Marcia Langton

This month’s High Court ruling on Indigenous property rights confirms the full humanity of First Nations people.

“It’s January in Australia and so the annual Australia Day political circus has rolled into town. It started much earlier this year, with Peter Dutton and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price working to grab some headlines before the upcoming election. Their …”

“This new policy pivot to economic development, while it must be implemented in a disputatious political environment, draws attention to the universal aspiration for Indigenous economic parity in a way that no other national Indigenous affairs policy has …”

“Refusing to be defeated by the relentless racism, however, Indigenous entrepreneurs and community leaders running non-profit corporations have succeeded in establishing businesses with positive outcomes that far exceed those of the many failed bureaucratic …”

The referendum campaign has cemented racism into the body politic, and the ‘baseless’ rejection of ‘Yes’ will create a bleak future for Australia and those who stood with First Nations people.

“It is eight months since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used his victory speech to promise his government would implement in full the Uluru Statement from the Heart. What has transpired since is less the dialogue he hoped for and more two separate monologues.”

“Here is a fact about life in Australia in 2020: the material and geographical manifestations of Aboriginal cultures developed over more than 65,000 years are being rapidly destroyed by mining companies, urban settlement, road and infrastructure development, …”

“Jacinta Price is useful to politicians. She legitimises racist views by speaking them against her own people. When she walks through Alice Springs and Tennant Creek with the prime minister, she waves a flag for the increasingly normal brand of race politics …”

“While crime rates are declining in Victoria, Dutton made claims about lack of deterrence of crime in Victoria. In a radio interview he said Victorians were ‘bemused’ when they looked at ‘the jokes of sentences being handed down’ due to ‘political …”

“Fortunately, common sense has prevailed with the McGlade amendments passed in the senate. As a result, one or a few native title applicants are now not able to disqualify a lawful agreement settled by the majority of the members of their group by playing …”

While the photography in Tracey Moffatt’s exhibition at the Venice Biennale bears touches of the knowing melodrama of her early work, her film work comes with a disaffected Hollywood air.

“The media coverage of Indigenous issues spins on a few old shibboleths. To talk about anything else is too difficult, too serious. It doesn’t keep First Australians where they are supposed to be; doesn’t use the same old stories to keep us in our …”

“Andrew Bolt will be free to continue to publish untrue statements, unless those offended have the money to pursue a defamation case.”