March 2015

Jacky Green: 'Nothing has really changed since whitefellas came. First it was horses now bulldozers'

Submitted by Paul Daley on

The Garrwa artist and activist talks about the politics of his art, big mining on his ancestral lands, and how history consistently conspires to dispossess Indigenous peoples

Garrwa artist Jacky Green tests me the moment we meet.

We shake hands, he looks at me, first quizzically, next with a glower, and demands: “Hey – you look like another one of them bastard mining execs come to wreck my land? Is that who you are?”

Black Anzac: the life and death of an Aboriginal man who fought for king and country

Submitted by Paul Daley on

The experience of black Australians is slowly being allowed to seep into the official Anzac story, writes novelist and journalist Paul Daley. Here he charts the life of one extraordinary Indigenous soldier, Douglas Grant

With a little over a month to go until the centenary of the failed Gallipoli landings, Australia is already in the Titan’s Grip of Anzac commemoration.

Or perhaps it is better described as a celebration.

'Lifestyle choices' is Abbott's third and final strike on Indigenous affairs | Paul Daley

Submitted by Paul Daley on

Our putative ‘prime minister for Aboriginal affairs’ has made so many mistakes that it’s hard to come to any other conclusion: he does not respect Indigenous culture

Tony Abbott can declare himself the “prime minister for Aboriginal affairs” all he likes, but his absurd, provocative and naive claim that Indigenous Australians living in remote communities were exercising a “lifestyle choice” is the third rhetorical strike against his credibility on the issue.