“If you're Indigenous, you're beautiful, everyone should be models.”

First Nations designers and models took to the stage at Australian Fashion Week.

The ABC went backstage to speak to First Nations designers and models while they reflected on the importance of representation.

Designer Juanita Page debuted a solo runway show at Australian Fashion Week.

"It's a huge milestone for us as a brand, and to be able to have your name on something like this feels very significant," she said.

Swapping the running track for the fashion show, 21-year-old Calab Law made his catwalk debut as part of the Joseph and James show.

"I think there should be representation everywhere, just like sport, just like modelling, so I think it's amazing," he said.

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Here’s your news update ☕️ 🗞️

Story 1: Nearly one in five young adults believe tracking a partner's location is to be expected in a relationship, new research has found.

The eSafety Commission study has linked location-sharing apps with an increased risk of coercive control.

Tech-based coercive control is defined as a behaviour pattern that uses digital technology to control, manipulate and create fear in a current or former relationship.

Story 2: R&B singer Casandra Ventura, known by the stage name Cassie, has spent a second day testifying about the abuse and violence she said she suffered at the hands of her long-term partner.

She told a New York court how he would allegedly threaten to release sex tapes to humiliate her and ruin her career.

She also gave more evidence about the days-long, drug-fuelled orgies known as "freak-offs" that she said she felt pressured to partake in.

Story 3: US President Donald Trump has met face-to-face with Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

It's the first meeting between US and Syrian leaders in 25 years.

The meeting followed a surprise announcement by Mr Trump that the US would lift sanctions on Syria.

To read more and stay in the know via the ABC News app, check out the link in our bio.

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On a pristine Australian island, the seabirds have become so full of plastic they crackle and crunch.

For about 18 years, Dr Jen Lavers has been travelling to Lord Howe Island to study the mutton birds, and every time finds more and more plastic inside them.

She says what is happening to the mutton birds is happening everywhere. Plastics and microplastics are being found in everything, including humans, but the migratory shearwater is a ‘sentinel species’ for a bigger problem.

“These birds have a very important story to tell, and what they are telling us is that their populations are in decline, that the amount of plastic they’re consuming is going up and up,” she said.

“The birds are telling us we need to do more.”

Dr Lavers has been seeking to raise the plight of the mutton bird, saying it is a canary in the coal mine for the world’s larger plastic problem.

And so, as Australian politicians campaigned in a federal election, she enlisted the help of long-time friend and Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, asking him to join her and see for himself the state of the mutton birds on Lord Howe Island.

Arriving to the island for the first time, Whish-Wilson said the mountainous landscape rising out of the fog was like something from Gilligan’s Island.

“It’s not really the kind of place you come to be shocked, and walk away feeling a little bit traumatised.”

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#ABCNews #LordHoweIsland #PlasticPollution

Australia's first formal truth-telling inquiry has found crimes against humanity and genocide were committed against Aboriginal people in Victoria, and has recommended that Victorian First Peoples be compensated through treaties with interest.

Since 2021, the Yoorrook Justice Commission has been tasked with investigating the past and ongoing impacts of colonisation in Victoria.

Running for more than four years until this week, it is now the longest state-run royal commission in Victoria, hearing from hundreds of witnesses over 67 days of public hearings.

To read more and stay in the know via the ABC News app, check out the link in our bio.

#ABCNews #Victoria