Catholic Online Forum

Northern Territory band Yothu Yindi will be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame at the 26th annual music awards ceremony in Sydney tonight.

Federal Minister and former lead singer of Midnight Oil Peter Garrett says Yothu Yindi has forged an important legacy in Australian music, Indigenous culture and politics.

The band was formed in 1986 and its original members came from Yolngu homelands near Yirrkala in Arnhem Land.

The song Treaty, which was released in 1991, is the band's most recognised hit.

It was written after former prime minister Bob Hawke's pledge in the late 1980s to recognise Indigenous Australians.

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A Melbourne taxi driver has been accused of being racist for refusing to pick up award-winning indigenous singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

The blind performer had finished a concert at the Palais Theatre in St Kilda last night and was guided to a taxi waiting at the side stage door.

Mr Yunupingu's manager, Mark Gross says, the driver looked at him, said no, then locked his car and drove off.

"Like most Aboriginal people that we've worked with they've experienced these things before and they're less shocked than we are," he said.

"Every artist that we've worked has experienced racism and you just sit there absolutely heart-broken for them.

"He loves Melbourne and he just takes that sort of stuff in his stride which he shouldn't have to do."