Hi guys, and a'll welcome back to a very very special little bonus episode of Life on Cut.
I'm Laura and I'm Brittany. And Laura does often say that we do very special bonus episodes is one of her favorite lines. But she's right, this is a very special little bonus episode coming to you on your Wednesday. I mean, to be fair, I actually do think that all of our bonus episodes are special, but this is a particularly special bonus. Fair they are, but this is like a special special bonus episode.
Well, I mean, you guys are all very aware with what day it is, and that's why we want to do whom you are anyway, I mean, it's a Wednesday, but also it is Australia Day, a day that is known for many different names. Now it is known as
Invasion Day, it is also known as Survival Day. And we are seeing increasingly so many conversations around change the dates, something that Britain and I both are in full support of, and we wanted to create this episode and give our platform to somebody from the Indigenous community to be able to have a conversation around Australia Day and around changing the date. We are so excited to sit down with Carla Grant today. Carla Grant has had thirty years in
the media landscape. She is a proud Indigenous woman from Arna Country, and she speaks openly about her own experiences and also the reasons that she feels that Australia Day should change the date.
The only reason I have gotten to the point of saying that I think the date should be changed is from having these conversations and from listening to people like Carla speak and tell her own experiences. It's one thing to read it, but when you actually have the conversations, it really really makes you reconsider your thoughts.
Well, it's education and awareness, right. We speak about it actually in the chat with Carla, this whole idea that you know, when we were in our early twenties, when we were fifteen, we were sitting around during the hottest one hundred, and I think over time there has been so much more awareness around the conversations and so much more awareness around why that is so problematic, this whole celebration on a day that actually marginalizes our First Nations people.
But before we get color on, I just want to give you a quick little rundown of who she is. Carla has dedicated such a huge part of her career to working in Indigenous news and current affairs, witnessing and reporting on the shifts in policy towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Like Laura said, she's been thirty years.
In the industry. She's an absolute veteran, but eighteen years of those were presenting and producing a show called Living Black. Now Living Black is Australia's longest running Indigenous current affairs TV program. This just further demonstrates her absolute commitment to giving Indigenous people a voice. So we just thought, what a great person to join us on Life Uncut today, Cayla, Welcome to Life Uncut. Before we get into the episode, we would love to start with a welcome to country.
Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that I'm on. I'm on beautiful Gadigaul Country which is part of the Eora Nation, and I'd like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. And I'd also like to acknowledge the lands wherever you are listening to us today as well and pay my respects to their elders. Past, present and emerging as well.
Karla, can you tell us a little bit about your country, where you grew up and what your childhood was like.
Well, basically I was born and raised in Adelaide. So my grandparents they are actually from the Northern Territory and my grandfather's from Adelaide River area, which is sort of going closer up to Darwin. And my grandmother was from Hermansburg, so western aar Into country. When they got together, they moved down to South Australia and they had my mum in Udna Dada, a little town on the way to Adelaide. It's somewhere near Kooper Peedee, I think around those parts.
And my mom and my auntie and uncles were raised in Adelaide, and so my met my dad in Adelaide, a Dutchman in the sixties, and so I was born in Adelaide.
How did your parents how did your dad a Dutchman and your mother here an Australian. How did they meet? Do they have like what's their story?
Yeah, Well, it's a really interesting story actually because it was in the sixties and of course, you know, interracial marriages wasn't really the dune thing during that time. So my dad came out to Australia when he was thirteen. His mum was a Dutch Jew and of course during the Second World War she was sort of hiding underground with the kids, with my dad and my aunties and uncle. Anyway, I get her and her husband decided, you know, we need to leave Holland and they came to Australia on
a boat and ended up settling in Adelaide. And yeah, so my mum and dad met when they were in their twenties. They actually made headlines. They were in the Adelaide Advertiser and the headline was migrant Mary's Native girl. Oh wow, So I've actually got those clippings as well. I've managed to find them when I've done some research on my family.
That's such an incredible story and was the headline in the paper. Like, oh my god, I could do a whole other podcast on just your dad. Now, the story or dad coming over and the dad is not what we're interviewing, but we're very interested, but it is. Actually it is actually such an incredible story. I mean, even your dad being part of that and remembering being in hiding and then having to leave flee to Australia and
then meeting your mum and then making the headluts. But with the headlines in support of or were they in shock of an interracial relationship or what was the tone behind the headlines?
It wasn't negative, I mean even though I mean if we saw those headlines now, everyone would be like, oh my god, you can't say things like that and like a migrant marrying a Native girl. But at the time it wasn't the done thing. I think it was quite supportive of them getting engaged in getting married.
They would never even make a headline. But it's crazy that then the fact that a couple were dating and engaging together makes the headlines. It just shows you how far we have come in such a little amount of time, but obviously we still have a very long way to go. What was the passion for writing and journalism? Where did that come from it? And what did you want from that?
Yeah? Well, I think growing up in Adelaide, I always had a strong sense of social justice because I was basically the only Aboriginal kid at my school and I used to get picked on all the time. There was a lot of racism. Be called every name under the sun, Abbo Cone boom. You know, I don't go near her. The black might rub off all that sort of stuff. It was really awful. It was very traumatizing actually, and I didn't want to go to school, but my mum
forced me, and so did my grandfather. So I didn't want to go to school, but Grandpa said, you get to stay at school, get this good education, and Mum would say you to go to school. So, you know, I stuck it out. But yeah, it wasn't pleasant experiencing that racism at school and also seeing the way my uncles were treated. They used to get picked up by the cops quite regularly just for walking along the street, just because they you know, for the color of their skin,
just because they're black. They just get picked up, taken into custody for no reason at all, treated terribly. So I saw a lot of that, And police used to come to our house as well, knocking on the door looking for them if they might have had a warrant out just for unpaid fines, just very petty things like that. I sort of saw a lot of that when I was growing up, so I just thought, no, things have got to change. Yeah, I knew that I wanted to be a part of making change for my family and
for my people and community. So that's what drove me to wanting to become a journalist because I thought, if I can get into journalism, then I can write about these injustices and change attitudes and change things. So yeah, I wanted to be a part of change.
It's just something that we can never fathom because we didn't have to experience it. And there's a very large portion of Australia that I think we'll never ever be able to understand as much as we're trying. But you've done your studies. What was your first job coming out of university? Like, how did you get to where you are now?
Well, it was a long road. It wasn't easy and it took some time to get into the industry. So I was studying and then I did some work experience at an organization called the Aboriginal Development Commission. So it was an indigenous organization to help Aboriginal people get funding for businesses and housing and things like that. So they had a public relations area and I just sort of said can I come and do some work experience and they said yes. I went there for a month and
wrote a few articles after that. Yeah, I tried for some cadet ships as well. I remember I applied with the Adelaide Advertiser for a cadet ship there and I didn't get it, and I wanted to know why. The reason they gave was she looks pretty, but would she be able to communicate? And I'm Aboriginal. Wow, I thought I might be able to communicate properly or speak English or something ridiculous. Work at the Aboriginal Development Commission, worked
for Susan Ryan. Then I got into public service, and at that time I was also doing a radio program, an Aboriginal radio program, so it all kind of started from there. And yeah, so from there I learned my craft really, and then in ninety five I went to work for SBS. I went to work on a program called IICAM, the Indigenous Cultural affairs magazine program. That was sort of the start of my career in television really, and I've been with them ever since. I think this
year must be my twenty seventh year at SBS. And then I created Living Black, the concept for that, in two thousand and three, and I've been fronting that and producing that ever since.
Color one thing that you mentioned, and something that seems to have come up in your early life. And I'm wondering whether it's something that you have I've still experienced now or whether the flavorite has changed throughout your life. But you mentioned in school you experienced racism, and then when you were trying to get into the workforce that you experienced racism. What has your experience been throughout the rest of your life.
I've still experienced racism, so, which is unfortunate. Even a couple of years ago. It was about two or three years ago, I was in Alice Springs. I was shooting a documentary there. We'd finished filming for the day and so my producer and I. My producer is a non Indigenous older man, and we were going to have dinner after the shoot. So he and I just went to the local liquor store to get a bottle of wine, own a couple of beers and take to the restaurant.
And soon as I walked in that liquor store, there was a police officer. They've got a special name, but they stand at the front of the entrance of the alcohol the grog shop. They pulled people up and they pulled me up straight away and asked for my id where I was staying. They wanted to see the hotel key they wanted to see, and I didn't even have any ID on me because I left it all in the hotel room. And straight away I was racially profiled.
And my producer was saying, we're here. We're just getting a bottle of wine and a couple of beers to take to a restaurant where we're having dinner. I was harassed basically for wanting to know where I was taking that alcohol. They said, do you know that it's illegal to take any alcohol to restricted areas? And I said, yes, I'm well aware of that. I know what the restrictions are here, you know, in certain parts of communities in the Northern Territory. And that's a regular thing. It's a
regular occurrence for our people. So I'm still facing racism to this day.
It must make you so furious, also annoying that, like if you're walking into that situation and being racially profiled, like what chance does anybody else have? It must just be such obviously you see it all the time, but it must just be such a reinforcing eye opener of what everybody else in that community is going through and
what everybody else in that community is subject to. When the role was created, when you started being the presenter on Living Black, what was the reasoning behind And I mean I know the reasoning, but I mean, more so, like, what was the real drive for creating a current affairs and news program that's solely focused on Indigenous affairs and Indigenous issues?
The main reason for it is to bring Indigenous issues to the forefront because on commercial television, we don't really see these issues being covered. If we do see an Indigenous story on a news bulletin or on a current affairs program, it's usually something negative. So all my life that's what I've wanted to change. That's been a driving sort of thing for me, so we can create more awareness and understanding and change attitudes.
Do you think stereotypes, which are like very long standing stereotypes are contributing and still contributing to the perception around Indigenous issues.
Yeah, I think there are still a lot of stereo typical sort of attitudes that people have. I mean, you know, things are changing, but we do still have a long way to go. But I know from when I was growing up, there's a lot more education around our history and the true history of this country. I mean when I went to school, all I was taught was, you know, Captain Cook discovered Australia. Original people roamed around the countryside.
We were just savages. We have come a long way, I think since then, and that is it.
We have just seen a huge shift in the conversations people having around equality and Indigenous issues surrounding January twenty sixth, Survival Day, Invasion Day, Australia Day. There are many names that we have for it. What are your thoughts on Australia Day. I guess the name of Australia Day, the idea of the date moving because I feel like the majority of people now people are wanting to move away from the name and from the date. What are your thoughts on this?
Well, Australia Day. I've never ever celebrated. That was just another day for us in my household and my community. I actually get quite anxious when it comes up to Australia Day. I just think about history and I think about what my ancestors went through because the day represents colonizations, the day when the first fleet came and invaded this country. It's the day that we were dispossessed of our land. We were told not to speak our language or practice
our culture. There were massacres. What it represents, it's horrific and it's traumatizing, and it's quite a very painful day for many First Nations people. There has been a lot of discussion over the last five years, I guess about changing the date. It's gained a lot of momentum and I think the feeling is that we do want to
celebrate on a day, but not that day. There's been a lot of discussion about moving that date and having it on another day where everyone can celebrate both First Nations people, you know, non Indigenous people and Indigenous Australians together.
When I think back to when I was a teenager, I'm not proud of it, but the ignor pearance was beyond Like I think back to celebrating Australi Day as a teenager and when I was really young. For me and I think for a lot of people, I didn't actually think about what I was celebrating as a teenager. I thought, oh, it's a public holiday. I don't go to school today or totally, or I don't go to work today or there was no education around what we were celebrating. It was literally just oh, it's a day
off that we can go and meet our friends. And again something I'm not proud of, but I think it was a lack of education and a lack of understanding and a lack of conversations. People just weren't having them.
But even on top of that, it wasn't just a lack of understanding, like it happened from top down, Like you know we had Hottest one hundred, Triple J. It was like the media were telling you it's a day to celebrate, it's a day to have a party. And I think not only have we seen the shift in attitudes in our own social groups, but obviously with Triple J changing the day of the Hottest one hundred, that
was huge for them. When I think that not only are those attitudes shifting socially, it's also shifting on a higher level as well.
But is there a name or a date that you would see fit for the new we sh Australia Day.
Well, there's been lots of suggestions I think being thrown around about possibly during NATO in July, where we celebrate our nation. It's still being debated and there's a lot more discussion that needs to happen. I guess it's up to the government as to what happens and if the day is actually changed.
What do you think of like people who have the mentality around wanting to have a day to celebrate but thinking that like Australia Day or wanting to keep the day purely to be able to like be like, well, you know, this is what the country is now, and we shall just get over it and get on with it. What would you want to say in response to that.
Well, it's pretty hard to sort of get over what happened back in seventeen eighty eight to say, you know, just to get over it and move on. And people were massacred, women and children were rape. What that day represents is horrific for us. What happened that day has now had a flow on effect. And I know that you've talked about intergenerational trauma on your program before, and that's what's happened from colonization on woods has had a massive flow on effect to our people today.
The term invasion day. Can you just describe You just touched on it then, but can you just describe to people that don't know why it's called invasion Day and what actually happened.
For many Indigenous Australians, it's called invasion Day. It's also called survival Day as well. We refer to it as a couple of different things. But invasion Day basically means that that was the day that the first fleet arrived, and it was the day the ships came in, they planted the flag and they invaded this country. They took over without even speaking to First Nations people. They called it Terranalius, like no man's land. They said, no one
lived here. But of course Indigenous Australians have been here for sixty thousand years and more. It's the oldest living, surviving culture in the world. Or without even negotiating a treaty, we're the only country part of the Commonwealth that doesn't have a treaty with its First Nations people. They have a treaty with New Zealand, Maori's there with First Nations
people in Canada, but no treaty here in Australia. And we're still fighting for that now and still trying to get a treaty or treaties for all our different nations.
What does it mean to have a treaty put in place.
It would mean that we would have a seat at the table in terms of determining our own affairs, because that's what Aboriginal people want. We want a seat at that table to be able to determine what happens in our future, to determine our policies and solutions for the issues that we face, because that's what we want. We want self determination. We don't want welfare. We don't want the government telling us what to do. We don't We're
sick of that top down approach. You know, people in Canberra telling us what to do when they don't even know what it's like in a remote community. They've never been there. How would they know what the people are facing out there.
As a non Indigenous person coming up to a stra Day or it being Australia Day when this podcast is released, what can we do to better support the Indigenous community.
I mean, there's a number of events that are being held around the country. Hopefully they're still going to be held, depending on we're obviously still going through a pandemic. Go along and show your support. There's also ways of logging onto things online as well, so that people can educate themselves about what this day means and what it represents for First Nations people. There's a lot of stuff that you can watch on NITV as well, a lot of
documentaries and news and current affairs programs. So it's just really getting out there and showing your support.
I do feel that so much of the younger generation is far more adopting of the conversation around change the date. I know that, like our generation, people who are social media savvy, people who are absorbing current news, have had a far more positive reaction to it. I've had some interesting conversations in my own family with people who oppose
the day change. How would you suggest somebody who maybe their parents, or they have people in their family or older people relatives who are very in opposition to change the data, or are very in opposition to these conversations, how would you suggest that they approach that or go about starting these conversations in their household to try and enact some change.
You can start a conversation with talking about what this day represents too Indigenous Australians and maybe tune into the Sunrise ceremony which is on NIV. It's at six am, but it's also being replayed throughout the day, and there you'll hear discussions from not just Indigenous Australians, but non Indigenous Australians as well, engaging in that conversation and really talking about what this day means, what it represents, and how we can move forward as a nation together, because
we do want that first nations. People do want that, we do have a shared history.
I think it's also I know for me personally, and I don't know if this is just how I learned, but I think for everybody, I think it's sharing podcasts like this or sharing other podcasts that are touching on these issues. Because it's one thing to go I'm going to learn about this and I'm going to google it and I'm going to do some reading, but it's another thing to sit here and listen firsthand to someone say I physically went through this every day. I'm physically going
through this every single day. You can't really understand from reading on a piece of paper. I don't think you get the emotional impact from what people have been through. But Carla, thank you. You have just the most incredible story. You're an incredible woman and you're doing so many incredible things for two decades, I mean thirty years you've been with SBS, but for two decades you've been fronting Living Black. But where can everybody else find you? If they want to?
Do you have a social media hand or you want to pop out there?
So you can find me on Instagram. It's Carla g twenty eight on Instagram and I'm also on Twitter as well. Carla Grant twenty eight. Find out more about what we're doing with the program this series. We're back on air in April with a brand new series which I'm really really looking for too. I've just been traveling around speaking with some of our indigenous federal politicians, Lydia Thorpe and Jackie Lamby as well. Jackie was a character and so is Lydia, but it was great to sort of interview
them on their own country away from Parliament House. Those interviews will be going to air before the federal election. Yeah, I hope everyone can tune in Monday nights at eight thirty on NTV.
Cayla, thank you so much for giving us your time today, for sharing your stories and for having these conversations around Australia Day. We're so grateful to have you on the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me