The Deep End with Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn

Marcia Langton, AO, PhD, FASSA, is an anthropologist and geographer of Yiman descent form Queensland. She is one of Australia’s most eminent policy advisors and public intellectuals. She has worked at the University of Melbourne since 2000, where she is now Associate Provost, a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, and the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies. She was Co-chair of the Voice Co-Design Senior Advisory Group with Professor Tom Calma during the Morrison government. She co-hosts this podcast, The Deep End with Marcia Langton and Aaron Corn, and recently co-authored the book, Law: The Way of the Ancestors (2023), with Aaron Corn for Thames and Hudson: https://thamesandhudson.com.au/product/first-knowledges-law-the-way-of-the-ancestors/. Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes, PhD, is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Melbourne. She is a Gamilaraay woman who became vision impaired after having measles as a child. Her PhD of 2016 investigated how to successfully teach Aboriginal students. Her current work is framed within Indigenous Knowledge and draws on her previous studies of education, psychology, sociology and criminology. She is passionate about higher education as a means of empowering disenfranchised and under-served people and communities. Before entering academia, she worked with the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Adelaide City Council Access and Inclusion Panel, the South Australian Minister’s Disability Advisory Committee, the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services, the AIDS Council of New South Wales, the Salvation Army, and the Oasis Youth Support Network. This week, she was awarded her first project grant from the Australian Research Council with Aaron Corn and Anthea Skinner, which aims to improve life outcomes for Indigenous people living with a disability through university education.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Robbie Bundle is CEO of the Songlines Music Aboriginal Corporation in Melbourne, which produces some of Victoria’s largest Indigenous music events and runs a dedicated youth program to nurture tomorrow’s Indigenous artists. He has been a musician and songwriter for more than 35 years. He describes his music as ‘eclectic’ and sings stories of Black Australia with the aim of effecting positive societal change. He has collaborated with many other notable musicians, including Archie Roach, Bart Willoughby, Kutcha Edwards, Dave Arden, Shane Howard, Dave Steele, and Neil Murray.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.  https://www.yes23.com.au/

 Anne Pattel-Gray, PhD DD, is Professor of Indigenous Studies and inaugural Head of the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Divinity. She is a descendant of the Bidjara Karikari people of Queensland. She has held numerous leadership and consultancy roles in First Nations and not-for-profit organisations, including the World Council of Churches. In 1995, she was the first Aboriginal person to be awarded a PhD by the University of Sydney, published by Oxford University Press as The Great White Flood: Racism in Australia in 1998. She has held Visiting Professorships at Gurukul Theological Seminary, Harvard University, and Otago University. She has been a critical and influential activist in seeking justice and equality for Indigenous peoples and developing cultural frameworks and practices built on respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.  https://www.yes23.com.au/

Asmi Wood is a Professor and the Sub-Dean (Indigenous) in the College of Law at the Australian National University. His research and publications mainly concern constitutional recognition for Indigenous people in Australia and Indigenous participation in higher education. The Australian Parliament, government agencies, community organisations, schools and Indigenous groups regularly use his research. He won the 2015 Neville Bonner Award for Indigenous Education.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.  https://www.yes23.com.au/

Rachel Perkins is an Australian film-and-television director, producer, and screenwriter. She directed the films Radiance (1998), One Night the Moon (2001), Bran Nue Dae (2010), and Jasper Jones (2017). She is an Arrernte and Kalkatungu woman from Central Australia, who was raised in Canberra by the Aboriginal leader Charles Perkins and his wife Eileen. She founded Blackfella Films in 1992, which has produced acclaimed television programmes, including First Australians, Mabo, and Redfern Now. She has served as a Commissioner of the Australian Film Commission and on the Board of Screen Australia. She was Curator for the 2009 Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival and was President of the AIATSIS Foundation for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Her Boyer Lecture of 2019 was called The End of Silence. She is presently co-Chair of the Yes23 campaign of Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition in the imminent Voice Referendum.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Allegra Spender MP is the sitting Member for Wentworth in the Australian House of Representatives. She was elected to this previously Liberal seat in Sydney in 2022 after campaigning as an Independent on a platform of climate action, political integrity and gender equality. She holds an Economics degree from Cambridge University and a Master of Science from the University of London. She has worked as a business analyst at McKinsey, a policy analyst for UK Treasury, and Managing Director of her family’s fashion label, Carla Zampatti. She has also been Chair of the Sydney Renewable Power Company, and CEO of the Australian Business and Community Network, which partners schools with leading Australian businesses to address educational disadvantage. Since joining Parliament, she has taken a leading role in legislating a target for reducing Australia’s CO2 emissions and establishing the National Anti-Corruption Commission. She presently serves as co-Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of the Uluru Statement from the Heart and convenes the Wentworth for the Voice network of individuals, businesses, community groups and councils.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Glenn Loughrey is a Wiradjuri man and a Reverend in the Anglican Church of Australia. He has served as the Vicar of St Oswald’s, Glen Iris, in Melbourne since 2016. He is also an artist and author, who holds a special interest in Indigenous issues. He was also appointed a Canon and artist-in-residence of St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, in 2021. In that role, he designed a series of three glass panels for the cathedral’s entrance that depict the traditional lands on which it stands. He opened the Murnong Gallery for Aboriginal Art as a social enterprise of St Oswald’s in 2022. He presently serves as the Diocese of Melbourne’s designated advocate for the Voice and constitutional recognition of First Nations people in Australia. He is affiliated as an Associate Professor with the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Peter Khalil MP is the sitting Labor Member for Wills in the Australian House of Representatives. He is the son of Egyptian migrant parents and grew up in housing commission in Melbourne. He has held the seat of Wills in Melbourne since 2016. He worked the late shift at the local petrol station, as a cleaner and on building sites while studying Law and Arts at the University of Melbourne, and later attained a Master of International Laws from the Australian National University. Before his election, he worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as National Security Adviser to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as the Executive Director of the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), and as a Victorian Multicultural Commissioner. He is committed to promoted human rights and cultural diversity in Australia and beyond.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Mayatili Marika is a Yolŋu woman of the Rirratjiŋu clan. She is the University of Melbourne’s Cultural Advisor and Partnerships Officer based in Northeast Arnhem Land and Chair of Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation, which develops and implements culturally and environmentally appropriate resource management strategies around Nhulunbuy. She is an enthusiastic advocate for Yolŋu education.   In this episode, we discuss the achievements and legacy of the world’s first Yolŋu university Professor, who sadly passed away in September 2023. His family have given permission for the continuing use of his full name for professional purposes. His name was Brian Gumbula and he was a Professorial Fellow in the Indigenous Knowledge Institute at the University of Melbourne.  Mayatili is a fluent speaker of both English and Yolŋu-matha, so we link you to the Charles Darwin University’s excellent Yolŋu-matha Dictionary here: https://yolngudictionary.cdu.edu.au.   Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.https://www.yes23.com.au/

Joe Williams is a Wiradjuri and Wolgalu man born in Cowra and raised in Wagga Wagga, Australia. He played in the National Rugby League for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Penrith Panthers and Canterbury Bulldogs before moving to professional boxing in 2009. He is a two-time World Boxing Federation World Junior Welterweight Champion and won a World Boxing Council Asia Continental Title. After a traumatic suicide attempt in 2012, he dedicated his career to helping people who struggle with mental illness. He was named the 2015 Wagga Wagga Citizen of the Year for his committed work in mental health and suicide prevention. His excellence in this field has also been recognised through a Suicide Prevention Australia LiFE Award in 2018 and an Australian Mental Health Prize in 2019. His book, Defying the Enemy Within, was published by HarperCollins in 2018. He completed a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Trauma and Recovery Practice at the University of Wollongong in 2019 and, this week, became the very first PhD candidate in Indigenous Knowledge in the University of Melbourne’s Indigenous Knowledge Institute. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Queensland.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

 Eddie Cubillo, PhD, is an Aboriginal man of Larrakia, Wadjigan and Central Arrente descent with strong family links into urban and rural areas of Australia’s Northern Territory. Before gaining his PhD from the University of Technology of Sydney, he earned a Bachelor of Laws degree and was admitted to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. Before ATSIC was disbanded in 2005, he was elected as Chair to its Yilli Rreung Regional Council for the Darwin region. In 2010, he was appointed the Anti-discrimination Commissioner of the Northern Territory and later became Executive Officer of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service. He is a former Chair of NAAJA, the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, and the Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee, and worked on the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory in 2017. He was named the 2016 National Indigenous Legal Professional of the Year and was a United Nations Indigenous Fellow in Geneva in 2016. At the University of Melbourne, he is presently Director of the Indigenous Law and Justice Hub in the Melbourne Law School and a Leader, alongside Shawanna Andrews, of the Health and Justice Theme in the Indigenous Knowledge Institute.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Ken Wyatt, AM, is a former Australian politician. He was the Liberal member for Hasluck in the House of Representatives from 2010 to 2022. He was the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to the House of Representatives, to serve as a government minister, and to be appointed to cabinet. He was appointed Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Indigenous Health in the Turnbull government in 2017 and was elevated to cabinet in 2019 as Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison government. In July 2019, he gave an address to the National Press Club in Canberra in which he said he would ‘develop and bring forward a consensus option for constitutional recognition to be put to a referendum during the current parliamentary term’. He negotiated with the designer of the Australian Aboriginal Flag, Harold Thomas, for the Australian Government to secure copyright over this important national symbol in 2022. He lost his seat to Labor in the 2022 federal election. On 6 April 2023, he resigned from the Liberal Party over its stance on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament after leader Peter Dutton announced the party’s decision to support the No campaign at the Referendum.  Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Kate Chaney MP is the sitting Member for Curtin in the Australian House of Representatives. She was elected to this previously ultra-safe Liberal seat in Perth in 2022 and is Western Australia’s first female Independent Member of Federal Parliament. She campaigned on a platform of climate action, integrity, and inclusive communities. She currently sits on the Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, the House Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, and the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Before entering politics, she had a successful career in commercial law, corporate strategy and community services, including roles in Aboriginal affairs, sustainability and Innovation. She served as Anglicare WA’s Director of Innovation & Strategy immediately before being elected to Parliament.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.  https://www.yes23.com.au/

Zali Steggall, OAM, MP is the sitting Member for Warringah in the Australian House of Representatives. She has been the Independent member for this previously ultra-safe Liberal seat in Sydney since 2019, when she defeated the then incumbent Prime Minister Tony Abbott. She is Australia’s most successful alpine skier, winning a Bronze Medal in Slalom at the 1998 Winter Olympics and a World Championship Gold Medal in 1999. She became a practising barrister, specialising in commercial law, sports law and family law in 2008, and was appointed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2017. She has also served as an independent non-executive Director at the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia and a Director of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. She received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000. She presently convenes the Warringah for the Voice network of volunteers and community groups.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Peter Yu, AM, is a Yawuru man from Broome in the Kimberley region in Northwest Australia with more than 40 years' experience in Indigenous development and advocacy at the state, national and international levels. He is a Professor at the Australian National University, where he is also the inaugural Vice-President (First Nations). He has been instrumental in developing many influential community organisations and initiatives in the Kimberley region. He has previously worked as Executive Director of the Kimberley Land Council and was a member of the national leadership team who negotiated the Australian Government’s response to the 1992 Mabo High Court judgement. He was a key negotiator on behalf of Yawuru Native Title Holders with the Western Australian Government and was recently Chief Executive Officer of the Yawuru Corporate Group.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Paul Grabowsky, AO, is Executive Director of the Monash University Performing Arts Centres. As a pianist, composer, arranger and conductor, he is one of Australia’s most distinguished artists, and has written the scores for more than 20 feature films in Australia, the UK and the US. He is the founder of the Australian Art Orchestra and has won eight ARIA awards, several APRA awards, two Helpmann Awards, the Melbourne Prize for Music and a Deadly Award. He was the Sydney Myer Performing Artist of the Year in 2000, and Artistic Director of the Queensland Music Festival from 2005–07 and the 2010 and 2012 Adelaide Festivals. He was appointed as a Vice-Chancellor's Professorial Fellow in the Monash School of Music in July 2012.  In this interview, he discusses his engagements through the Australian Art Orchestra with the Yolŋu (Yolngu) Manikay tradition of public ceremonial song from East Arnhem Land. Manikay series are performed to lead the structure of Yolŋu buŋgul (public ceremonies). Its main instruments, other than voices, are bilma (paired sticks) and yidaki (didjeridu).   Details of the Australian Art Orchestra’s recordings with the Young Wägilak Group from Ngukurr can be found on the Australian Art Orchestra website: https://www.aao.com.au/releases. Samuel Curkpatrick’s book on this musical collaboration, Singing Bones: Ancestral Creativity and Collaboration (2020), is published by Sydney University Press: https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/products/114523.  The National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia (NRPIPA) is a Study Group of the Musicological Society of Australia: https://msa.org.au/nrpipa/.   Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Anne Twomey, AO, PhD, is Professor Emerita of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney. She has practised as a solicitor and is admitted to practice in New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, and the High Court of Australia. She has worked for the High Court of Australia, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Research Service, the Commonwealth Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee, and the Cabinet Office of New South Wales. She has acted as a consultant to various government bodies and is currently a part-time consultant at Gilbert + Tobin Lawyers. She has authored four books on Constitutional Law and is a Member of the Constitutional Expert Group that has provided advice to the Australian Government on the Voice Referendum.  Producer: Patrick Telfer.Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton. https://www.yes23.com.au/

Shireen Morris, PhD, is Director of the Radical Centre Reform Lab and a Senior Lecturer in Law at Macquarie University. Formerly, she was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow in Law at the University of Melbourne and a Senior Policy Advisor in Constitution Reform at the Cape York Institute. Her books are Radical Heart (MUP, 2018) and A First Nations Voice in the Australian Constitution (Hart, 2020). She has also edited the recent book Statements from the Soul: The Moral Case for the Uluru Statement from the Heart (La Trobe University Press, 2023) with Damien Freeman. Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.https://www.yes23.com.au/

Fiona Stanley, AC FAA FASSA, is an Australian epidemiologist noted for her public health work and research into child and maternal health, as well as birth disorders such as cerebral palsy. She is a Distinguished Professorial Fellow in the School of Paediatrics and Childcare at the University of Western Australia. She became Founding Director of the Telethon Kids Institute In 1990 and still serves as its Patron. Her contributions to Indigenous Australian health have been nothing less than transformative and she has contributed profoundly to training a whole generation of Indigenous Australian health practitioners and professionals. She was the 2003 Australian of the Year and is on the National Trust's list of Australian Living Treasures. Producer: Patrick Telfer. Line Producer: Samuel Curkpatrick. Music composed and performed by: Cameron Deyell and Reuben Lewis. Image credit: Celeste de Clario. Director: Aaron Corn. Executive Producer: Marcia Langton.https://www.yes23.com.au/