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August 31
In early summer - winter in Australia - an exhibition that the wider world should know about opened in a museum of contemporary art situated between Sydney's Opera House and Harbor Bridge. The artist, John Mawurndjul, is an Aboriginal man with a white beard, a furrowed brow and a springy halo of white hair. Born in 1952, he now lives in Maningrida, an indigenous community of about 2,000 people in Arnhem Land, on the continent's north coast, facing Indonesia.

Maningrida is remote - it's a full day's drive from Darwin. But, for much of his life, Mawurndjul, who fought off leprosy as a child, has lived on even more remote outstations.

For more than 30 years, he has been making large paintings on massive pieces of bark, which he cuts, using a tomahawk, from stringybark eucalyptuses. He cures the bark over an open fire and flattens the pieces with weights for several days. Then, using thin reed brushes, he patiently applies black charcoal and white, yellow and red ochers (which he finds and grinds himself) in repeating cross-hatched patterns. These patterns nest within a complex overall design that appears figurative or abstract but always expresses ceremonial ritual based in ancient tradition.

Working in this way, Mawurndjul has produced a body of work so sophisticated, so spellbinding and so beautiful that it has earned him accolades not only in Australia (the Sydney Morning Herald's art critic, John McDonald, recently called him "one of our greatest artists of all time"), but also across Europe.

Mawurndjul has been the subject of retrospectives in Switzerland and Germany. He was featured in the groundbreaking exhibition "Magiciens de la Terre," at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1989, and his work is permanently installed in Paris at the Musée du Quai Branly. The 2006 opening of that museum was marked by an issue of Time magazine that placed Mawurndjul's face on the cover.

People with a glancing sense of Aboriginal art tend to bring to mind abstract-looking paintings made up of long strings of dots painted in colored acrylics on canvas. Such work, although it is based in traditions of body painting and sand art, dates only as far back as the early 1970s. That was when Geoffrey Bardon, a white schoolteacher in a central Australian settlement of disparate Aborigines displaced by the government's aggressive assimilationist policies, thought to help remedy a bad situation by encouraging the community's elders to paint designs relating to traditional ceremonies and myths.

Half a century later, Aboriginal art is ubiquitous in Australia. The best of it is showcased in the country's major art galleries. The tourist market is awash in varieties of cheap, cynically produced and visually cacophonous work.

The movement's major stars are the late Emily Kngwarreye and Rover Thomas. Among other celebrated figures are Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, whose 2015 debut in New York drew glowing reviews, and Doreen Reid Nakamarra, who died in 2009 and remains a personal favorite of mine.

Those artists all hailed from the dry regions of central Australia. But about three-quarters of Australia's Aboriginal population live in cities and towns rather than remote outposts. Their creativity, and much about their social plight, is reflected in powerful, politically charged work by the likes of Daniel Boyd, Destiny Deacon, Brook Andrew, Tracey Moffatt and Richard Bell.

American audiences are getting more chances to see art by indigenous Australians. For two years, a changing selection of work from the collection of Miami enthusiasts Dennis and Debra Scholl has been touring the country. It is now at the Phillips Collection in Washington. The Scholls have announced that they are giving around 200 works from their collection to three U.S. museums.

One of them, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, last year mounted a show of six large Aboriginal paintings, part of a gift from another prominent private collection. And, in 2016, Harvard Art Museums mounted "Everywhen," a terrific overview of Aboriginal art.

Several commercial galleries in New York, including Salon 94 and Olsen Gruin, regularly show paintings in acrylics on canvas by indigenous Australians. But, so far, American audiences have had almost no exposure to a strain of Aboriginal art that many consider just as impressive and at least as inventive: bark painting. This will change in 2020, when a large-scale exhibition of bark paintings from the University of Virginia's Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection will tour the United States.

Of the artists painting on bark, few would dispute that Mawurndjul is the most accomplished (although he belongs to a dynasty of groundbreaking artists that includes the pioneer Billy Yirawala, Peter Marralwanga, Marralwanga's son Ivan Namirrkki, and Mick Kubarkku). Mawurndjul began painting for the market in 1979. His work entered the collection of Australia's National Gallery five years later.

He is an experienced hunter, with deep ceremonial knowledge. When not at Maningrida, he likes to spend time at Milmilngkan, a remote outstation on a creek with nearby waterholes and a spring that bubbles up amid a pandanus grove.

These natural features, along with rainbow serpents, spirit figures, crocodiles and other creatures, all make their way into his paintings. The resulting images, abetted by the subtle undulations in the bark supports, squirm with movement and energy, and vibrate with an almost talismanic potency.

It's hard to explain in words how the effect is achieved, especially because Mawurndjul's repertoire of marks is so various. But, in general, an overall format, which might be determined by the edges of the bark itself or by the outline of, say, a rainbow serpent, is subdivided into a loosely shifting grid of dotted lines.

Within each section of this grid, Marwundjul's distinctive cross-hatching, or "rarrk," is applied in white, yellow, red, and black stripes. Sometimes the "rarrk" works against the grain of the overall grid, sometimes it is aligned. The colored stripes formed by the "rarrk" may continue in line with those in adjacent sections, but more often they sit at an angle. The eye strains to find a formula behind the jazzy complexity of the whole. But again and again, it is confounded.

Superficially, Marwundjul's designs can resemble a more complex version of the early paintings of Ellsworth Kelly, who cut his compositions into parallel strips and then randomly rearranged the strips. Or they can be likened to the puzzles of early cubist paintings, with their constant slippages between contour and plane, volume and shadow. But such analogies are necessarily loose. Ultimately, both the visual experience and the worldview underlying Marwundjul's monumental bark paintings are of an entirely different order.

Mawurndjul, who speaks the Kuninjku language (one of about 120 Aboriginal languages still spoken today), judges each painting's success, he explained, by placing it "in the bush where there are lots of trees. . . . I walk away and I come back and I look at it to see if there's movement in it. Is it moving? Is there shimmer in it? That's the power of the rarrk. If it does, I am happy."

In today's Australia, Aboriginal art is often press-ganged into the cause of the country's anxious preoccupation with national identity, or promoted as a balm to soothe the open wounds resulting from invasion, murder, mistreatment and a scarcely credible litany of abject failure in government policy.

Outside the country, it might be possible to see the work more clearly. Even so, forms of moral and intellectual vertigo can befuddle the brain of anyone who thinks too long on the origins, development and reception of contemporary Aboriginal art.

If, for instance, you judge the work by criteria that developed in the West around modernist abstraction, you are surely missing the point. But if you treat the best Aboriginal work as a mere ethnographic curiosity, you do it - and yourself - an even greater disservice. You overlook not only its extraordinary visual dynamism, but its value as a moving assertion of spiritual vitality, individual brilliance and collective tradition.

This, folks, is what contemporary art looks like. You might not recognize it. The worldview it comes out of might feel deeply, wondrously foreign. But that is part of what draws the eye to it. The awed and baffled mind runs close behind.

John Mawurndjul, I Am the Old and the New Through Sept. 23, Museum of Contemporary Art, 140 George St., The Rocks, Sydney. mca.com.au.

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Introducing the greatest Aboriginal artist unknown in America

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August 31 In early summer - winter in Australia - an exhibition that the wider world should know about opened in a museum of contemporary art situated between Sydney's Opera House and Harbor Bridge. The artist, John Mawurndjul, is an Aboriginal man with a white beard, a furrowed brow and a springy halo of white hair.

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Staff papers | National Library of Australia

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This is a collection of papers and presentations by staff of the National Library of Australia on a wide range of subjects and areas of expertise. For older papers, see our PANDORA archive.All papers are made available under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unless otherwise explicitly stated on individual publications.

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White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - Peggy McIntosh (Written for the U.S. context but can easily be applied to Australia)

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White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - Peggy McIntosh (Written for the U.S. context but can easily be applied to Australia)

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The website goes on to explain that it is different from other forms of racism because 'some associate racism with a belief in racial superiority or deliberate acts of discrimination. Casual racism concerns not so much a belief in the superiority of races but negative prejudice or stereotypes concerning race.'

It seems like a fine line distinction, and one that doesn't necessarily negate the possibility of an underlying belief of 'racial superiority', or it being a 'deliberate act'. I always assumed it was a term that was used to make it more palatable to white people, because white fragility.

I always assumed that was why people needed to create the term 'white privilege', because white people were no longer comfortable with the connotations of the phrase 'white power' anymore

I always assumed that was why people needed to create the term 'white privilege', because white people were no longer comfortable with the connotations of the phrase 'white power' anymore, and since white people have the power in society, other terms which make discussing racism less confronting for them need to be created.

Judging by how over the top the reaction of many white people to the phrase 'white privilege' is though, I have long suspected that the real issue is not with the terms 'power' or 'privilege', or 'fragility' but with the phrase 'white'.

Common examples of 'casual racism' include the classics 'You're so pretty... for an Aboriginal', or basically any 'compliment' that needs to be racially qualified; 'But where do you really come from?', 'But you're one of the good ones!' and many more. It also includes loaded assumptions, challenges and assertions on people's identity.

There have been plenty of campaigns about this, including Racial Microaggressions, where Fordham University art student Kiyun Kim asked her friends to hold up posters describing some such comment they've received in their lives.

White people have long enjoyed not needing to be described as 'white' in countries they have come to be the majority within.

White people never have to deal with the follow up question 'but where are you *really* from?' in Australia, as though white people actually come from here anymore than any other non-Aboriginal group of people who have come to call Australia home in the last 200 years or so.

White people are also the only group who are not expected to use an adjective to describe their Australian-ness, and are often legitimately surprised and confused when pushed on this point 'I'm just an Australian!'. The rest of us are used to using our qualifiers - 'Aboriginal Australian', Chinese Australian', 'or Lebanese Australian'.

Many white people seem to recognise this in some basic form, and try to bestow this racial invisibility on others by the blatantly inaccurate statement 'I don't see race!'. The 'colour blind' theory, which they believe is the answer to addressing racism in Australia despite it being literally impossible is ignoring the ongoing realities of race and racism in Australia and the rest of the world.

White people have long enjoyed not needing to be described as 'white' in countries they have come to be the majority within.

But I digress... we were talking about 'casual racism'. Do you know what many other people call it in other countries? 'Racial Microaggressions'.

I can see why such a term would be hard to get off the ground in a place like Australia, where we have regressed so far in our understanding of race and racism that white politicians can now argue that giving an Acknowledgement of Country is racist because it singles out one specific group. Seriously.

You might wonder why I am being so mean to white people right now (because white fragility), but I assure you my motivations are purely altruistic. The reason I have opened this can of worms is because I saw this really cool animation from a website called Fusion that explains 'How microaggressions are like mosquito bites' and I wanted to share with you all for your entertainment and/or enlightenment but realised that it might not resonate as well with Australian audiences as we have been taught to call it 'causal racism', so here we are.

So, anyway... I hoped you enjoyed that, and I hope this helps us to stop refer to it as 'casual racism' because as you just saw, getting a million bites a day might be casual for the individual mozzies, but it sure as hell doesn't feel casual to get bitten by them a million times a day, and they can actually be quite dangerous.

NB: if you really don't see colour, please consult your optometrist.

Also, reverse racism doesn't exist. *smokebomb*

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In Australia, most of us have heard of the phrase 'casual racism'. According to the Human Rights Commission it refers to 'conduct involving negative stereotypes or prejudices about people on the basis of race, colour or ethnicity' - which sounds a lot like racism, and doesn't seem particularly casual either, at least not from the perspective of those on the receiving end.

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The Memory Code: how oral cultures memorise so much information

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The Memory Code: how oral cultures memorise so much information

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Ancient Celtic bards were famous for the sheer quantity of information they could memorise. This included thousands of songs, stories, chants and poems that could take hours to recite in full.

Today we are pretty spoiled. Practically the whole of human knowledge is conveniently available at our fingertips. Why worry about memorising something when we can simply Google it?

The answer seems pretty evident when we go into a panic after losing our smartphones!

Long before the ancient Celts, Aboriginal Australians were recording vast scores of knowledge to memory and passing it to successive generations.

Aboriginal people demonstrate that their oral traditions are not only highly detailed and complex, but they can survive - accurately - for thousands, even tens of thousands, of years.

Yet I struggle to remember what I did last Tuesday. So how did they do it?

Researcher Lynne Kelly was drawn to this question while investigating Aboriginal knowledge about animals for her PhD.

It was evident to Kelly that Aboriginal people catalogued huge scores of information about animals - including species types, physical features, behaviour, links to food and plants - and wondered how they do it.

A memorable thing

Aboriginal elders explained to her how they encode knowledge in song, dance, story and place. This led to a theory that may revolutionise archaeology.

It has long been known that the human brain has evolved to associate memory with place, referred to as the method of loci. This means that we associate memory with a location. How often do memories come flooding back to us when we visit our childhood haunt?

Loci (Latin for "place"), can refer to landscape features, ceremonial sites, abstract designs - anything with distinct features where information can be linked to memory.

Duane Hamacher, Author provided

Kelly developed this into a framework that may explain the purpose of famous sites such as Stonehenge, the Nasca lines and the Moai of Easter Island.

The meanings of these sites have been a topic of controversy for decades. What Kelly proposes in her new book The Memory Code is that sites such as Stonehenge and the Nasca lines are actually memory spaces.

Knowledge is power

In oral cultures, knowledge is power. It is imperative that the most important knowledge be maintained and preserved by a few select custodians who have proven their worth.

In Indigenous cultures, elders who have passed the highest levels of initiation hold the deepest levels of knowledge.

This is reflected in ceremonial sites where knowledge is passed down. Aboriginal initiation sites include a secret area where the most sacred knowledge is discussed.

We also see this at Stonehenge, where the perimeter of standing stones shields the centre of the ring, where the most important aspects knowledge are passed on through ceremony.

These sites include features that are unique in shape and form. At Uluru, the Anangu elders associate every crevice, bump, and notch around the perimeter of the mountain with knowledge that is stored to memory.

Shutterstock/Peter Zurek

Star maps and memory

But loci is not only linked to places you can touch or visit. Indigenous people also use the stars as memory spaces.

For example, groups of stars can represent features on the landscape. Aboriginal Law Man Ghillar Michael Anderson explains how the Euahlayi people were able to travel long distances for trade and ceremony.

The Euahlayi would memorise star maps at night and learn the songs that talk about their relationship to the land. Each star was associated with a landscape feature, such as a waterhole.

Later in the year, they would sing the song as they travelled across country by day. These songline routes became the foundation of some of our highway networks that criss-cross the country.

Rather than navigating by the stars, the stars themselves serve as a memory space.

Robert Fuller and Google Maps, Author provided

In The Memory Code, Kelly provides new insights into how oral societies are able to store vast quantities of knowledge to memory without it degrading over time.

It may explain how Aboriginal memories of land that existed before it was flooded by rising sea levels during the last Ice Age survived in oral tradition for more than 7,000 years.

To test it herself, Kelly used the technique to memorise all of the world's countries in order of population by linking them with features around her neighbourhood, including buildings and gardens - making up her own stories for each one. And she can now recite them flawlessly.

You might be surprised how easy it is to do yourself.

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The Memory Code: how oral cultures memorise so much information

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Ancient Celtic bards were famous for the sheer quantity of information they could memorise. This included thousands of songs, stories, chants and poems that could take hours to recite in full. Today we are pretty spoiled. Practically the whole of human knowledge is conveniently available at our fingertips.

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Australian Museum - Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney

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Australian Museum - Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney

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Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney - Australian Museum

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Explore the rich and complex customs of Aboriginal people in the past and the importance of the Harbour in their daily lives. To contemporary Indigenous Australians, Port Jackson has a continuing importance.

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ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) works in support of justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. See http://www.antar.org.au The Sea of Hands is ANTaR's longstanding public education initiative and Australia's largest public art installation. Add your name to the Sea of Hands online: http://seaofhands.antar.org.au

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Australian Human Rights Commission - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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Australian Human Rights Commission - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice | Australian Human Rights Commission

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All of us can play a part in making sure that every Australian - Indigenous and non-Indigenous - has the opportunities and choices they need to lead full and healthy lives.

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8ways.wikispaces has the lowest Google pagerank and bad results in terms of Yandex topical citation index. We found that 8ways.wikispaces.com is poorly 'socialized' in respect to any social network. According to MyWot, Siteadvisor and Google safe browsing analytics, 8ways.wikispaces.com is a fully trustworthy domain with no visitor reviews.

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Eight Aboriginal Ways of Learning - New Learning Online

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Going forward into the twenty-first century, indigenous pedagogies connect the deep past of human history with contemporary experiences and multimodal learning:

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Wikispaces was founded in 2005 and has since been used by educators, companies and individuals across the globe.

Unfortunately, the time has come where we have had to make the difficult business decision to end the Wikispaces service.

We first announced the site closure in January 2018, through a site-wide banner that appeared to all logged-in users and needed to be clicked on to dismiss

During the closure period a range of banners were shown to users, including a countdown banner in the final month. Additionally, the home page of Wikispaces.com became a blog, detailing the reasons for the closure. Private Label Site Administrators were contacted separately regarding the closure

Wikispaces Tier

Closedown Date

Classroom and Free Wikis end of service

31st July 2018

Plus and Super Wikis end of service

30th September 2018

Private Label Wikis end of service

31st January 2019

Why has Wikispaces closed?
Approximately 18 months ago, we completed a technical review of the infrastructure and software we used to serve Wikispaces users. As part of the review, it became apparent that the required investment to bring the infrastructure and code in line with modern standards was very substantial. We explored all possible options for keeping Wikispaces running but had to conclude that it was no longer viable to continue to run the service in the long term. So, sadly, we had to close the site - but we have been touched by the messages from users all over the world who began creating wikis with it and now running them on new platforms.

The Wikispaces team

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Wikispaces was founded in 2005 and has since been used by educators, companies and individuals across the globe. Unfortunately, the time has come where we have had to make the difficult business decision to end the Wikispaces service.

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Warning! This site contains images of indigenous people now deceased!

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UTS Jumbunna- Indigenous House of Learning

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UTS Jumbunna- Indigenous House of Learning

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Indigenous Australians | University of Technology Sydney

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Our students are our future Education empowers our people Education creates positive social change We believe that Indigenous education is about taking all Australians into the future In the centre of Sydney At the heart of UTS Jumbunna The place our students go to study to get a feed to

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UWS  Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education

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UWS  Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education

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Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education | Western Sydney University

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at Western Sydney University can look forward to learning in a friendly and supportive environment, which promotes independent thinking and embraces diversity. Here at the Badanami Centre for Indigenous Education, you will find a supportive and culturally appropriate learning environment that caters to the needs of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students.

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Indigenous STEM Education Project - CSIRO

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With the support of the BHP Billiton Foundation, we're implementing an important new education project aimed at increasing participation and achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

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﻿Reconciliation Week - held May/June each year

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﻿Reconciliation Week - held May/June each year

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Strategies for Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Students

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Aboriginal students: Cultural insights for teaching literacy

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Aboriginal students: Cultural insights for teaching literacy

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Insight: Reading Between the Lines - Improving Indigenous literacy

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Strategies to support Indigenous students

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Never Alone - Cultural Insights (All 24 Pieces)

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Paul Girrawah House has multiple First Nation ancestries from the South-East Canberra region, including the Ngambri-Ngurmal (Walgalu), Pajong (Gundungurra), Wallabollooa (Ngunnawal) and Erambie/Brungle (Wiradyuri) family groups.

Paul acknowledges his diverse First Nation history, he particularly identifies as a descendant of Onyong aka Jindoomang from Weereewaa (Lake George) and Henry 'Black Harry' Williams from Namadgi who were both multilingual, essentially Walgalu-Ngunnawal-Wiradjuri speaking warriors and Ngunnawal-Wallaballooa man William Lane aka 'Billy the Bull' - Murrjinille.

Paul was born at the old Canberra hospital in the centre of his ancestral country and strongly acknowledges his First Nation matriarch ancestors, in particular his mother Dr Aunty Matilda House-Williams and grandmother, Ms Pearl Simpson-Wedge.

Paul completed a Bachelor of Community Management from Macquarie University, and Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage and Management from CSU.

Paul provided the Welcome to Country for the 47th Opening of Federal Parliament in 2022. Paul is Board Director, Ngambri Local Aboriginal Land Council, Member Indigenous Reference Group, National Museum of Australia and Australian Government Voice Referendum Engagement Group.

Paul works on country with the ANU, First Nations Portfolio as a Senior Community Engagement Officer

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Reconciliation Australia's vision is for a just, equitable and reconciled Australia.

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Australian Council for Educational Research - ACER

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ACER works collaboratively with Indigenous learners and communities in undertaking research to inform policy, programs and practices to support Indigenous learners.

The improvement of outcomes for Indigenous learners is a research priority. ACER research findings inform policy and program development federally and in all states and territories. Our research has also helped inform teaching practice and school leadership, and the work of health practitioners.

ACER is committed to strengthening the evidence base we have developed and to building our partnerships and collaborations with Indigenous researchers, educators and organisations to improve outcomes for Indigenous learners.

Find out more about the ACER Indigenous Visiting Fellow Development Program for Indigenous educators, researchers or community leaders.

Indigenous education research activities and other services include:

Research news

University completions and equity

Research Conference 2018 closes in Sydney

From inspiration to award win: Little J & Big Cuz's journey to the Logies More indigenous news

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ACER works collaboratively with Indigenous learners and communities in undertaking research to inform policy, programs and practices to support Indigenous learners. The improvement of outcomes for Indigenous learners is a research priority. ACER research findings inform policy and program development federally and in all states and territories.

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National Close the Gap Day: Thursday, 19 March 2015

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National Close the Gap Day: Thursday, 19 March 2015

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MyOxfam Fundraising Pages and Charity Events

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Fight poverty and injustice by fundraising and running charity events - MyOxfam Fundraising Pages and Charity Events

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MyOxfam is all about you. Doing things your way to help Oxfam make a difference. You can support Oxfam's lifesaving work by holding your own fundraiser or charity event.

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The Close the Gap campaign, which Oxfam helped to launch a decade ago, is testament to the Australian public's overwhelming support for improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
We've played a lead role in transforming the Close the Gap campaign for Indigenous Health Equality from a popular movement into a force that has shaped government policy and continues to do so by working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations.
Sign the petition
Why is closing the gap so important?

Most Australians enjoy one of the highest life expectancies of any country in the world - but this is not true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can expect to live at least 10 fewer years than other Australians. Babies born to Aboriginal mothers die at more than twice the rate of other Australian babies, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience higher rates of preventable illness such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes.

The mortality rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is on par with some of the world's most impoverished nations. The United Nations Report, The State of the World's Indigenous Peoples (2009) indicated Australia and Nepal have the world's worst life expectancy gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
Is this the Australia you want? With your help we aim to close this health gap and achieve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality within a generation.
Close the Gap: 10 Year Review

Ten-years after its commencement, it is time to critically reflect on why Australian governments have not yet succeeded in closing the health gap to date, and why they will not succeed by 2030 if the current course continues. Read the report:

What we're campaigning for

The Close the Gap Coalition - a grouping of Indigenous and non-Indigenous health and community organisations - together with nearly 200,000 Australians are calling on governments to take real, measurable action to achieve Indigenous health equality by 2030.

With your support, we are asking for:

Reset the Closing the Gap Strategy by establishing a tripartite partnership between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health leaders, the Commonwealth, and State and Territory governments to co-design health policies.

Invest in Indigenous health on a needs basis. The needs of First Australians are akin to that of older people-they have a higher incidence of illness and therefore greater need. But the government only spends 38 per cent more on Indigenous people even though their needs are 2.3 times greater

Fully cost and fund the Implementation Plan for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health Plan (2013-2023).

Ensure that Aboriginal community controlled health services (ACCHOs) are the preferred model for government investment in primary health care services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Commit to providing adequate and long-term financial resources including strengthening of the Indigenous health workforce.

Address critical social issues that impact Indigenous health (including poor housing, nutrition, employment and education).

Meaningful partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and health services.

How you can Close the Gap

The Close the Gap campaign has achieved a tremendous amount since its launch by Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe in 2006. These outcomes include:

A commitment by government and all major political parties to take action through the formal signing of the Statement of Intent

Allocation of additional health funding through COAG

A stated intention to work in partnership with Indigenous health organisations and communities.

But this is just the beginning. Change will take a generation. We need sustained action from Federal and State Governments. This is where we need your help. Take action now and support Indigenous health equality.

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The Close the Gap campaign, which Oxfam helped to launch a decade ago, is testament to the Australian public's overwhelming support for improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign - Australian Human Rights Commission

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Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign - Australian Human Rights Commission

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Campaign for Indigenous Health Equality

The poorer health of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when compared to the non-Indigenous population is no secret - and something can be done about it. Since 2006, Australia's peak Indigenous and non-Indigenous health bodies, NGOs and human rights organisations have worked together to achieve health and life expectation equality for Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This is known as the Close the Gap Campaign.

The campaign's goal is to close the health and life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation. The campaign is built on evidence that shows that significant improvements in the health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can be achieved within short time frames.

By joining our efforts we can make sure that by 2030 any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander child born in this country has the same opportunity as other Australian children to live a long, healthy and happy life.

What's new?

Ten-years after its commencement, it is time to critically reflect on why Australian governments have not yet succeeded in closing the health gap to date, and why they will not succeed by 2030 if the current course continues.

Close the Gap Progress and Priorities Report 2017

Closing the gap in health equality between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians is an agreed national priority. The Campaign continues to grow each year with 220,000 pledges having been made from across the Australian community, committing to seeing the health outcomes gap close in this generation - by 2030.

(March 2017)

2016 CTG Federal Budget position paper or download in Word

(26 April 2016)

Who are we?

Australia's peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous health bodies, health professional bodies and human rights organisations operate the Close the Gap Campaign. The Campaign's goal is to raise the health and life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to that of the non-Indigenous population within a generation: to close the gap by 2030. It aims to do this through the implementation of a human rights-based approach set out in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner's Social Justice Report 2005.

The Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee first met in March 2006. Our patrons, Catherine Freeman OAM and lan Thorpe OAM, launched the Campaign in April 2007. To date, almost 200,000 Australians have formally pledged their support.

The Close the Gap Campaign is a growing national movement. In 2007 the first National Close the Gap Day was held. It involved five large State events and more than 300 community events. National Close the Gap Day has become an annual event since 2009. Australians across every state and territory participate in this event. Health services, schools, businesses, hospitals, government departments, ambulance services, non-government organisations and others hold events to raise awareness and show support for the Campaign and its goals. Reflecting the importance of the Campaign to nation, it has become the largest and highest profile Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health event in the country.
The members of the Close the Gap Campaign Steering Committee, as at 1 October 2016, are: Co-Chairs

June Oscar AO, Commissioner of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice

Mr Rod Little Co-Chair for the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples

Members

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation

Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of New South Wales

Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association

Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia

ANTaR

Australian College of Midwives

Australian College of Nursing

Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine

Australian Human Rights Commission (Secretariat)

Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association

Australian Indigenous Psychologists' Association

Australian Medical Association

Australian Physiotherapy Association

Australian Student and Novice Nurse Association

beyondblue

Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives

CRANAplus

Expert Adviser - alcohol and other drugs (Pat Dudgeon)

Expert Adviser - epidemiology and public health (Ian Ring)

Expert Adviser - mental health and social and emotional wellbeing (National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health) (Ted Wilkes)

First Peoples Disability Network

Healing Foundation

Heart Foundation Australia

Indigenous Allied Health Australia

Indigenous Dentists' Association of Australia

Indigenous Eye Health Unit (University of Melbourne)

Kidney Health Australia

Menzies School of Health Research

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers' Association

National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation

National Association of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Physiotherapists

National Congress of Australia's First Peoples

National Coordinator - Tackling Indigenous Smoking (Dr Tom Calma AO - Campaign founder and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner)

National Heart Foundation of Australia

NSW Aboriginal Land Council

Oxfam Australia

Palliative Care Australia

PHILE Network

Public Health Association of Australia

Reconciliation Australia

Royal Australasian College of Physicians

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners

The Fred Hollows Foundation

The Lowitja Institute

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia

Torres Strait Regional Authority

Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation

Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service

Our objectives

We aim to close the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health gap through the implementation of a human rights based approach set out in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner's Social Justice Report 2005. This includes the creation of a generational Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality plan with ambitious yet realistic targets supported by a partnership between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their representatives and Australian governments.

The campaign's approach is supported by Australian governments.

In 2007 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) set measurable targets to track and assess developments in the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. These targets include achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality within a generation and halving the mortality rate gap for children under five years old within a decade.

In March 2008, former Prime Minister Rudd and the Opposition Leader signed the Close the Gap Statement of Intent at the Close the Gap Campaign's National Indigenous Health Equality Summit. The Statement of Intent has since been signed by almost all State and Territory governments and oppositions.

The Close the Gap Statement of Intent is the touchstone of the campaign, listing as commitments the main elements of the campaign's approach to achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality.

When the Australian Government signed the Statement of Intent it committed to a sound, evidence-based path to achieving health equality, a path supported by the entire Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector. In particular:

To developing a comprehensive, long-term plan of action, that is targeted to need, evidence-based and capable of addressing the existing inequalities in health services, in order to achieve equality of health status and life expectancy between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non- Indigenous Australians by 2030

To ensure the full participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their representative bodies in all aspects of addressing their health needs

The Close the Gap Campaign continues to work with Australian governments to secure the development of these two vital elements in any overall effort to achieve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality.

The Close the Gap Campaign has also provided significant impetus for the seven 'closing the gap' National Partnership Agreements (NPA) agreed since November 2008. These have brought with them approximately $5bn in additional resources, including the $1.6bn attached to the NPA on Closing the Gap in Indigenous Health Outcomes.

Close the Gap Reports

In 2009 former Prime Minister Rudd committed to making an annual report to Parliament on progress on closing the gap. Every year, the Close the Gap Steering Committee publishes a report that details the Australian Government's progress in closing the gap, including against its implementation of the Statement of Intent commitments.

Find out more
Close the Gap Community Guide (2009)
The poor health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is no secret - and something can be done about it. Since 2006, Australia's peak Indigenous and non- Indigenous health bodies, NGOs and human rights organisations have worked together to secure the support of Australian governments for a human rights based approach to achieving health and life expectation equality for Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This is known as the Close the Gap Campaign.

You can order copies from: publications@humanrights.gov.au
Close the Gap - National Indigenous Health Equality Summit, March 2008
The Summit was the first and most important national event hosted by the campaign. The Close the Gap National Indigenous Health Equality Targets, published in June 2008, was the main outcome of the workshop itself. The targets were developed to support the achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality over many areas. This Summit report contains the targets and a record of the Summit proceedings, including photographs of the event.

The Summit closed with the signing of the Close the Gap Statement of Intent

Get involved!

The Close the Gap campaign has achieved a lot amount since its launch in 2006, but we need continued support from all corners of the Australian community to make it a success.
Get involved and help consign Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health inequality to the history books.

Take action now and support Indigenous health equality:

Last year, more than 150,000 people took part in 1500+ separate National Close the Gap Day events across the country. Events ranged from workplace morning teas, to sports days, school events and public events in hospitals and offices around the country - anyone can take part and make a difference.

Join with over 220,000 other Australians and pledge your support to the 'close the gap'

Subscribe

Join the electronic mailing list and keep up to date with the latest news

Contact us

Australian Human Rights Commission
Phone: +61 2 9284 9600, 1300 369 711
Fax: +61 2 9284 9611
Website: www.humanrights.gov.au
Email: communications@humanrights.gov.au

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Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign

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The poorer health of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when compared to the non-Indigenous population is no secret - and something can be done about it. Since 2006, Australia's peak Indigenous and non-Indigenous health bodies, NGOs and human rights organisations have worked together to achieve health and life expectation equality for Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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The title of Western Australia's Deadly Ways to Learn project, an action research project aimed at facilitating and enhancing the teaching and learning of Australian Aboriginal students, was inspired by Aboriginal English in which 'deadly' means 'really good'. Aboriginal English is the first dialect of most Indigenous Australians and differs in fundamental and consistent ways from Standard Australian English which is the language of instruction in most Australian schools. Accordingly, most Aboriginal students receive schooling in a second dialect. Deadly Ways to Learn brought this dilemma into focus and engaged teachers and Indigenous Education Officers (IEOs) from several government, Catholic and independent schools in action research to develop two-way bi-dialectal teaching practices that would support literacy acquisition among Aboriginal students. Getting teachers and IEOs to accept the existence and validity of Aboriginal English was a huge task. The real challenge, however, was getting teachers to respect the sociocultural perspectives and value systems that Aboriginal English is used to express. Teachers and partner IEOs jointly participated in a series of collaborative forums in which candid discussions about culture and linguistics were carefully facilitated. Over a relatively short period, profound changes were observed and self-reported among participants. This paper outlines the collaborative processes employed in the project, qualitative changes that occurred among participants and key findings about two-way bi-dialectal teaching.

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Deadly Ways to Learn a yarn about some learning we did together

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The title of Western Australia's Deadly Ways to Learn project, an action research project aimed at facilitating and enhancing the teaching and learning of Australian Aboriginal students, was inspired by Aboriginal English in which 'deadly' means 'really good'.

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The Deadly Ways to Learn Project - teaching and learning

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The Deadly Ways to Learn Project - teaching and learning

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Aboriginal English Storybooks Resources

Current research on Additional Language and Dialect acquisition shows that the literacy skills of learners whose language backgrounds are not standard Australian English can be enhanced when the reading materials are linguistically and culturally familiar to learners. The Aboriginal English Aboriginal Storybook resources illustrate how the language and culture of students can be used, endorsed and celebrated to promote literacy development. Five schools feature the work of their students through the publication of their storybooks written in Aboriginal English. The project is also a perfect illustration on how a school can go about developing the standards of the Aboriginal Cultural Standards Framework and the Capabilities outlined in the Capability Framework - Teaching Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander EAL/D Learners.
Aboriginal English Storybooks
Aboriginal English

1. The normal, everyday talk that Aboriginal people use with each other.
2. A dialect of English that has developed over time as Aboriginal people and Europeans interacted.
3. The home talk of Aboriginal people.
4. A dialect of English which has its own grammatical rules, sounds, words and meanings which show evidence of Aboriginal languages.

Assessment and Reporting

For assessment and reporting support and resources for teachers of Aboriginal students who speak English as an additional language or dialect please refer to the EAL/D Assessment and Reporting section.

Tracks to Two-Way Learning

Tracks to Two Way Learning is a train-the-trainer resource aimed at engendering positive change through the four dimensions of Staff Knowledge and Practice, Community Engagement, Policy and Practice and Learner Engagement to improve quality teaching and learning across education, training and the workplace.

Visit the Tracks to Two-Way Learning page for further information about this resource.

Ways of Being, Ways of Talk

Information on Aboriginal English and its use within the wider community. Providing a better understanding of how Aboriginal English and Australian English differ, on the basis of their differing histories and associated underlying conceptualisations.

This text aims to make education more appropriate and effective for students who speak Aboriginal English, using an inclusive approach. It consists of a series of four, 15-20 minute videos, supported by scriptsand resource papers for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal audiences.

A copy of the Ways of Being, Ways of Talk resource is available in pdf format.

Deadly Ways To Learn Project

The Deadly Ways to Learn Project set out to collect, create and critique two-way bidialectal classroom practices in fourteen Western Australian schools. Print resources and two dvds have been published as a kit to support the implementation of such practices in schools across Australia.

The concept underlying these practices was to promote parity of esteem between the dialects of Standard Australian English (SAE) and Aboriginal English.

The kit consists of two books:

Deadly Ideas: A collection of two-way bidialectal teaching strategies from the Deadly Ways to Learn project;

Deadly Yarns: Anecdotes about Language, Culture, Identity and Power from the Deadly Ways to Learn project.

And two videos:

Deadly Ways to Teach: Two-way bidialectal education in schools and classrooms;

Talking Deadly: Language, culture, identity and power in the context of Aboriginal English.

This full kit is available from the EAL/D Resource Centre.

Improving Understanding of Aboriginal Literacy: Factors in Text Comprehension

This text explores the social and cultural knowledge that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators bring to the task of comprehending oral narratives produced by Aboriginal children.

This full kit is available from the EAL/D Resource Centre.

"Understanding Stories My Way": Aboriginal - English speaking students' (mis)understanding of school literacy materials in Australian English

Differences between Aboriginal English and other varieties of English affects Aboriginal students' understanding of literacy materials used at school. Students are likely to comprehend materials in terms of meanings in Aboriginal English. This can be significant in their achievement at school.

A copy of the Understanding Stories My Way resource is available in pdf format.

Statewide Services Resource and Information Centre - EAL/D Program

A variety of high quality and practical resources are available to assist and support teachers of Aboriginal students for whom English is an additional language or dialect. Some are available electronically through this website. All are available for loan through the Statewide Services Resource and Information Centre. The Resource and Information Centre is open from 8.00 to 4.30 weekdays and Department teachers are welcome to come and browse the collection. Alternatively, teachers can call or e-mail requests for bulk loans.

Statewide Services Resource and Information Centre - EAL/D Program
33 Giles Ave
Padbury 6025
Telephone: (08) 9402 6112
E-mail: EALDRC@education.wa.edu.au

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Teaching and Learning Resources for EAL/D Aboriginal Students

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Current research on Additional Language and Dialect acquisition shows that the literacy skills of learners whose language backgrounds are not standard Australian English can be enhanced when the reading materials are linguistically and culturally familiar to learners. The Aboriginal English Aboriginal Storybook resources illustrate how the language and culture of students can be used, endorsed and celebrated to promote literacy development.

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The Deadly Ways to Learn Project - Aboriginal English and bidialectal classroom practices

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The Deadly Ways to Learn Project - Aboriginal English and bidialectal classroom practices

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What Works - The Work Program - Improving Outcomes for Indigenous students

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The project started with a professional development forum which all fourteen participating teachers attended. An opportunity was provided for the teachers to learn about Aboriginal English and two-way bidialectal education, and to reflect upon issues that emerge from such an approach.

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Your Identity Map
(Adapted from https://8ways.wikispaces.com/Your+identity+map )
What is your cultural standpoint? It's not about exotic food, skin tone, dances and clothing. It runs deeper, influencing the way we think, the way we do things, the way we live and relate, and the way we value things. Dr Karen Martin, an Aboriginal academic and Noonuccal woman, defines these as "ways of knowing, ways of doing, ways of being and ways of valuing". Western disciplines refer to these as epistemology, methodology, ontology and axiology.
The Questionnaire:
The questionnaire below will help you clarify your cultural standpoint. This questionnaire is developed from a lesson on identity in Rhonda Ashby's Aboriginal Studies class at Lightning Ridge, and inspired by the work of Dr Karen Martin.
Ways of being.
Work through the questionnaire in pairs. Discuss your answers as you go.

Here are some questions for reflection on your own unique cultural standpoint, no matter where you are from in this world.

Where do you belong? Who do you belong to?

How do you know that something is real?

List some categories of the things you know are real in this world.

From the following sets, select the land orientations you feel most comfortable with:

Saltwater / freshwater
High ground / low ground
Hills / plains / mountains / coast
Open country / forest
Wet / dry
Warm / cool
Fur / feathers / scales / fins
Wood / rock / earth / wind / fire

Where are your ancestors from and how do you connect with them?

How are you maintain relationships with ancestors, people and the environment? (What are your personal consequences for damaging these relationships?)
2. Ways of knowing.
How will the knowledge you have learned in this life be passed on, and to whom?

What things in your life-world must change, and what things must always stay the same?

How did you know the answers to the questions so far - how did you learn these things?

Sketch a diagram of the way you solve problems. What shape does this take for you?

When you access knowledge from memory, what form does that take in your head? (e.g. images, sounds, print, language, shapes)

What are the stories that have had the biggest impact on how you relate to the world around you? (Might be books, films, oral histories, fables etc.)

What symbols are most meaningful for you? (e.g. crucifix, tag, icon, flag)

How do these symbols influence your life and work?
3. Ways of doing.
What sorts of things do you know implicitly, without having to be taught?

Do the answers to any of these questions make you want to change any of your answers back in section 1? (Because our ways of knowing shape our ways of being.)

Do you learn new knowledge best with others, for others, alone, or for yourself?

Do you internalise new knowledge through dialogue, reflection or both?

Do you achieve learning outcomes at the end of a process, or during the process?

What are the signs you look for to know if what you are doing is right?

What does it usually take for you to change your mind about something?
4. Ways of valuing.
What tools do you use for teaching and learning?

What are your main cultural practices, your ways of expressing your culture (e.g. singing, sport, events, rituals)? How do these cultural practices impact on the way you do your work?

What is truth?

What would be your top three rules for living? Top three for learning?
Reflection:
What is the most important thing in the world to you?

How did you learn your values? Where did they come from?

Now, track back through your responses and find the points that relate to:

1. Stories and histories

2. Knowledge pathways/processes

3. Unspoken/instinctive/ancestral knowledge

4. Metaphors and symbols

5. Land and place

6. Non-linear/contradictory/irrational/creative ideas

7. Wholes vs parts / Macro vs micro / Communal vs independent

8. Family, community, cultural base

Relate your identity map to what you have learnt about indigenous people´s world view. What similarities are there?

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Your Identity Map (Adapted from https://8ways.wikispaces.com/Your+identity+map ) What is your cultural standpoint? It's not about exotic food, skin tone, dances and clothing. It runs deeper, influencing the way we think, the way we do things, the way we live and relate, and the way we value things.

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The Deadly Ways to Learn Project - Aboriginal education

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The Deadly Ways to Learn Project - Aboriginal education

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deadly ways to learn;aboriginal perspectives across the curriculum;culture;web page;department of education;all;aboriginal peoples;torres strait islander peoples

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Deadly Ways to Learn - Aboriginal Education - The Department of Education

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Anecdotes about language, culture, identity and power from the Deadly Ways to Learn Project.

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Welcome to the Department of Linguistics and to one of the most exciting periods in your life. Your studies in the Department's various disciplines will provide a sound contemporary knowledge base for a career or research and this website is here to provide some information to assist you in your decision-making.

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Education resources for schools teachers and students - ABC Education

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ABC Education has 4000+ educational games, videos and teaching resources for schools and students. Free Primary and Secondary resources covering history, science, English, maths and more

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Deadly Vibe eMagazine - also has classroom activities

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Deadly Vibe eMagazine - also has classroom activities

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An Aboriginal media, PR & events group with products that are utilised & enjoyed by Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander communities

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What Works. The Work Program - Improving outcomes for Aboriginal Students

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What Works. The Work Program - Improving outcomes for Aboriginal Students

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What Works - The Work Program - Improving Outcomes for Indigenous students

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NSW State Library Australian Indigenous Index

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NSW State Library Australian Indigenous Index

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Search - Australian Indigenous index - INFOKOORI - State Library of New South Wales

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INFOKOORI is an index to the , a national fortnightly newspaper published in Lismore, NSW, that focuses on the Indigenous people of Australia, from May 1991 to date. It is also an index to biographical information from various magazines including: Our Aim (1907-1961), Dawn (1952-1969), New Dawn (1970-1975) and Identity (1971-1982).

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NSW Board of Studies - Aboriginal English

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NSW Board of Studies - Aboriginal English

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Yet many students do not speak the English used by teachers and textbooks, they speak other varieties of English which, though they seem superficially quite similar, are different in ways that can lead to serious miscommunication.

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NSW Board of Studies - Aboriginal Educational Contexts

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NSW Board of Studies - Aboriginal Educational Contexts

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View practical advice and lessons from different K-6 and 7-10 Aboriginal language programs developed in NSW since 2004. Read about the experiences of schools and communities running these programs. Download teaching and learning programs that are updated annually.

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COAG - Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage

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COAG - Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage

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Australia Day/Invasion Day Teaching Resources

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Australia Day/Invasion Day Teaching Resources

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Australia Day, 26 January, is the anniversary of the arrival of the fleet from Great Britain, and the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove by its commander Captain Arthur Phillip, in 1788 .

European arrival

Captain Phillip wasn't the first European to arrive in Australia. Captain Cook had been there 18 years before. In 1768, The HMB Endeavour set sail from Plymouth, England under the command of Captain James Cook. The ship's company of 94 men were instructed to make for Tahiti, where they would observe and record the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. However, Cook also carried instructions from the Admiralty ordering him to explore the Southern Ocean in search of Terra Australis incognita - the unknown southern land.

The Endeavour entered the South Pacific via Cape Horn, reaching Tahiti in April 1769 where the crew observed the transit of Venus on 3 June. Cook's instructions next took him south, where he was to determine the existence of a southern continent. The Endeavour circumnavigated and mapped New Zealand before travelling west, where on 19 April 1770 Cook spotted and claimed the east coast of Australia for the Crown. He named it New South Wales. On 22 April he made his first recorded direct observation of Aboriginal Australians, writing in his journal that they "were so near the Shore as to distinguish several people upon the Sea beach they appear'd to be of a very dark or black colour but whether this was the real colour of their skins or the clothes they might have on I know not."

The Endeavour followed the coastline northward, landing on 29 April in Botany Bay, named after the expedition's naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, who collected plants there. Continuing north, the Endeavour charted a dangerous course through the Great Barrier Reef, where on 11 June it ran aground. The Endeavour eventually limped to shore, where she underwent repairs in the Endeavour River. Cook rounded Cape York in August 1770 before making for the Dutch East Indies. The Endeavour and its crew finally reached England on 13 July 1771, having been away for almost three years.

Cook undertook two further voyages in 1772-75 and 1776-79, circumnavigating the globe and mapping much of the Pacific. While exploring the Hawaiian archipelago in 1779, Cook was killed by locals during a disagreement about the theft of a small boat.

(Source: Adapted from http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/on-this-day/2011/08/on-this-day-captain-james-cook-sets-sail/)
Look at the complete article in the link - notice that it says Cook "discovered" Australia in the first line - does that seem at all odd to you? What does it mean "to discover" a country? Can you discover a country when there are already people living there, or is your discovery an invasion of their land?
Terra nullius

In 1770, when Captain James Cook landed in Botany Bay, he claimed possession of the East Coast of Australia for Britain under the doctrine of terra nullius ("nobody's land").

According to the international law of Europe in the late 18th century, there were only three ways that Britain could take possession of another country:

If the country was uninhabited, Britain could claim and settle that country. In this case, it could claim ownership of the land.

If the country was already inhabited, Britain could ask for permission from the indigenous people to use some of their land. In this case, Britain could purchase land for its own use but it could not steal the land of the indigenous people.

If the country was inhabited, Britain could take over the country by invasion and conquest- in other words, defeat that country in war. However, even after winning a war, Britain would have to respect the rights of indigenous people.

(From sources at: http://www.racismnoway.com.au/teaching-resources/anti-racism-activities/lesson-ideas/what-about-a-treaty/)

Why do you think Cook declared the land "terra nullius" even though he had seen Aboriginal people there?

Which attitudes towards indigenous peoples are shown by his declaration of terra nullius? Have similar situations happened with indigenous peoples in other countries? What do you know about them?

Do you think similar things could happen now? Why/why not?

Settlement

As the European settlers arrived in greater numbers in Australia, they expanded their territory by taking land from the Aboriginal people. The Frontier Wars lasted from the time of the first settlements into the first half of the 20th century. Exactly how many people died is unknown, but estimates range from between 20,000 and 60,000 Aboriginal people and 2,000 and 5,000 Europeans. This map has been made of the different massacres in the Frontier Wars, with information about the different conflicts and fatalities.

One group that did not give up their land without a struggle were the Kalkadoon of northern Queensland. They fought hard against the settlers, culminating in the massacre at Battle Mountain in 1884. The Kalkadoon charged down the hill on the settlers, with approximately 200 men dying under the settlers´musket fire. It is estimated that altogether 900 Kalkadoon lost their lives during the years of the European settlement.

You can read about the Kalkadoon, their culture, their resistance to the Europeans and the massacre at Battle Mountain here:
http://www.cherneesutton.com.au/index.php?_a=document&doc_id=8
The map below shows Australia divided into language groups. Originally, each of these language groups would have represented a different Aboriginal nation:

To have a closer look at the map, you can use the magnifying glass function here: http://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/aiatsis-map-indigenous-australia (NB: This map has been found to contain some inaccuracies in border lines, and has missed or incorrectly placed some groups. AIATSIS has published a disclaimer that you can read in the link above).

As the Europeans arrived, Aboriginal people were moved away from their ancestral land. They were sent to live in reservations (called "missions"), such as the Yarrabah mission just south of Cairns in northern Queensland. You can read more about the history of this mission here:
https://www.qld.gov.au/atsi/cultural-awareness-heritage-arts/community-histories-yarrabah/ Task 3 EITHER Find out more about the Kalkadoon of northern Queensland, using the links above, or an Aboriginal nation in another area of Australia, such as the Ngunnawal. Make a short presentation about their history before and after the European settlers arrived. Discuss the effects of European settlement on the Aboriginal nation you have chosen.
OR
Look at the link about the Frontier Wars. Choose one area of Australia and find out how the Aboriginal people there were affected by arrival of the Europeans.
The Stolen Generations

The Aborigines Protection Board oversaw the mass dislocation of Aboriginal people. In 1869, the state of Victoria passed the Aborigines Protection Act, allowing the government to remove indigenous children from their families and place them in reformatories or boarding schools (a reformatory is modern day youth detention centre) .In 1905, Western Australia passed the Aborigines Act, establishing a Chief Protector to be the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children under the age of 16. In New South Wales, the Director of Native Welfare was the legal guardian of all Aboriginal children, regardless of whether their parents were living or not, up until 1965.

All other states in Australia quickly followed suit, enacting laws that gave a Chief Protector the authority to control nearly every aspect of Aboriginal life, including whom they could marry and where they could live and work. Aboriginal girls were sent far away from home to be trained for domestic service. The Aborigines Protection Board could take Aboriginal children from their families, without parental consent and without a court order.

The removal of children remained legal for about a century, until the last state repealed it in 1969. It is not known precisely how many Aboriginal children were taken away between 1909 and 1969. Poor record keeping, the loss of records and changes to departmental structures have made it almost impossible to trace many connections.

Almost every Aboriginal family has been affected in some way by the policies of child removal.

The Stolen Generations is a complex and painful topic. Two songs about the Stolen Generations are presented here.

(Source: Adapted from https:// www.culturalsurvival.org/news/3-horrendous-anti-indigenous-laws)

Australia Day

To Aboriginal Australians, 26 January is not a date to celebrate, rather it is the date when the invasion of their country, massacre of their people and the destruction of their lives started. Many call it Invasion Day or Survival Day, and take part in protest marches on this day. They would like to move Australia Day to a date when all citizens of Australia can enjoy it. In the video below, produced in January 2016, several Aboriginal Australians explain how they feel about Australia Day:

Shawn Andrews, who owns and runs Indigicate, an organization that specializes in teaching Aboriginal culture, sums up the conflict about the date of Australia Day as follows:

Do you think Australia Day should be moved? Why/why not?

Does the country where you live have a national day? Why is this day celebrated?

Are people of all backgrounds and cultures included in your national day? Why/ why not?

Are national days a good idea or do they create situations where people can feel excluded?

Are there other ways to celebrate a country that are more inclusive?

Write an essay where you discuss arguments for and against having a National Day, and consider the issues that may arise from it.
Further work

Stan Grant, an Australian journalist, made an important speech on the situation for Aboriginal people in Australia. Before listening, review your knowledge of rhetorical devices (or look here and here if you haven´t covered them in class).

Stan Grant starts off by referring to Adam Goodes and his experience of racism. Goodes is an Australian rules football player who came in the media spotlight in 2013, when he reacted to a supporter calling him an "ape" during a game.

Listen to Grant´s speech below:

Which point is his making about the situation of Aboriginal people?

Which rhetorical devices is he using in his speech?

An advertisement for Australian lamb was released January 2017. Although many people of all backgrounds liked it, it is also caused some controversy.
What do you think is the message of this advertisement? Why do you think Aboriginal people might react negatively to it?
The Cope Street Collective, a Sydney based group of Aboriginal scriptwriters and actors, made a parody of the advert:

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Australia Day, 26 January, is the anniversary of the arrival of the fleet from Great Britain, and the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove by its commander Captain Arthur Phillip, in 1788 . European arrival Captain Phillip wasn't the first European to arrive in Australia.

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AITSL - Improving teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education

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AITSL - Improving teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education

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Before accessing these resources

Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people, as the owners and custodians of the cultural knowledge contained in these resources, have developed important rules and protocols for sharing and using that knowledge over hundreds of centuries. While these protocols vary between communities, they are underpinned by a number of common principles:

* Respect Indigenous people's ownership of their cultural knowledge and expertise
* Respect the diversity and complexity of the many different Indigenous cultures in Australia
* Consult with relevant Aboriginal communities before using the material contained in these resources

Complying with the accepted protocols of other cultural groups promotes interaction based on good faith and mutual respect, encouraging ethical conduct.

I acknowledge the above principles and will abide by relevant protocols. Please provide me with access to the documents.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education

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Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people, as the owners and custodians of the cultural knowledge contained in these resources, have developed important rules and protocols for sharing and using that knowledge over hundreds of centuries.

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Australian Bureau of Statistics  - EDUCATION AND INDIGENOUS WELLBEING

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Australian Bureau of Statistics  - EDUCATION AND INDIGENOUS WELLBEING

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4102.0 - Australian Social Trends, Mar 2011

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EDUCATION AND INDIGENOUS WELLBEING This article is also available as a PDF - Download the PDF here Have your say below INTRODUCTION Educational attainment has long been recognised as being correlated with a range of indicators of social wellbeing.

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An Independent, Australian Gaming Website

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Tjinari - Ngaanyatjarra Aboriginal language video game

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Tjinari - Ngaanyatjarra Aboriginal language video game

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Indigenous video game to help keep language alive

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Posted October 06, 2016 11:57:09 The world's first Aboriginal Australian-language video game is being developed in a bid to preserve traditional language and culture. The endless runner game is titled Tjinari, meaning "someone always on the go" in the Western Desert language Ngaanyatjarra.

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This website is primarily aimed at covering the curriculum for VG1 English in Norway and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in TOK in the IB, and at pupils aged 16+. It consists of teaching resources and activities. One of the main aims is to use sources produced by Indigenous peoples themselves.

New:

2019 is UNESCO International Year of Indigenous Languages. This article looks at the UNESCO project, Australian Indigenous Languages and encourages pupils to discuss language and identity.

Introducing Indigenous Identity is a starting off activity before working more in-depth with different Indigenous peoples. Videos from Australia, North America and Norway.

Video clips and discussion questions for working with Native Americans.

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This website is primarily aimed at covering the curriculum for VG1 English in Norway and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in TOK in the IB, and at pupils aged 16+. It consists of teaching resources and activities. One of the main aims is to use sources produced by Indigenous peoples themselves.

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DNA confirms Aboriginal culture one of Earth's oldest

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DNA confirms Aboriginal culture one of Earth's oldest

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DNA confirms Aboriginal people have a long-lasting connection to country

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DNA confirms Aboriginal people have a long-lasting connection to country

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Members of the Stolen Generations may finally find a way back to their country, thanks to new research that reveals differences in Aboriginal DNA can be linked to specific geographic areas.

The discovery is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA found in hair samples taken from Aboriginal people during expeditions run between 1928 and the 1970s.

The DNA analysis, published today in Nature, again confirms modern Aboriginal Australians are descended from one founding population that arrived about 50,000 years ago when the continent was still connected to New Guinea.

But lead researcher Professor Alan Cooper of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA said the study shows the first people then "rocketed" around the west and east coasts, meeting somewhere in southern Australia around 2,000 years later.

The analysis indicated some populations stayed in specific areas during that continental migration and have been continuously present in those same regions ever since - having connection to country for as long as 50,000 years.

"We can see a very pronounced and distinct pattern of genetic types around Australia that clearly says Aboriginal people haven't moved [from those areas]," Professor Cooper said.

"Australia turns out to be unlike anywhere else in the world in terms of having long genetic histories across the landscape."

Reconstructing heritage from hair

The researchers analysed mitochondrial DNA - which allows maternal ancestry to be traced - from 111 hair samples that were originally collected, with permission, from Aboriginal families who had been forcibly relocated to the communities of Cherbourg in Queensland and Koonibba and Point Pearce in South Australia.

The South Australian Museum's collection of more than 5,000 hair samples, complete with cultural, linguistic, genealogical and geographical data, came from the expeditions run by the Board of Anthropological Research from the University of Adelaide between 1928 and the 1970s.

Co-author Lesley Williams, an Indigenous woman from Cherbourg Queensland, was a key adviser on the project and is also the granddaughter of one of the hair sample donors.

She said the picture of settlement provided by the study was an "absolutely important finding".

"A lot of non-Indigenous people said we weren't here. This establishes the truth of what we've been saying all along."

Ms Williams said it was important Aboriginal people played a major role in developing the right cultural and ethical framework for the study.

DNA analysis was only undertaken with consent of the donors or their descendants and results were discussed face to face with the families before publication.

"For us to go to talk to community, it was so sensitive, so we had to do it in a very respectful way," Ms Williams told AM.

"Aboriginal people were able to be involved and, not only engaged, but they had the final say by giving their consent."

Ms Williams said the technology would help those members of the Stolen Generations whose records had been lost or destroyed to trace their families and the cultural lands they were from.

Building a picture of connection to land

The study builds on, and uses data from, a Nature paper from last year that sequenced the genome of 83 Aboriginal Australians.

Among other revelations, the earlier paper showed Aboriginal people living in desert conditions may have developed unique biological adaptations to survive the arid conditions.

Professor Cooper said this new study made sense of this result.

"What we are seeing [in our study] is a very long-term presence in areas," he said.

"If you are 50,000 years in the desert, or tropics, or Tasmania then presumably you are going to undergo selective changes in a way that no other human population did in the world.

"This is where the importance of the metaphysical connection between Aboriginal people and their country has come from.

"They have been on that land for so damn long and been through major environmental upheavals ... so their survival is inextricably linked to being in their country because it is only there that they know how to survive these climate extremes."

Reaffirming decades of research, but more work needed

Professor David Lambert, from Griffith University, a co-author on last year's study, said the current study "simply reaffirmed the decades of research using modern genomes".

But he did not believe using museum hair samples was the best approach for investigating genomic diversity among Aboriginal people before European settlement.

He said this was because the hair samples were only aged up to 91 years old, yet Europeans arrived in Australia 229 years ago with evidence showing Aboriginal Australians were forcibly removed from the time of European settlement.

"So there was 138 years before these hair samples were collected in which anything could have happened in these communities and to these peoples," he said.

Professor Lambert said it was also well known that mitochondrial genomes alone were not sufficient to answer many of these questions.

Professor Cooper said his team had analysed a further 30 to 40 hair samples since the paper was completed, involving two more communities.

It hopes to have results from up to 1,000 samples within the next two years and already the team is looking to visit another three communities this year.

He said the research had been extended to investigate paternal lineages from nuclear DNA.

Preliminary results showed distinct DNA in males from different regions, but also indicated they did move more, which Professor Cooper said was consistent with traditional ceremonies and marriage patterns.

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DNA confirms Aboriginal people's long-lasting connection to country

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Members of the Stolen Generations may finally find a way back to their country, thanks to new research that reveals differences in Aboriginal DNA can be linked to specific geographic areas. The discovery is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA found in hair samples taken from Aboriginal people during expeditions run between 1928 and the 1970s.

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The passions of an Aboriginal astronomy guide.

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The passions of an Aboriginal astronomy guide.

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The passions of Aboriginal astronomy guide, Willy Stevens

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It wasn't til his late teens that Muruwari man Willy Stevens learnt about his culture. But he's embraced it - and teaching it to the next generation, writes Duane Hamacher.

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The world's oldest observatory? How Aboriginal astronomy provides clues to ancient life

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The world's oldest observatory? How Aboriginal astronomy provides clues to ancient life

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Updated October 13, 2016 16:01:45

An ancient Aboriginal site at a secret location in the Victorian bush could be the oldest astronomical observatory in the world, pre-dating Stonehenge and even the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Scientists studying the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement say it could date back more than 11,000 years and provide clues into the origins of agriculture.

Duane Hamacher, a leader in the study of Indigenous astronomy, has been working with Aboriginal elders at the site to reconstruct their knowledge of the stars and planets.

"Some academics have referred to this stone arrangement here as Australia's version of Stonehenge," Dr Hamacher said.

"I think the question we might have to ask is: is Stonehenge Britain's version of Wurdi Youang? Because this could be much, much older."

If the site is more than 7,000 years old, it will rewrite history and further disprove the notion that first Australians were uniformly nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Scientists believe the arrangement of stones was able to map out the movements of the sun throughout the year.

Custodian Reg Abrahams said the region around the observatory seemed to have once had semi-permanent villages with evidence of early fishing and farming practices.

"If you're going to have a stone arrangement where you mark off the seasons throughout the year with the solstices and equinoxes, it kind of makes sense if you're at least most of the year in one specific location to do that," he said.

"So if that's the case, it would make sense if you're near permanent food and water sources."

He said there were areas where eel traps would have been set up and even signs of "gilgies", or terraces used in farming.

"You see a lot of agricultural and aquacultural practices, so evidence of this agriculture may go back tens of thousands of years, pre-dating what anthropologists commonly think of as the dawn of agriculture which is about 11,000 years ago in Mesopotamia," he said.

Dr Hamacher said early first Australians had complex knowledge systems.

"They understand very well the motions of the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars throughout the year and over longer periods of time," he said.

"White Australians don't generally recognise that the history of colonialism has erased that, so what we're doing is helping the communities piece that information back together by working with communities."

Traditional owners like Judy Dalton-Walsh say research into the site and Aboriginal astronomy means that the knowledge can continue to be passed on.

"We learnt at school the European names for the stars and the Milky Way and it's also good to know that we traditionally had a name for them as well. Our gods were up there in the stars," she said.

Topics: astronomy-space, science-and-technology, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, aboriginal, vic, australia

First posted October 12, 2016 18:55:08

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Ancient Aboriginal site dubbed 'Australia's Stonehenge' could be world's oldest observatory

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Updated October 13, 2016 16:01:45 An ancient Aboriginal site at a secret location in the Victorian bush could be the oldest astronomical observatory in the world, pre-dating Stonehenge and even the Great Pyramids of Giza. Scientists studying the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement say it could date back more than 11,000 years and provide clues into the origins of agriculture.

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21st Century Learning - Aboriginal Studies

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21st Century Learning - Aboriginal Studies

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​I would like to acknowledge ​the original custodians on whose land we live ​and pay my respects to Elders past, present and of the future.

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At the recent AIEF Ambassador Briefing, hosted by Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn, students and alumni spoke about the significant impact of receiving a scholarship on their educational journeys. AIEF Executive Director Andrew Penfold gave an update on AIEF's progress and key achievements over a challenging few years.

Find out more

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At the recent AIEF Ambassador Briefing, hosted by Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn, students and alumni spoke about the significant impact of receiving a scholarship on their educational journeys. AIEF Executive Director Andrew Penfold gave an update on AIEF's progress and key achievements over a challenging few years.

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Creative Spirits - Indigenous history, culture, language, spirituality and identity

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Creative Spirits - Indigenous history, culture, language, spirituality and identity

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You've come to the right place. And you're not alone. Many want to learn more about Aboriginal culture, sometimes for the first time.

Creative Spirits is an extensive resource for students, teachers and those hungry to know what they weren't taught-the truth.

I've distilled hundreds of sources into in-depth articles, an ebook, infographics and multimedia for you to explore.

Start by checking if you still believe the myths you have been told. Get your free list now!

Get the myths list

Thanks for spreading the word-and thank you for your cultural sensitivity.
- Laura, Wamba Wamba people

Archived by Pandora, Australia's Web Archive, est. by the National Library of Australia.

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Helping you learn and teach about Aboriginal culture

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Creative Spirits: Learn about Aboriginal culture and browse teacher & student resources like infographics, films and music.

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NSW DEC Aboriginal Education and Training Policy

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NSW DEC Aboriginal Education and Training Policy

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