First Nations First

Stolen Generations survivors in Western Australia will now be eligible for redress for the harm caused by forced removals of children from family and community. The state government has announced living survivors will be eligible for payments of up to $85,000 under the scheme. As Reconciliation Week events take place across the country, former Labor Senator Pat Dodson has also called for Labor to...

Every year in conjunction with National Reconciliation Week from 27 May to 3 June, Australians are presented with the opportunity to learn more about the nation’s shared histories, cultures and achievements. This year, the theme is Bridging Now to Next - calling on the nation to reflect on the ongoing connection between past, present and future.

It has become a lightning rod issue: What should Australia do with its public statues celebrating leaders from the country's colonial past? One group thinks it has the answer. SBS' The Feed speaks to an anonymous group from Melbourne has been going after colonial statues – toppling, breaking or defacing them in the night.

Cost of living, housing, Medicare – some of the issues central to this election. But what some experts and advocates are saying is “absent” from the campaign trail is First Nations affairs. What are the key policy announcements? What are the interests and concerns of First Nations people? Where should Australia go after the referendum outcome?

While electoral enrolment is currently at an all-time high, voter turnout has been in decline since 2007. The 2022 election saw turnout drop to its lowest level since compulsory voting was introduced in 1925. And one area where voter participation is especially low is in remote communities.

Voters in the Torres Strait are preparing to cast their ballots in the May election. Climate change and water security have emerged as key factors in how leaders plan to vote.

The remains of 36 Indigenous ancestors being held at London’s Natural History Museum have been handed back to their communities. While repatriations are happening more frequently, there are calls from Aboriginal leaders for the British government to provide increased assistance so more remains can be brought back to country.

Victoria Park, also known for its traditional name Barrambin, used to be an Indigenous settlement of great importance and a meeting place for cultural practices - but it remains one of the most culturally significant sites in the city. The Queensland state government has now confirmed it is going to build Brisbane's Olympic Stadium there. Traditional owners say they are devastated by the announcem...

Housing, employment, and remote road infrastructure are key issues for voters in remote regions of the Northern Territory. As campaigning continues for the upcoming federal election on May 3rd, SBS travelled to the community of Ramingining, around 600 kilometres east of Darwin, where the Minister for Indigenous Australians took her pitch to voters this week.

Legal experts have lodged a complaint with the United Nations alleging the Australian government is breaching its obligations to First Nations children in detention under international human rights law. It comes as state and territory governments across the country crack down on youth crime with punitive laws.

An Indigenous-led program that’s already helping hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people quit smoking and vaping is about to go national, thanks to a new $4.7 million grant. Which Way? Quit Pack has been developed by a team at the University of Newcastle, led by Wiradjuri woman Associate Professor Michelle Kennedy.

For thousands of years, Aboriginal people in Tasmania have harvested yula, also known as muttonbirds, a short-tailed shearwater. The harvest is one of the oldest cultural practices for Tasmanian Aboriginal people. But as another season is looming, it's facing a number of threats.

A High Court decision has cleared the way for "significant" compensation for the Gumatj people of the Northern Territory. The Court has upheld an earlier Federal Court ruling that a site at Gove in northeast Arnhem Land was not acquired in the 1960s for bauxite mining on just terms.

The second annual Call it Out report has been released by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney. The report maps incidents of racism experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous Australians are most commonly experiencing widespread stereotyping and discrimination - and nowhere is safe for them from racist abus...

The anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations has been commemorated in Federal Parliament. It has been 17 years since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a historic apology for racial discrimination against First Nations people. It is estimated that between one in three, and one in 10, Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their parents in the period between 1910 and 1...

The Northern Territory's soaring prison population has broken a grim new record. More than four and half thousand people are now crammed into prisons and police watch-houses. Police and justice advocates say chronic over-crowding and extended lock downs are taking a toll a toll on officers and inmates alike.

Five sets of ancestral remains from Australia that had been in German museum collections since the 19th century have been handed back at a ceremony that a community representative described as a sad but "very joyful" moment. The restitution is part of ongoing efforts by German museums and authorities to return human remains and cultural artefacts that were taken during colonial times.

Internet use is growing in remote First Nations communities, but cost is still a barrier. A new study from RMIT University has revealed that even though progress is being made, there is still a long way to go to close the digital gap for communities.

In South Australia, a public inquiry has found the number of Aboriginal children being removed from their families is approaching levels equivalent to the Stolen Generations. One in every ten First Nations children is in state care, and that figure is expected to increase to 14 in every 100 within seven years if not addressed. This is the story of how one grandmother took on the state department o...

The Northern Territory Coroner has handed down her findings into the killing of four Aboriginal women by their partners. After a year-long inquiry, Elisabeth Armitage has painted a bleak picture of 'relentless violence' against women and children, with frontline agencies overwhelmed and underfunded. She has now made 35 recommendations calling for change.

A new million-dollar project from the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University is compiling the largest ever documentary history of Australia from an Indigenous perspective. Ngura Ninti, which means 'knowing home', is the first of its kind and aims to challenge the common understanding of Australian history as told through a colonial lens.

For generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have called for a formal treaty or treaties to recognise their sovereignty. Now, formal negotiations have begun in Victoria to establish the nation's first-ever treaty between a state and its First Nations people. But other countries including Canada, New Zealand and the United States began signing treaties centuries ago, so what's tak...

New data from the New South Wales government suggests there's a record number of Aboriginal adults in custody in the state. Advocacy groups are calling for community-led solutions nationally to combat the over-representation of Indigenous adults and children in custody.

This is the legacy of Rottnest Island, now a popular tourist destination off the coast of Perth - thousands of First Nations men and boys sent to suffer or die on a prison island in horrific circumstances. Descendants of those who were imprisoned there have now come together to commemorate the island's traumatic past and celebrate the resilience of their people.

As the new Northern Territory government implements the tough-on-crime policies that helped bring them to office, access to legal aid is being cut back sharply, raising concerns vulnerable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will be left to defend themselves in court.