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ABC Message Stick
Human rights activist Faith Bandler farewelled at state funeral
SBS
Traumatised by the ill-treatment of Aboriginal Women and children during World War II, Faith Bandler set out to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. “She helped us all to be better people, helped us to recognise that caring for others was ...
Hundreds remember activist Faith Bandler at public funeralABC Message Stick
State funeral for Indigenous and South Sea Islander activist Faith BandlerRadio Australia
Faith Bandler honoured as torchbearer of justice at state funeralThe Australian (blog)
Yahoo!7 News
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Indigenous Tweets Highlight International Mother Language Day in Australia
Global Voices Online
Wamut,aka @kriolkantri on Twitter, and blogger of ten years, shared indigenous tweets on Storify: “February 21 is International Mother Language Day and this year, Australians showed off Aboriginal and Islander languages in a spectacular way and ...

Indigenous Tweets Highlight International Mother Language Day in Australia
Global Voices Online
Wamut,aka @kriolkantri on Twitter, and blogger of ten years, shared indigenous tweets on Storify: “February 21 is International Mother Language Day and this year, Australians showed off Aboriginal and Islander languages in a spectacular way and ...

The Guardian
New burglary laws will jail more Aboriginal people in WA, experts fear
The Guardian
Western Australia is on the brink of passing new burglary laws that lawyers say will put more Aboriginal people behind bars. The criminal law amendment (home burglary and other offences) bill 2014 is expected to be debated in the state parliament on ...

The Australian
State funeral for Indigenous and South Sea Islander activist Faith Bandler
Radio Australia
After many years campaigning for indigenous rights, Faith Bandler switched her focus to her own people, the 16,000 descendants of South Sea Islanders like her father who were brought to Australia against their will. She founded the National Commission ...
Human rights activist Faith Bandler farewelled at state funeralSBS
Faith lives in world Bandler touchedThe Australian
Hundreds remember activist Faith Bandler at public funeralABC Message Stick
The New Daily -Yahoo!7 News
all 36 news articles »Google News

SBS
High Indigenous heart disease death rate
SBS
A new report highlights the need to further reduce heart disease death rates among Indigenous Australians. 23 Feb 2015 - 8:32 PM UPDATED 56 MINS AGO. 0. A new report highlights the need to further narrow the gap between the death rates from heart ...
An open letter from Paul VandenberghPort Adelaide

all 4 news articles »

Independent Australia
Indigenous community closures in WA: Barnett turns his back on traditional owners
Independent Australia
Prior to Christmas, the West Australian Government announced that it would be closing up to 150 remote Indigenous Communities in Western Australia. This announcement came as a complete surprise to the Indigenous communities, who were not provided ...

Herald Sun
We need an indigenous commissioner: Long
AFL.com.au
Long has been a highly influential figure for indigenous Australians since he took a stand against on-field racism in 1995, objecting to comments made to him by Collingwood ruckman Damian Monkhorst. Long's stand resulted in the AFL enacting the first ...
Essendon great Michael Long declares he wants to be first indigenous AFL ...Herald Sun

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Ambitious Indigenous Jobs Plan for Northern Territory
Pro Bono Australia
The Northern Territory Government has announced an ambitious plan to double the number of Indigenous Australians employed in public service in the state. Chief Minister Adam Giles announced recently that his Government planned to meet the newly set ...

Ambitious Indigenous Jobs Plan for Northern Territory
Pro Bono Australia
The Northern Territory Government has announced an ambitious plan to double the number of Indigenous Australians employed in public service in the state. Chief Minister Adam Giles announced recently that his Government planned to meet the newly set ...

The Guardian
What next for Freedom Ride and bringing change to Indigenous Australia?
The Guardian
The Freedom Ride of 1965 was led by 29 students, including the University of Sydney's first Indigenous student Charles Perkins, with the aim of exposing the harsh reality of Australia's treatment of its Indigenous people. This month a group made up of ...

Perth Now
Coverage a black and white issue
Perth Now
But in the cyclones' devastating wake, one crucial question remains - why don't Australians care about the lives of Aboriginal people? This was clearly reflected in the inconsistent reporting by the majority of mainstream media outlets from around ...

Gossip Cop
Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs Slam 2 Broke Girls Joke About Aboriginal ...
Gossip Cop
The stars of “2 Broke Girls” distanced themselves on Saturday from a recent joke on the show that many Australians have called racist and offensive. Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs both spoke out against the line, which took a jab at Aboriginal Australians.
'2 Broke Girls' stars Kat Dennings, Beth Behrs speak out over 'aboriginal ...CarterMatt.com

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ABC Radio National 'Arts Today' Michael Aird Guests: Photographic historian. Curator, Wild Australia: Meston's Wild Australia Show, University of Queensland Anthropology Museum Mandana Mapar and Photo media artist and curator, Wild Australia: Meston's Wild Australia Show, University of Queensland's Anthropology Museum In the 1890s a ‘troupe’ of Aboriginal people travelled Australia to perform a sort of Wild West Show, under the wing of charismatic journalist, politician and entrepreneur Archibald Meston. The venture failed, and Meston effectively abandoned the 27 performers in Melbourne, but not before the actors were photographed and their images sold as postcards. Aboriginal curator and photography specialist Michael Aird has been interested in these images for a long time, and with Mandana Mapar and researcher Paul Memmott has put together an exhibition that opens tomorrow at the University of Queensland's Anthropology Museum.

Green Left Weekly
Aboriginal people driven from their land
Green Left Weekly
At the Freedom Summit in Canberra over January 25 to 27, Aboriginal activists who had travelled from around the country brought with them many pressing concerns, which paint a picture of the many fronts on which Aboriginal Australia continues to be ...

ABC RN Phillip Adams 'Late Night Live' Thursday 19 February 2015 - In 1961, young married couple Robert and Helen Singleton, joined the Freedom rides to protest against racial segregation in America's south. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that segregation on public buses and interstate transport, including at transit stops, was unconstitutional but southern states had ignored this ruling. As soon as they arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, Bob and Helen Singleton were arrested and incarcerated in the notorious Parchman Penitentiary, along with many other Freedom riders. Today, the Singletons say they are concerned about racial profiling and the use of force by police, as well as the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision blunting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the civil rights movement’s most important victories. - Image: Freedom Riders, Robert and Helen Singleton (Source ABC RN/Alex McClintock)

Uproxx
'2 Broke Girls' Offended Australians With An Aboriginal Australians Joke
Uproxx
People in Australia are pissed after a particular episode of 2 Broke Girls aired over there on Wednesday night. “And the Fun Factory,” which originally aired in the U.S. in early January, featured a joke made at the expense of Aboriginal Australians.

Aboriginal Art Directory News
The Wild Australia Troupe
Aboriginal Art Directory News
A little before 1892, a group of 27 Indigenous people came together from the groups of Wakaya, Kuthant, Kurtjar, Arapa, Walangama, Mayikulan, Kabi Kabi, Kalkadoon and Muralag. There were 22 men, four women and one child. And the man behind it, ...

Pacific Islanders in Australia are angry over a federal government move to ban kava. Stefan Armbruster SBS World News 18 FEB 2015 - (Transcript from World News Radio) - Claims organised gangs of Pacific Islanders are smuggling kava into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities will see the federal government ban the traditional drink in Australia. - Existing import limits will be abolished, a move that has angered Pacific islanders. - The proposed ban comes as Australian aid funds the development of bottled kava drinks as an export industry in Fiji. - Stefan Armbruster reports - The drinking of kava is an ancient Pacific islander custom, now regularly practiced in Australia - (SFX of clapping) - The claps are a signal appreciation. - This kava club gathers regularly in Brisbane but soon these sessions could be illegal. - Federal Indigenous Affairs minister and Northern Territory Senator Nigel Scullion is on a mission. - "We accept people practising their culture in this country. Of course we do. But when it is perverted and redirected, and to harm our First Australians, it isn't a right, it's a privilege. But I'm an advocate unashamedly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. That's my job and I think it should be banned and I will continue pursuing it until it is banned." - A total ban on kava imports because of the actions of a few has shocked the tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders in Australia. - "It makes me angry, it makes me very, very angry." - Zane Yoshida is an Australian citizen from Fiji who regularly has kava sessions at his house and is the founder of Taki Mai, a company that makes bottled kava drinks. - "We definitely deserve to have kava as part of our traditional cultural practices, even in Australia. If anything, it has been a positive influence on the Fijian community. Even the youth in Australia, as an alternative to alcohol." - Kava is already illegal in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land because of the health, social and financial impacts. - NT police Detective Superintendant Tony Fuller of the Drug and Organised Crime Division has long worked in the remote communities. - "Basically what kava does is it compounds existing health and substance abuses issues in the communities, so what it does is it adds one more layer of problems to the community." - Two kilos of kava per person can legally be brought into Australia from Pacific Islands like Fiji. - "Generally it's brought into Australia by Pacific Island groups, and we're seeing what we call stockpiling in places like Sydney and Brisbane, and then the couriers will either bring it up by plane or mail it or sometimes they'll just drive it up." - NT police have seized about 10 tonnes since 2009 and made more than 200 arrests. - "The vast majority of offenders who bring it into the Northern Territory are Tongan, of Tongan descent. There are obviously some Tongans out there who don't abuse it. That said we have a significant amount of Aboriginal people we are arresting." - Penalties include prison terms of up to eight years for quantities over 25 kilograms. - Kava costs about $30 a kilo overseas, once in Arnhem Land it sells for about $1000. - Senator Nigel Scullion says kava smuggling is big business. - "There's been I think over seventeen busts over 100 kilo and one of the things this signifies is that this is a organised criminal activity. The size of the busts, the sophistication of communication, this is significant organised criminal activity and with significant organised crime comes other activities. People say, 'We are drinking kava today, but we have a suite of drugs for you'. " - Kava has a distinctive taste. - It comes from the root of a pepper tree, and has a relaxing and slightly numbing effect. - Pacific islanders enjoy sharing kava, much like a cup of tea or coffee in other cultures, but it is drunk in much larger quantities for the effect. - It was introduced to the Northern Territory in the 1980s by Pacific islander missionaries as an alternative to alcohol. - After initial successes it was soon abused, then restricted and finally banned with the imposition of the 2006 NT intervention. - "We understand that in a very naive community like Arnhem Land, this is why it is doing the damage, because it is drunk in vast quantities and not in a cultural sense at all." - Kava is not widely used in Aboriginal communities outside north-west Arnhem Land. - While the federal government wants to ban it at home, Australian overseas aid has funded kava production in Fiji as a health supplement for export. - Zane Yoshida's company Taki Mai has received tens of thousands of dollars of Australian international aid funds develop its product in Fiji. - "I've developed a kava supplement that I currently sell in the United States and Fiji through the natural food channels and this produce here is a kava supplement for taking the edge of, for relaxing, and as we progress with clinical trials here in Australia, we'd like to make structure function claims for relieving stress and anxiety." - Their product was launched by the Fiji's Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama in July last year. - "The head of the Australian High Commission, members of the community, distinguished guests, my fellow Fijian. Bula vinaka, I'm delighted to be with you this morning to officially to launch Taki Mai. A supplement drink that feature Fijian grown kava. I take this opportunity to thank the Australian government for the support of this project." - Kava is legal in the United States and the European Union last year drop its ban, saying it could not substantial health concerns. - Zane Yoshida says the federal government has got it wrong. - "The key word for this is education, if we can put together programs to educate people about alcohol abuse and drug abuse, why can't were do the same for kava." - No date has been set for when kava imports will be banned and the Senator Scullion promises to speak to Pacific islander communities first.

Radio Australia - 20 February 2015 - Claims that organised gangs of Pacific islanders are smuggling kava into Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory could see the traditional Pacific island drink banned. - Australia's indigenous affairs minister set on outright kava ban (Credit: ABC) Federal Indigenous Affairs minister and Northern Territory Senator Nigel Scullion says Australia accepts people practising their culture, but when it is perverted, redirected, and harms First Australians, it isn't a right, it's a privilege. - He says in order to protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, kava should be banned and he will continue pursuing it until it is banned. - Anthropologist Kirk Huffman says the government is going about this in entirely the wrong way. - Presenter: Bruce Hill - Speaker: Kirk Huffman, anthropologist and honorary curator of the Vanuatu Museum