Malarndirri Barbara Anne McCarthy (born 1970) is an Indigenous Australian politician and former journalist who has been a Senator for the Northern Territory since 2016. She is the Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Albanese Government since 29 July 2024. She previously served in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.

After working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a reporter and newsreader for 16 years, in 2005, McCarthy was elected to the NT Legislative Assembly for the division of Arnhem. She was re-elected unopposed in 2008, and was subsequently appointed to the ministry by Paul Henderson. She held a number of portfolios over the following four years, but lost her seat in Labor's landslide defeat at the 2012 election. McCarthy subsequently returned to the media as a presenter for NITV and SBS News. She re-entered politics as Labor's lead Senate candidate in the Northern Territory at the 2016 federal election. She was appointed Minister for Indigenous Australians in July 2024 after Linda Burney announced her retirement from parliament.

Barbara Anne McCarthy was born in 1970 in Katherine, Northern Territory, the daughter of Limandabina Charlie and John McCarthy. She embraces her Aboriginal identity, being descended through her mother from the Garrwa and Yanyuwa peoples, whose traditional lands straddle the McArthur River and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her father, originally from Sydney, is descended from an Irishman who arrived in Australia in 1842. Being of Catholic faith, his daughter was baptised in the Catholic church. She grew up "with a deep respect both traditional Indigenous and Catholic values". McCarthy was raised mainly by her father, but was always encouraged to stay connected to her Aboriginal culture; she later said she was brought up on two-way learning, although it was not so named at the time.

McCarthy attended school first in Borroloola, on the McArthur River, and then at a Catholic primary school in Alice Springs. Following this she spent six years of boarding school at St Scholastica's College, Sydney, where she was school captain in 1988.

After her Year 12 English teacher suggested that she apply for a cadetship at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, McCarthy began her cadetship as a journalist for ABC Darwin in 1989. She worked across Australia as a news and current affairs television and radio reporter. In 1993, after a trial run at presenting the late news from Sydney, she was appointed as weeknight newsreader for ABC News in Darwin. She also presented the current affairs programme Stateline.

Returning to Borroloola in 1997, she co-established its first community radio station, B102.9FM-The Voice of the Gulf, in 1998, with assistance from the ABC, and also set up the Lijakarda Cultural Festivals & Media, Arts & Training Centre for Yanyuwa, Kudanji, Garrawa and Mara people from Borroloola.

She spent 16 years working for the ABC, first as a reporter behind the camera, and then as newsreader. She then set up her own media consultancy, called Malarndirri Media.

In 2005, McCarthy was preselected as the Labor candidate in Arnhem to replace the retiring member Jack Ah Kit. She received 73.9% of the two-party preferred vote, a 12.5% increase on Ah Kit's result. As a result of her election, McCarthy became one of ten women in the 25-seat assembly, considered at the time to be in the top 10 in the world in male-to-female ratio in a parliament.