The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) (1990–2005) was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives, established under the Hawke government in 1990. A number of Indigenous programs and organisations fell under the overall umbrella of ATSIC.
Lowitja Lois O'Donoghue Smart, is an Aboriginal Australian retired public administrator. In 1990-1996 she was the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). She is patron of the Lowitja Institute, a research institute for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing.
Reconciliation Australia is a non-government, not-for-profit foundation established in January 2001 to promote a continuing national focus for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It was established by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, which was established to create a framework for furthering a government policy of reconciliation in Australia.
Marcia Lynne Langton is an Australian academic. As of 2022 she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Langton is known for her activism in the Indigenous rights arena.
Indigenous Australian self-determination, also known as Aboriginal Australian self-determination, is the power relating to self-governance by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. It is the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to determine their own political status and pursue their own economic, social and cultural interests. Self-determination asserts that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should direct and implement Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy formulation and provision of services. Self-determination encompasses both Aboriginal land rights and self-governance, and may also be supported by a treaty between a government and an Indigenous group in Australia.
Michael Hugh Lavarch AO is an Australian lawyer, educator and former politician. He was the Attorney-General for Australia between 1993 and 1996, and from 2004 to 2012 was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), his alma mater, where he has been since then emeritus professor. As of August 2020 he is co-chair, with Jackie Huggins, of the Eminent Panel for the Indigenous treaty process in Queensland.
Samuel William Watson, also known as Sammy Watson Jnr, was an Aboriginal Australian activist from the 1970s, who in later life stood as a Socialist Alliance candidate. He is known for being a co-founder of the Australian Black Panther Party in 1971/2. Through work at the Brisbane Aboriginal Legal Service in the early 1990s, Watson was involved in implementing the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. From 2009 was deputy director at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland.
Kalali, also written Kullili, Galali, Garlali, Kullilla and other variants, is a poorly attested Australian Aboriginal language. It is one of several geographically transitional "Karna–Mari fringe" languages that have not been convincingly classified, and is best considered an isolate branch within the Pama–Nyungan family. Gavan Breen provisionally includes Minkabari and the Ngura dialect Pitjara/Bidjara/Bitharra, which together have been called the Bulloo River language.
Bidjara, also spelt Bidyara or Pitjara, is an Australian Aboriginal language. In 1980, it was spoken by twenty elders in Queensland between the towns of Tambo and Augathella, or the Warrego and Langlo Rivers. There are many dialects of the language, including Gayiri and Gunggari. Some of them are being revitalised and is being taught in local schools in the region.
Biri, also known as Biria, Birri Gubba, Birigaba, Wiri, Perembba and other variants, is an Australian Aboriginal language of the Mackay area of Queensland spoken by the Birri Gubba people. There are at least eight languages regarded as dialects of Biri, and two which are related but whose status is not yet fully determined. All are covered in this article.
Megan Jane Davis is an Aboriginal Australian activist and international human rights lawyer. She was the first Indigenous Australian to sit on a United Nations body, and was Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Davis is Pro vice-Chancellor, Indigenous, and Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of New South Wales. She is especially known for her work on the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The Birri Gubba people, formerly known as Biria, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland.
The Bidjara people, also spelt Bitjara or Bithara, are an Aboriginal Australian people of south-western Queensland. They spoke a dialect of the Ngura language. They are not to be confused with the Warrego River Pitjara or the Badjiri of the Paroo River, both of whose traditional lands are further to the east of the state.
Wayne Denning is an Indigenous Australian businessman of Birri Gubba heritage, and is the Managing Director and owner of Carbon Creative.
Indigenous treaties in Australia consist of proposed or historic legal documents defining the relationship between Indigenous Australians and the Government of Australia or the government of an Australian state or territory. As of 2022, there are no such treaties in force.
Caroline Lillian Archer was an Aboriginal Australian activist and telephonist.
Muriel Langford was a British/Australian missionary and community worker for the Australian Aboriginal community in Queensland.
Rita Huggins (1921–1996) was an Australian Indigenous woman and activist.
Yvette Henry Holt is an Aboriginal Australian poet, essayist, academic, researcher and editor, she heralds from the Bidjara, Yiman and Wakaman nations of Queensland. She is the youngest child born to prominent Aboriginal Elder, Albert Holt and Marlene Holt, Holt interchanges with her mother's maiden name Henry for featured publications of her works. Holt came to prominence with her first multi-award-winning collection of poetry, Anonymous Premonition, published by the University of Queensland Press in 2008. Since 2009 Holt has lived and worked in Central Australia among the Central and Western Arrernte peoples of Hermansburg and Alice Springs.
Anne Pattel-Gray is an Aboriginal Australian theologian and author who is an expert on Black theology. She is a descendant of the Bidjara people of Queensland and was the first Aboriginal person to earn a PhD at the University of Sydney.
