International Women’s Day: For ALL Women and Girls
This International Women’s Day, we are facing challenges making women and gender diverse people more vulnerable than ever. Bizzi Lavelle writes, how can this day go back to its UN roots supporting intersectional feminism, and steer away from the corporate day it’s become?
Women and gender diverse runners Take Back the Track from fear of violence
Sissy Austin, a long time runner, writer and activist, has launched the Take Back the Track movement, a call for women and gender diverse people to demand the right to run in safety. Sissy writes of her journey to establish the movement, and while also navigating the currents of healing; the low tides, high tides and all the swell and waves in between.
Jailed at 10, Sheltered at 16: The Double Standards of Growing Up in Australia
Children as young as 10 can be jailed, and this is a symptom of a systemic failure that criminalises Aboriginal children and makes them more vulnerable to an unfair justice system. But in this recent discourse on teenagers’ interactions with social media, children are seen as impressionable, in need of protection, and too young to understand the potential harm of their actions. Shawna Pope writes, why is there such a stark difference in how Australia views kids, based on their race?
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Soar in NSW: A Growing Crisis of Injustice and Indifference
In 2024, twelve Aboriginal people have died in custody across New South Wales, Lindsay McCabe writes, this underscores a troubling rise in deaths and the ongoing failure to prevent them, despite decades of calls for change.
Survivance: How can mob protect cultural narratives in our arts and practices?
Earlier this year, Wiradjuri Blak Queer artist Clinton Hayden was confronted with cultural and professional harm at the hands of an arts organisation he was commissioned to exhibit with. His experience, Clinton writes, is not an isolated incident, and shows a need for not just acknowledgement of cultural significance, but guaranteed survivance for First Nations artists and cultural practitioners in so-called Australia.
Keeping the Fire Burning: Collective Resistance, Sharing Culture, Creating Community and Speaking Truth to Power
From colonised Australia to the ethnic-cleansing of Eelam Tamils and the occupation of Palestine. University students across the world have expressed their solidarity in standing against the genocide in Gaza. Here in so-called Australia, university students have been doing the same, with the establishment of camps on campuses. Udaya Shanmugam and Jaala Ozies share the stories behind the solidarity.
Reflections on Yoorrook and Palestine
Today (June 7th) marks the final day of the Yoorrook Justice Commission hearings investigating injustices in housing, health, education and economic life for First Nations peoples in Victoria. These hearings are providing space for First Nations peoples’ to give evidence in a larger act of Truth-telling, to acknowledge and hold account the institutions that contribute to genocidal and discriminatory practices. But, Sissy Austin writes, we can not be selective of which genocides we choose to be outraged over.
Yoorrook Justice Commission: Jarvis’ Story
The Yoorrook Justice Commission has been travelling across Victoria as part of its work to put the true history of the state since colonisation on the public record. The Commission has heard from thousands of First Peoples during the truth telling process – the first of its kind in Australia. Commissioner Maggie Walter shares one of the testimonies being presented today, from a First Nations man named Jarvis. Commissioner Walter has shared this with his permission.
