Grog is destroying lives in Aboriginal communities, but race-based bans don’t work. Julia Gillard wants to re-introduce a list of people banned from buying alcohol but the data doesn’t support her.
READ MOREArticles by Chris Graham
Govts part of the black education problem
The latest NAPLAN results show that government’s have failed to “close the gap” between indigenous and non-indigenous students, despite billions being spent. So what does work?
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Nobody was very serious on Aboriginal constitutional recognition
Constitutional recognition for Aboriginal Australians was always doomed. Nobody in government wanted it badly enough, especially in the midst of a federal election.
READ MOREAbbott’s Cape York listening tour falls on deaf eyes
Tony Abbott spent the weekend doing his brand of a “listening tour” by rolling up his sleeves up and helping renovate a school library in the small Cape York community of Aurukun.
READ MOREChris Graham: Brough is back, with a record of failure
There’s a broad expectation that Mal Brough will walk straight back into the ministry if he wins Fisher. And there’s widespread fear in black Australia that the portfolio will be Aboriginal affairs.
READ MOREAboriginal protests: grassroots activism v boardroom blackfellas
In the wash-up of the Tent Embassy debacle, a few opportunities have emerged. The most important is a discussion – particularly among young Aboriginal people – about a way forward.
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The tent embassy: fact v fiction, black v white
There is perhaps no event in the last few decades that better sums up the divide between black and white Australia than the debacle that engulfed the Embassy celebrations.
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What’s with Welcome to Country?
Aboriginal people have for thousands of years formally welcomed people onto their country. When other Aboriginal nations visited to trade, it was accompanied by welcoming ceremonies, explains Chris Graham.
READ MOREHolding their breath for Palm justice
This latest inquest into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee is being watched by Indigenous people around the nation for one simple reason: it represents the best chance yet for justice over an Aboriginal death in custody.
READ MOREBiggest problem facing Scullion as shadow indigenous affairs? His boss
New shadow Indigenous Affairs minister Nigel Scullion has a genuine opportunity to make meaningful progress for the nation’s most disadvantaged citizens. Let’s hope he doesn’t succumb to his poll dancing past.
READ MOREAboriginal Australia: like the poorest of Africa, says Amnesty chief
The Secretary General of Amnesty International has likened conditions in Central Australia to the poorest parts of Africa and Asia, and described the gap between rich and poor in this country as the most stark she’s even seen.
READ MOREJohn Howard transforming NRL: there goes the black fan base
Rugby league has been a dying game for many, many years — is John Howard really the man to revamp it? It makes even less sense when you consider a large percentage of the hard-core league fan-base is black.
READ MORE‘White power’ t-shirts for sale in Alice Springs
As Alice Springs grapples with the alleged bashing death of an Aboriginal man by five young white men, one man has begun selling “Alice Springs White Power” t-shirts and caps. Outside the Council offices…
READ MORERacist, not working: UN bashes NT intervention
Make no mistake, the United Nations’ criticism of Australia’s Northern Territory intervention was a flogging of colonial proportions.
READ MOREJenny Macklin’s special brand of consultation
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has discovered an interesting kind of consultation involving fences, writes Chris Graham.
READ MORETime to start making sense, Galarrwuy
Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu has dumped a bucket on the NT intervention — a policy that only two years ago had his support Chris Graham is confused.
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Alice camps injunction is down to Macklin
The Federal Court has delayed acquisition of Alice Springs town camps. Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin should have seen this coming.
READ MOREUp to their ankles in sewage, a remote community’s patience runs out
The NT community of Ampilatwatja is overrun with raw sewage, and with complete inaction from the government, the residents have finally cracked.
READ MOREAnderson quits, NT government on the brink
The ALP may have lost the numbers in the NT parliament, after Minister for Indigenous Policy, Alison Anderson, walked out on her cabinet post this afternoon.
READ MOREMacklin’s town camp takeover derailed by big guns
Within 24 hours of Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin’s announcement, the town camp takeover had well and truly derailed.
READ MOREThere’s no Alice town camps deal, not now and not likely
The truth is, the battle for the Alice Springs town camps is just beginning, despite Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin’s latest deal.
READ MORERacism is a blanket in Alice Springs
Alice Springs town council is proposing a range of new powers; all pointed to one end: tackling anti-social behaviour. Except, it includes throwing out blankets used by homeless people…
READ MOREMacklin botches Alice Springs town camp compulsory acquisition
Jenny Macklin has botched the compulsory acquisition of the Alice Springs town camps for the second time in as many months, and now faces the prospect of having to cut a deal with Tangentyere Council.
READ MOREFeds build 1000th home in three months… in Rudd’s electorate
Stimulus package housing is one thing, intervention housing quite another, writes Chris Graham.
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