Life Uncut - BONUS EP - Change the date with Karla Grant

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Australia Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day. Today is a day that has come to be known by many different namesEach year on Jan 26th questions are raised (as they should be), can we really drink to national pride on a day that carries so much trauma, grief and suffering for our First Nations people?On today's very special bonus episode we will not be celebrating Australia Day, instead we are sitting down to speak with proud First Nations woman Kalra Gant from Arrernte country. Karla has dedicated 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.Karla has spent the last 18 years presenting and producing Living Black, Australia’s longest running Indigenous current affairs television program, further demonstrating her commitment to giving Indigenous people a voice. On this episode Karla shares with us her story and why we need to change the date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to a very, very special little bonus episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura and I'm Brittany and Laura does often say that we do very special bonus episodes. It's 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 episode. To be 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 wanted to bring you. Well we hope 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 Date, something that Britt 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 30 years in the media landscape. She is a proud Indigenous woman from Arenda 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 15, we were sitting around during the hottest 100. 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 Carla 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 30 years in the industry. She's an absolute veteran. But 18 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.

Carla, 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 today. I'm on beautiful Gadigal 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. Carla, 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're 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 Hermannsburg, so Western Arranter country. When they got together, they moved down to South Australia and they had my mum in Oodnadatta, a little town on the way to Adelaide. It's somewhere near Coober Pedy, I think, around those parts. And my mum and my auntie and uncles were raised in Adelaide. And so my mum met my dad in Adelaide a Dutchman in the 60s 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 that it's a really interesting story actually because it was in the 60s and of course you know interracial marriages wasn't really the done thing during that time so my dad came out to Australia when he was 13 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 yeah her and her husband decided we 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 20s they actually made headlines they were in the Adelaide advertiser and the headline was migrant marries native girl oh wow yeah 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 oh my god I could do a whole nother podcast on just your dad now the story of your dad coming over and the dad is not what we're interviewing but we're very interested 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 mom and then making their thoughts but were 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, like a migrant marrying a native girl. But at the time, it wasn't a done thing. I think it was quite supportive of them getting engaged and getting married. This 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? 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. We called every name under the sun, Abbo, Coon, Boong, don't go near her, the black might rub off, all that sort of stuff. It was really awful. It was very traumatising 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 got to stay at school get this good education and mum would say you got 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 colour of their skin just because they were black they'd 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 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 will 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 organisation called the Aboriginal Development Commission. so it was an Indigenous organisation 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. So I went there for a month and wrote a few articles. After that, yeah, I tried for some cadetships as well. I remember I applied with the Adelaide Advertiser for a cadetship there and I didn't get it and I wanted to know why the reason they gave was oh she looks pretty but would she be able to communicate and yeah just

because I'm Aboriginal I just thought I mightn't be able to communicate properly or speak English or something ridiculous work at the Aboriginal Development Commission work 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 95 I went to work for SBS. I went to work on a program called ICAM, 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 27th year at SBS and then I created Living Black, the concept for that in 2003 and you know been fronting that and producing

that ever since. Carla, 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 still experienced now or whether the flavour of it 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 and 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 you know the grog shop they pull 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 in knowing 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 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 stereotypical 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, Aboriginal 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 have been around equality and Indigenous issues

surrounding January 26th. 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 it 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 colonization it's 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 traumatising. 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 ignorance was beyond like I think back to celebrating

Australia 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 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 100, 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 100, that was huge for them. And 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 Australia Day? Well, there have been lots of suggestions, I think, being thrown around about possibly during NAIDOC 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 date 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 should all 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 1788 to say, you know, just to get over it and move on and people were massacred women and children were raped 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 onwards 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 you know 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 terra nullius like no man's land they said no one lived here but of course indigenous australians

have been here for 60 000 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 maoris there with First Nations people in Canada but no treaty here in Australia and we're still fighting for that now we're 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 Australia Day or it being Australia Day when this podcast is released, what can we do to better support the Indigenous community? 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 on to 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 date 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 date 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 to Indigenous Australians and maybe tune into the sunrise ceremony which is on NITV it's at 6am 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 learn 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 Well, I have just the most incredible story. You're an incredible woman and you're doing so many incredible things.

For two decades, I mean, 30 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 handle you want to pop out there? So you can find me on Instagram. It's CarlaG28 on Instagram and I'm also on Twitter as well, CarlaGrant28. 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 forward

to. I've just been travelling around speaking with some of our Indigenous federal politicians, Lydia Thorpe and Jackie Lambie 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, hope everyone can tune in Monday nights at 8.30 on NITV. Carla, 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.