Our nation has lost a great champion of civil rights with the passing of Faith Bandler AC on 13 February.
Faith Bandler spent her long and illustrious life pointing the way to a better and fairer Australia.
She once said that 'Human rights for those who have been deprived of them is what my life has been all about'.
She experienced, in her early days, the worst excesses of the White Australia era.
Her father, Wakvie Mussingkon, was born on a small island in Vanuatu but, at just 13 years of age, was brought to Australia and put to work in the cane fields of north Queensland.
Faith was born in Tumbulgum, in northern New South Wales.
As a young woman, she moved to Sydney, and during the Second World War, she joined the Women's Land Army.
It was at a concert at the Town Hall where she would meet her future husband, Hans Bandler, a Jewish refugee engineer, who shared, not only her love of classical music, but also her politics.
Faith credited Hans with being the greatest supporter of her pursuit of civil rights; she said that she simply could not have done it without him.
As her father's story, as her own experiences of discrimination and of being paid less than her white colleagues taught her, she lived a life arguing for the rights of Indigenous Australians.
She helped form the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship, she served as General-Secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and she formed the National Council of Islanders.
She received the Human Rights Medal, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1984, and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2009.
She received honorary degrees, and she was named one of the 100 inaugural Australian Living National Treasures by the National Trust of Australia.
But her crowning achievement was the 1967 referendum.
Faith spoke at literally hundreds and hundreds of meetings right around our country and collected thousands of signatures on petitions.
She helped to inspire the highest YES vote ever recorded in a federal referendum – over 90 per cent of Australian voters voted YES to change.
Many of Faith's petitions were presented to this House. They were often the first business of the House at the start of the Parliamentary day.
Prime Minister Robert Menzies once said to Faith that her petitions have joined the prayers of the House as regular features of the day.
In fact, he presented one of these petitions and I understand this was the first time a Prime Minister had ever presented a petition to the Parliament.
Faith was modest about her achievements, but she did accept a high profile because of the doors it opened to her to promote the message that she so believed in.
I do offer the sincere condolences of this Parliament and this nation to Faith's daughter, Lilon Bandler, who carries on her mother's legacy through her work in Indigenous health education at the University of Sydney.
We sympathise with you and with your extended family.
Our nation's loss is great.
Your loss is greater.
She was a great Australian who should long be remembered by our country and by this Parliament.
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