🟠 News Club - What's going on in Indigenous affairs?

Who’s who in Indigenous Affairs?

One thing The Squiz likes to do - and News Club is good for - is to call out issues that come and go in the whoosh of a week but warrant pressing pause on. For today’s purposes, that’s Indigenous affairs. 

On Wednesday last week, it was 60 years since the start of the Freedom Ride led by Charles Perkins - a bus journey through regional NSW that put a spotlight on the discrimination experienced by Indigenous Australians. PM Anthony Albanese noted the anniversary, saying it was “the beginning of the possibility of something better.” 

But when it comes to delivering something better, there’s a long way to go with the Closing the Gap update delivered last week showing that of the strategy’s 19 targets (measuring outcomes across health, education, employment, etc), only 5 are considered to be on track when it comes to improving Indigenous peoples’ lives. 

So in this post-Voice referendum era, these Club Picks have been curated to help you get back around things:

1. Malarndirri McCarthy is the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians. Born and bred in the Gulf of Carpentaria, she moved to Darwin and won a cadetship at the ABC, where she became a well-known TV news presenter. A stint in the Northern Territory parliament led to her election as a senator in 2016 and ultimately to her promotion last year. 

2. The Coalition’s spokeswoman is Jacinta Nampijinpa Price - the Nationals-aligned senator from Alice Springs. She’s a former kids TV show host who had her first child as a teenager. She’s also a reformed drug user and domestic violence survivor. After finding politics via her local council, she arrived in the Federal Parliament in 2022 and was the face of the winning ‘No’ case for The Voice referendum. Last week, all of that was captured on ABC TV’s Australian Story. 

3. So what’s the plan to make things better for Indigenous Australians? Both major parties favour ‘practical reconciliation’ - that is, the government taking steps with communities to improve lives. But Professor Megan Davis - one of the Voice architects - says nothing will change while that’s the case. “The referendum vote entrenched the bureaucrats’ role in the destiny of our communities … bureaucrats must exit the space. The political class hasn’t learned,” she told The Australian last month. 

4. Meanwhile, Alice Springs is set to feature in the upcoming election as concerns about crime persist. Alice-based/Labor MP Marion Scrymgour recently said she felt “unsafe” and a "prisoner in my own home" with the safety measures she feels she has to take. Both Coalition leader Peter Dutton and PM Anthony Albanese have been there already this year, vowing to help.

And just to circle back on US President Donald Trump’s campaign to cut the federal government with Elon Musk as his talisman - a relationship that was on display with the media invited to an executive order signing in the Oval Office last week.

We asked you about how much news on the Trump administration you want to see. The response - 60% said you trust us to keep you updated about the important stuff. After that, 25% said we should pace it out. 

That means we’ll keep doing what we do best - keeping you informed without being overwhelmed, which just so happens to be our motto for 2025.