melick – concerned about not depicting warriors in the Frontier Wars, because they didn’t wear a uniform, in the Australian War Memorial, it is worth remembering how appalling the treatment of Indigenous veterans who did wear ‘the uniform’ over the last century or so were treated. Continue reading »
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The Voice and Reconciliation
The Voice is beyond politics. It’s about reconciliation between two profoundly different cultures and approaches to life. Continue reading »
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The States can establish the Voice now: Why wait?
There is a widespread misconception that the powers given the Federal Parliament by the Australian Constitution may be altered only by referendum. Continue reading »
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We used to call it ‘Culture Conflict’
It is a sad fact that the White staff who take jobs in remote Aboriginal communities tend to socialise together after work, thus maintaining a clear social distance from the people they are working for, or working with, or working among. Close and trusting relationships between the locals and the strangers — teachers, health workers, Continue reading »
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Australia’s real test
A few days after coming to power in 1972 Gough Whitlam declared that ‘Australia’s real test as far as the rest of the world is concerned is the role we create for our own Aborigines’. More than foreign aid programmes, more than any role the country plays in agreements or alliances, treatment of the Aborigines Continue reading »
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In the 1800s, colonisers attempted to listen to First Nations people. It didn’t stop the massacres
Note of warning: This article refers to deceased Aboriginal people, their words, names and images. Words attributed to them and images in the article are already in the public domain. Also, historical language is used in this article that may cause offence. Continue reading »
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Without action, government apologies at historic Yoorrook Commission are hollow
Australia’s first Aboriginal-led Royal Commission recently completed a month of public hearings during which Commissioners questioned Victorian government ministers and senior bureaucrats about injustices against First Peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems. Continue reading »
