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Edition 841 is ON SALE NOW!

Edition 841 ON SALE NOW!

🗞 IN our final edition for 2024, ON SALE NOW, you’ll read about:

• WHILE Mr and Mrs Claus are believed to be making Christmas preparations in the North Pole, Palawa man Lewan Lehman and his Antarctic ‘family’ are definitely preparing in the South Pole. The 31-year-old carpenter is part of the summer crew at the Australian Antarctic Program’s Casey Research Station. Full story, page 7.

• AS the country prepares to celebrate Christmas and the holiday season, spare a thought for our First Nations warriors who are out there fighting for change. From Tasmania to the Torres Strait, and across to the ‘wild’ west, battles are being fought to protect Country, and to preserve history and culture. See pages 18-19.

PLUS: NRL / AFL Indigenous All-Stars latest news – page 50, 51.

In SPORT:

• FIRST Nations para-athletes will have two staunch advocates in their corner with Tracy Barrell and Ben Austin joining the Paralympics Australia Athletes Commission. Barrell and Austin were invited to join the commission prior to the Paris Games; the twin appointments was made official late last month.

• TEST cricket specialist and fan-favourite Scott Boland slotted back into the international arena in the manner he first left it – confounding batsmen with his precision bowling. Boland played his role in the Second Test against India with aplomb, where he claimed an aggregate 5-105 off 20.5 overs. More, page 54.

Latest News Stories

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe protests inside the Marble Foyer at Parliament House in Canberra last week.

Suspension, censure ‘badges of honour’, says Lidia Thorpe

Thursday, 19 December 2024 10:48 am

SENATOR Lidia Thorpe has stood defiant despite everything parliament has thrown her way.

In just two weeks, the Senate has voted to censure and suspend the Victorian politician, while an upper chamber colleague has reportedly sought legal action over a comment she made.

But Senator Thorpe remains unbothered.

Stretching the limits of her suspension, she entered the Senate press gallery last Thursday morning and called for a “free Palestine”…

First Nations Voice presiding member Leeroy Bilney speaks during South Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament inaugural address to the South Australian Parliament at Parliament House in Adelaide.

First Voice urges meaningful change

Thursday, 19 December 2024 10:47 am

A LEADER of Australia’s first state-based Indigenous Voice to Parliament has delivered a historic address, urging the “once in a lifetime opportunity” be seized to achieve meaningful change for First Nations people.

Speaking to a joint sitting of South Australia’s houses of parliament and the members elected to the act’s body, Voice presiding officer Leeroy Bilney noted there had never been an elected member of parliament whose origin story begins in the storylines of First Nations people of SA.

“In this place … stories are triaged into material for committees for…

Lead applicant in a class action for stolen wages, Mervyn Street.

Pay day for workers robbed of wages

Thursday, 19 December 2024 10:46 am

THOUSANDS of Indigenous workers who were paid little or no wages for almost four decades, and their families, will share in up to $180 million in compensation following a court decision.

Many Aboriginal people were exploited and forced to work long hours between 1936 and 1972, and often only paid in rations under discriminatory Western Australian laws.

Senior Gooniyandi Elder, artist and former stockman Mervyn Street launched legal action against the state in the Federal Court in 2020 seeking damages for surviving workers and their relatives.

Under a stolen wages class action settlement recently approved by the court…

Wagonga Land Aboriginal Council chair Julianne Mason and Aunty Vivienne Mason at the repatriation ceremony at Narooma’s Wagonga Inlet on Saturday, November 23.

Ancestor returned and laid to rest in Narooma

Thursday, 19 December 2024 10:45 am

IT was a very poignant moment when the remains of an ancestor were returned to Wagonga Inlet, in Narooma, on Walbunja Country.

Aunty Vivienne Mason presided over the solemn ceremony at Paradise Point, overlooking Wagonga Inlet, on Saturday, November 23.

Representatives from Aboriginal Affairs NSW and Heritage NSW also attended.

In early 2022 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) contacted Aunty Vivienne to tell her that the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna had the 600-year-old remains of an ancestor…

Zachary Rolfe shot and killed Kumanjayi Walker in 2019.

Zachary Rolfe’s actions characterised as racist at inquest

Thursday, 19 December 2024 10:44 am

FORMER police constable Zachary Rolfe’s “fascination with violence” barely featured in his criminal trial but during Australia’s longest-running coronial inquest his actions have been characterised as racist.

Despite this, the NT coroner is being encouraged to discount racism as a cause of death in Mr Rolfe’s fatal shooting of Warlpiri- Luritja teen Kumanjayi Walker.

NT coroner Elisabeth Armitage closed the inquest into Kumanjayi Walker last Thursday…

Geoff Clark will spend six years and two months behind bars.

Former ATSIC boss jailed

Thursday, 19 December 2024 10:43 am

AN Indigenous community says a six-year prison term for a “morally reprehensible” leader who stole almost $1 million proves their voices have finally been heard.

Geoff Clark, pictured, was sentenced last Friday in the Victorian County Court to six years and two months behind bars for the “carefully calculated” offending.

The 72-year-old will be eligible for parole after serving three years and nine months in jail.

Members of the Framlingham community, from Victoria’s far west, said the sentence was a “long time coming” and showed…