3 weeks ago
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February 7, 2026 — 5:30am
Brooke Blurton, the newest addition to NITV’s Going Places with Ernie Dingo, may not have the host’s lifetime of showbiz experience, nor the acting CV or journalistic background of fellow presenters Mark Coles Smith and Rae Johnston.
But it turns out that the girl from Carnarvon in WA, who became the first Indigenous and bisexual Bachelorette in 2021, is a natural. After interviewing people around the country, including Western Arrernte marathon champion Charlie Maher and portrait artist Jenna Pickering (from ABC’s Portrait Artist of the Year), Blurton declares she would have no qualms in asking the big questions of the woman she roasted on Tony Armstrong’s ABC special Always Was Tonight – Gina Rinehart.
“‘Does she feel bad at all for what her family have done?’” says Blurton of her hypothetical conversation starter, referring to the impact of Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting on Aboriginal heritage sites in the Pilbara.
“I welcome Gina Rinehart if she wants to get in touch. I’ve actually been in front of her many times. I used to date a [pilot] called Nick Power. His dad’s [mining executive] Neville Power, and Neville Power and Gina Rinehart are close friends. So I have been in the room with her. It was awkward.”
The invitation to join Going Places was “a dream come true for little Brookie”, who grew up idolising Ernie Dingo, and not from afar.
“I know the whole Dingo family. Uncle Ernie has always just been Uncle Ernie,” she says. “I love him because he makes light in dark moments. People know when he’s in town and he has such a contagious energy. And he has an aura of comfort. When I was feeling anxious, Uncle Ernie was so good in snapping me out of it. He is that real guidance that you need in life.”
With a refreshed format, this seventh season of Going Places dedicates each episode to a different location, including places in Lutruwita (Tasmania), South Australia’s Limestone Coast, the Karijini National Park in WA and Far North Queensland.
“There’s an opportunity for viewers to listen to the storytelling that’s happening on Country,” says Blurton.
Having charmed and occasionally shocked with her openness on three Bachelor franchises, leant further out of her comfort zone on Ten’s The Challenge: Australia and spoken about her traumatic childhood on TED Talks, this year feels like a new era for the former social worker.
She has signed with RGM Management, her headshot alongside those of Anthony LaPaglia, Claudia Karvan and Rebecca Gibney. She’s also taken an acting course and appeared in Ten’s drama The Imposter, as well as in the horror film It Will Find You. Gone is her candid podcast Not So PG with Getaway’s first Indigenous presenter, Matty Mills.
“We stopped the podcast at the end of the contract with Nova last year,” she says. “It was probably the best decision. I needed a break from giving a lot of my personal life and being constantly vulnerable. Sometimes, it’s very fatiguing. I am more excited about aligning my advocacy with TV over the next couple of years. And maybe some change in policy will happen.”
Blurton has thrown her support behind the January 26 Change the Date movement, and the Treaty in Victoria.
“We also need to be looking at more rehabilitation processes for children in communities where there is the highest rate of Aboriginal people in prison,” she says. “The fact that kids as young as 10 are in prison makes me feel physically sick.”
After filming her first season of Going Places, Blurton feels ready for anything. “Uncle Ernie is not holding my hand through it. He’s pushing me off the cliff. And he’s saying, ‘Go for it. You either sink or swim’, but in a good way, like, ‘I got you’. But making me feel that I don’t need to overthink things. And everything that I have is in me. I just need to back myself.”
Going Places With Ernie Dingo returns at 7.30pm on Friday, February 20, on SBS; and at 7.30pm on Thursday, February 26, on NITV.
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