“We’ve got this beautiful network of Blak badass, amazing people here at the ABC. They are the best at what they do and have supported one another for a long time,” she says. “I’ve been here for 15 years and we always give each other a little nod and a wink and a Blak wave when you see fellow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the building.”
Bridget Brennan is proud of the impact she is having on ABC News Breakfast and its increased focus on Indigenous stories.
Brennan made the news herself in 2020, when she became the first non-white panellist on the ABC’s current affairs program Insiders, after she decried the lack of representation following a discussion about Black Lives Matter.
“There’s been a long history of Aboriginal journalists speaking up to ensure that our voices, our stories and our knowledge and our wisdom are heard and respected in the Australian media landscape,” says Brennan. “I was just continuing a really proud tradition. We have this responsibility as Aboriginal people to say, ‘Hey, we need to be in all spaces’, and we’re still not, and that’s simply frustrating to me.”
Her appearance on That Blackfella Show is no indication she intends to swap the ABC News Breakfast couch for light entertainment.
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“I’m having a really great time at Breakfast and I’m noticing the impact,” says Brennan. “We’re doing a lot of stories on deaths in custody and, post-election, on the continued push for different advancements in Indigenous policy areas. It’s meaningful for me to bring the stories I was doing elsewhere to that landscape and to be doing those kinds of accountability interviews.”
This NAIDOC Week falls during a time of sorrow and anger for First Nations people, with communities in the Northern Territory and around the nation reeling from the death in police custody of a disabled 24-year-old Warlpiri man during Reconciliation Week.
“Every NAIDOC week is difficult,” says Brennan. “Every year and every day is difficult, given some of the very painful realities we have to shoulder in Australia. But that’s the nuance of being an Aboriginal person – that we are able to carry all those heavy realities, but are also able to continue celebrating one another, and looking back at our achievements. I believe strongly in that place of Blak joy and positivity … NAIDOC week is like our Christmas. It’s a celebration of who we are.”
That Blackfella Show premieres at 7.30pm on Saturday, July 5, on the ABC.
