• Grandfather pens letter to PM following Indigenous death in custody
• 2025 Australian Mental Health Prize: Nominations open
• ‘Major shift’ for NSW Indigenous policy with more targeted Closing the Gap partnerships
• Governments are leaving ‘heavy lifting’ on Closing the Gap to underresourced Aboriginal groups, review finds
• Health services face legal risk over poor quality care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients
• Sector Jobs
• Events and training

The NACCHO Sector News is a platform we use to showcase the important work being done in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, focusing on the work of NACCHO, NACCHO members and NACCHO affiliates.

We also share a curated selection of news stories that are of likely interest to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector, broadly.

Grandfather pens letter to PM following First Nations death in custody

 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article mentions someone who has died 

The grandfather of a 24-year-old man who died in custody has drafted an open letter to the prime minister calling on Canberra to step in and address “madness” in the Northern Territory’s justice system.

The senior Warlpiri leader and kin of Kumanjayi White, who died after being forcibly restrained by two plain clothes officers inside a supermarket in Alice Springs in May, said justice in the Territory was “in crisis”.

“Your government in Canberra has total power over the NT,” Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves, a Yuendumu man, wrote.

“The prisons are so full they need private security guards; guards on buses and public housing officers are being given guns – this madness must stop.”

The letter addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese landed ahead of protests in Sydney and Alice Springs on Saturday to demand justice for Mr White.

The senior First Nations leader renewed his call for an independent investigation into the death of his grandson.

Read the full article here.

Ned Jampijinpa Hargraves says the Northern Territory’s justice system is in crisis. (Image: James Ross/AAP PHOTOS)

2025 Australian Mental Health Prize: Nominations open

Nominations are now open for the 2025 Australian Mental Health Prize.
Nominations will remain open until Wednesday 23 July 2025. Click on the Make a Nomination button at the top of the page to nominate someone for the prize.

The four categories of awards are:

• Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander:
  To recognise and celebrate outstanding Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander mental health leadership at a national or community level.
• Lived experience:
  To recognise and celebrate outstanding mental health leadership by someone with lived experience of mental health, either personally or as a supporter, at a national level.
• Professional:
  To recognise and celebrate outstanding mental health leadership in the clinical, academic or professional sectors at a national level.
• Community hero:
  To recognise and celebrate outstanding mental health leadership at a State or community level.

Learn more about the entry process and make a nomination here.

Australian Mental Health Prize (AMHP) logo

Major shift’ for NSW First Nations policy with more targeted Closing the Gap partnerships

The NSW government has committed to supporting 14 new partnerships with the state’s Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations.
An additional $202.4 million has been committed in the NSW state budget to improve the lives of Aboriginal people in NSW.

The extra funding totals $246.8 million over four years for Closing the Gap initiatives across health, education, employment, criminal justice and other programs to unlock economic opportunities.
Commenting on the 2025-26 budget announcement, which will support 14 new government partnerships with the NSW Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations (NSW).

Read the full article here.

NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty David Harris. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi)

Governments are leaving ‘heavy lifting’ on Closing the Gap to under-resourced Aboriginal groups, review finds

‘Inaction’ from governments and ‘baked in’ racism are hampering efforts to address entrenched disadvantage, according to first independent review.
Australian governments are failing to do “the heavy lifting” needed to address entrenched disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, an independent review of the national Closing the Gap strategy has found.

The review by the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney is the first to independently assess the implementation of the Closing the Gap agreement since its establishment in 2008.

Read the full article here.

The latest government update on Closing the Gap targets shows only four are on track, while six are improving but not on track, four are worsening and a further four cannot be assessed. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Health services face legal risk over poor quality care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients

*** Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article mentions someone who has died ***

An urgent need to improve healthcare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to progress structural reform are among the topics discussed at the Lowitja Institute’s 4th International Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Conference, which opened yesterday on Kaurna Country in Adelaide.

Summer May Finlay and Marie McInerney write:
Australia’s hospital and health services will face more legal suits from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients over racism and poor quality of care, an international Indigenous health conference was told this week.

Donnella Mills, chair of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), sounded the warning at the Lowitja Institute’s 4th International Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Conference on Kaurna Country in Adelaide.

Mills delivered the opening keynote address of the three-day event, tracing the early struggle and unique approach of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled health organisations, as well as their powerful impact, as seen clearly in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when an estimated 2,000 lives were saved.

But, she said, there was still a huge health funding equity gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as was outlined in a 2022 report commissioned by NACCHO from Equity Economics, which found the current gap in total recurrent health expenditure to be an estimated $4.4 billion, “$5,000 for each of mob”.

Read the full article here.

Lowitja2025: A big and timely gathering. Photo by Marie McInemey

Sector Jobs – you can see sector job listings on the NACCHO website here.

Advertising Jobs – to advertise a job vacancy click here to go to the NACCHO website current job listings webpage. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a Post A Job form. You can complete this form with your job vacancy details – it will then be approved for posting and go live on the NACCHO website.

NACCHO webinars and other events

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