Deborah Mailman "it's an enormous honour" to land a spot in the Logie Awards Hall of Fame. (Getty Images: Wendell Teodoro)
Deborah Mailman is set to become the first Indigenous person to be inducted into the Logie Awards Hall of Fame.
"This means everything," Mailman, a Bidjara and Maori actor, tells ABC Radio National's Awaye!
"For me and for our mob, this isn't just recognition for me.
"It's recognition for everyone who's gone before me, who changed things for someone like me to be doing the work that I'm doing."
On Sunday Mailman will become the sixth woman to join the list in just over 40 years, following recent inductees Rebecca Gibney (2024) and Magda Szubanski (2025).
"Times are changing, thankfully, but it's 2026," Mailman says.
"To be the first [Indigenous person] — it's long overdue. Not just for me, but for anyone in this industry."
Mailman sees the milestone as a reflection of how Australian TV has changed in the last 10 to 20 years.
"Where the most exciting storytelling is coming from is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sector," she says.
"It's just getting stronger and stronger … look at the skill that's there, that has been nurtured over a long time, to get to the point where we have so many of our mob doing incredible work."
The annual awards show also introduced a new category honouring Australian sports journalists, named after legendary commentator Bruce McAvaney.
Mailman picked up her most recent Logie in 2024, taking out best lead actress in a drama for playing renegade politician Alex Irving in ABC TV's Total Control.
It was her sixth, following industry and publicly voted wins for shows including Mabo, Redfern Now and Mystery Road.
Speaking to ABC Arts at the Logies that year, she described how it felt to win the award for the show's final season in the year of the failed Voice to Parliament referendum.
