Indigenous Australians

Dec 2021

If production proceeds in the Beetaloo Basin, it will unleash a carbon bomb of huge proportions, and expose the Northern Territory’s environment and people to numerous other risks associated with fracking, including contamination of groundwater supplies, which make up 90 per cent of the Territory’s consumptive water use.

Relational Medicine

Arena Quarterly no. 8

Lisa Stefanoff

Dec 2021

Re-mediating the oldest intimate communication practices—a message from a caring friend or relation—is helping to counter diabolically antisocial influences.

Dark Emu’s Critics

Arena Quarterly no. 7

Richard Davis

Sep 2021

Whereas The Politics of Suffering, both essay and book, found a white audience willing to embrace his conservative view of Aboriginal people, Sutton’s promotion of Aboriginal permanence in this book has likely missed the contemporary zeitgeist.

The deadly virus delivers accidental benefit to remote Indigenous Australia

Arena Online

Jon Altman

7 Apr 2020

The expansion of welfare payments in response to the coronavirus crisis will have a massive economic impact on remote indigenous Australia, effectively doubling the overall incomes of many communities.

"The death of Kumanjayi Walker—the Northern Territory as police state

Three Shots

Arena Magazine no. 163

Melinda Hinkson, Thalia Anthony

Dec 2019

The death of Kumanjayi Walker—the Northern Territory as police state

"Do we really want to continue replicating southern models of settler-colonial capitalism when the catastrophic…

The Problem Child of Empire

Arena Magazine no. 158

Shannyn Palmer

Feb 2019

Do we really want to continue replicating southern models of settler-colonial capitalism when the catastrophic environmental consequences of that logic, especially extractivism, are impressing themselves on us daily?

"As a lagoon re-emerges and country heals, an Aboriginal past is revealed

Remembering at Woolgangi, by Skye Krichauff

Arena Magazine no. 154

Skye Krichauff

Jun 2018

As a lagoon re-emerges and country heals, an Aboriginal past is revealed

"Placing his programs in the ‘radical centre’ is a misnomer

Noel Pearson’s Education Agenda, by Chris Sarra

Arena Magazine no. 143

Chris Sarra

Aug 2016

Placing his programs in the ‘radical centre’ is a misnomer

"A major challenge all political parties face is that Indigenous poverty is deeply embedded and…

Auditing Indigenous Poverty

Jon Altman

30 Jun 2016

A major challenge all political parties face is that Indigenous poverty is deeply embedded and structural and will take a long time, innovative policy and major investments to address. The diversity of Indigenous circumstances means that a diversity of approaches will be required, but the major parties are committed to mainstreaming or normalisation options. It is only the Greens that are serious about the recognition of difference and the need for approaches that emphasise social…

"In 1968 anthropologist Bill Stanner spoke of the Great Australian Silence in relation to the…

Indigenous Australia and the 2016 Budget: The Great Australian Fiscal Silence

24 May 2016

In 1968 anthropologist Bill Stanner spoke of the Great Australian Silence in relation to the historical mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, a national myopia. The just announced 2016 Budget could be similarly termed ‘the Great Australian Fiscal Silence’, a fiscal myopia incommensurate with the level of need.

"How can we work towards refugee and asylum-seeker rights while acknowledging Aboriginal sovereignty?