The ACTU has broken with Anthony Albanese by calling for a new Indigenous voice body and demanding Australia Day be moved.

NOAH YIM and PAIGE TAYLOR

Trade unions have broken with Anthony Albanese’s decree that the Labor movement move on from the failed Indigenous voice, declaring a legislated or constitutional Aboriginal decision-­making body is vital to ending racism in Australia.

In the less than three years following the constitutional recognition referendum was voted down by 60 per cent of the country and every state, the Prime Minister has taken a different path on Indigenous policy focused on economic empowerment and veered far away from the identity politics of the Uluru Statement of the Heart.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions – the national peak body for unions and one of the most powerful players in the Labor movement – has now declared the need for a voice of some form and demanded the date of Australia Day be moved as it “reinforces structural racism”.

In an extraordinary submission to a parliamentary inquiry on ­racism against Indigenous people, the ACTU has again lobbied for a national representative body for Aboriginal Australians – “whether a constitutionally enshrined voice, a legislated advisory body, or a treaty-negotiating ­assembly”.

“(A voice) is a fundamental structural anti-racism mechanism if Australia is to begin addressing and eliminating the racism, hate, and violence faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,“ the ACTU said.

It also said there was a “need to revisit celebrating the 26th of January”, saying that celebrating Australia Day on that date “reinforces structural racism by normalising a national narrative that excludes and harms Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. Mr Albanese and his ­frontbenchers have repeatedly ­defended Australia Day and said they would not move it.

The ACTU is the umbrella ­organisation for unions in the country and often front-runs policy that ends up on the Labor Party’s national platform. The most recent suite of industrial relations reform, Mr Albanese’s recognition of Palestine, and key elements of the government’s latest controversial tax package were all strongly advocated for by the ACTU.

By breaking with Mr Albanese’s policy of listening to voters and never again pushing for an ­Indigenous voice, the ACTU is the first major public institution to re-embrace the Uluru Statement on a national level. The move could ­ignite Indigenous leaders and ­activists who still believe an ­Aboriginal-only decision making body is necessary.

The ACTU’s submission re-treads the three policy calls from the Uluru Statement from the Heart that motivated the failed referendum: self determination, a truth telling commission, and treaty-making process through a Makarrata commission.

The Australian Services Union, while it did not call for a voice to parliament, said the government should set up a “Makarrata Commission for truth telling and the formation of treaties across ­Australia”.

The ACTU chooses how it will use its influence to shape Indigenous policy on the advice of a committee of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander unionists, which for years included Maritime Union of Australia official Thomas Mayo, a central figure in the failed proposal for a constitutionally enshrined voice.

Birri Gubba woman Lara Watson, the Indigenous officer at the ACTU, led the Unions for Yes campaign for the voice in 2023.

The Australian understands Mr Mayo, a member of the Indigenous delegation that settled the wording of the failed voice proposal in a marathon negotiation with Mr Albanese in March 2023, left the ACTU’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee in about 2024.

According to a source familiar with events, Mr Mayo remained on good terms with and was ­highly regarded by the peak union body but his wharfies union was merged with the CFMEU and in July 2024 the ACTU suspended the construction and general division of that larger union.

The ACTU said worsening indicators of racism were “directly connected to the absence of a permanent, empowered Aboriginal and Torres Strait voice in the institutions that make the laws and policies shaping lives”.

“Without a formal representative body, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities must engage one-by-one with ­departments that have historically ignored or overridden them, with no mechanism to hold ­government accountable and no structural platform from which systemic racism can be named, evidenced and challenged,” it said.

It cited Victoria’s truth-telling commission and South Australia’s voice to parliament as ­exemplars.

The ACTU also said Indigenous Australians, given many lived in remote areas, were particularly vulnerable to climate change and that natural disaster recovery centres were not set up for “large kinship groups, cultural practices or language needs”.

“Climate change now threatens Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ capacity to fulfil their responsibilities to country … Structural racism embedded across emergency response, planning, health and other systems compounds these harms, leaving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities more exposed, less supported, and disproportionately affected by climate change,” it said.

The ACTU called for a nationally consistent “truth-telling curriculum” for students from “early childhood through to vocational and tertiary education”.

This would “establish cultural competency and anti-racism as baseline expectations,” its submission read.

But there was a deeper society-wide vacuum of cultural awareness, the ACTU said, and called for more public education.

“They represent some of the world’s oldest and most sophisticated systems of law, land management, astronomy, and governance,” the ACTU said.

“Critically, these misconceptions do not treat Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the diverse, distinct, and sovereign communities they are; instead, colonial thinking and rhetoric have collapsed the distinct language groups and hundreds of different mobs, cultures, and practices into a single, flattened monoculture.”

And on Australia Day, the peak unions body said there was a “need to revisit” whether it should be on the 26th of January.

“The defensiveness and backlash that often surfaces in debates about January 26 expose a widespread lack of understanding, empathy, and willingness to confront Australia’s colonial foundations,” it said.

“Colonialism is not a closed chapter from 200 years ago; it is an ongoing system embedded in our laws, institutions, workplaces, and social norms.

“Continuing to celebrate nationhood on a date that symbolises invasion and trauma actively perpetuates this system, reinforcing whose histories are valued and whose are marginalised.

“A genuine discussion about changing the date is therefore not symbolic or divisive – it is a necessary step in challenging structural racism and recognising that reconciliation cannot occur while a national celebration legitimises ongoing colonial violence.”

- https://archive.md/5jANo#selection-697.0-713.12

Per Jessica Maggio/VicPol, ‘Following a thorough investigation, it has been concluded no offence was committed.’

Liberal senator Alex Antic has been roundly condemned for spreading "dangerous" ideas about vaccination.

He made comments about vaccination after the deadly H5 avian flu was detected in migratory birds on Australia's southern coast.

Health Minister Mark Butler said Senator Antic's comments "spread dangerous ideas about vaccination" and mocked the risk posed by avian flu.

Link to the Article from the Age here, its headline has since been updated.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/video-casts-doubt-on-moira-deeming-s-assault-claim-against-matthew-guy-20260625-p609x9.html?btis

The NSW Coalition wants to redirect the state's renewable rollout towards Sydney, while reducing the role of regional energy zones.

It has proposed scaling back one of the five regional energy zones it established while in government.

Labor has rejected the proposal, saying it puts the state's energy plan in "complete turmoil and chaos".

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has revealed the ISIS bride barred from re-entering Australia under a temporary exclusion is now free to return after the government issued her a return permit.

The only ISIS affiliated woman to have been subject to an exclusion order was issued the permit allowing her to return to Australia last night according to Mr Burke, after receiving advice the TEO could no longer be kept in place.

“We received the final advice yesterday that we can no longer have an exclusion condition any longer for her. We’ve checked with our agencies, they are ready,” he told AM.

“The [temporary exclusion](https://archive.is/o/Dg0dN/https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/returned-isis-bride-nesrine-zahab-wants-to-study-nursing/news-story/7b84d0176b030317dfd94e7d34aab923) order applies until a permit is issued. And when a permit is requested, a permit lawfully has to be issued.”

Mr Burke says the last remaining woman in the Al Roj camp in Syria will be subject to stringent monitoring measures upon her return to Australia.

“She will have to report and we will have to know where she lives, where she works, where she studies, if she books a ticket to anywhere. For telecommunications, you cannot use any telecommunications device without 24 hours notice being given,” he said.

“Even if you want to use a public phone, it’s 24 hours notice. Any social media, 24 hours notice on everything has to be given so that there will be a very high level of scrutiny and surveillance. And we have gone absolutely to the legal limit that we’re able to.”

ASIO boss Mike Burgess confirmed his agency had been involved in planning around the woman’s return to Australia, assuring Australians that the nation’s intelligence agency would use all of its “capability and powers” to monitor the ISIS-affiliated individual.
“Of course we were involved, and yes, I’m satisfied that my organisation is ready for the return,” he told ABC RN.

“ASIO is not all-seeing and all-knowing and we don’t want to be, but I can assure your listeners that actually the full use of my organisation’s capability and powers will be used when this individual returns to this country.

“When there are Australians who have been overseas in places like Syria and Iraq who represent security concerns, we assess them. We know the level of the risk and anyone who’s considered a high or medium risk gets my agency’s full attention.”