Essential Listening

The programme she presented and produced from 2008 to 2014, and still the ABC’s flagship Indigenous affairs programme, now hosted by Larissa Behrendt: culture, lifestyle, and the political issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Her six-part series on Eddie Koiki Mabo and the case that overturned terra nullius, made for the thirtieth anniversary of the Mabo decision and winner of Best Indigenous Podcast at the 2022 Australian Podcast Awards. If you watch Mabo on the viewing list, listen to this beside it.

Two series she hosts. Blak Nation opens up the conversations Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have among themselves but rarely in public, from Blak arts critique to Indigenous data sovereignty. Blak Bias, co-hosted with Gomeroi journalist Madeline Hayman-Reber and made with UTS and 2SER, examines how Australian media misreads Indigenous expertise as bias.

She reported stories for this long-running Indigenous arts and culture programme, now hosted by Rudi Bremer (Gamilaraay). Its companion segment Word Up teaches one First Nations language word at a time, from Anmatyerre to Yorta Yorta. Episodes run a few minutes, and there is no better way to grasp that this continent holds hundreds of languages.

While studying she worked as breakfast announcer and rugby reporter at Brisbane’s own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community station, the same station behind most of the local programmes further down this list.

The relaunch of SBS’s flagship Indigenous radio programme Living Black Radio: national news and stories affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, every day. The most reliable way to keep up between our monthly sessions.

Not a single programme but the news-sharing hub feeding dozens of Indigenous and community stations around the country, run by Karen Paterson, a Wagadam and Daurareb woman from the Torres Strait. Its shared schedule brings Let’s Talk, National Talk Black, Country Affairs, Murri Hour, and both Speaking Out and AWAYE!

NITV’s news podcast on the stories behind the headlines, with hosts including Rae Johnston (Wiradjuri) and Jack Latimore (Goori). Useful for understanding why a story is being reported the way it is, which is a different question from what happened.

A weekday national Indigenous talkback programme out of Cairns, 11am to noon Queensland time, broadcast nationally through NIRS.

“The FUBU of First Nations music: for us, by us.” A weekly hour of new releases from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, with interviews. Proof, if the rest of this list feels heavy, that truth-telling and a good time share a room.

Hosted by Larissa Baldwin, a Widjabul woman of the Bundjalung Nations and GetUp’s First Nations Justice Campaign Director, unpacking news and politics from a First Nations perspective.

First Nations Voices, Gumbaynggirr Barrwayay, Guardians of Language and Country, Ngiyang, Jukurrpa Stories, Noongar Wellbeing, New Firsts, NITV News, Over The Black Dot, STEAM with Rae Johnston, and Indigenous Ghost Stories with Luke Briscoe. Language, health, sport, science and story strands, all free on the SBS Audio app.

Four minutes of audio, and the founding document of truth-telling in this country. Professor Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman of the Barunggam Nation in south-west Queensland and a member of the Referendum Council, reads the finished text aloud on the floor of the First Nations National Constitutional Convention at Mutitjulu, the first reading in its history. The delegates in the room had come through thirteen Regional Dialogues held between December 2016 and May 2017. The Statement sets out incarceration, child removal and powerlessness without softening any of it, asks for a Voice enshrined in the Constitution and a Makarrata Commission for agreement-making and truth-telling, and then invites the rest of the country to walk alongside. Listen once for the sound of the room, then read the text beside it. The full text heads the reading list.

The closest thing on this list to these gatherings themselves. Spearim, a Kooma, Murrawarri and Gamilaraay man based in Brisbane, yarns with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers about the 140 years of frontier conflict and resistance that the history books omit, with guests including Professor Lyndall Ryan of the Colonial Frontier Massacres map project on the reading list.

Muruwari and Gomeroi journalist Allan Clarke’s investigation into the 1988 death of seventeen-year-old Mark Haines near Tamworth after a botched police investigation. It won a Walkley Award for Coverage of Indigenous Affairs and helped force a new inquest. Clarke also directed The Dark Emu Story on the viewing list.

Aboriginal journalist Amy McQuire and prisoner advocate Martin Hodgson investigate wrongful convictions and disappeared Aboriginal women. Named for Kevin “Kurtain” Henry, wrongly convicted in Rockhampton; the second season turns to missing and murdered First Nations women and children.

Professor Chelsea Watego (Munanjali Yugambeh and South Sea Islander) and Dr David Singh on race, resistance, refusal and joy, drawn from Triple A Murri Country’s own Let’s Talk Black Politics and Black Knowing.

Senator Lidia Thorpe, a Djab Wurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman, yarns with Elders and activists about injustice and self-determination.

Bunjil’s Fire is hosted by Gunai and Mara campaigner Bunjileenee Robbie Thorpe; The Black Block by Viv Malo, a Gooniyandi woman; and Koori Survival Show brings grassroots Indigenous news and music. Every 26 January the station hands the whole day to Indigenous broadcasters, a tradition running since 3CR began in 1976.

Bayles, of the Brisbane media family whose relative Tiga Bayles established Redfern’s first Aboriginal radio, hosts uplifting conversations guided by Aboriginal Terms of Reference.

A Wiradjuri woman asks what decolonising actually means, with guests including Boe Spearim, rapper Barkaa, and Bundjalung storyteller Ella Noah Bancroft.

A Barkindji woman and a Bundjalung woman on caring for Country, community and self through Indigenous ways of knowing, with Elders, academics and grassroots organisers.

Hosted by a St Paul (Moa), Badu and Erub man, son of the designer of the Torres Strait Islander flag, on First Nations people living with disability, their families and carers.

Hosted first by Jax Compton, a Wuthathi and Zenadth Kes woman, then by Warlpiri journalist Rachael Hocking: young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people talking candidly about intergenerational trauma, identity and healing.

Both from a Kamilaroi and Dunghutti woman: the first, candid conversations between Indigenous sisters; the second, her own interviews with Indigenous role models and trailblazers.

A Gamilaroi yinarr yarns with First Nations academics about research, education and scholarship, and what it cost them to get there.

Wuilli Wuilli author Lisa Fuller hosts First Nations writers on representation and craft. One episode is devoted to Torres Strait Islander voices in publishing, with guests including Rhianna Patrick.

Coming Out, Blak; Unapologetically Blak; Yarning Up; Find and Tell; Meet the Mob; Access Granted; Culture Capital. Queer Blak identity, two Blak women tackling the too-hard basket, decolonised wellness, emerging storytellers, Indigenous business leaders, and workplace culture, all First Nations-hosted.

Two First Nations writer-actors have the conversations about race, sex and power that Australia is uncomfortable having. Adult language.

A weekly programme of Traditional Owners’ voices, news and native title issues, aired on community radio across South Australia. Produced by a native title service rather than a First Nations organisation, and noted as such.

Where a Mitchelton audience should start: the first Indigenous radio station in an Australian capital city, on air since 6 April 1993, grown out of the Murri Hour on 4ZZZ in the 1980s and still broadcasting from West End. Turn it on tonight.

The only national Indigenous current affairs programme researched and broadcast from Brisbane, and relayed nationally through NIRS. Past hosts include the late Tiga Bayles, Amy McQuire and Boe Spearim.

Dr Chelsea Bond (Munanjali Yugambeh and South Sea Islander) and Angelina Hurley (Jagera, Gooreng Gooreng, Mununjali, Birriah and Kamilaroi) on everything that made two Brisbane Blak women wild this week: politics, racism, funding cuts and community life.

Health promotion and rugby league talk, tied to the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health’s Deadly Choices programme.

Brisbane community radio’s own Indigenous affairs programme, and a training ground for Blak broadcasters including a young Boe Spearim from 2012. A First Nations-presented programme on a general community station.

A direct line to our speaker’s own community: the Torres Strait Islanders Media Association’s twenty-four-hour station, established in 1985, broadcasting local news and traditional and contemporary Torres Strait Islander music across Zenadth Kes and as far as Papua New Guinea’s Western Province.

The first and only Indigenous radio service in Gimuy, Cairns, reaching more than 150,000 potential listeners and producing the national Talk Black programme.

Twenty-four-hour community radio from the Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council, reaching up to a hundred kilometres including parts of the South Burnett. A station with deep resonance for Queensland’s own truth-telling history, and for speakers at these sessions whose families were sent there. Streams through Radio Garden and the council’s own site.

Eighteen remote and regional stations across Cape York, the Gulf of Carpentaria and beyond, from Aurukun to Yarrabah to Woorabinda: one of the largest Indigenous radio footprints in the country.

The single easiest door into this whole list: a free platform streaming twenty-seven First Nations radio stations live, plus music, video and oral history, on the web and as an app. If you take one thing from this page, take this.

Sydney’s only First Nations station, broadcasting around the clock from Redfern.

Melbourne’s first and only Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned and managed station, on air since 2003.

Perth’s only Aboriginal radio station, on Whadjuk Country since 2009.

Australia’s first licensed Aboriginal radio station, broadcasting in Eastern and Western Arrernte, Warumungu, Alyawarr and Pitjantjatjara since the 1980s across roughly a third of the continent.

Established and controlled by the Larrakia Traditional Owners of Darwin, promoting Larrakia language and culture.

Australia’s largest remote Indigenous media organisation, broadcasting around the clock into twenty-nine remote Top End communities.

Anangu-owned and controlled radio in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, broadcasting into seven communities across more than 120,000 square kilometres.

The Pilbara’s only First Nations media hub, and Broome’s Indigenous station broadcasting since 1998. Both air Country Affairs with Sandy Dann.

Presented by Daniel James, a Yorta Yorta broadcaster, on the issues affecting Aboriginal people and social justice more broadly, with guests including Yoorrook Justice Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter. A First Nations-presented programme on a general community station.

The audio arm of Australia’s only wholly Indigenous-owned media organisation, led by Rhianna Patrick, home to Blak Nation and Blak Bias, both listed above.

Founded by Mundanara Bayles with ARN’s iHeart: Australia’s first and only First Nations-owned and led podcast network, home to most of the culture and community shows listed above.

The podcast channel of Australia’s wholly Aboriginal-owned national newspaper, home to DECOLONISE, Custodial Care and a ten-part Frontier War Stories special series.