Ben Abbatangelo

is a Gunaikurnai and Wotjobaluk writer.

By this author


News March 22, 2025

Exclusive: Leaked report shows warnings over ‘Black robodebt’

Despite being warned it could breach the Racial Discrimination Act, the Coalition government went ahead with a welfare program that punished First Nations people in remote areas.

News March 08, 2025

Exclusive: Julie Bishop consults for Chinese military-linked uranium mine

Concerns are being raised about the former foreign minister’s consultancy work for a company suing Greenland over US$11.5 billion of uranium exploitation.

News November 16, 2024

Yidiyi Festival returns hope to Wadeye

The Yidiyi Festival brings a weekend of joy to Wadeye, a remote community south-west of Darwin stricken by a ‘cost-of-survival’ crisis of overcrowding, unemployment and scant resources.

News October 19, 2024

Reclaiming the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home

A hundred years after the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home was established, survivors and families of the Stolen Generations whose childhoods were spent there are trying to reclaim the site.

News July 20, 2024

‘Everything was going wrong’: the white executive, the mine and the corruption referral

A chief executive’s plan to take a personal stake in a multimillion-dollar mining project has drawn attention to the running of one of Australia’s most remote land councils.

Culture June 08, 2024

A Very Secret Trade

Cassandra Pybus’s 13th book, A Very Secret Trade: The dark story of gentlemen collectors in Tasmania, is a remarkable work. It is harrowing: my stomach churned throughout. At times, it felt like the skin wanted to crawl off my body. As an Aboriginal …

News May 25, 2024

Michael Woodley takes on ‘Twiggy’ Forrest at the Federal Court

A doggedly proud Yindjibarndi man, with the enduring support of his tiny community, has flipped the script and humbled a mining magnate in a long-running legal dispute.

News August 12, 2023

Santos’s deep-sea carbon capture fantasy

New laws will allow a notorious gas field project to dump carbon dioxide in Timor-Leste waters – using a process that has not worked anywhere in the world – so it can meet its net-zero requirements.

News July 22, 2023

Conservation groups are abandoning direct action

Legacy conservation groups are abandoning radical protests, collaborating with business groups and government for a seat at the table.

Comment June 10, 2023

Actions speak louder than the Voice

“Labor’s litany of recent political decisions continue to invalidate the promise of the Voice. Despite all it says about ‘closing the gap’, ‘reconciliation’ and ‘better outcomes being achieved when Indigenous people have input on the decisions …”

News February 18, 2023

How to solve the real problems in Alice Springs

In a closed meeting on the outskirts of Alice Springs, Aboriginal leaders look for a solution away from the political and media frenzy of the past month.

Culture November 26, 2022

Tell Me Again

Amy Thunig wanders deep into her interior wilderness to bring readers her generous and courageous debut memoir, Tell Me Again. Born into a world programmed to decimate her people, Thunig’s enduring compassion, righteous refusal and vivid imagination …

Culture October 01, 2022

Black Lives, White Law: Locked Up and Locked Out in Australia

I found myself holding and staring at the cover of Russell Marks’ Black Lives, White Law for longer than I have with any other book. I live in apartheid Darwin and am a stone’s throw from the Don Dale torture centre that continues to cage …

News August 13, 2022

Labor’s reforms return the cashless card to its racist roots

As Labor abolishes the cashless debit card, it has retained the racialised BasicsCard that overwhelmingly targets First Nations people.

News June 25, 2022

Inside the Northern Territory’s intervention

Fifteen years after their report was cited as the basis for the Northern Territory intervention, the authors of ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ say successive governments have used them to justify an authoritarian regime.