ANTaR Vic is a not-for profit community organisation dedicated to achieving
equal rights and respect for Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people.

Recommended reading and viewing

This is a select list of titles and is far from comprehensive. Visit the ANTaR shop to purchase some of these titles online!

Books

Non-Fiction

The People of Budj Bim, Gunditjmara people with Gib Wettenhall, 2010

A new collaboration between the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria and author Gib Wettenhall. An accessible, plain English introduction to the history, culture and landscape of the Budj Bim. In 2004, Budj Bim was the first Indigenous landscape

The Tall Man, Chloe Hooper, 2009

The Tall Man is the story of the death of Cameron Doomadgee, who one morning swore at a policeman and forty-five minutes later lay dead in a watch house cell. In the tradition of In Cold Blood, author Chloe Hooper follows Hurley's trail to some of the hard towns of the Gulf, uncovering the true story behind the trial. The Tall Man offers a brilliant insight into the clash of two worlds - and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget.

The Government Owes a Lot of Money to Our People, Andrew Gunstone & Sadie Heckenberg

Over most of the twentieth century, Indigenous people throughout Australia have had their wages, savings and pensions largely controlled by governments and their agencies. These practices are referred to today as the Stolen Wages policies. This book is the first comprehensive study on the history and impact of past Stolen Wages policies in Victoria.

This Is What We Said, Concerned Australians, 2010

 Using pictures and quotations taken from footage of actual consultations at Bagot, Ampilatwatja, Utopia and Yirrkala, this book provides a graphic account of the depth of frustration and despair of many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory regarding the Intervention. It is therefore tragic that legislation, about to be debated in Parliament, pays scant attention to the views expressed by many Aboriginal people during the consultation process of 2009. Also included in This Is What We Said are quotes on the Intervention from other well known Australians and UN representatives.

Unfinished Business, Andrew Gunstone

‘The Australian Formal Reconciliation Process: Unfinished Business’, explores the political history of the 1991-2000 Australian reconciliation process. Dr Gunstone argues that none of the goals of the Formal Reconciliation Process were realised by the end of the decade in 2000.

Fiction

Home, Larissa Behrendt

Home is an award-winning work from a talented and unique voice. A cross-generational story spanning 1916 to 1995, it explores issues of racial and social injustice while circling poetically around the one abiding theme of ‘home’.

Candice, a Murri lawyer working with native land claims, leaves the city for a long- awaited visit to her ancestral homeland, ‘the place where the rivers meet’, in central NSW. It is here that the present falls away and her ancestors enter with their histories of family loss and society’s betrayal.

Legacy, Larissa Behrendt

In her second novel, Larissa tells the story of Simone Harlowe, a young and clever Aboriginal lawyer s traddling two lives and two cultures while studying at Harvard.

Simone’s family life back in Sydney is defined by the complex relationship she has with her father, Tony, a prominent Aboriginal rights activist. As Simone juggles the challenges of a modern woman’s life - career, family, friends and relationships - her father is confronting his own uncomfortable truths as his secret double life implodes. Can Simone accept her father for the man he is and forgive him for the man he’s not?

Benang, Kim Scott, 1999 - Winner of 2000 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

“I tell you that this story of my own is part of a much older story... one of a perpetual billowing from the sea, with its rhythm of return, return, remain... I offer these words, especially to those of you I embarrass, and who turn away from the shame of seeing me... We are still here, Benang.”

Oceanic in its rhythms and understanding, brilliant in its use of language and image, moving in its largeness of spirit, compelling in its narrative scope and style, Benang is a novel of celebration and lament, of beginning and return, of obliteration and recovery, of silencing and of powerful utterance. Both tentative and daring, it speaks to the present and a possible future through stories, dreams, rhythms, songs, images and documents mobilised from the incompletely acknowledged and still dynamic past.

The Blue-Eyed Aborigine, Rosemary Hayes

The shipwreck of the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia off the coast of Western Australia in 1629 is a well documented early European encounter with the Great Southland. Based on the diary of the ship’s Commander, The Blue-Eyed Aborigine offers a possible explanation for the European traits of fair-hair and blue eyes found amongst some Aboriginal groups in Western Australia.

Songlines, Bruce Chatwin, 1986

Songlines is a detailed account of a non-Australian author’s experiences among Australian Aborigines, containing cultural explanations which are always interesting and which raise fundamental questions about Aboriginal life but also about life in general.

See ANTaR’s recommended reading list for children and young people

Read book reviews and purchase at Creative Spirits

DVDs

The First Australians (Documentary) ‘The Untold Story of Australia’

First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world’s greatest empire. Over seven documentaries, First Australians depicts the true stories of individuals - both black and white - caught in an epic drama of friendship, revenge, loss and victory in Australia's most transformative period of history. We begin in 1788 in Sydney, with the friendship between an Englishmen (Governor Phillip) and a warrior (Bennelong) and end our tale in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. First Australians chronicles the collision of two worlds and the genesis of a new nation.

Murundak- Songs of Freedom (Documentary)

Follows The Black Arm Band, a gathering of some of Australia’s finest Aboriginal musicians, as they take to the road with their songs of struggle, resistance and freedom.

 "I was absolutely blown away...some of the most moving moments I can remember in cinema in a long time. If you get a chance to see it, grab it. I'm giving it 4 and half stars."

Margaret Pomeranz - At The Movies

Rabbit-Proof Fence

Rabbit Proof Fence tells the story of three young Aboriginal girls (Molly, Gracie and Daisy) who were forcibly removed from their families in 1931 and sent to the Moore River Native Settlement. It is a true story based on the book by Doris Pilkington Garimara (daughter of Molly) that tells us of their escape and amazing journey home via the rabbit proof fence.

Samson and Delilah (Winner of Caméra d'Or at Cannes Film Festival)

Samson and Delilah's world is small—an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes, they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone, they discover that life isn’t always fair, but love never judges.

Blackfellas

Based on Archie Weller’s novel 'The Day of the Dog'. Nineteen years old and on parole, all Doug wants to do is get on with his life away from the influence of his best friend Floyd 'Pretty Boy' Davis. He is faced with the daunting tasks of reconciling the opposing expectations of two cultures, family and friends.

Music and Radio

Well-known Indigenous Australian musicians include: Archie Roach & Ruby Hunter, Tiddas, Yothu Yindi, Joe Geia, Christine Anu, Troy Cassar-Daley, Jessica Mauboy, Emma Donovan, Casey Donovan, Kutcha Edwards and Lady Lash.

3KND 1503AM: Kool N Deadly - Melbourne’s first Indigenous owned and managed radio station, providing a vital service not only to the Indigenous community but also to the wider community as a whole. 3KND provides information and entertainment for our community and anyone else who wants to join in.

Important speeches in history

(click to listen/read)

Julia Gillard, Closing the Gap, 9 February 2011

Kevin Rudd, National Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples, 13 February 2008

Paul Keating, Redfern speech, 10 December 1992

Australian Human Rights Commission archive of speeches

Reconciliation Australia archive of speeches

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