It begins not with marching, but with a rumor—the kind that slips into a late-night WhatsApp group, attached to a shaky mobile video and a voice that says: “They are coming for us.” By morning, the rumor has grown; by afternoon, it has hands and feet. On the outskirts of Johannesburg, a small shop run by a man from Mozambique—neatly stocked with soap, rice, milk, and phone credit—is torn apart by a crowd that does not know why it is there, only that it has permission to be angry. The shopkeeper stands outside, arms limp, watching four years of savings…

Julie-Ann Guivarra, the CEO of the National Indigenous Australians Agency, stood before the audience at the 2026 Russell Taylor Oration with a quiet but firm resolve. The annual oration, named in honour of a respected Indigenous leader, is meant to be a space for reflection and dialogue on the issues that matter most to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. But this year, Guivarra had a more pressing task than simply offering a visionary speech. She was there to set the record straight, to push back against a rising tide of misinformation that has painted government spending on First Nations…