AustLit

'Once a month the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper publishes a business-affairs supplement called The Deal. The May issue was dedicated to what it called ‘The New Agenda: Celebrating Indigenous Success’. Across forty-eight pages a series of short, upbeat, public relations–style reports spruiked Indigenous business ventures, start-ups and individual entrepreneurs. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Business Council of Australia, the magazine included some heavy promotion of the federal government’s Indigenous Procurement Policy as well as giving Andrew Forrest space to advance his own review of Indigenous jobs and training and the credentials of his Fortescue Metals Group. The Deal’s vision of a newly staked trajectory for Indigenous persons via individualised, capital-led transformation coincides with significant media attention given to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Mabo decision, the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 referendum and the culmination of Indigenous people’s caucusing on constitutional recognition at Uluru in May 2017. The passing of another anniversary has however been strikingly absent from these liberal progressive media celebrations of policy success and Aboriginal ‘advancement’: the tenth anniversary of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER; the Intervention).' (Editorial introduction)