First Nations – NSW Socialists

Australia was founded on the genocide and dispossession of First Nations people. To this day, Australian capitalism profits from the ongoing oppression of First Nations people.

In 2024–25, NSW recorded the highest number of Indigenous deaths in prison custody of any state or territory, and in 2025 the NSW State Coroner recorded the highest number of First Nations deaths in custody ever reported in a single year in this state.

Indigenous adults now make up around one third of the NSW prison population despite making up only 3.4% of the broader population. First Nations people face poverty and homelessness at rates higher than the rest of the population. Government and corporate recognition and symbolism has done little to alleviate this oppression.

We will fight for genuine self-determination for First Nations people, and to end the incarceration and poverty that the state inflicts on them. First Nations people have had to wait for justice for too long. The time for justice is now.

We’ll fight to

Implement all outstanding recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report.
Increase targeted public investment to close the gap in health, education, housing, employment and life expectancy between First Nations and non-Indigenous people.
End Aboriginal deaths in custody and radically reduce Aboriginal incarceration.
Raise the age of criminal responsibility and end the imprisonment of children.
End the contemporary Stolen Generations by keeping First Nations children with family, kin and community wherever safely possible, and transferring greater control of child protection services to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations.
Introduce a reparations tax on commercial and investment property, with revenue directed to First Nations communities as a contribution toward reparations for dispossession and stolen land.
Strengthen Aboriginal land rights, accelerate outstanding land claims and return eligible Crown land to Aboriginal ownership.
Support First Nations self-determination and a treaty or agreement-making process shaped and controlled by Aboriginal communities in NSW.
Protect and restore First Nations languages, culture and heritage, including properly funded language programs in public schools.
Teach the history of invasion, dispossession, resistance, the Stolen Generations and the continuing effects of colonisation in every NSW school.
Recognise 26 January as Invasion Day and end official celebrations of Australia Day on that date.