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WEST Australian high jumper Casey Narrier has her sights firmly set on representing her country – and her Aboriginal people – at the 2012 London Olympics. She gained a third-placing at the national championships earlier this year.

FINALS glory is again beckoning for Northern United. The predominantly Aboriginal rugby league club based in Lismore, northern NSW, is aiming to go one better this year after narrowly losing the 2009 Northern Rivers Regional Rugby League (NRRRL) grand final in their inaugural year. Northern United have already secured a finals berth after coming back from a slow season start to win eight games in a row. The club’s reserve grade side is also through to the season deciders.
 

UNTIL he was revealed as this year's winner of arguably the country's premier Indigenous art prize, South Australian artist Jimmy Donegan hadn't received much recognition for his work. Mr Donegan's vibrant canvas Papa Tjukurpa and Pukara took out both the $4000 general painting category and the prestigious $40,000 main prize in the 27th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA), announced at the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT (MAGNT) in Darwin on 13 August.

REDFERN'S National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) received a sizeable financial boost last week. NSW Premier and Minister for Redfern Waterloo Kristina Keneally toured the centre and handed over a cheque for $500,000 to assist it to support the next generation of Indigenous sporting and artistic leaders.

NATIONAL Rugby League (NRL) recently launched its second Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in Townsville last Thursday. Chief executive David Gallop outlined RAP's commitment to Indigenous communities through employment, education, health and sporting opportunities. He also said the NRL had reviewed all of its vilification policies.

THE Aboriginal recruits who recently took part in the Indigenous Pre-recruitment Program for the Australian Defence Force have shown they've got what it takes. Ernie Bridge, who heads up the WA-based training organisation Unity of First People of Australia (UFPA) said 36 participants had graduated and at least 80 per cent of them would pursue careers in the defence force, thanks to the support of UFPA.

WHILE Indigenous groups across the country have welcomed pledges from the major parties earlier in the month to pursue constitutional recognition of Indigenous people, many remain sceptical that the promise will gain traction now the election is over. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin announced to a Garma festival audience that a re-elected Labor Government would pursue constitutional recognition of Indigenous people.

PALM Island man Lex Wotton has made one of his first public appearances since being released from jail. Mr Wotton was jailed in November 2008 over riots on the island, sparked by the death in police custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee. Civil libertarians are outraged over a gag order imposed on Mr Wotton - referred by many community members as 'The Warrior' - as part of his parole conditions.

BRISBANE-BASED Aboriginal businesswoman Sandra Georgiou wants the bold and black Indigenous women of south-east Queensland to stand up and be recognised. With an idea to make these women - our aunties, mothers and sisters - feel great about themselves, Ms Georgiou has created a glossy 2011 Black Bold and Beautiful calendar launched last week in Brisbane.

FEDERAL Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin pledged that a re-elected Labor Government would pursue support to include Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. She made the pledge at Garma, the cultural festival in north east Arnhem Land following pleas from Yolngu leader and Yothu Yindi Foundation Chairman Galarrwuy Yunupingu and other Indigenous leaders. The promise was made as Indigenous affairs struggled to rate a mention in the general election campaign.

THE Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM) in South Australia has withdrawn its 2008 complaint to the United Nations about the Australian Government after having its funding increased. The ALRM chief executive Neil Gillespie said the Federal Government announced recently that it would honour its pre-election promise by increasing funding to Aboriginal legal services around the country by $34 million.

The Armidale Noongar Corporation (ANC), along with Challenger Institute of Technology, has been trialling a pilot commercial aquaponics system in Armidale, with surprising results. The system teaches the group how to sustainably cultivate fruit and vegetables, providing both training opportunities and the opportunity to produce an income. The system was designed by aquaculture and aquaponics lecturer Tony Bart and built by ANC members.

AN exhibition of artworks and multi-media displays detailing the Aboriginal experience of the world’s longest stock route has opened in Canberra. The art and objects were produced for the Canning Stock Route Project, a four-year program developed by FORM, an independent arts organisation based in Perth, which involved artists, traditional custodians and emerging Aboriginal curators and film-makers. The result of their work is Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, which is now on display at the National Museum of Australia.
 

THE West Australian government has approved one of the largest ex-gratia payments ever made in Australia to the family of an Aboriginal Elder who died of heatstroke in the back of a prison van two years ago. The State’s Attorney-General Christian Porter announced the $3.2 million payment to the family of the man known as Mr Ward in Perth on 29 July.

THREE Indigenous candidates in Western Australia are contesting the same Lower House seat for the upcoming Federal election.The contest centres on the seat of Hasluck covering large parts of the Eastern and Hills suburbs of Perth, held by Labor’s Sharryn Jackson by just one per cent. Ms Jackson’s competitors include high-profile Nyoongar health professional Ken Wyatt, who is representing the Liberal Party, Yamatji Glenice Smith for the Greens and Nyoongar Elder Dot Henry for the newly formed First Nations Political Party.

In one of four knife-edge contests around the country, Liberal candidate and Noongar man Ken Wyatt is strongly expected to wrest the metropolitan seat of Hasluck from the Labor incumbent Sharryn Jackson by a slim margin. The 55-year-old senior Aboriginal education and health advisor said he would be elated to become the first Indigenous person in the House of Representatives, and would use his position to help close the gap on Indigenous health.