ARTICLES
Keeping our community and members updated on local and national news along with a variety of issues affecting the Aboriginal community
LATEST ARTICLES
Our archive of content from the old website will slowly be merge into this section. When this is complete there will be a nice variety of news and events information.
YEAR TWO TARGET FOR ABORIGINAL PROCURMENT POLICY NEARLY TRIPLED
McGowan Government’s Aboriginal Procurement Policy results in more than 5.5 per cent of government contracts awarded to Aboriginal businesses in 2019-20 Results far exceed the two per cent target for the 2019-20 financial year 234 contracts worth over $172 million awarded to Aboriginal businesses 104 different Aboriginal businesses across the State secured contracts 143 contracts, worth a total of more than $69 million, awarded to Aboriginal businesses based in regional locations The McGowan Labor Government’s Aboriginal Procurement Policy has surpassed its 2019-20 targets by an astonishing 275 per cent, with more Aboriginal businesses than ever before engaged by the State Government. The Aboriginal Procurement Policy Second Year Performance Report released today shows the policy is successfully improving the economic prosperity of Aboriginal businesses, their suppliers, sub-contractors and the broader Aboriginal community. In 2019-20, the State Government awarded 234 contracts to Aboriginal businesses, including 143 in regional locations, which have actively contributed to Aboriginal economic development and downstream business benefits. The goods and services, community services and works contracts awarded in 2019-20 were across a variety of industries including building maintenance, construction, human resources, cleaning [...]
INDIGENOUS BOARDING SCHOOL HELPS IN CLOSING THE GAP
Indigenous boarding schools help close the gap. But as NAIDOC week kicks off a study shows there are highs and lows. Ryli Johnson moved from her hometown near Moree in north-west New South Wales this year to come to Sydney. (ABC News: Isabella Higgins) Ryli Johnson faced a tough choice for a 16-year-old: her future or her family. And she's one of a growing number of Indigenous teenagers in this predicament. The teenager left behind her hometown near Moree in north-west New South Wales this year to move to Sydney, in the hope of fulfilling her dream of going to university. "I never thought I'd go away for boarding school because I'm so close to my family," she said. "But not every Aboriginal person gets this opportunity to get a good education." A stark education divide exists for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people living in regional and remote areas, who have few, if any, secondary schooling options. These students also have lower attendance and graduation rates, and literacy and numeracy scores, according to the latest Closing the Gap report. More Indigenous families are [...]
Ngaree Ah Kit ready to influence change as Australia’s first female Indigenous Speaker
Ngaree Ah Kit is the first female Indigenous Speaker in Australian history. Photo via Facebook. She’s the first female Indigenous Speaker in Australia, and Ngaree Ah Kit is refusing to allow toxicity to define her. “I don’t believe there’s room for nastiness in politics,” she said. “That’s my job every day: making sure I’ve got mutual respect and relationships with every member of [Northern Territory] Parliament.” Installed as Speaker during the first parliamentary sitting days after the Territory election in August, Ah Kit has been in the job for less than a week. “I didn’t understand the exact level of intricacy with this role and so as a bit of a micromanager, I’ve basically said everything to do with this role I want to know about,” she said. After the NT’s previous Speaker Kezia Purick resigned amid a corruption scandal with only a few sitting days left before the election, deputy speaker Namatjira MLA Chansey Paech stepped into the role for the interim, with Ah Kit as his deputy. Though she was deputy Speaker for a very short period of time, the example of [...]
‘White privileged sport’: Australian cricket confronts race issues
Cricket Australia has been told the game is seen as a "white privileged sport", as the governing body wrestles with how to recognise the Black Lives Matter movement. The comments were made by a young Indigenous activist, Tamika Sadler, in the latest episode of CA's panel series, Cricket Connecting Country, discussing systemic racism in Australian society and historic injustices in the sport. Jason Gillespie is a guest on the latest episode of Cricket Australia's "Cricket Connecting Country" series discussing racism in the game. Credit:Getty Images In comments which could also raise debate over how the game marks Australia Day, Sadler also urged those sympathetic to the BLM cause not to celebrate the national day. Days after rugby great Nick Farr-Jones warned the Wallabies not to take a knee, Sydney Thunder, Hobart Hurricanes and Adelaide Strikers players performed the gesture in the WBBL. The national women's team and New Zealand last month formed a Barefoot Circle, a rite started last season, in recognition of the inequality between black and white Australia. There will be many in the cricket world paying close attention to how the [...]
‘The Aboriginal Gulag’: The Northern Territory’s Criminal Legal System
John B. Lawrence SC Editor’s note: This article was sent to the Australian Lawyer’s Alliance’s publication Precedent in the hope of offering critique of NT legal professionals’ complicity with the disgraceful status quo of mass Aboriginal incarceration. Precedent proposed heavy edits to the article, including the very notable extraction most of the critical references to NT legal professional organisations. Such proposed censorship of dissenting voices shows a shocking lack of willingness to critically reflect on uncomfortable truths in the legal profession and adds additional weight to the arguments presented below. Introduction As you fly into Darwin you can’t fail to see through the window of your aircraft the real symbol of the Northern Territory. This initial image is no Eiffel Tower, and it’s certainly no Statue of Liberty. Neither is it some amusing giant crocodile. It’s an enormous, ugly footprint on the ground, 36 kilometres south of Darwin: the Darwin ‘Superjail’. In these Orwellian times it’s officially called the ‘Darwin Correctional Precinct’. Of course, it doesn’t correct anything or anybody and it’s not a ‘precinct’. It’s just a very big jail. It doesn’t [...]
Stop reporting and start doing,
Stop reporting and start doing, lawyers tell NSW inquiry into 'inhumane' Indigenous incarceration Coroner’s court should be properly resourced to investigate deaths in custody, bar association says Tony McAvoy SC addresses the NSW inquiry into Indigenous incarceration and deaths in custody on Monday. Photograph: NSW parliament The imprisonment rates of Aboriginal people in New South Wales are “gross and inhumane” but the solutions already exist in the 50 different reports that have been written on the issue over several decades, the NSW Bar Association has told a parliamentary inquiry. “There seems to have developed a culture of reporting in lieu of doing,” the Association’s Tony McAvoy SC told the NSW inquiry, which is holding its first hearings today. “I raise that now to encourage this committee and this parliament to be focused on the act of doing.” McAvoy noted the last major review of Aboriginal incarceration – a report by the Australian Law Reform Commission that the federal government has had for three years, and is yet to respond to – and the 1991 deaths in custody royal commission, “touch on similar matters”. “Those [...]