Anita Heiss, prolific author and Aboriginal activist, was in 2009 accused by columnist Andrew Bolt of being one of a group of ‘political aborigine[s]’: white people who claim to be black. Bolt decided that Heiss only identified as a ‘member of the Wiradjuri nation’ to nab top jobs reserved for Indigenous people (disregarding her high…
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Ali Cobby Eckermann was too afraid to cry, and I was too afraid to put down her memoir till I had come to the end and knew that she was going to be okay. This is the extraordinary true story of Eckermann’s upbringing as a child of the stolen generation—taken from her Indigenous family at…
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I’ve never read a book quite like Melissa Lucashenko’s Mullumbimby. With most books I read, there are aspects which will remind me of something else I’ve read, or make me think of another author I’ve read. And it could just be that because I’m still working my way through the millions of published books which…
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I have been nostalgic about the past for as long as I can remember. The clothing, technology and society of bygone eras have always seemed far more interesting to me than the present day. This interest in mind, I found myself drawn to the new exhibition at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, which…
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As an Australian film with a star cast, festival acclaim and lots of hype, expectations have been high for The Sapphires. Based on a true story, the film follows four Indigenous women who travel to Vietnam during the war to perform for US marines. It has has been anything but a disappointment since it opened last…
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