Sovereign Union

The Federal Government's remote work-for-the-dole scheme is devastating Indigenous communities, with financial penalties causing insurmountable debt and social division, a report has found. Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. 00:00 00:00 AUDIO: Remote work-for-the-dole scheme failing Indigenous communities: report (PM) The Australian National University research...

Australian Aboriginal culture is widely recognised as the oldest living culture in the world, but have you ever wondered what it was like for Aboriginal Australians to live by the stars? The latest study in Aboriginal astronomy has found a site that could be older than Stonehenge, and even pre-date the Great Pyramids of Giza. We talk to Dr Duane Hamacher from Monash University, and Jesse Fleay, Ph...

We all know about incarceration. But have you heard of decarceration? Why do we invest so much in metal cages and punitive approaches? Are there alternatives that might create strong and safe communities, without criminalisation, surveillance and overpolicing? We hear from global critics of the prison industrial complex at the 8th international conference of the prisoners advocacy group Sisters In...

Bennelong and Yemmerrawanyea Rendition AUDIO: Bennelong and Yemmerawanne's song, performed in London in 1792, as notated and published by musician Edward Jones in 1811. This version is performed by Clarence Slockee and Matthew Doyle at the State Library of NSW, August 2010. More info here: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/bennelong-and-yemmerrawanyea-singing-england#

The Mayor of Kalgoorlie says anti-social problems in Kalgoorlie are the result of bad parenting and that each generation of Aboriginal people is worse than the last. 28th October ABC RN Breakfast https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pglxVL8mbV?play=true

The story of colonial Australia is as much a story of dispossession as it is of settlement, and dispossession often went hand in hand with terrible brutality. As a result, a great many regions of Australia have massacres of Indigenous peoples woven into their story—some are widely acknowledged, some will never be fully known, and others are sources of historical argument. And so today we’re lookin...

Contrary to all teachings, Australia's first alcohol wasn't brought here by boat, it came from Aboriginal people fermenting their own special drink from tree sap. While fermented food is all rage at the moment, it's cultural heritage goes back thousands of years. Contrary to all teachings, Australia's first alcohol wasn't brought here by boat, it came from Aboriginal people fermenting their own sp...

A former employee of the Northern Territory Department of Children and Families says that senior people within the department often fail to act in the best interest of Aboriginal children caught up in the system. Kimberley Hunter a Nygina man from the Kimberley region of Western Australia told the Royal Commission's Alice Springs community consultation into the Protection and Detention of Children...

Ask any West Australian whitefella how they feel about Rottnest Island and the responses are reverential. A holiday at Rotto is a West Australian rite of passage. But for Western Australia’s Indigenous people, the memories and the stories are very different. Beneath its glittering surface is a history of horror and suffering.

A former juvenile detainee says she feels relieved after speaking to the Royal Commission into Youth Detention and Child Protection in the Northern Territory. Lexi, 17, was among a small group of former juvenile inmates who attended a royal commission closed youth forum in Alice Springs this week. "It feels like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, because telling this mob here so they can make...

One to two Indigenous languages are being lost every year, say experts who estimate if the trend continues only 50 Indigenous languages will be left by the year 2050. Experts say Australia is in the midst of a national crisis as with each year elders die and take with them the knowledge of Indigenous languages. To try to capture these languages before it becomes too late, the Australian Institute...

He was an Aboriginal stockman, turned world war two guerrilla fighter. It’s a story that reads like the plot of an action film, but it’s actually the remarkably true tale of a local from the WA Goldfields. James Brennan was an Aboriginal stockman from Laverton whose life was shaped by battles at home and abroad. He was born into battle between settlers and Aboriginal people in the northern Goldfie...

he Royal Commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory is heading out bush for a series of meetings in remote Indigenous communities. Today the commissioners are flying north from Darwin to the Tiwi Islands where Tiwi youth workers are already working on solutions for diverting young people away from the criminal justice system. But as Sara Everingham reports f...

The remains of 13 Indigenous people were handed back to Aboriginal leaders at a ceremony at Australia House in London overnight. Cambridge University and the University of Birmingham were among the institutions that returned remains as part of a repatriation process. However, some institutions like the British Museum continue to defy the wishes of indigenous people by refusing to return ancestral...

This virtually unknown story is of fifteen men in 1797 who became the first overlanders on this continent to walk 700 miles through 'country', from Ninety Mile Beach in Victoria to Sydney Cove. The account of William Clark's trek is evidence of the humane and generous treatment of these forlorn interlopers by First Nations Peoples, who ensured the party's survival. ABC Radio National, LNL with Phi...

Have you ever wondered how ancient indigenous cultures maintain so much information about the thousands of species of plants and animals—without writing it down? Traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines are key to a powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world. It's intricately tied to the landscape and it can be applied in our everyday lives. AUDIO TRANSCRIPT http://www...

From the BBC (edited) Were Australia's prehistoric Aboriginal people the world's first true astronomers, predating European and ancient Greek and Indian astronomers by thousands of years? The stunning discovery of what is being called an "Aboriginal Stonehenge", the first of its kind to be found in Australia, could change that continent's history and with it our whole understanding of how and when...

Full audio here: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/02/bay 20150219 1005.mp3 Article: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2015/02/bay 20150219 1005.mp3

Northern Territory - A ceremony has been held to mark 130 years since almost the entire Woolwonga tribe was believed to have been murdered, with official recognition now paid to its descendants. Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion unveiled a plaque to commemorate the tribe from Alligator River, near Katherine. A girl known as 'Jennie' was found to be the only known survivor after an...

Former PM John Howard announced the idea of Recognition in 2007 because he was worried about the fact that Aboriginal people still maintained their pre-existing and continuing sovereignty over First Nations' territories, lands waters and natural resources.  This was originally bought to his attention some years earlier when PM Robert Menzies, a hero of Howard's, tabled the facts in parliament that...

Sporting star Mundine has come under fire for suggesting players in the AFL and NRL grand finals take a stand and not sing the anthem. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urged Australians on 3AW to "come together" over the weekend. Wayne Wharton said he found both the national anthem and flag offensive. "Australia is still a crime scene," he declared. "And many aboriginal people who are locked up in...

The world's first Aboriginal Australian language video game has put smiles on the faces of Indigenous children who never thought they'd see their culture reflected in a game. Lizzie Marrkilyi Ellis and Dr Inge Kral, research fellows with The Australian National University (ANU) School of Literature Languages & Linguistics have worked with the ANU School of Art, and the Research School of Compu...

A national touring exhibition has opened in Sydney to mark the 60th anniversary of the first atomic test at Maralinga. In total, seven nuclear bomb blasts were detonated between 1956 and 1967 in the southern part of the Great Victoria Desert in South Australia followed by more than 600 'minor tests' Source ABC RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly

As dawn light crept across the Kimberley on April 1, 1897, the hot morning would become seared in Kimberley history. It's the day that Jandamarra was shot dead. The young Bunuba man had led a resistance campaign against white settlement of the West Kimberley for several years; sheep and cattle grazing had expanded, pushing out local Aboriginal people and turning traditional life into turmoil. Ther...

Debbie Carmody, an Anangu woman is First Nation radio broadcaster in the Goldfields region explains that 'anger is the voice of the people'. She talks about the deplorable history of racism and injustices in Kalgoorlie.. In examples of Kalgoorlie racism, Debbie said: 'Kalgoorlie had the highest NO vote in the 1967 referendum' and 'In the 2000 Olympics the people booed Kathy Freeman when she crosse...