Back in 2017, Bridget Brennan and Isabella Higgins were the only two members of the Indigenous Reporting Team. As referendum day approaches, they reflect on how far coverage of Indigenous affairs has come and how far there is still to go.
There are hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia's vast landscape, but when the ABC launched its National Indigenous Reporting Team in 2017 it was made up of just two members.
ABC Europe correspondent Isabella Higgins was deployed to Ukraine as Russia invaded and has returned twice to report on the war.But for all the promise and hope the little team held, they were about to face a long road of systemic racism, ignorance and personal challenge to build the sort of coverage of First Nations people and issues they deserved from the national broadcaster.
Brennan was the Europe correspondent before Higgins took over, but both agree covering Indigenous affairs is a more difficult job, so deeply personal is each story."I think it's the hardest job in the ABC." "The real wins are when the story that you did that no-one was talking about talking about suddenly becomes a big public issue," Higgins agrees.Both women agree no matter how difficult it became or how beaten down they felt, every new community they entered welcomed them with open arms.
"If you had said that to me and Belle back then that we'd be working under Suzanne right now for the referendum coverage, we would have fallen off our chairs," she says.
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