- Posted on 31 Mar 2026
The UTS community reflects on the impact that actor, producer and director Rhoda Roberts had on Indigenous and non-Indigenous culture and creativity, and the treasured connections and influence she had within our university and the Gadigal land UTS stands on.
This story contains the name of a First Nations person who has died.
As a proud Widjabul Wiyabal woman of the Bundjalung Nation, Rhoda Roberts started her career as a nurse, before moving to her first love, journalism. She worked as a broadcaster at Radio Redfern (part of 2SER) in the 1980s before becoming the first Indigenous host on primetime TV.
UTS Distinguished Professor Larissa Berhendt AO considers Roberts an icon who was an inspiration to the generations that followed her.
“I knew Rhoda for a long time and had the privilege of interviewing her on my ABC show, Speaking Out,” said Behrendt. “I first met her when I was about 11 and I remember how much I loved seeing her on a national primetime current affairs program. This representation hadn’t happened before.”
It was during this time that Rhoda Roberts coined the phrase ‘Welcome to Country’ for the traditional greeting to Aboriginal land, which brought the generations old ceremony used to govern movement through Aboriginal lands into mainstream use.
In 1993, she worked with the late Gavin Jones, founder of Vibe Australia, to work as a producer and broadcaster for the national radio program Deadly Sounds. Shortly after, she and Gavin Jones established The Deadlys, known as a national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Arts and Community Awards that showcased excellence, which ran from 1995 to 2013.
Creating cultural Awakening
In the late 1990s, Rhoda Roberts was engaged by the Sydney Olympics Games Organising Committee as creative director on the Indigenous segment of the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony, an 8-minute section called Awakening. Working with choreographer Stephen Page, Awakening showcased First Nations’ culture in ways that had never been seen before to an estimated TV audience of 3.7 billion people.
After the success of Awakening, she developed and directed the Woggan-ma-gule annual dawn ceremony on the Sydney harbour foreshore – doing so for the next 10 years. Held on the morning of 26 January, it acknowledged and celebrated First Nations’ culture through music, dance, language and storytelling. She was then creative director for Sydney’s New Year's Eve celebrations, bringing Indigenous cultural element to the event.
From 2012 to 2021, she was head of Indigenous programming at the Sydney Opera House (SOH), having also been an SOH Trustee from 1998 until 2006 and her contribution included lighting of the Opera House’s eastern Bennelong sail with First Nations art which was launched on the eve of NAIDOC Week in 2018.
During this time, she was recognised distinguished service to the performing arts, leadership, advocacy and promoting contemporary Indigenous culture, receiving an Order of Australia (AO) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
In later years, Roberts was appointed the First Nations Consultant at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), where she received an honorary Master of Fine Arts in 2022, and SBS's inaugural Elder in Residence – a role she only recently stepped down from because of her failing health.
Professor Robynne Quiggin, UTS Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Indigenous Affairs and Engagement, consulted Roberts in early work as a legal expert in Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) that saw her co-author foundational protocols for producing and using Indigenous Australian music and arts.
Roberts, who was serving as the Head of First Nations Programming at the Sydney Opera House at the time, provided key insights for case studies specifically regarding the Badu Gili project in the Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts in 2019.
When speaking about Roberts’ legacy, Quiggin reflected on the contribution she had made to the cultural life of Sydneysiders.
“As a Sydney-based university on Gadigal land, UTS as an institution, and we as individual staff, students and residents of this city have been the recipients of Rhoda’s enormous creativity and generosity,” she said.
“She was an extraordinary woman who gave us all so much and she will be deeply missed.”