It has been 21 years since the launch of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, and 17 years since the release of the inquiry’s final report –now commonly known as the Bringing Them Home report– which concluded with the troubling finding that a generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders “endured gross violations of their human rights. These violations continue to affect Indigenous people’s daily lives. They were an act of genocide, aimed at wiping out Indigenous families, communities, and cultures”.

The recent shenanigans around the use of “invasion” instead of “settlement” was annoying on so many levels. Not least of which was the stark reminder of how many Australians just require an inciting “green light” from media to let loose a tirade of hatred and ignorance aimed at Indigenous people. It can happen at the drop of a hat, over the most insignificant of events.

The invasion of Australia started 200 years ago, but it never ended.

While holding her iPod my 10-year old daughter takes a break from her social media platform, she looks up and asks me “Dad, what did you have when you were my age”. Me: “Baby, I had a pair of shorts, a haircut and a download called mum that uploaded real quick through clenched teeth, usually saying, ‘go outside’, and if I didn’t take note she would become louder with an extra word put in.”

That slogan is decades old, and its meaning hints at white Australia's long standing reluctance to reconcile with the truth.

The sweeping election victory of the Country Liberal Party (CLP) in 2012, was due in no small part to the massive swing against Labor in the typically safe Labor “bush seats”, electorates made up of largely Indigenous people and Indigenous owned land. A neglectful and fatigued Labor party failed on numerous fronts to respond to the requests of their bush electorates and machinations of federal level politics also didn’t bode well for electoral victory. The subsequent CLP victory was a shock to many, but a long time coming. Strangely, during the first weeks of the CLP’s governance, it very vocally and crudely tried to distance itself from the Labor party’s alcohol management policies. The most notable of which, was the “Banned Drinker’s Register” (BDR), dismantled within the first two weeks of winning government. The reasons for getting rid of this policy have varied and changed over a period of time, but a steady chorus of “look at the stats, it didn’t work” has been the fundamental basis of all their arguments (at least post-election) . A middle-schooler studying statistics and logic could quite quickly and easily highlight the fallaciousness of this argument, as trying to measure the success or failure rate of a public-health intervention only one year into operation is, frankly speaking, laughable. Laughable still, or perhaps perplexing to those who haven’t kept up with NT politics, is the somewhat recent CLP attempts at alcohol management policies, such as the placing of police officers at takeaway alcohol premises around the electorates in proximity to the bush seats, fulfilling a function almost identical to the BDR and at twice the cost. Health stats indicate there has actually been an increase in alcohol related injuries post-BDR. However, I won’t be making that argument here, just a remark intended as a friendly elbow jab and a wink.

Divisive is one of those words that some politician used once to justify their racism, sexism, and/or homophobia and everyone else has just kinda jumped on the bandwagon.

A group of Aboriginal applicants have today lodged a group complaint to the Human Rights Commission against the multinational suppliers of the free online App/Game ‘Survival Island 3 – Australia Story 3D’ for racial vilification under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).

Underpinning all discussions and arguments about the best approach to policies and programs affecting indigenous people is the fundamental question of ‘Why?’.

The desire to rollout the seemingly ideologically based Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) within a short timeframe appears to have been more important than genuine consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Organisations, a comprehensive regional needs analysis and transparency in the design and implementation. The Senate Inquiry Report into the Advancement Strategy tendering processes by the Finance and Public Administration References Committee was released on 17th March 2016. Before this Report came out those of us who have been working in the Aboriginal Community Controlled sector knew that the IAS was chaos so the recommendations came as no surprise. I guess that’s one of the frustrations, had Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people been consulted all the way through the design and implementation the issues raised by the Report would have been less likely to occur.

My name is Bronwyn Carlson and I am an Aboriginal woman who was born on and lives on Dharawal Country on the South Coast of NSW. I am an associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Wollongong I have been talking about the politics of identity on IndigenousX and it has been an amazing experience having such a significant audience to talk with about my research on identity.

Earlier this week saw the release of the first ever Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders owned and led Sexuality and Gender Diverse Populations (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer and Intersex – LGBTQI) Roundtable Report. This report is via the federally funded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project (ATSISPEP). A small group of people identifying as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Intersex (LGBTQI) participated in the third national roundtable also co-hosted by the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation in Canberra on 16th March 2015.

I have had the honour of hosting IndigenousX twice (plus a very dubious hour consisting of plants that looked hilariously like genitalia) and both times I met some great people, the usual racist trolls and friends that will last a lifetime. IndigenousX is the reason I joined Twitter, because at the time it was being hosted by Celeste Liddle, one of my very favourite Aboriginal writers. What began as me joining twitter to engage in conversations with Celeste prompted my own writing journey, a track I’m still travelling (albeit at a much slower pace lately).

On the 15th March 2012, we launched the @IndigenousX twitter account.

“It’s not easy being Aboriginal, out there. It is not easy” (Kickett 1999, p. 74) As I recently sat at the airport waiting for my plane, I picked up a copy of The Australian to pass the time. On the front page was the headline ‘Push for Aboriginal ID tests by indigenous leaders’. It was no surprise to see such a sensationalised introduction to the issue of Aboriginal identity. Such headlines have become commonplace in recent years. Today, another headline, and again in The Australian, ‘Land council slams Aboriginality rorts’. All too often the process of obtaining proof of Aboriginality is framed by much mainstream media as an easy task. This is usually set against the sub-text that there are masses of people fraudulently claiming to be Aboriginal for all the perceived ‘benefits’. I have been doing several radio interviews of late and I have frequently been asked about the stories in The Australian. While I am not familiar with these ‘new’ iteration of mainstream media’s interpretation of this issue, I do claim some knowledge of this topic, having written about the Confirmation of Aboriginality in my new book.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I am Daniel Lester, a proud Wonnarua man and a descendant of the Lester family, born in the Sutherland shire with strong family connections to La Perouse and the south coast of NSW. I’m the first deputy ombudsman (Aboriginal programs) in NSW and Australia. The broader NSW Ombudsman agency in which I sit is an independent and impartial watchdog, overseeing most public sector and many private sector agencies to make sure they meet their responsibilities to the community. Loosely translated, the word “ombudsman” means “the citizen’s defender” or “representative of the people”. We are independent of the government and accountable to the public through parliament itself. Our mandate is to improve the conduct and decision making of agencies within our jurisdiction.

Just as we are over-represented in our prisons, the under-representation of Indigenous people in our media speaks to a deep structural problem, writes Tanya Denning-Orman for @IndigenousX