Researchers May Nango, Djaykuk Djandjomerr and S. Anna Florin collecting plants in Kakadu National Park. Reproduced with permission of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation.
Elspeth Hayes
Charred plant remains from one of the oldest archaeological sites reveal that the first Australians ate a varied - and sometimes labour-intensive - diet.
Professor Megan Davis is an independent expert member of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
AAP/RICHARD WAINWRIGHT
Megan Davis on a First Nations Voice in the Constitution
The Conversation, CC BY31,4 MB(download)
Megan Davis says the idea of including an Indigenous Voice in the Constitution is being rejected on an understanding that "simply isn't true" but believes Australia has the "capacity to correct this".
The Treaty of Waitangi obliges the state to ensure that public policy is as effective for Māori as it is for everybody else.
from www.shutterstock.com
A report on primary health care found New Zealand fails to deliver good outcomes for Māori because the state does not stand aside to allow Māori to take charge of their own affairs.
The Indigenous flag flies above Victorian Parliament in 2017.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
As the flag’s copyright owner, Luritja artist Harold Thomas has the right to grant licences to whomever he pleases. Asking the government to buy back his copyright licence could be seen as an appropriation of Aboriginal property rights.
Rupert O’Flynn with Rudolf Marcuse’s bronze bust of Douglas Grant, December 2016.
Photograph courtesy Tom Murray.
In 1918, in Wünsdorf prisoner-of-war camp, a German sculptor created a bust of Indigenous soldier Douglas Grant. For decades, the whereabouts of this nationally significant sculpture were unknown - until now.
Composer William Barton in 2013. Indigenous composers have long been working in the field, but the contribution of Indigenous music and culture to Australian composition deserves greater recognition.
David Crosling/AAP
Australian composers have long referenced Indigenous music and culture in their works. A new platform paper suggests a more collaborative way forward.
Miranda Tapsell in Top End Wedding, a new Australian film about identity and belonging, directed by Wayne Blair (The Sapphires).
Courtesy of Universal Pictures
It has often been assumed that Australia was essentially isolated until 1788. But research into the seagoing trade on the south coast of Papua New Guinea suggests otherwise.
Peta Clancy, Undercurrent 1, from the series Undercurrent, 2018-19, inkjet pigment print, W120 x H85cm each image approx.
Courtesy the artist
There is a long history of cultural silence on the frontier wars that characterised Australia’s colonisation. Peta Clancy’s exhibition invites us to see this history in the Victorian landscape.
Gurindji singers Thomas Monkey Yikapayi, Ronnie Wavehill Wirrpa and Topsy Dodd Ngarnjal sing ‘Wanji-wanji’.
Brenda L Croft
Wanji-wanji’s lyrics have remained unchanged over thousands of kilometres and the past 150 years.
Mary Jane Cain (centre) with granddaughters Miley Barker and Molly Chatfield and her great niece Josephine.
The sun dancin' : people and place Coonabarabran (Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994)
In the late 1880s, Gomeroi woman Mary Jane Cain began petitioning Britain for land rights. A matriarch and Queen to her people, she recovered 600 acres that became home to displaced Aboriginal families.
Indigenous Australians – just on 3% of the population – comprise at least 10%, and generally 12%, of elite footballers.
AAP/Julian Smith
Peter Dutton’s call for ‘civilised nations’ to rescue white South African farmers draws explicitly on a long history of equating civilisation with a global white identity.
In each survey or census, people are asked to identify if they are Indigenous.
AAP/Lukas Coch
What may appear to be slow progress or steady outcomes for the whole Indigenous population may be masking worsening results.
Harley Windsor’s visibility before, during and after these Winter Olympics may just be the catalyst to inspire future generations of Indigenous athletes.
AAP/Brendan Esposito
While Harley Windsor’s selection deserves celebration, it’s surprising that it has taken until now for an Indigenous Australian to compete at a Winter Olympics.
The Closing the Gap targets miss out on other aspects of economic well-being.
AAP
Australia is on track to meet its ‘Closing the Gap’ employment target, but more than a decade late.
The targets relating to Year 12 attainment, preschool enrolment, and childhood mortality are on track to be closed, according to the 2018 Closing the Gap report.
AAP/Marianna Massey
Care needs to be taken in interpreting progress on closing the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and ascribing it to actual policy change.
Changing the date of Australia Day is the first tiny step for Australia to begin the reckoning with its origins.
AAP/Dan Peled
Reconciliation between the Settler and First Nations populations is a self-evident prerequisite for Australia cutting the ties of colonial dependency with Britain to stand on our own.
Paul Keating drove a policy agenda that had been rallied after the 1993 victory.
AAP/NAA