Home and Away newcomer Kyle Shilling shares hopes for Mali's family to arrive

"I think it's going to be positive."

By Iona Rowan

2 Feb 2023

Channel 7

Home and Away spoilers for UK viewers follow.

Home and Away newcomer Kyle Shilling wants to see Mali Hudson’s family show up in Summer Bay.

Shilling made his first appearance as Mali on Australian screens last month, and is set to join at UK/Channel 5 pace in March.

The character turned up for a brief visit to surprise his old friend and business contact Dean Thompson, but after Dean offered the board shaper a job working in his surfboard shop, Mali agreed to stick around.

Mali was initially unsure about taking up Dean's offer since it would mean spending less time with his family, who live a few hours up the coast.

However, as the soap's first Indigenous character, Shilling thinks it's the perfect opportunity to explore Mali's cultural heritage and have some of his family come up to the Bay for a visit.

"The [Parata] boys had their moments during the haka and stuff," the actor told Stuff.

"I can’t wait to have that moment of, you know, hopefully bringing cousins and family members and friends in to do this really beautiful kind of corroboree ceremony celebration for something to do with Mali or a friend or a family member. I’m really excited for that."

Channel 5

Shilling continued: "I think it’s going to be positive. Mali is this positive person who loves his family and loves his culture but there’s always going to be negativity around positivity. You can’t do this kind of job and not expect that."

The show's producers have hired an Aboriginal consultant to help with Mali’s storylines, who Shilling says is "amazing".

"It’s very difficult with our culture because there’s more than 500 different tribal groups," he explained. "There’s over 500 different language groups and everything like that too, but yeah, we’ve got a consultant on board and he’s amazing."

Home and Away airs weekdays at 1.45pm on Channel 5 and 6pm on 5STAR. First-look screenings air at 6.30pm on 5STAR and the show also streams on My5.

In Australia, the show airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7pm on Channel 7 and streams on 7plus.

Selected classic episodes are available via Prime Video in the UK.