NAIDOC Week: 50 Years Deadly – 5 to 12 July 2026
For five decades, NAIDOC Week has celebrated the voices of our communities — steady, unapologetic, and proud. Each year, its themes have called for truth, celebrated culture, honoured resistance, and reminded the nation of who we are.
This year's NAIDOC Week theme, 50 Years Deady, is about looking back at the stories, the marches, the languages, the art, the leadership. At the strength it took to get here. It’s about recognising how far we’ve come, not by chance, but because generations of people refused to be silenced.
And it’s about the future. The next 50 years. The young ones growing up proud. The return of language. The return to Country. The fight for justice continuing with new tools, new voices, and the same fire.
Fifty Years Deadly is a tribute to the people who built this movement. It celebrates the Elders who stood firm, the organisers who made space, the artists who turned resistance into expression, and the communities who keep showing up, year after year.
View NAIDOC Week in the events in the Inner West below. (Check back soon for further details)
- 4 July: Newtown Breakaways Indigenous Round
- 5 July: SERVICE: Stations of the Cross (new Indigenous Design), Rev Bill Crews, Ashfield Church
- 7 July: IWPAC Walk along the Cooks River
- 8 July: AbSec Family Fun Day
- 8 July: SLHD NAIDOC DAY
- 11 July: Grand Opening Gumbramorra Wetlands
View more NAIDOC Week events on Council's What's On Calendar and on the NAIDOC Week website.
Take look at some other ways to celebrate First Nations heritage during NIADOC Week below.
Created by artists Nicole Monks and Maddison Gibbs, Breathe is a stunning site-specific work celebrating the survival and resilience of the Gadigal and Wangal people. Learn more
Pick up a good read during NAIDOC Week. View our collection of First Nations classics
If you are a member of the Inner West Council Library Service, you can access "Story Box".
Story Box features a series of children's stories written, illustrated and narrated by First Nation artists.
Inner West Council proudly supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Learn more about the Uluru Statement
Inner West Council is a proud supporter of the Cooks River. Check out these oral histories from local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members as they share with us what the river means to them.