Black Magic Woman with Mundanara Bayles

Hosted by Mundanara Bayles

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235

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Hosted by Mundanara Bayles who was born and raised in Redfern (Sydney) Australia and currently lives in Queensland. The Black Magic Woman Podcast is an uplifting conversational style program featuring mainly First Nations people from Australia and around the world sharing their stories about their journey to highlight the diversity amongst First Nations peoples and the resilience of her people. She hopes these stories inspire her listeners and also create a better understanding of what First Nations Peoples culture and history. Mundanara is guided by Aboriginal Terms of Reference and focusses more on who people are rather than on what they do. Mundanara makes people feel relaxed and comfortable as if they were sitting around the kitchen table just having a yarn. It’s the way First Nations people have been building relationships and getting to know each other for tens of thousands of years. She draws from a long family history in the media industry and has grown up in culturally strong, politically active family who have been at the forefront of the Aboriginal Rights movement since the 1960’s. Mundanara sees this platform as an opportunity to share her cultural knowledge and insights to her audience in a non confrontational way that brings people along with her to create change for a better Australia. To connect more with Mundanara check out the work she does with her elders at www.theblackcard.com.au If you'd like to support the show by making a financial contribution, visit www.theblackcard.com.au Any help is appreciated and goes a long way. I encourage to get behind any First Nations media, contribute, share and be apart of positive change that Australia needs.

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60 recent

October 13, 202616 min

Every Ingredient Has a Story

I’m coming to you from the Australian Native Food Festival at Carriageworks on Gadigal Country, and I finally sat down with my brother Zach Green. He’s a proud Gunditjmara and Palawa man you might know as the Storyteller Chef. Zach has built his career on sharing the culture behind our foods, from Elijah’s Kitchen in Darwin to Iluka’s Kitchen in Port Hedland. Now living on Larrakia Country, he’s backing young mob coming up through the kitchen and asking hard questions about who really benefits from the native food industry. But when I asked him who he is without the titles, his answer had nothing to do with food. We yarn about family, the strong women who shaped him, the dish that keeps his sons’ spirit close, and the legacy he wants to leave. Pull up a chair, this one’s a good feed. Resources and links Zach Green This chef is telling our stories through food (SBS NITV): https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/this-chef-is-telling-our-stories-through-food/mgd1hmmhj Cooking and storytelling: crocodile is our culture (SBS Food, Zach on cooking crocodile): https://www.sbs.com.au/food/the-cook-up-with-adam-liaw/article/cooking-with-crocodile/g2riaadx6 Australian Native Food Festival Carriageworks event page: https://carriageworks.com.au/events/australian-native-food-festival/ IndigiEarth Aboriginal-owned native food business founded by Weilwan woman Sharon Winsor, who leads the festival. https://indigiearth.com.au Gather Foods Majority Aboriginal-owned and led food business in Perth, where Zach helped a young chef land an apprenticeship. https://www.gatherfoods.com.au Who owns the native food industry Master chef urges Indigenous native food businesses to get slice of $80m pie (NIT): https://nit.com.au/10-11-2023/8571/master-chef-urges-indigenous-native-food-businesses-to-get-slice-of-80m-pie Support Zach speaks about losing his children. If anything in this episode brings up something for you, support is there: 13YARN on 13 92 76 (First Nations crisis support, 24/7) or Lifeline on 13 11 14. Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

September 30, 202629 min

Yarns from the Australian Native Food Festival

I spent the weekend at the second annual Australian Native Food Festival at Carriageworks on Gadigal Country in Redfern, presented by Sharon Winsor and IndigiEarth, and I brought you with me. I moved stall to stall, yarning with the mob who grow, make and lead this native food and botanical industry. Tara Croker from Yaala Sparkling, Aunty Pat Torres, relaunching the First Nations Bushfood and Botanical Alliance and doing beautiful things on Country in Broome. The crews at Kakadu Organics, The Unexpected Guest, Wild Foods, Jala Jala Treats and Native Botanical Brewery. Bush food growers Kate and Pete on their new book. And my deadly sister Mindy Woods. One truth ran through every yarn. Our mob make up less than 2% of a native food industry worth more than a billion dollars. Not because we don't want to lead it, but because of the barriers put in our way. Every business you hear today is one of ours. Meet them, learn who they are, and get behind them long after the festival packs down. Every business is linked in the show notes. Support Blak. Buy from mob! Businesses in this episode: IndigiEarth (Sharon Winsor): https://indigiearth.com.au Yaala Sparkling (Tara Croker): https://yaalasparkling.com Mayi Harvests (Aunty Pat Torres): https://www.mayiharvests.com.au First Nations Bushfood & Botanical Alliance Australia: https://www.fnbbaa.org.au The Unexpected Guest: https://theunexpectedguest.com Kakadu Organics: https://www.instagram.com/kakaduorgnics Jala Jala Treats: https://www.jalajala.com.au Native Botanical Brewery: https://nativebotanicalbrewery.org Karkalla / Mindy Woods: https://www.karkalla.com.au Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

September 16, 202632 min

The Joke Lands First. The Truth Lands Second.

My husband Peace has been telling me for ages, you have to get this bala on your podcast. So when I got to Sydney, I sat down with Leon Filewood on Cammeraygal Country and we had the yarn I had been waiting for. Leon grew up on Waiben, Thursday Island. He went from the courtroom to the comedy club, and there is a story behind why he made that jump that I did not see coming. We yarn about imposter syndrome, about the shame that holds our mob back from their full potential, and about why every joke he tells has a message sitting underneath the laugh. He is a Deadly Funny winner and a Moosehead Award recipient, and he has taken his shows Which Way and Holding Space around the country. Have a listen. Links and Resources Instagram: @laf_comedy Deadly Funny The Melbourne International Comedy Festival's development program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers. Free workshops and community shows around the country, no experience needed. Leon won the national final and now delivers the workshops himself. https://www.deadlyfunny.com.au/ Support 13YARN, 13 92 76, 24 hours, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander crisis support line Lifeline, 13 11 14 Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August 27, 202634 min

Blackfulla Ways in a Digital World: The Book, the Film and Mobstock

This week I'm joined by my brother James Saunders, a Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Wongaibon storyteller, producer and media specialist. James runs Barragi Mawang and has spent more than a decade working alongside our communities. But this yarn goes further back than any of that, to where the creativity started, and it isn't where you'd expect. We yarn about Country from the sky, and what a drone taught him about the stories held in the land. We yarn about the film he worked on in the Pilbara, and the phone call that opened a door nobody else could open. We yarn about his uncle, a Gunditjmara man who walked into an enlistment office at nineteen, and the two years James spent putting that story on the page. And we yarn about fear. What he's overcome, and what it took to step into who he is. There's a lot in this one. Have a listen. Fighting for Country: The Extraordinary Life of Reg Saunders , Australia's First Indigenous Military Officer, Hero of Two Wars, published by Allen & Unwin, out 1 September: Yurlu | Country , directed by Yaara Bou Melhem, co-produced by James Saunders. Written by the late Maitland Parker, Banjima Elder. Watch and support the campaign at yurlucountry.com and cleanupwittenoom.com Barragi Mawang: https://barragimawang.com/ Mob Stock, launching October for Indigenous Business Month: mobstock.com.au Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August 13, 202632 min

There Is No Justice. It Is Just Us.

I've done a lot of yarns on this podcast. This one went somewhere I've never taken a conversation before. Sam Johnson grew up in Glebe, raised by the aunties who made sure he was safe when there wasn't much else. He was 18, living on his own, being aged out of a system that had already taken his sister, when he worked out the only door left to him was one he'd have to open himself. He topped his school in legal studies. Then he graduated and was homeless. Today he runs a 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned agency working on the very systems he came up through, and he's putting money back into our young people. We got into things I wasn't expecting. Where violence in this country actually began. Why our men were taken, and what it means that they're coming back. What his father asked for once and was refused, six months before they came for his daughter on a Friday night. And then Sam asked if he could leave us with a poem. Some of what we talk about in this episode is heavy. If it brings anything up for you, 13YARN is 13 92 76 and Lifeline is 13 11 14. RESOURCES AND LINKS Sam Johnson Impact Policy: https://www.impactpolicy.com.au Impact Policy Podcast: https://shows.acast.com/impact-policy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-alderton-johnson Amy McQuire Dr Amy McQuire is a Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist whose work covers the disappearance and killing of Aboriginal women and children, and how media reporting shapes who gets seen as a victim. Black Witness , published by UQP Curtain The Podcast , co-hosted with Martin Hodgson, on the BlakCast Network: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/curtain-the-podcast/id1164804753 Substack: https://amymcquire.substack.com Also mentioned The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson , written and directed by Leah Purcell Sherele Moody, Australian Femicide Watch: https://australianfemicidewatch.org Barnardos Australia: https://www.barnardos.org.au Support 13YARN: 13 92 76 Lifeline: 13 11 14 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please 'Subscribe' on Apple Podcasts or 'Follow' on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you'd like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

July 31, 202631 min

The Disappeared Project

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork It's National Missing Persons Week, and this yarn is one of the most important I have had on Black Magic Woman. When Ginny Jones' little brother Jai didn't come home, her family knew something wasn't right. What happened next, and how fast our mob mobilised when the systems that were meant to help stood still, became the reason The Disappeared Project exists today. The Disappeared Project is Australia's first Aboriginal-led organisation walking beside families whose loved ones have been disappeared. They stand with families through police, media and community searches, they are building the first First Nations-led database of our disappeared people, and they are working to change the way our people are spoken about and searched for. It is work that should have existed decades ago, carried right now by volunteers. I sit down with co-founders Ginny Jones and Kevin Yow Yeh for a yarn about love, grief, and what our communities build when we refuse to let each other be forgotten. This is a heavy yarn, and an important one. Please look after yourself as you listen. If anything in this episode brings things up for you, please reach out. 13YARN 13 92 76 for First Nations peoples, and Lifeline 13 11 14. To learn more about The Disappeared Project, follow them on Instagram , LinkedIn and Facebook , or visit thedisappearedproject.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheDisappearedProject Justice for Monique Monique Clubb, a proud Butchulla and Woppaburra woman, disappeared in June 2013 after travelling from Hervey Bay to Brisbane. Her family are petitioning the Queensland Minister for Police and the Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service to offer a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of her remains. Sign and share the petition: change.org Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please ‘Subscribe’ on Apple Podcasts or ‘Follow’ on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you’d like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

July 15, 202628 min

How Did We Get This Far Into This Colony With No Legal Home for Race?

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork There are community legal services for so many of us. For women. For elders. For people with disability. For refugees. For mob navigating the justice system. But when Sarah Ibrahim went looking for one built for race and racism, there wasn't a single one in this whole country. So she built it herself. In this yarn I sit down with Sarah, an Egyptian-Australian lawyer, human rights advocate and the founder of the Racial Justice Centre, the first community legal service in Australia dedicated entirely to racial justice. Sarah came to this country carrying the knowledge of what it means to move between worlds, and she has spent nearly seventeen years using the law to fight for people who've been told their story doesn't count. This yarn goes places I didn't expect. Sarah is doing some of the most important work happening in this country right now, and after this one, you'll understand why I wanted her voice on this podcast. Resources and Links Racial Justice Centre: https://www.racialjustice.au Follow the Racial Justice Centre on Instagram: @racialjustice.au Central Lawyers (Sarah's commercial law firm): https://www.centrallawyers.com.au If this yarn brought things up for you, please reach out to 13YARN on 13 92 76, a free and confidential service where you can yarn with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander crisis supporter. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

July 1, 202630 min

Walking Between Two Worlds: 'I Live With a Lot of Duality. You Have To.'

Want this conversation before anyone else? Become a BlakCast Patreon member for early access to new episodes, ad free listening, and exclusive bonus content. Join at Patreon.com/BlakCastNetwork I didn't know Akala Newman's full story before we sat down to yarn. And I think that's exactly why this conversation hit me the way it did. Akala is a proud Wiradjuri and Gadigal woman from Sydney. A performer, songwriter, educator, and cultural producer who has been creating on her own terms since day one. She opened the Sydney Opera House New Year's Eve fireworks with her song Calling Country and is the founder of Gili Gatherings. But this yarn wasn't about any of that. Not really. It was about duality. About what it costs to move between worlds every single day. About the exhaustion of code-switching, of always being surveilled, of being Black no matter how light-skinned you are or how many spaces you are invited into. It was about her dad, and the sacrifices he made. About the nephews and nieces she wants to look up one day and think, I can do this too. About art as the thing that holds it all together when the cycle of trauma feels impossible to break. Akala Newman is on a rise. And this yarn is just the beginning. Resources and Links Akala Newman — akalanewman.com Gili Gatherings — follow @giligatherings on Instagram Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please ‘Subscribe’ on Apple Podcasts or ‘Follow’ on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you’d like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

June 23, 202627 min

I Discovered Less Than 2% of Native Food Businesses Are Indigenous-Owned. So I Built One.

She left a high-flying career at Google to start a drinks company. Three years later, she's on shelves at Dan Murphy's, on Amazon, and secured a $125,000 investment from a Shark Tank judge. Tara Croker is a proud Wiradjuri woman and founder of Yaala Sparkling, an Indigenous-owned beverage company using native Australian botanicals to create premium alcohol-free drinks. In this yarn, Tara opens up about the moment she realised the native food industry was worth billions and Indigenous people made up almost none of the ownership, and how that became the fire behind her business. She talks candidly about the highs and lows of building something from scratch, the mentors who believed in her before she believed in herself, and her Shark Tank journey from application to deal. It's a conversation about purpose, resilience, and backing yourself. Resources and Links Yaala Sparkling: yaalasparkling.com Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please ‘Subscribe’ on Apple Podcasts or ‘Follow’ on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you’d like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

June 9, 202642 min

Bush Foods, Healing, and the Fight to Keep Culture on the Table.

In this yarn, I sit down with Sharon Winsor, a proud Ngemba Weilwan woman from Western NSW and the founder of Indigiearth, one of Australia's most awarded Aboriginal-owned businesses. For 30 years Sharon has been sharing First Nations food, knowledge, and culture with the world, not from ambition, but from a deep connection to Country and a knowing that this knowledge belongs to all of us. We talk about building a business from scratch, the fight to keep culture at the centre of an industry that has largely shut First Nations people out, and why less than 2% of Australia's native food industry is owned by First Nations people. We also get into the moment Sharon nearly skipped an awards night and ended up winning the Bill Granger Trailblazer Award without knowing she was even nominated. Resources and Links Indigiearth: www.indigiearth.com.au Australian Native Food Festival at Carriageworks: https://carriageworks.com.au/events/australian-native-food-festival/ Support First Nations businesses: www.supplynation.org.au Website: www.blackmagicwoman.com.au Follow us on Instagram - @blackmagicwomanpodcast If you enjoyed this episode, please ‘Subscribe’ on Apple Podcasts or ‘Follow’ on your Spotify app and tell your friends and family about us! If you’d like to contact us, please email, info@blackmagicwoman.com.au Black Magic Woman is produced by BlakCast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.