Voice Over:

Please be aware if you’re Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you should know that this episode contains the voices and names of deceased persons.

Rachael Hocking:

There’s a big distrust in our communities for media. We know that bad reporting can lead to bad policy, which adversely affect the lives of First Nations peoples in this country.

Jason Ardler:

From even kind of a casual, layperson’s glance at popular mainstream media, it reveals ignorance. It reveals overt systemic stereotyping and this paternalistic attitude. There’s misrepresentation of history. And all these compound the frustration and the distress that’s already apparent in a lot of our communities.

Madeline Hayman-Reber:

Mainstream media would never understand because they put themselves into a story as we do because we live this stuff.

Rachael Hocking:

There’s so much assumption that goes on in mainstream media. And I don’t think that we should fall back on these old tenets of journalism. We have to remember that the rules of journalism in this country were written by all white men.

Catherine Liddle:

I think that’s why Indigenous media and Indigenous journalists are so critically important, because a storyteller is always the most powerful person in the room.

Amy Thomas:

Hi! I’m Amy Thomas. I’m a researcher at UTS. This is Black Stories Matter. It was 1992 when Prime Minister Paul Keating spoke to the mostly Aboriginal crowd that had gathered in Redfern Park in Inner City Sydney.

Paul Keating:

[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6dnDkvdTXA]

It will be a year of great significance for Australia. It comes at a time when we’ve committed ourselves to succeeding in the test which so far we’ve always failed, because in truth, we cannot confidently say that we’ve succeeded if we’ve not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the Indigenous people of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Paul Keating:

This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will, our ability to say to ourselves, and to the rest of the world, that Australia is a first rate social democracy, that we are what we should be, truly a land of a fair go and a better chance. There is no more basic test, I think, of how seriously we mean these things.

Paul Keating:

It’s in test of our self knowledge, of how well we know the land we live in, how well we know our history, how well we recognise the fact that complex as our contemporary identity is. It cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia.

Amy Thomas:

This was the first time a Prime Minister had spoken about the disposition, violence and prejudice carried out against First Nations people in Australia. It was a landmark moment in our history, and it put reconciliation firmly on the political agenda. And yet, 28 years after Keating gave his speech, we still haven’t passed the test he set for this nation.

Amy Thomas:

Today, we’re looking at what we did get right, and where we failed when it comes to understanding Aboriginal political aspirations and history. Heidi Norman, Andrew Jakubowicz and myself were the editors of the book Does The Media Fail Aboriginal Political Aspirations, 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments.

Amy Thomas:

I got involved in this project to uncover the history of how Aboriginal people have communicated their political aspirations, and the way that the media has retold these stories through a white lens. The way the media tells and retells stories impacts how we understand or misunderstand Aboriginal worlds. And this has real consequences.

Amy Thomas:

In this episode of Black Stories Matter, our knowledgeable guests will draw on their extensive expertise in media and government to reflect on failure and hope in Aboriginal political history and what we need to do next.

Robert Tickner:

The first Australians still can’t have those basic living conditions and human rights that people have in education, employment, housing, health addressed. And I’m angry about it. I think Australians should be angry about it.

Amy Thomas:

That was Robert Tickner. He was the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs at the time of Keating’s speech. We’ll also hear from Jason Ardler, the former head of New South Wales Aboriginal Affairs. He spent the last 20 years advocating for the kind of changes that Keating promised.

Jason Ardler:

Policies and practices continue to insult the dignity of Aboriginal people. And this has created trauma. And then that trauma is collective, it’s intergenerational and it’s largely unresolved.

Amy Thomas:

And Arrernte/Luritja woman, Catherine Liddle, the CEO of First Nations Media, Australia, an experienced journalist in her own right.

Catherine Liddle:

When you’re covering Indigenous affairs, people really have trouble resonating with it. They don’t understand it. They just switch off.

Amy Thomas:

Today, we’re looking at the bigger picture of where we failed and what the media and government can do in the future. As Catherine reminds us a little later in the program, this is a marathon, not a sprint. To open the discussion, he’s my colleague, a Emertius Professor, Andrew Jakubowicz.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Hi everyone! My name is Andrew Jakubowicz. Welcome. And I acknowledge we’re on Bidjigal and Gadigal lands of Eora Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging who are with us today, watching from this country and around our wide brown land.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

The project and relationship to Indigenous political aspirations was imagined by Jason Ardler and his team at Aboriginal Affairs in South Wales. It was through their commitment and the perseverance of my colleagues on the project Heidi Norman and Amy Thomas in the book Does Media Fail Aboriginal Political Aspirations, which was published by AIATSIS and Aboriginal Studies Press, and is also available as a PDF from Aboriginal affairs, New South Wales online.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

I was involved in designing the research and helped in writing some of the analysis. And also, I had the great honor and interest to carry out the research into the 1992 Redfern speech. We’re going to be focusing a bit on that today.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

So what I’d like to do now is to introduce our speakers to you. We’re joined by Robert Tickner, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Minister at the time of the Redfern speech, and through the momentous years around Mabo. Catherine Liddle, who’s the CEO of First Nations Media, Australia, and Jason Ardler, the former Head of Aboriginal Affairs, New South Wales.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

I’d like to start with Jason. What was your inspiration for this piece? What was it all about?

Jason Ardler:

Thanks Andrew. And can I say from the outset that it’s really great to be here and to be part of this conversation? As you’ve said, I guess, I’ve been part of the journey of this research and this publication really from its inception. And while I’m no longer the head of Aboriginal Affairs, it is really pleasing for me to see that the conversation is still happening around this, which was entirely the point really.

Jason Ardler:

I guess I’ve had a long standing interest in changing the dominant narrative in Aboriginal affairs. Anyone who’s looked at my bio will know that I’ve worked in the space now for about 20 years, in New South Wales at least. It’s not something that I planned on by any stretch. It was really a result of a series of put up or shut up moments for me where I had the choice to whether continue to criticize others for what they were doing or not doing, or to jump in and try to make some of the changes that I’ve personally felt were necessary.

Jason Ardler:

And there’s one pivotal moment that happened quite early on that I talk about a lot. And that’s sitting in a meeting with senior policy makers and practitioners from across government, and being quite distressed really about the language that they were using to talk about their relationships with Aboriginal people and Aboriginal communities. And the language of victim and perpetrator and dysfunctional and hard to reach.

Jason Ardler:

These words, these phrases were really part of their dominant narrative that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me at all, certainly not when I thought about my own family and community, which were none of those things. And not when I thought about the work that I was doing at the time in public land management, where we were engaging with Aboriginal communities as kind of managers and as traditional owners and as knowledge

Jason Ardler:

So this deficit discourse, this deficit language really struck me as kind of peculiar and problematic. And I guess at the time, it struck me that that focus on deficit, this idea that we have to fix people up rather than working with their inherent strengths and supporting their aspiration was really the fundamental failure of Aboriginal affairs policy in this country. And it was doing nothing really to acknowledge all the change, the systems or the policy and practices that had done most of the damage in the first place.

Jason Ardler:

So that was really the point at which I guess I decided that I was going to make a career out of Aboriginal Affairs policy and that my purpose was going to be to push policy outcomes beyond just addressing dysfunction and disadvantage. And to build them around the aspirations of Aboriginal people for their futures.

Jason Ardler:

I think it’s fair to say that we’ve made some progress in that regard. But some progress in some areas, I would say. It’s still quite a fragile thing. And it’s by no means embedded as business as usual, I think because it’s an approach that sits uncomfortably with prevailing attitudes, structures, practices and assumptions really about Aboriginal people and their aspirations.

Jason Ardler:

So I became the head of Aboriginal Affairs at the time that there was a change of government here in New South Wales. So the O’Farrell government had come power. And they’d come in with a commitment to engage with Aboriginal communities in a genuine way in developing a new Aboriginal affairs plan for the state.

Jason Ardler:

And on the back of that, we undertook extensive consultation with communities across the state, spoke to literally thousands of Aboriginal people and organisations to hear what they said was important to them. And what came out of that really were three key reform areas that were identified by Aboriginal people as most likely to drive tangible improvements in the wellbeing of their communities.

Jason Ardler:

The first of those was transformation of the relationship between community and government. There was a call for a move from this sort of transactional relationship to one that was built on partnership. A relationship where communities would have a greater say in the decisions about their own affairs. And that would occur through negotiation and agreement making, that there would be greater investment in community leadership and community capacity, but be independent, and that there would be greater local accountability for the money spent and the outcomes that were being achieved.

Jason Ardler:

The second reform area that people called for was really about economic prosperity. So real economic opportunity in the real New South Wales economy. And the third was about shifting the focus away from delivering services to keeping people out of the services in the first place. It was really a call for healing centered approach that was about valuing culture, that was about honesty in terms of our history, and that saw more investment in aspirations than in problems.

Jason Ardler:

These things taken together, they’re pretty radical shift really, or pretty radical departure from previous Aboriginal affairs plans that had focused almost exclusively on service delivery. I think we were fortunate at the time because we had this new government that had come to power on a platform of local community control, small government, accountable government and economic prosperity. So we had this really nice alignment between what the government was saying was important to them, and what the community were saying was absent really in the Aboriginal affairs agenda.

Jason Ardler:

So they became our platforms for reform. And I think what we realised pretty early on in approaching these reforms was that while we had a lot of data, and Aboriginal people we’ve been measured within an inch of our lives by government and others, there were literally thousands of pages of data measuring the gaps between us and everybody else. What we didn’t have was a lot of evidence to inform how to go about delivering on those reforms and the aspirations of Aboriginal people.

Jason Ardler:

So it was at that point that we decided that we were going to develop our own research agenda. This research agenda was going to be about us building the evidence that we needed to deliver the reforms that were being called for in New South Wales.

Jason Ardler:

And as we pulled that research agenda together, what we also saw, apart from those three kind of key reform areas, was there were a couple cross-cutting practices that were going to be fairly critical to our success or otherwise in delivering those aspirations. There were things that we talk a lot about, but we were surprised to how little literature there was to inform our deep understanding of what worked and why.

Jason Ardler:

And they were things like cultural capability. What was the cultural capability of the public sector and others who were working with Aboriginal communities? And what was the nature of the dominant discourse about Aboriginal people in New South Wales, and I guess in Australia more generally?

Jason Ardler:

And clearly, those two things are related. The public service doesn’t work in isolation of the rest of society. And certainly, in this age of social media, digital media, public policy is increasingly informed by dominant public discourse and attitudes and values. So it was really important first to understand those things.

Jason Ardler:

And that’s really why this research came about. It was us wanting to understand how the media reports on Aboriginal polity and aspiration. There were some gaps we needed. There were some assumptions we wanted to test. And then we knew, from even kind of a casual layperson’s glance at popular mainstream media, it reveals ignorance. It reveals advertent systemic stereotyping. And there’s paternalistic attitudes. There’s misrepresentation of history.

Jason Ardler:

And all of these things compound the frustration and the distress that’s already apparent in a lot of our communities. We knew already that ours weren’t the dominant voices in our own affairs. That there was this tendency to report our circumstances being our fault, our want to hang on to stone age cultures or to nurture languages of no economic value. This reporting of lifestyle choices and all of that stuff.

Jason Ardler:

So this was all quite evident to us. And of course, we saw that the routine and regular reporting on the trivial debates, really, ultimately trivial debates around whether we should change flags, change dates, change anthems.

Jason Ardler:

And I got to a point at one stage where I was … I had likened the annual Australia day debate to a test match cricket that ended in a draw. It came around every summer. Made headlines for a few weeks. Both sides scored some points. But ultimately, there was no result. And most people left the debate quite dissatisfied with the outcome.

Jason Ardler:

And really, that’s why the research was developed. And I recently wrote a piece of dignity in Aboriginal affairs in Australia, and the fact that colonisation and the policies and practices that followed have had and continue to assault the dignity of Aboriginal people. And that this has created trauma, and that trauma is collective. It’s intergenerational and it’s largely unresolved.

Jason Ardler:

And significantly, that this trauma is compounded whenever dominant voices deny these injustices, or that they were intended to cause harm, or that their impacts continue to be felt today. And I’ve worked a lot with Stolen Generations. And I know the impact on them every time a journalist or a politician denies that they exist or imply that somehow their removal was for their own good. This stuff is offensive and it’s harmful.

Jason Ardler:

We’ve seen in places, looking at the international experience, places like Northern Ireland, the Middle East, even Cambodia, where these sorts of dignity violations, when they’re left to fester, when they’re not named, when they’re not acknowledged, when they’re not addressed, they do actually create barriers to our relationship building. They do get in the way of our ability to genuinely negotiate and to uphold agreements.

Jason Ardler:

In that context, in the context that we find ourselves in today, how do we then realise Aboriginal people’s aspirations for a more positive and truthful relationship with our country and with our political leadership? How do we get to a point of negotiating treaty in that context?

Jason Ardler:

So given all of that, given our aspirations to be heard, to be understood, to feel like we belong, to be able to express our genuine identity and cultures without fear of negative judgment, and how often this isn’t afforded to us by the mainstream media, these were really the drivers for this research. How do we understand this? How do we understand what’s behind this?

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Jason, thank you very, very much for that. That’s a very moving and serious setting out of where we are in all this. Maybe Robert, if I can bring you in now. Robert Tickner was the minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs during that period, from about 1990 to 1996, second half of the labour Hawke/Keating, government period.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

You had a significant role, really significant role in building relations between Torres Strait Islander people and the central government. When the Redfern speech was given in 1992, what was your sense of the way in which the media dealt with it? And what were your positive and negative responses?

Robert Tickner:

Thanks Andrew. I guess I should say at the outset that what I bring to the table today is not only I guess an academic perspective, but a very battle scared perspective of someone who is very much deeply engaged with the media and all its facets during the six years while a minister. And my task was to do the best I could for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And that meant I really had to try and work with the media as best I could.

Robert Tickner:

In response to your question, I’ve got to say that the Redfern speech and its coverage overall was extraordinarily positive. And the fact that Paul Keating made the speech that he did really brought home to the nation in a way that no one else could the true history of our country in very significant respects. It helped us to come to terms honestly with our own history as a nation.

Robert Tickner:

Importantly as well, Paul Keating in some ways set a high bar or lifted the bar on himself and the government as whole by really linking the success of the reconciliation process to just outcome in relation to Mabo. And that was enormously hopeful for people like me in the government who from day one were obviously determined that we try and bring about a really important just result in this once in two century opportunity we had to right this enormous wrong.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

How do you think the media have gone from that point to where we are now?

Robert Tickner:

I do believe that there should be far greater efforts on the part of our media to hold governments accountable for their promises to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. When governments of Australia, every premier, wall to wall, sea to sea, right across this country, every chief minister, and the national leadership, Prime Minister and opposition leader of this country are committed to closing the gap.

Robert Tickner:

I think that the media should be asking the really tough questions about a track record sadly, of both sides of politics, some maybe more than others, but in closing the gap. And if you go to the parliamentary library briefs prior to the last federal election about expenditure commitments of both major political parties, you’ll be scratching to find even the most rudimentary and minimal additional commitments for governments to close the gap.

Robert Tickner:

So to me, I’m not surprised that we’ve made negligible to no progress in employment. In some areas, it just got much, much worse. We still got that incredible gap in health and life span. But all our leaders are committed to changing this. So I say to the media, turn up the wick, put the blow touch to the political bellies and hold our politicians accountable to far greater extent.

Robert Tickner:

I think, for me, I become very animated, very overwhelmed and uplifted when I see tremendous things in the media that educate non-Indigenous Australians and help to empower Aboriginal people. And there’s some fabulous things that inspire me. So I don’t want people to think that I’m a prophet of doom and gloom.

Robert Tickner:

I’m an optimist. I’ve always believed that we can have a just reconciliation in this country. But we can’t have a reconciliation without the justice. And I hope I am, as an individual citizen, still committed deeply to that and kind of do my best to put my shoulder to the wheel as best I can on those kinds of issues.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Stan Grant in the previous forum suggested that it wasn’t the media’s role to advocate for Aboriginal interests or perspective. But do you think it is the media’s role in a sense to defend white interests? Do you think that’s still part of the story that when Indigenous interests look like they’re about to grab rather more effectively than perhaps they have in the past, there’s a reaction by the media against that? Are they simply reporting the reaction by conservative white Australia to those aspirations?

Robert Tickner:

Well, I think it’s not just a case of reporting on attitudes. We mustn’t forget that there are some very powerful economic interests that are often in potential conflict with Aboriginal people. In my personal belief, there are ways around that conflict if corporations change their behavior, truly respect Aboriginal aspirations and negotiate openhandedly with Aboriginal people, and ensure that there are real outcomes for communities and individuals if, and I say, if Aboriginal people support mining.

Robert Tickner:

But when I first became the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, there was hardly a mining company in Australia in the early ’90s that wasn’t riding roughshod over Aboriginal people in many areas. Normandy Mining was one of the companies was trying to do the right thing, which is negotiations with Aboriginal people.

Robert Tickner:

And I do think that when those voices speak, they’re very well connected voices, from the big end of town. They have very close relationship with sections of the media. And yes, I think their voices are often disproportionately heard and sometimes are like a bit of a battering ramp to attack Aboriginal aspirations.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Just as you were speaking, I was just tempted to remember Rio Tinto’s extraordinary behavior in Western Australia over the last few months, and wondering whether a change in viewpoint has in fact permeated the minds of corporate Australia, or do they still take every opportunity they can to get away with whatever they can?

Robert Tickner:

I think it has changed, and it has changed a lot. I don’t think it’s changed to the extent that I would. And Rio Tinto is an interesting case study because they did go through a massive shift in their attitude when the Native Title Act came in and before that period.

Robert Tickner:

They started to treat Aboriginal people in Australia much better than they had ever done before. And indeed if you compare the treatment of Rio Tinto and Indigenous people in other parts of the world, often it’s been much better than they’ve treated, not always, but very often much better than Aboriginal people have been treated in Australia.

Robert Tickner:

But the last month or so has been a period of real setback. And I can see that the papers, in the media recently, there’s potential more conflict on that horizon. Aboriginal heritage protection is something I know a lot about, having been through the heritage protection declaration in relation to the Todd River, Alice Springs Dam and the very challenging of Hindmarsh Island where I was ultimately vindicated.

Robert Tickner:

But while I was the minister, at the very end of my time, I commissioned Elizabeth Evatt, an esteemed international jurist, to do a review of the heritage legislation. And her report sat on a shelf after the government lost office. And it’s worthy of examination because the heritage legislation in Australia protecting Aboriginal is some cases from a horse and buggy era. It is so inadequate. And we need to do much better than we do with it.

Robert Tickner:

I think, if I can say that as a non-Indigenous Australian, I always say that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs was the best job in parliament house, aside from Prime Minister. And I mean it. But that sentiment is also something that I want to try and transpose to Aboriginal sites.

Robert Tickner:

If you, as a non-Indigenous Australian, look to Aboriginal rock art, you’re looking this great gift, this wonderful legacy to all the people of Australia. And Aboriginal Australians must be so proud that they are the custodians of those who have given us this gift. But we really have to do a better job of protecting Aboriginal heritage. We would never permit non-Indigenous heritage interest to be dealt in the same way as Aboriginal heritage still is dealt with to this day.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Just to make a sort of comment. When I was researching the Redfern speech, Keating basically didn’t want to talk about it, which we understand. But Don Watson who actually wrote the words intriguingly said to me, “It was really the Aboriginal world view that he channeled into Keating’s mouth, which Keating then read without change.”

Andrew Jakubowicz:

No mention was made of this in the media of the day, though a key person, the man who chose the Redfern summit and framed the first drafting of the speech was on stage to introduce Keating, the late Son Bellear. And before his saying, Robert Tickner informed me that he and Son used to share a house in Redfern. I think it’s the late Son Bellear.

Robert Tickner:

My dear friend. I’m just going to say one other thing. I once had a conversation with the late Tom Uren that many people may know, this wonderful former member of parliament who was a great campaigner for human rights all his time in parliament.

Robert Tickner:

When I talked to him about the Redfern speech, he never had one skerrick of doubt or ambiguity in the way that he thought about that speech as a veteran MP, who had given his whole life to the public and to people of Australia. And he said that when a member of parliament, when a minister, a political leader, seizes on some words and adopts the words and adopts the words as their own, it is them that has the moral courage, the integrity, the leadership to give that speech. It is a Keating speech.

Robert Tickner:

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that that was my profound view. And I really think it was a wonderful contribution to our country. And I know that if Tom Uren was sitting beside me today, he’d be doffing his cap to Paul Keating on that one too.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

It’s not disputing the quality of Keating’s belief or understand or commitment or delivery. It’s really a question of how did the ideas get formed. And I think it’s interesting that it was in the Tracker Magazine of the New South Wales Land Council, 20 years after the speech that we find really the first detailing of the dynamic that actually led to the speech in the form of words that it was in.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

And Johnson, Brian Johnson, the late Brian Johnson, who was a journalist on that Tracker magazine, completed his article about Son Blair and his story by saying, “The final words and sentiments may have been a mixture of Keating and Watson. But Sol was clearly responsible for the soul.”

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Catherine, is this why Aboriginal media are so important? That they understand the soul of the issues whereas the white media do not? Is that what drew you to local Indigenous media?

Catherine Liddle:

That speech and that moment in time, it was such a tipping point, wasn’t it? I remember living through it. And I wasn’t very old. I was probably in my last couple of years of high school. And I was away at boarding school. And all my friends’ parents were losing houses because there was a recession on. Simultaneous to that, there was the Mabo conversations.

Catherine Liddle:

And people really, really did not get what was going on. And any room that I walked into, and bear in mind there were not a lot of Aboriginal people in boarding schools back in those days, I would set up by parents, who were well-meaning. I mean, I’m in their home, I’m sleeping over, I’m being fed by them, I’m being looked after by them. And they’d want to ask these questions. What do you want our houses? Why are you trying to take our houses away?

Catherine Liddle:

And trying to frame that, as an 18 year old, 17 year old, 19 year old, really, really had to do, because I said to them, “We don’t want your houses. We don’t want your houses. We want you to acknowledge that we want our own houses. But we also want you to acknowledge that all your land and all your wealth has happened because you’re based on our country, and the opportunities you’ve had have come at our expense. And the problems that we’re having, you as a descendant of colonisation may not have been directly responsible for, but you’re a part of the bigger story.”

Catherine Liddle:

And I think part of that problem was that people could not see that story. So yes soul is part of it, because to understand what’s happened in that space, and of course the reason you move into Indigenous media is that people can’t see that bigger picture. You can’t see it because you didn’t live it. If you weren’t born into the Stolen Generations camp, you might not have even known that it existed.

Catherine Liddle:

Again, for someone like myself, I grew up with stories of the bungalow, Alice Springs. My grandfather was taken away as a young man. And all his life, he talked about his time in the bungalow. And my grandfather was a remarkable man, absolutely remarkable man. Never complained about anything, not even dying of cancer. The only thing he ever took for that pain was Panadol, never whinged.

Catherine Liddle:

But his last sort of most formative words to me when they removed his stomach and his throat and he knew that pretty much it was all over, he’s looking out from this bed and he says to me, “You know Catherine, that bastard had blue eyes.” And I said, “What bastard, grandpa?” He said, “That bloody bastard that took me away from my mother.”

Catherine Liddle:

And I said, “Oh! He had blue eyes?” He said, “Yep. I see those blue eyes every time I close my eyes. I see those blue eyes every time I think of my mother. And I think to myself …” and the pain on his face was palpable, “Why did they do that to me? I was a little boy. I was clinging to my mother. I was crying. Why did they do that?”

Catherine Liddle:

And he goes quiet for a little while and I thought he’d forgotten about it. And he wakes up again and he says, “I cried every night, you know Cat. Every single night I was in the bungalow I cried for my mommy. And to this day, I do not understand why you would do that to a child. Why would you do that?”

Catherine Liddle:

So you see me putting soul into that. I’m putting emotion into that. And that’s the problem we have as storytellers is if you do not have that soul, if you do not have that story, if you do not have that empathy, if you do not have that viewpoint, you actually can’t feel it.

Catherine Liddle:

And again, I think that’s why Indigenous media and Indigenous journalists are so critical, critically important, because at any point in time, the most powerful person in the room right now, it’s me. I’m sitting here crafting this story. I have the ability to change your mind. I have the ability to make you cry. I have the ability to make you happy. I have the ability to motivate you.

Catherine Liddle:

The storyteller is always the most powerful person in the room. And that is what Sol gave to Keating in that speech. That is what the writers gave to Keating. And that’s what Keating brought to that space. He bought the power of perspective, the soul of the humanity, the resonance that really framed an incredible point in time.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

So talk to us a bit about your own involvement in Indigenous media? Where is it going today? What’s happening? How is it dealing with the sorts of issues that are on the table and sort of thing, for instance, that Robert talked about and Jason mentioned.

Catherine Liddle:

Yeah. I think at this point in time, there are a couple of really, really critical things happening. We’re in the middle of a COVID crisis. One of the things that … And I think Robert touched on this in particular. And it does resonate very closely with what Jason had to say.

Catherine Liddle:

And that is when you think about media and what it means to world and how it shapes society, it actually isn’t easy to measure. It isn’t really easy to understand how the role of media is absolutely critical to wellbeing, and wellbeing impacts on your life outcomes. And that doesn’t matter if you’re Aboriginal, it doesn’t matter what nationality you are. Media actually has a significant impact on your ability to understand how to operate into the world, how to feel pride, how to be informed, and how to be a genuine global participant.

Catherine Liddle:

So at this moment in time, what we found was a niche actually for the First Nations media sector. And it was a point in time that we haven’t had open to us for a very, very long time. And that is all of a sudden, all the things that we’ve talking about. That is you need our voices. We need to be able to communicate to our mob. We need our leaders to be able to influence our communities. We need to inform our communities with the information that they need in a perspective that they understand, and a language they understand, and in a way that communicates the concerns that they have that is different from many of the national messaging you’ve got on.

Catherine Liddle:

But this was that point in time were we could go in there and say, “Guess what you mob, you just came up with this massive communication strategy at the national level and another one that disseminates slightly into regional areas. And this is fantastic. You’ve done this wonderful job of actually engaging Aboriginal media makers into this space. But guess what you forgot? You forgot your grassroots, community organisations. They are the ones with their fingers on the pulse. They’re the ones in touch with their communities.”

Catherine Liddle:

And we were able to really mobilise the sector and really show the value of that sector, and convince the government to put more funding into that space for this period of time. What they found, and what we were able to demonstrate in just a snapshot within three or four weeks, 500 different examples of the diversity of content and stories and paraphernalia that Aboriginal media organisations were able to make and distribute to their communities.

Catherine Liddle:

And you’ll note, across Australia, our sector and our communities actually were able to respond a lot quicker and a lot faster than many of the other communities that were struggling to get messages through. And that was actually the ability to tell stories in our own languages, and with our own mediums.

Catherine Liddle:

So there’s that. So that’s been, for us, a really critical point in time for the First Nations media sector. We now have a point in time that shows an incredible value point. And we’ll need it going forward.

Catherine Liddle:

But the other thing that happened, of course, was Black Lives Matter. And again, for our sector, hugely, hugely important because our sector actually did emerge out of a lot of goodwill and a lot of advocating and a lot of fighting from our activists. And they were activists. They were pounding their fists, and they were pounding the pavement.

Catherine Liddle:

But it also ties directly to the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody and that finding of wellbeing we need to be able to see ourselves. We need to see success stories. We need our voices. We need some level of self determination that frames our stories from our perspective, bring our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations, our challenges as we see them.

Catherine Liddle:

So we’re heading into this. Our sector is already absolutely hurting from the impact of COVID. Some of our organisations run off about $80000 a year. Some of the bigger ones are running off $200000 a year. And that’s a big one.

Catherine Liddle:

So the ability to get out and have a laptop, really difficult. Microphones that work, really difficult. How are you going to do your remote motoring when your organisation’s been closed off and you can’t get in there? All these really complicated things are happening.

Catherine Liddle:

Then Black Lives Matter happened. And we know that as a sector, our mob are hurting, really, really hurting. And this is where the responsibility of media comes in, because we know that if our journalists are hurting, their ability to frame their stories in a way that supports the community responsibly is potentially stretched a little bit too far, because there was huge responsibility in reporting on these things, because you can do more harm than good if you don’t show the full story.

Catherine Liddle:

And you can hurt yourselves, because these things that are hurting, the hurt us as journalists. And they hurt us as media practitioners. And this incredible stress and responsibility is put onto these media organisations to make is resonate, but also to make it informative, and then also to understand that what we’re looking at when we see moments in time like these, is they’re flashpoints.

Catherine Liddle:

Awesome, because when you have a flashpoint, you have a point of disruption and potentially a lever. But this is a marathon, not a sprint. So it’s about now mobilising our sector to make the most of this point in time.

Catherine Liddle:

And so team, mob, how are you going to use this point of time to continue to reshape and reframe what we’re seeing? And again, if you look at it from an observational point of view, and I’ll use my own observations in someone who has lived through numerous points of time like this one, is we often get a really good response. And there’s an overwhelming support.

Catherine Liddle:

And then in comes the sideway slap. So, “All you mob who went out there and protested, you’re responsible for the spread of COVID.” Where was the evidence to back that up? Didn’t happen. Not true. But getting those messages through, not quite the same thing.

Catherine Liddle:

So it also gives us a point in time now were we can actually start potentially working with other media organisations to say, “Listen, what’s different about how we saw this point of time to how you saw this point in time? And how can you use that to move forward?”

Catherine Liddle:

And what we’re finding is there are a lot of media organisations across the country who were looking to understand this, because by default, if you are again getting back to that soul, if you’re not an Indigenous person, you might be aware that there’s a level of unconscious bias in your viewpoints and your writings. But that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s unconscious. So you don’t necessarily know how to identify it or how to move past it so that you get the information that shapes a full and comprehensive story.

Catherine Liddle:

So we are sitting at a point in time where conversations like these potentially can be really, really transformative. And again, if I look at say COVID, and I look at the housing complexes in Melbourne. And I won’t use an Aboriginal example like this. I’ll demonstrate how it works probably in a broader context.

Catherine Liddle:

But I remember sitting down watching the TV like everyone, glued to the latest in COVID. And this story comes up. And I’m pretty sure it was the ABC. And this is not name and shame thing. This is our national broadcaster that it should be the epitome of everything that we see.

Catherine Liddle:

And they’re giving viewpoints of people who are within those towers. And the images of people locked up, “I can’t get to my mom.” But the sentiment or the feeling coming to me as a viewer is one of, “You mob are just whinging. You’re dealing with something really crazy here. And you need to suck it up and take one for the team.” That’s what’s coming through to me as viewer. That’s how I’m interpreting it.

Catherine Liddle:

And it occurred to me, as I’m looking at it, that is very similar to what we experienced as Aboriginal people when they tell our stories. They’ve got usually at times when we’re under stress like anybody under stress. Our frontal lobes are … They’re firing in all different directions. We’re never as coherent. We’re never as good at connecting the dots because we’re stressed. And then you framed it in a way that puts us in deficit.

Catherine Liddle:

And I was looking at those towers and I was thinking about what I know about those housing complexes. And I know that within those buildings, sick families who are dealing with complexities and pressures that most of us could never, never understand.

Catherine Liddle:

There are families in there that potentially have large autistic children. Autistic children in their teens who are strong and powerful, and have significant problems regulating their own behaviors. And they can’t get outside the building. So what does mum, at four foot seven do when her 14 year old son goes, looses it because he can’t understand why he can’t get out of the door because his routine’s been disrupted.

Catherine Liddle:

There’s the humanisation of it. Where are the leaders? Why hasn’t the media gone out to the leaders who are actually trying to be able to pull these stories together, pull the different pieces of the puzzle together so that it makes sense, even under duress, because without fail you find that the genuine leaders of those communities now will say, “We are supporting our communities to understand what is happening. This is the support we require in order to be able to do that effectively.”

Catherine Liddle:

And the conversation starts changing. And you see what is actually a really responsible community dealing with something really, really difficult.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Catherine, can I come in there, because we’ve got some questions that have started to come. And one of them takes directly to this. Over the last few days, you will have seen the Media Diversity people put out this report on the lack of diversity amongst people working in news and journalism in the Australian media.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

And one of the responses from Channel 9, I think it was, was that they would live to employ more people, particularly from Indigenous background but nobody applies for the job. So that’s all interesting. This is not a new conversation, right? I mean, this is has been a conversation going on for many decades.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Is it more sensible for Indigenous journalists and writers and creators to insist on gaining access to mainstream media where they will fight an insistent uphill battle to try and have their perspectives and emotional take on the world accepted? Or is it better for them to direct themselves into Indigenous media where the environment is far more supportive and where they can excel in pushing the limits of their own culture and consciousness?

Catherine Liddle:

The answer is both. And it’s very, very subjective as to who you are and what you’re battle. Perhaps the most famous incident is that of the Adam Goddes debacle. And you look at the role media played in how Australians responded to that, particularly in the first instance. What I see when I look at it as someone who spent a lot of time framing conversations and trying to get people to understand different ways of looking at what unconscious bias looks like.

Catherine Liddle:

So there’s Adam standing up in front of a whole heap of journalists. And they go for him. They go for him. And for me, as an Aboriginal person, I feel very culturally unsafe watching that to think that those people in that scrum, they’re my peers. They’re people that I probably respected or would be mates with if I was out in the scrum with them.

Catherine Liddle:

And yet, they’re not talking about the adverse reaction and what the impact of that was. They’re talking to him about his behavior. And yet he’s standing there and he’s so noble actually. He’s so noble and he’s so measured.

Catherine Liddle:

And then you look at the images they used to frame those stories. What we know, again as media professionals, is there’s responsibility with the journalist when they go out there to be balanced in their question and to understand the whole part of the story. Let’s be very, very clear. This was the Aboriginal round.

Catherine Liddle:

If there was one point in time to throw a boomerang, that was it. And if you threw a boomerang, imagine what all the Aboriginal people in the crowds were doing? And they were standing up and they were cheering. This is monumental. This is life changing. This is a moment of great pride for us.

Catherine Liddle:

So there’s the journalist not seeing that. But who’s behind the journalist? Well, there’s a chief of staff, and there’s an editor who have said, “when you go out there, ask this question, this question and this question.”

Catherine Liddle:

If you’re looking at the actual coverage of the game itself, there are, I don’t know how many cameras. Probably there’s a significant number of cameras operating. And there’s a studio director. And there’s a producer behind them. And they’re all picking what pictures to pick up on and what pictures and faces to frame, right?

Catherine Liddle:

So whoever is doing that is responsible for you responding to how the crowd is reacting. So if the crowd is reacting like this, there’s actually a camera operator and a producer, and a director behind those scenes. So there are multiple, multiple layers that need to be addressed.

Catherine Liddle:

What we know is those layers start changing once you start getting Aboriginal people into leadership positions, where they can actually disseminate that. And then what you get coming up underneath Aboriginal leaders are more Indigenous staff, get back to the cultural safety part. You feel safer if you have an Indigenous person that you can respond to.

Catherine Liddle:

That doesn’t mean Indigenous leaders aren’t challenged, because you still particularly in a commercial setting or a mainstream setting, you still have to meet your KPIs. You still have to get your ratings right. And these things are challenging, and they have to happen. And leadership is tough.

Catherine Liddle:

But you will find more and more people emerging. And that’s what’s you’re seeing in NITV where those new journalists are coming up and growing. That’s because you’ve got Indigenous leaders at the right levels. And they’re able to push that, and they’re able to grow their cadets into journalists. And those journalists into media leaders.

Catherine Liddle:

So there’s absolute space for that. But when you get back to community media, it’s awesome because guess what? All the rules disappear. And you can tell story you want, any way you want. And when you do that, you get diversity.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Great. Thank you so much. We’ve got a range of questions coming in for all the panelists. And I’ll kick off with one for Robert, perhaps. In your book Taking a Stand, you noted Australia is not yet ready to reach negotiated settlement with Indigenous people of the land until there’s a binding commitment to address seriously the non-negotiable social justice agenda. You made that point today as well.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

In light of the federal government’s response to the Uluru Statement, do you still believe this to the case? And what role does modern media have in communicating a more progressive social justice agenda to advance the interest of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people?

Robert Tickner:

The first thing to say is that I just cannot fathom and cannot believe that a country as comparatively globally rich as Australia is can continue to strut its persona in the global world with hanging over our heads this disgraceful outcome that the first Australia still can’t have those basic living conditions and human rights that people have, and education, employment, housing, health.

Robert Tickner:

It just staggers me, staggers believe. And I’m angry about it. I think Australians should be angry about it. Our governments can do all manner of things from major construction projects, setting up complex institutions. But to get this, a fundamental for our country addressed is just not happening. And it’s not happening because, until now, no Australian politician, and Prime Minister in a particular, has really grabbed hold of this issue.

Robert Tickner:

And if it happens to Scott Morrison, and if the great work that Pat Turner has been doing with our Prime Ministers and the government works out, and the government drives this and get the premiers to drive it, I can tell you the change will happen, and quickly. Premiers and Prime Ministers can do that. They can lead and change our country for the better. But I want to see this a cross party commitment so we don’t have the stop/start funding when have changes of government, whoever gets in.

Robert Tickner:

Look, I do think that this is quite a fundamental issue. And I do also believe that the media has a real role here, not in some partisan, blinkered participant in arguing the case for Aboriginal rights. It’s simply holding up politicians to account. They’ve said they’re going to do it. But you won’t make these big chances unless significant resources are applied.

Robert Tickner:

I think that there are lots of areas where the media can do more to hold our parliamentary leaders to account. The Uluru Statement that was mentioned as another example. I mean, a first year student of law at any academic institution in the country will know that setting up an advisory voice to parliament is in no possible way a third chamber of parliament.

Robert Tickner:

And it’s unfortunate that Malcolm Turnbull did not respect the considered communication that was sent to him as the custodian for the Australian people before ruling it out apparently for some internal party reason. So I guess that’s my answer to that question. The media can play a very constructive role on those issues.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

This question is going to Jason. In book by Sara Madison, Colonial Fantasy, she argues that basically settler societies like Australia cannot solve the problems of colonialism from inside itself, and that it’s got to be located outside in the hands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, that is more or less.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Without Aboriginal sovereignty, the future of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the country is doomed to a replication over and over of the sort of dismissal that they’ve experienced in the past. That is you can’t reach an agreement with people that you don’t recognise. What’s your feeling about that?

Jason Ardler:

My suspicion is that it’s correct. There’s plenty of good evidence coming. Certainly, I mean, there’s the well known, the famous Harvard study that looked at Indigenous self determination, and concluded that more often than not, Indigenous people will outperform government and other decision makers on a whole range of issues that go to their economic development, their management of natural resources, their broad health and wellbeing.

Jason Ardler:

Similarly, we’ve had work in Australia. When we’ve seen good outcomes, it tends to be where there’s strong governance in Aboriginal communities, good leadership, that is taken seriously by, and comes together with good governance within government. And so there’s good governance of that relationship.

Jason Ardler:

The evidence is in that Aboriginal people, that old saying, we know what’s best. We have the solutions for many of the issues that we face. We’re just not often given the voice. I’ve sat around in enough working groups, taskforce, steering committees, et cetera within government policy think tanks. And it’s often a case of governments wanting to start with, “Who are the people we need to talk to? And what are the new programs and policies we need to develop?”

Jason Ardler:

And too often, very often, the answers to those issues have already been dealt with within communities at the local level. But that’s not where we start. We don’t go there, first, and we don’t back in the good work that’s happening there because yeah. We’ve got to have the evidence base for what’s working. And often the evidence that we find in those community settings isn’t the kind of … Not the kind of widgets that governments like to be counting. So I suspect that premise is right.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Well, I’m just reminded, as you were speaking, just before Fairfax was sold to Channel Nine, which was just after the Uluru Statement came out, there was a big feature Sydney Herald, I think with a wrap around picture of the rock whole thing, in which the Fairfax organisation said, “We are now committed to realising the aspirations of the Indigenous communities inspired us to Uluru.”

Andrew Jakubowicz:

And then they got sold to Channel Nine and then it disappeared. Is it feasible that a broad consensus could be achieved with the mainstream Australian media that the call for Walk With US, which seems to me as the heart of the request, or the aspiration, should be taken on as the fundamental moral position by the Australian media? Or is that an aspiration that is impossible to realise? I’ll start with you Robert and then come to Catherine, come back to Jason.

Robert Tickner:

Well yes, it is possible. And there’s a precedent for this, because when I was trying to put together the structure and sort of principles behind the reconciliation process back in the early ’90s, not only did I negotiate with Aboriginal people, with AIATSIS commissioners, the federation of land councils. That was critical, because without that support, I wouldn’t have taken the concept forward.

Robert Tickner:

I also went directly to the editorial writers of every major Australian newspaper. And I went to their door. I arranged appointments. I went to see them, told them what was involved, sold it to them. And I still have copies of the editorials from the papers. They actually got behind it.

Robert Tickner:

And as a result of that, I believe, and the wider support, it actually got the coalition to endorse the initiative, which was pretty unprecedented at that time. Unfortunately, that support fell away after labor lost office. And then they gave them John Howard. A big opportunity was lost there.

Robert Tickner:

But the media can get behind something like this. We can do this, inspire people, win hearts and minds. There is something bigger in all of this than those who are merely passing through this mortal coil at this time. This is future generations, as well as righting the wrongs of our own country here and now.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Catherine, what’s your perspective on this?

Catherine Liddle:

I think there’s some really low hanging fruit actually. This is something that’s really easy to do, because they all have raps and they all have planning calendars, and they all have rounds. And I guess you just need to tie those three things together. And that is you have a round. And that’s what it is, and it’s about, “Well, show us, over the next 12 months how you’re going to map out your walk with our stories, what they look like across all your media platforms so that you’re genuinely driving this discussion and driving the depth of the conversation.”

Catherine Liddle:

Just see how much media traction you get on that, because that opens up your Twitter worlds, and it opens up your digital worlds as well. And that’s how you really get movement. And then simultaneous, you’re going to be hitting your KPIs for your general delivery of stories against our round.

Catherine Liddle:

But you then tie it to your rap, which means that you’re actually getting evidence that you are genuinely getting some tangible results that potentially a change in the way Australians are able to engage and understand their role in reconciliation and just seeing our stories and our communities and our people as full human beings with this really rich history and rich future.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Thank you. And Jason?

Jason Ardler:

Yeah. I agree with all of that. I guess I’m less qualified to talk about the media than I am about government and public policy making. So if I bring that lens toward the question, what rises for me always is how do you make it stick for the long term?

Jason Ardler:

Moral issues can be a motivator for change and reform and drive public policy. But it tends to be a game of compromise. And so it doesn’t always stick. And so the question then becomes what is the other compelling argument that buys into the bigger agenda that will transcend the compromise that parliamentarians and policy makers make.

Jason Ardler:

So the idea that if we can resolve some of these issues is actually good for the economy. Possible revenues will come up for the government. That’s a good news story. And the environment. You only have to look at the way people who have got onboard around fire management in the wake of the bush fire crisis in a way we wouldn’t have seen before that crisis.

Jason Ardler:

The question is what will sustain that in an environment where we’re fixated on what’s wrong rather than what’s possible? That’s my worry. I absolutely think it’s possible. I’d like to be optimistic. My question always is what will make it stick?

Andrew Jakubowicz:

So we’re now looking towards the future. I mean, you’re all pointing towards the future that we have to engage with. One of the questions that come up and that’s directed towards Catherine is, what does this mean in terms of the training of journalists, not only of Indigenous ones, but of non-Indigenous journalists in universities and such like places?

Catherine Liddle:

I think one of the things that I noticed in my time as an active journalist and an active editor was that we know that our journalists are some of the most competitive, creative, talented people in the country. And they have this incredible ability to look beyond what is there.

Catherine Liddle:

And yet, it becomes hard when you come to Aboriginal stories. People don’t really know how to look outside the box. A simple example of that would be say for example when you catch images of deceased people. This really challenges people. And yet you’re some of the most creative, clever people in the country.

Catherine Liddle:

So in some ways, I think there, and again, I haven’t done one of these course and I don’t know what’s currently on offer. But it is about understanding how can you tell stories that don’t sit in the norm? How do you challenge perspectives? And how do you look for the bigger story? And how does it resonate?

Catherine Liddle:

And obviously, there’d have to be a few awesome case studies. And you’d have to have a few awesome presenters who can talk to you about how you might unpack that a bit differently. But certainly, there’s a space there so that when people hit the newsrooms, they’re not asking those questions of, “What do I do if I can’t show a picture?” They’re coming with the creativity they need to able to solve it.

Catherine Liddle:

But also, and I think this gets back to something that Robert said, where you’re talking about when you’re covering Indigenous affairs, people really have trouble resonating with it. They don’t understand it. They just switch off. And it means potentially you’re not looking at the bigger picture.

Catherine Liddle:

And we often go for, I’ll use the term, low hanging fruit. Just because someone is speaking English articulately does not mean that they are the best person to answer the questions that you have. You need to look broader, and you have to look at what potentially lies behind people because like any people, there are often those of us that have a bigger machine behind us.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Jason, we’re getting towards the end of our time. But I was just thinking, given that you’ve been through New South Wales Aboriginal Affairs, and you were the creator of this project, what does the future hold in New South Wales around this question of the role of media in the engagement between Indigenous people and government? Where is the track leading? Where do we shine the torch and where do we start climbing?

Jason Ardler:

Wow! That’s a really good question. I think we have to get better at it. Clearly, what the research has highlighted is that we’ve got a long way to go. But I am optimistic. I have friends who work in mainstream media who tell me that things are changing slowly but surely. And so I take faith in that.

Jason Ardler:

I think we need to get better at using the media, plug the things that are important. My conversations with journalists, and again, Catherine and others can speak better to this, but I think there is an interest in this stuff. But I think also Catherine and Robert are right. It’s the way we articulate these things. It’s the way we make them accessible to people in a different way. That’s what we need to get better at.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Thanks. Maybe that’s the pathway that our little team of people at UTS can help contribute to. So that would be great. Just for a minute, is there any final comments from any you that would like to share with our audience?

Catherine Liddle:

Look, I’ll talk about how much potentially, and it’s only from a short story how much those conversations have changed. I can remember once being in a newsroom and arguing with the chief of staff, very good man. I learned a lot from this person. I respect him greatly. But the argument was why we should cover the NAIDOC march on Friday, because it was absolutely not relevant to the majority of our views. Now, what I know is you never have that argument today.

Andrew Jakubowicz:

Okay. That brings us to the end of our time. Thank you all on the panelist, and thank you all for being here.

Amy Thomas:

If you found any of this content distressing and feel like you need to talk to someone about it, please contact Lifeline on 131114. They operate 24 hours a day. You can also reach out through their website. Next time on Black Stories Matter, we’ll be tackling Aboriginal self determination and independent media.

Rachael Hocking:

The level of trust from community inform you and it allows you to get that access. It allows you to tell stories accurately and sensitively. But beyond that, there’s a level of accountability that is not taught in journalism schools. We are held to such a high standard. And you will see it on Black Twitter every single day. And we will get called out if we get shit wrong, as we should. And that level of accountability allows us to go back to our work and make sure that we are putting out the best story possible for our community.

Amy Thomas:

We’ll be hearing from Gomeroi woman, Madeline Hayman-Reber, a freelance journalist and media advisor. Walpiri woman Rachel Hocking from NITV who co-hosts the flagship show, The Point. And Associate Professor Tanja Dreher from the University of New South Wales Center for Media Futures. I hope you can join us. I’m Amy Thomas, and thanks for listening to Black Stories Matter.

Voice Over:

Black Stories Matter is a UTS podcast made by Impact Studios at the University of Technology, Sydney, an audio production house funded by the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research. The production team live on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, whose lands were never ceded.

Voice Over:

This audio series is based on the book Does The Media Fail Aboriginal Political Aspirations by Amy Thomas, Heidi Norman and Andrew Jakubowicz. You can buy a copy from any good book store or order it online at the AIATSIS Shop. Just go to shop.aiatsis. That’s AIATSIS.gov.au.

Voice Over:

The book is published by Aboriginal Studies Press at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The Black Stories Matter Podcast was made with the support of Aboriginal Affairs, New South Wales, as part of a strategy to improve the dynamics between Aboriginal people and governments..