15 why is neville bonner recognised

In May he was one of four Liberals whose efforts resulted in amendments to the Freedom of Information Bill, one of which provided for the scrutiny of documents used by agencies to interpret legislation and procedural rules. In November he crossed the floor with six other Liberals, supporting a motion for the establishment of the Senate Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Bills, whose purpose was, and remains, to scrutinise bills for breaches of civil liberties.

Bonner was never slow to proclaim his Aboriginality. Being a moderate did not make him a cringer before a white population. In Bonner moved a motion that acknowledged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the original owners of the continent and urged the Australian Government to pay compensation for the dispossession of the land. During the first few months of his Senate career, he was prepared to support the Queensland Government over its declaration of a state of emergency for the tour by the South African rugby union team.

Mutual disenchantment followed. In the face of a centralist government in Canberra, Aboriginal and state issues merged in With all Liberal senators, he supported an amendment by Senator Peter Rae that would allow Aboriginal communities to restrict who could visit their lands. It was unsuccessful. After various changes, including an amendment by Senator Cavanagh, the bill finally passed both houses in May Bonner would compliment Cavanagh for his work on this legislation.

He also praised the Fraser Government for implementing some improvements in Aboriginal land policy. In March Bonner was appointed chair of the Select Committee on Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, which presented its final report on sacred sites in August The committee found that Northern Territory provisions regarding entry onto Aboriginal land and for the protection of sacred sites were inadequate.

It also recommended that Aboriginal communities enjoy the right to exclusive use of certain areas of the seas adjacent to their land, a right eventually confirmed by the High Court in This led to an immediate announcement by the Queensland Government that it would turn the reserves into local government areas, thus placing them outside the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth.

The committee presented its report in November, outlining ways in which the Commonwealth might proceed, but the Fraser Government took no further action. At other times, Bonner and the two ALP senators had worked together, but this did not rule out vigorous engagement in the usual give and take across the chamber.

Bonner was long troubled by the task of reconciling Indigenous rights and cooperative federalism. Two years later, and no longer a senator, he warned that a treaty with Aboriginal people was jeopardised by the strong temptation, under federalism, to let the states determine Australian approaches to race relations.

In and he was allowed, by special motion, to take the Aboriginal Development Commission Bill, and a replacement bill, through their stages in the Senate, in effect a tribute by the Government to his standing in Aboriginal affairs. The second bill gained assent on 16 May With assistance from Eric Robinson, Bonner survived a testing preselection contest in In fact, there is some suggestion that he had then been of, if not in, the Liberal camp for six years or so.

In later life Bonner asserted himself the only recognised elder of the Jugarah [sometimes rendered Jagera] tribe of the Ipswich region. In fact he was born in northern NSW, where allegedly his mother had taken herself to avoid the long arm of Queensland Aboriginal legislation. She died young and he was brought up by his grandparents, in some poverty but not ignorance; for all the lack of formal schooling, perhaps engendered by a white-kids' walkout when he and his brother and sister turned up for class, his grandfather was an actor, his grandmother a martinet for the proper use of English.

Bonner's young adulthood was usually attributed to carrying his swag in western Queensland, working at a variety of jobs, rising to foreman on an unspecified cattle property. More reliably, in he relocated to Palm Island, the home territory of his first wife, Mona, and spent more than 15 years there before, after her death in , moving back to Ipswich and a brief, unsuccessful career as a boomerang manufacturer.

In he sought Liberal preselection for the Senate and was given the unwinnable third place on the ticket. The party felt obliged to deliver. Bonner's attitudes to race and related issues were always complex. Early in his senatorial career, four girls boycotted a debutante ball at Nanango, a peanuts-and-cattle town, rather than curtsy to a black senator.

I assisted Neville in his campaigns for election to the Senate in the years following his appointment in , and I was always pleased to welcome him to North Queensland. I do not know Miss Kay, but clearly she is a community leader of note and has obviously done much for the people of her community over many years. Senator Bonner had a very auspicious and distinguished career in the Senate and by the power of his argument, and the fact that he crossed the floor on many occasions to get a better deal for the causes he espoused, he was able to implement a number of changes for the benefit of Australians.

In his life he worked as a dairy hand, station hand, stockman and vegetable picker. In , the federal electorate of Bonner, in Queensland, was named in his honour. He crossed the floor of the Senate on some 34 occasions during his term. Learn more about Neville Bonner.

Bookings - See this exhibition on any of our guided tours. Cultural warning - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this exhibition contains images, voices, and names of deceased persons. In addition, the exhibition may contain terms or views that were acceptable within mainstream Australian culture in the period in which they were created but may no longer be considered appropriate.

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