|
|
Fact Sheets
View latest | View all
Neville Bonner AO (1922 - 1999)
Australia's First Aboriginal Senator
Neville Thomas Bonner was born in northern NSW in 1922. He was the first Aboriginal person to sit in Federal Parliament as a Senator for Queensland from 1971 to 1983. On his journey from poverty to Parliament House he experienced unemployment and discrimination. As a politician he worked to improve conditions for Aboriginal people, and became an advocate for Aboriginal rights.
"I was born on Ukerebaagh Island, in the mouth of the Tweed River. Because there was nowhere else for my mother to go, in those days, people won't know too much about it, but in those days, Aboriginal people had to be out of the towns before sunset. And they couldn't get back into town again until sunrise the next day, my mother was not allowed to go to hospital to give birth to me, she gave birth to me in a little gunya under the palm tree, that still lives down there, on a government issued blanket. Those are the kind of things that we had to cope with when I was born and when I was a small child, right up into my teenage years and into my manhood."
When Neville was about five his family moved to the mainland to live with his grandparents. He couldn't go to school because the education system was segregated and there was no Aboriginal school nearby. Instead, from the age of seven he did seasonal rural work. When his mother died he and his brother stayed with his grandparents. His grandmother insisted he learn to read and write and when he was fifteen he spent a year at the Beaudesert school in Queensland.
"We were never allowed to attend a normal state school but my grandmother talked the head teacher into allowing me to go and I attended there from fourteen to fifteen years of age. I actually reached third grade in that short period of time and that's the only formal education I've had."
He enjoyed school but when his grandmother died he left. He traveled the state seeking work, first in scrub-clearing gangs, then as a stockman.
He was rejected for army service in the Second World War because 'the climate in Europe is unsuitable for Aborigines'. Eventually he settled north of Hughendon, became a head stockman and married.
"For many years I was a bit of a loner. I was out on cattle stations, I became a head stockman. Suppose I've done every labouring job known to man, cane cutting, scrub felling, timber cutting."
In 1943 the family moved to Palm Island Aboriginal reserve to obtain medical treatment for one of their sons. They remained there until 1960. In that time Neville Bonner learnt carpentry and rose to be works supervisor with responsibility for 250 workers. During this time he took an interest in changing the way his people lived.
He joined the Liberal Party in 1961 and in 1965 he joined the One People of Australia League (OPAL), which helped Aboriginal people with welfare, housing and education. A major breakthrough came in 1967. A referendum changed the way Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were treated.
"Well it was when we, the indigenous people, were first given the vote and we were allowed to be counted in the census."
Neville Bonner decided it was time to enter politics.
"You've got to get into the system, work through the system and make the changes. If you say a law is a bad law, you don't break it, you try to change the law."
In August 1971 Neville Bonner was sworn in as Australia's first Aboriginal senator.
"For the first time in the history of this country there was an Aboriginal voice in the parliament and that gave me an enormous feeling of overwhelming responsibility. I made people aware, the lawmakers in this country, I made them aware of indigenous people. I think that was an achievement."
A loyal Liberal on most issues, on several occasions he crossed the floor to vote with the opposition on Aboriginal issues. He also became an outspoken critic of the Queensland National-Liberal governing coalition. In 1982, for instance, he joined the anti-government demonstration coinciding with the Commonwealth Games, though as a moderate, he strenuously opposed the violent tactics favoured by the radicals.
For twelve years Senator Bonner represented his people and helped to change the face of Aboriginal rights in Australia. Always an honest and gentle man, he never let anger dominate his personality.
In 1979 the Australia Day Council named him Australian of the Year and in 1984 he was awarded the Order of Australia.
Neville Bonner continued to speak out on issues which divided black and white Australians.
"We've got to come together, that's what we want for Australia.
A one people. We're all Australians, regardless of your ethnic background, regardless of your political belief, regardless of your religious beliefs we are all Australians."
In 1998, shortly before the Constitutional Convention to which he was an elected Queensland delegate, Neville Bonner announced he was dying of lung cancer but vowed to continue working.
Neville Bonner died in Ipswich, Queensland in February 1999.
|
Source:
|
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Behind the News, Australians
AIATIS 1994, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press Canberra
|
|
Theme:
|
Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders - Australian history and race relations - Racism in Australia
|
|
|
