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Explore powerful stories at the intersection of history, culture, and music—from Aboriginal cricket pioneers and war heroes to legendary albums by Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Gurrumul. This blog dives deep into First Nations resilience, iconic protest music, and untold truths that shaped Australia and the world. Engaging, thoughtful, and unapologetically real—where powerful voices from the past meet today's social conversation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this page contains images and names of deceased persons.
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On This Day: 13 February 2008. The National Apology to the Stolen Generations.
From the floor of Parliament, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the National Apology to the Stolen Generations — acknowledging the deep harm caused by past government laws and policies that forcibly removed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, cultures and Country. The apology was never about assigning personal blame. It was not about telling today’s Australians — particularly non-Indigenous Australians — “you did this.” It was about saying, a
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 131 min read
The Stolen Generations: The effects did not end when the policies did.
In the quiet spaces between official records and family memory lies one of the most confronting truths of Australia’s modern history. Between 1910 and the 1970s, it is estimated that as many as one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families under formal government policies of assimilation. These children would later become known as the Stolen Generations — though the term itself barely captures the scale, duration, and hu
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 112 min read
On This Day, 4 February 1939: The Cummeragunja Walk-Off.
On 4 February 1939, a quiet but revolutionary act unfolded on the banks of the Murray River. About 200 Aboriginal men, women and children walked off Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station, near Moama in southern New South Wales, in what became one of the first mass Indigenous strikes in Australian history. This was no spontaneous protest. It was a carefully considered act of resistance against years of neglect, abuse and control imposed by the NSW Aborigines Protection Board, the go
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 42 min read
The Final Quarter: The unmistakable brilliance of Adam Goodes.
The Final Quarter is not a sports documentary in the conventional sense. It contains highlights, trophies and the unmistakable brilliance of Adam Goodes in full flight, but its true subject is something far more unsettling: how a nation responds when an Indigenous champion refuses to remain silent. Directed with restraint and purpose, the film focuses on the final three years of Goodes’ AFL career, a period in which his on-field excellence collided with a storm of public back
Groote Broadcasting
Feb 22 min read
January 26: A Date That Still Divides a Nation.
Each year, January 26 arrives carrying two very different meanings. For some Australians, it marks the foundation of the modern nation — the day the First Fleet raised the British flag at Sydney Cove in 1788. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, however, it represents the beginning of dispossession, violence, and the systematic disruption of cultures that had thrived on this continent for tens of thousands of years. This is why the date is widely referred t
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 261 min read
Colonisation: A Global Story of Displacement and Survival.
Colonisation is often taught as a chapter of expansion and exploration. For Indigenous peoples, it is remembered as a profound rupture — one that reshaped lands, laws, cultures, and lives across continents. In Australia, British colonisation from 1788 was built on the false premise of terra nullius, the claim that the land belonged to no one. This legal fiction ignored the existence of hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations, each with their own laws, langua
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 212 min read
Evonne Goolagong Cawley: A Champion with Grace.
Some sporting legends dominate with power. Evonne Goolagong Cawley did it with grace. Born in 1951 and raised in the small town of Barellan, NSW, Evonne grew up at a time when life for Aboriginal families was shaped by strict government control and constant uncertainty. This was the Stolen Generations era — when many Aboriginal children were taken from their families, and opportunity was not something that came easily. As a young girl, Evonne spent hours hitting a tennis ball
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 191 min read
Auriel Andrew - "an enduring influence on Australian music."
Auriel Andrew occupies a unique and quietly dignified place in Australian music history — a country singer whose voice carried the vastness of the Northern Territory and whose songs bridged gospel, country, and lived experience with remarkable grace. Best known for her 1969 album Just For You, Andrew’s work stands as an important, often overlooked chapter in the story of Indigenous Australian music. 'Just For You' is a gentle, heartfelt record that reflects both its era and i
Groote Broadcasting
Jan 172 min read
Ruby Hunter - Thoughts Within (1994)
Ruby Hunter’s Thoughts Within (1994) is one of the quiet masterpieces of Australian music — an album that speaks softly but carries enormous weight. Long overshadowed by the towering presence of her partner Archie Roach, this debut record stands today as a work of profound emotional honesty and cultural importance, a collection of songs that gave voice to stories Australian music had rarely been willing to hear, let alone centre. From the opening moments, Thoughts Within esta
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 20, 20252 min read
![Mitch Tambo - Guurrama-Li [2018]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1331,h_1000,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png)
![Mitch Tambo - Guurrama-Li [2018]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1485,h_1115,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_21e15455f8364fdf9aefc27509c800b3~mv2.png)
Mitch Tambo - Guurrama-Li [2018]
Mitch Tambo’s debut album Guurrama-Li [2018] arrived with the confidence and clarity of an artist who knows exactly who he is and exactly what he wants to say. A proud Gamilaraay man with a voice built for both ceremony and stadiums, Tambo has created a project that is as much a cultural declaration as it is a musical statement — a fusion of pop ambition, traditional language, and deep-rooted storytelling that feels both celebratory and necessary. From the outset, Guurrama-Li
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 13, 20252 min read
Barkaa - The New Matriarch of Australian Rap.
Barkaa — the stage name of Chloe Quayle, a Malyangapa, Barkindji woman from western New South Wales — has become one of the most commanding and necessary voices in Australian music. In just a few short years, she’s transformed from an emerging rapper with raw, uncompromising bars to a national force: a storyteller, a truth-teller, and a cultural firebrand whose voice carries the weight of generations. Her rise has been nothing short of remarkable. Barkaa’s music arrived not a
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 8, 20252 min read
Plastic began as a “miracle.” Now, it’s one of our greatest environmental challenges.
Plastic’s story began with good intentions. In 1907, Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland created Bakelite, the world’s first fully synthetic plastic—hailed as a miracle material that could replace scarce natural resources like ivory and tortoiseshell. By the mid-20th century, plastics were mass-produced worldwide, woven into everything from packaging to medicine, transport, and electronics. Cheap, durable and versatile, plastic spread faster than any other material in huma
Groote Broadcasting
Dec 3, 20252 min read
Oral tradition sits at the heart of First Nations cultures in Australia.
Oral tradition sits at the heart of First Nations cultures in Australia—an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural archive maintained not on paper, but in memory, voice, and lived practice. For tens of thousands of years, long before written language was introduced to the continent, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples preserved vast bodies of knowledge through spoken word, song, dance, story, ceremony, art, and Country itself. These traditions are not simply stories;
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 26, 20252 min read
Remembrance Day: Honouring All Who Served — Including Those Who Fought for a Country That Denied Them.
Each year, on the 11th of November, Australians pause for one minute’s silence at 11 a.m. to remember those who have died in war and conflict. Remembrance Day marks the end of the First World War in 1918 — the moment the guns fell silent on the Western Front. It is a day to honour courage, sacrifice, and the price of peace. Yet woven into this solemn reflection is a story that has too often gone untold — the story of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women who
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 11, 20252 min read
![Electric Fields: Inma [2023]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_811,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png)
![Electric Fields: Inma [2023]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_811,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_73b7ddda6b5d468a99b4a261ab8dfa78~mv2.png)
Electric Fields: Inma [2023]
When Electric Fields released Inma in 2023, it felt like a cultural and sonic lightning strike — a record that shimmered with futurism while remaining grounded in the oldest living cultures on Earth. The duo — Zaachariaha Fielding, a proud Anangu man from Mimili in the APY Lands, and producer Michael Ross, a classically trained electronic alchemist — have long defied easy categorisation. But with Inma, they distilled their vision perfectly: a radiant fusion of traditional son
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 8, 20252 min read
Harold Blair (1924–1976)
Harold Blair (1924–1976) was a trailblazer — a gifted tenor whose voice transcended the concert hall to become a beacon of pride and possibility for Indigenous Australians. Born on the Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve in Queensland, Blair’s journey from a childhood marked by poverty and segregation to the world’s grand stages stands as one of the great Australian stories of resilience, talent, and activism. Blair’s remarkable voice was first noticed while he worked as a stockman
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 3, 20252 min read
![Thelma Plum: Better In Blak [2019].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_e520182afa9d419bbb69a1d041b12291~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_811,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_e520182afa9d419bbb69a1d041b12291~mv2.png)
![Thelma Plum: Better In Blak [2019].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_e520182afa9d419bbb69a1d041b12291~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1080,h_811,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_e520182afa9d419bbb69a1d041b12291~mv2.png)
Thelma Plum: Better In Blak [2019].
When 'Better in Blak' was released in 2019, it felt less like a debut album and more like a declaration — a bold, unflinching statement from an artist who had already found her voice and was ready to use it. Thelma Plum, a proud Gamilaraay woman from Brisbane, delivered one of the most powerful and emotionally honest records in recent Australian music history — a work that seamlessly threads together vulnerability, defiance, and self-discovery, all wrapped in shimmering pop p
Groote Broadcasting
Nov 1, 20252 min read
Samson and Delilah – A Haunting Masterpiece of Silence and Survival.
Warrick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah (2009) is an unflinching poem of isolation, love, and resilience. Told with sparse dialogue and extraordinary visual power, it captures the raw, often devastating reality of life for two Aboriginal teenagers in a remote Central Australian community. It’s a story that refuses sentimentality, instead revealing beauty through endurance and quiet connection. The film follows Samson (Rowan McNamara), a volatile young man numbed by boredom and
Groote Broadcasting
Oct 29, 20252 min read
Groote Eylandt: A Living Sanctuary of the Gulf.
Off the eastern coast of the Northern Territory, in the heart of the Gulf of Carpentaria, lies Groote Eylandt — a place of astonishing biodiversity and ecological vitality. For those who’ve walked its mangrove-fringed shores or wandered through its monsoon forests, it’s immediately clear that Groote isn’t just another tropical island — it’s a living sanctuary where land, sea, and culture converge in perfect balance. Groote Eylandt’s ecosystems are as varied as they are rich.
Groote Broadcasting
Oct 27, 20252 min read
![Emma Donovan: Dawn [2014].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_ed261bce7fea4f90b523f13379d4a038~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_940,h_706,fp_0.50_0.50,q_35,blur_30,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_ed261bce7fea4f90b523f13379d4a038~mv2.png)
![Emma Donovan: Dawn [2014].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4c5356_ed261bce7fea4f90b523f13379d4a038~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_940,h_706,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_avif,quality_auto/4c5356_ed261bce7fea4f90b523f13379d4a038~mv2.png)
Emma Donovan: Dawn [2014].
Emma Donovan’s debut solo album Dawn (2014) is aptly named — it feels like first light breaking over a long, shadowed landscape. After years of lending her extraordinary voice to projects like The Black Arm Band and The Putbacks, Dawn marked Donovan’s arrival as a solo artist with something to say and the power to make you feel it. What she delivered was a soul record steeped in truth — personal, political, and deeply human. Right from the opening track, “Black Woman,” Donova
Groote Broadcasting
Oct 25, 20252 min read
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