2020

1. 6 June Protest

   Triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in the United States, tens of thousands of people join Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests across Australia to protest the deaths of Aboriginal people in police custody.

2. 8 June Protest

   Actor and Wongutha-Yamatji man Meyne Wyatt delivers a powerful monologue from his play City of Gold to close ABC's Q+A special on racism in Australia that goes viral on social media.

3. 9 June Arts Stamps

   In its Art of the Desert issue, Australia Post features works by Aboriginal artists from the Western Desert region. Two were associated with the Warlayirti Artists in Balgo, Western Australia (Boxer Milner [Milnga-Milnga, the artist's birth place 1999] and Eubena Nampitjin [Untitled 2000]) and two with the artists’ cooperative at Papunya Tula, Northern Territory (Fred Ward Tjungurrayi [Tingarri Mamultjulkulakutu (Tingarri men travelling to Mamultjulku) 2001] and Walter Tjampitjinpa [Kangaroo Dreaming 1971]).

   

4. 14 June Recognition

   TV channel ABC's Insiders program features its first-ever Aboriginal panellist with Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung woman Bridget Brennan. ^[1] The program debuted in July 2001.

5. 16 June Politics Prison

   The Western Australian parliament passes a bill to end the controversial imprisonment of people for unpaid fines. Previously a person unwilling or unable to pay their fine could be arrested and made to pay it off by serving time in prison. A disproportionate number of Aboriginal people fell victim to this policy.

6. 20 June Politics

   Victorian Greens members elect Gunnai-Kurnai/Gunditjmara woman Lidia Thorpe as the new (and first Aboriginal) Greens senator for Victoria, replacing the outgoing senator and former Greens leader Richard Di Natale. Thorpe is an Aboriginal leader and activist and was previously the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian parliament. She formally joins the Senate on October 6.
   

   Thorpe’s appointment brings the number of Aboriginal politicians in the federal parliament to five: Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Ken Wyatt (Coalition), Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services and for Preventing Family Violence, Linda Burney (Labor), and Labor senators Pat Dodson and Malarndirri McCarthy.

References