OPINION: Disruptor. Visionary. Creative force. Gamechanger. Rhoda Roberts made a difference.
As Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week reflected, “Australia lost one of the brightest stars from the Australian constellation. Rhoda Roberts AO found a way to pack multiple lifetimes into just one.”
He was so right. It’s incredible how much this Bundjalung Widjabul Wiyebal woman pulled off, all while caring for her whānau. An artist, broadcaster, curator, advocate and creative, her impact was profound.
Rhoda disrupted the status quo. She used media, arts and culture in a way that reached beyond her own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. At news of her passing, I found myself mourning with friends from around Aotearoa, Australia, up into Canada and Scotland; many of whom I had met through Rhoda.
The last time I saw her was at the 2024 World Indigenous Broadcasting Network Conference hosted by Whakaata Māori. Rhoda was the inaugural Elder in Residence at SBS/NITV. One evening during the conference, I whisked her away to Ponsonby in Auckland with my teenage daughter. Rhoda had known her since birth.
We had dinner and a laugh. It would be the last time in person.
Lots of firsts but never the last
I first met Rhoda in 1997 when she pulled Moana & the Moahunters, Dam Native and Southside of Bombay across to her Festival of Dreaming.
As our manager, my former husband Willie Jackson had the challenging task of keeping us on track – no mean feat. We performed alongside Yothu Yindi and Christine Anu at Parramatta Stadium. The boys in the band were rapt just to be on those grounds.
Our artist liaison person whispered that the petite woman I was about to meet was the first Indigenous current affairs host on mainstream Australian television. As both our Pākehā mums would have said, “we got on like a house on fire.”
The invitations continued over the following decades as Rhoda’s influence only grew. Music events, film festivals, conferences, panel sessions and international collaborations. That’s the thing about Rhoda; she was always plotting. And as the Head of First Nations programming at the Sydney Opera House for nine years, Rhoda was on a mission.
She told me in an interview for Te Ao with Moana that she wanted people to understand the diversity of Indigenous storytelling; to bust the stereotypes. She wanted Australians to understand that her people didn’t have to be parked up in the desert to be a ‘real’ Aboriginal, that saltwater people, like her own Bundjalung nation, existed.
She lamented the fact that for Aboriginal stories to be seen as worthy, they often had to be driven by the ‘negative.’ Rhoda wanted Australians to see Indigenous people in all their (and our) diverse glory - the colourful, the humorous and the moving.
Global Connections
“Darling,” she’d say. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I get a bunch of Indigenous women together with you and your sister Trina? We can stage a show at the Sydney Opera House?”
Cue a look of disbelief from me. “Um, are you kidding?!”
There wasn’t always a lot of detail. Rhoda gave us a date, some names, a theme - then left us to it. No pressure. And an awful lot of faith on her part.
Next minute, Trina and I are onstage with four others from Canada and Australia—vocalists Emma Donovan (Gumbaynggir, Noongar) and Ursula Yovich (Burarra), talking, laughing, and singing ‘women’s business’ to a packed house. Rhoda figured we would rise to the occasion. Canadian performers Gail Maurice (Metis Cree) and Denise Bolduc (Ojibwe-Anishinaabe) and I were chuckling over it this week as we reflected on our long friendship with Rhoda.
She’d pop up again. “Got another idea, darling!”
Rhoda had been plotting with Emere Wano (Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Te Whakatōhea, Tūhoe, Ngāti Porou) and Lisa Whytock (Scotland). Hullo? Twenty-two onstage at Womad NZ, back at the Sydney Opera House and across Scotland. Those three became great mates and nailed it as co-producers of the Boomerang Project. It celebrated Celtic, Aboriginal and Māori connections.
Horomona Horo (Ngāpuhi, Taranaki, Ngāti Porou), was playing taonga pūoro alongside yidaki player Aaron Burarrwanga (Gumatj) and songman Djakapurra Munyarryun (Yolngu) with Calum MacCrimmon and James Duncan Mackenzie from the band Breabach filling the air with bagpipes, a beautiful cacophony of Indigeneity complemented by vocals, dance, haka and powerful lyrics in language.
Lisa organised for us to stay in a castle in Glasgow with a butler and chef. It was surreal for a bunch of natives from down under. Loads of fun too.
After Boomerang, Rhoda invited my haka team to perform at her Homeground Festival. Artist Lisa Reihana and I found ourselves presenting ‘Letters to Cook’ as part of her ‘Deadly Voices from the House’ podcast and live program.
As Boomerang Project vocalist Shellie Morris (Yanyuwa) said, ‘Rhoda made sh*t happen.’ Tautoko.
There was plenty of advocacy stuff offstage and out of the spotlight. We banged into each other at Copycamp, a Canadian conference exploring the clash between Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property.
Warrior Woman
I remember after one gig at the Sydney Opera House, members of the collaboration converged on a nearby bar to celebrate our shared success. We noticed our First Nations brothers and sisters were being refused service. They weren’t intoxicated, and the bar staff were still serving us Māori. I mentioned the blatant double standard to Rhoda later.
“Welcome to Australia,” she said. “Because there’s such intrinsic systemic racism at every level in this country.”
And that’s why she did what she did.
“I think the only time we’re going to see great change in this country is when Australians see the level and value of us as a people, as the oldest living race on the planet, but also they see the value of our culture and our language because it tells you about the landscape.”
I learnt so much from Rhoda over the years. She taught me the terms Saltwater and Freshwater People. She told me that her Saltwater People from New South Wales used the word ‘pipi’ for their fave shellfish. She also talked about her upbringing; the overt racism, the unsolved murder of her twin sister and the indifference of officials to it; the courage and encouragement of her Pākehā mama and Bundjalung papa.
She understood the power of arts to raise the visibility of tangata whenua, to connect Indigenous peoples and to resonate deeply with diverse audiences—to get them thinking. Rhoda is widely credited with embedding practices like Welcome to Country into public life. Her reasoning was simple, disarming and deeply human.
“It makes people feel special,” she said. “It’s good manners.”
Lighting up the Skies
Rhoda was the creative or artistic director for many major national and global events. She lit up the skies with her Awakening (the Indigenous segment) at the opening to the Sydney 2000 Olympics; the Songlines component for Vivid 2016; Sydney New Year’s Eve celebrations; and the opening ceremonies for the 2003 Rugby World Cup and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Rhoda placed First Nations stories at the centre of Australia’s cultural landscape and psyche.
For me, though, I think of the times away from the stage. The endless plotting; the Tina Turner dance moves she showed off at the local Muriwai Surf Club; her rocking my baby to sleep while I rehearsed; the laughter and the tears she would shed before we’d take to the stage.
Rhoda’s tears were tears of joy. She would say, “We still have those footprints of our ancestors. So there is this connection and this humour that we carry, and we just get it.”
Rhoda’s greatest joy was her three children, Jack, Sarah, Emily and partner Stephen. Yet she built a global whānau too across both the media and arts. It pulled in Indigenous peoples but also a wonderful cohort of non-Indigenous allies who became champions, too. Rhoda Roberts AO made so many people ‘get it.’ For that, we are grateful.
Moe mai rā e te Māreikura.
