Time to Listen

A talk on the passive welfare underclass and the urgent need for a universal Job Guarantee with Cape York Partnership founder Noel Pearson

With jobseekers outnumbering available jobs in many Cape York communities, many find themselves in the grips of passive welfare that strips them of their purpose and self-worth and places them at high risk of being left behind by the real economy.

The benefits of employment go far beyon...

An Introduction to Ngak Min Health with Charmaine Nicholls, Melanie Dunstan and Matthew Carson

Indigenous Australians have an average life expectancy 19 years below that of wider Queensland and an unparalleled lack of access to healthcare services.  And the health gaps start early.  So what if we could improve early intervention by opening a holistic health clinic on an Indigenous school campus? 

Introducing Ngak...

Do Indigenous Australians get more welfare than non-Indigenous Australians? 
Should the Commonwealth Government stop funding welfare? 
What can be done to close the employment gap? 
Is there a viable replacement for Community Development Programs (CDP)? 
Why haven't employment programs in Indigenous communities led to the empowerment of community members?
How can the Commonwealth Government increase individ...

With no connection to the national grid, many remote communities of Cape York currently rely on diesel generators to power their lives. But what if there was a greener solution?  One that was not only better for the environment, but brought long-lasting economic benefits to the community. 

Cape York Hydrogen plans to find out.

In this episode of Time to Listen, we talk to Cape York Hydrogen Project Lead David Tho...

 The National Centre for Vocational Education and Research has published its student equity in VET data tables. It revealed an eleven percentage point gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous completion rates of VET qualifications.

In their report, Indigenous Participation in VET: Understanding the Research, NCVER revealed that the VET sector needed to improve and adapt to better engage Indigenous students with VET. More ...

The National Centre for Vocational Education and Research has published its student equity in VET data tables. It revealed an eleven percentage point gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous completion rates of VET qualifications.

In their report, Indigenous Participation in VET: Understanding the Research, NCVER revealed that the VET sector needed to improve and adapt to better engage Indigenous students with VET. More s...

"I'm living the dream at the moment. Working here at Djarragun College is my dream job. I get to work with young Indigenous men and women and see them grow as both students and people. The school is amazing because of the amount of different Indigenous communities represented here." - Aaron Davey

On this episode of the Time to Listen podcast, we get to sit down and have a good old-fashioned chat with Indigen...

"Many non-Indigenous people will have just one negative experience with a First Nations person, and then write off an entire community that is so inherently diverse. But Indigenous people are expected to continually remain open minded about non-Indigenous people and to continue to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but it's really difficult to that when it's not returned." - Marijke Bassani

What ar...

"Racism doesn't look like it did in the '50's and the '40's; it evolves over time. It's a living thing. Some people are in denial about carrying racial unconscious bias, but how could you not be carrying that when you look around us. Look at the systems in place in our society – the structures are built on white being at the top. That's a fact." - Marijke Bassani

What is life li...

"The students are the center of our care, so it's really important to focus on what the students' needs are. Not only their academic needs, but more importantly their social and emotional wellbeing." - Karen Wilson, Cape York Girl Academy Head of Wellbeing.

Why should schools prioritise the health and wellbeing of their students? How can this be achieved? For Indigenous Australian students, are there un...

"I can say that we are a fairly unique situation here at Girl Academy. We're offering opportunities for students to learn more about their first languages. We're offering more opportunities for students to be exposed to the diversity and interwoven layers of Indigenous communities ...The teachers here are really mindful of our students' cultures ... so that we can help them build upon their knowledge of their ow...

"If this [the First Nations Voice] is something you believe in, and you feel a conviction for it and in your heart you want to this happen, then stand with us and help us bring more people along ... I am absolutely of the belief that when Australians from all walks of life take this up and walk with us as the Uluru Statement invited everybody to do ... we're going to make history together." - Dean Parkin

Th...

"The Uluru Statement from the Heart is an invite to the Australian people, and I have seen people respond to that invitation. There is a sense that if we could do it 1967, then this is our generation and we can do it this time. I think that more and more people are feeling connected to the cause." - Dean Parkin

This week on the podcast, we are speaking to the Director of the From the Heart campaign —  Dean Parkin...

"This is the second inquiry into food security by the parliament in eleven years. And like the Closing the Gap targets, little has changed or improved for those Australian Aboriginal people who live in remote communities." - Anne Stanley MP.

In December 2020, the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs tabled a report on food pricing and food security in remote Indigenous comm...

"History has had a direct impact on future Indigenous generations. Before any person wishes to judge or stereotype and Indigenous individual, please do your history first." - Warren Clements.

Welcome to a special NAIDOC Week edition of Time to Listen.
NAIDOC Week is a celebration of Indigenous Australian culture, history and achievement, and is also an important period in the calendar for listening, reflectio...

"You can't rely on markets to deliver justice. The market is not necessarily going to give us a socially acceptable outcome, so it has to be political intervention." - Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel laureate in economic sciences.

A gap of 26 percentile points, and widening. That is what defines the difference in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Addressing this issue, which oug...

Indigenous youth are twice as unlikely to gain employment relative to their non-Indigenous peers. The Indigenous employment rate decreased by two percentage points between the 2006 and 2016 census, and lags behind the non-Indigenous employment rate by a staggering 25 percentage points.
Why is this really the case, and what can be done about it?

Bama Services is a recognised social enterprise based in Far North Queensla...

It all begins with effective education. If a true and positive difference is going to made in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, it is going to be made by the emerging Indigenous generations. This journey begins with the academic, vocational and leadership skills gained in school.
With regard to this, the staff at Djarragun College, an Indigenous owned and focused school located in Gordonvale, Queensland, unders...

"The Girl Academy can perhaps act as a microcosm of how things can work [in Indigenous education]. There needs to be a systemic redesign of how we [Australia] are educating; in particular, how young Indigenous people are seeing themselves in the education system. We need to ask: are  they identifying with the signs, the symbols and the talk of what it means to be Indigenous in this country? That may then begin to answer a ques...