"THE hardest part was to get people to think of the Aboriginal people as people," says Faith Bandler of the 1967 referendum that gave the first Australians the status of human beings in the census.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"There was always a tremendous emphasis on the differences and to get people to see the commonalities was a task, but to some extent it worked."
It certainly did. The campaign led by Mrs Bandler and a small core of others, mostly women, took 10 years but achieved the highest "yes" vote recorded at an Australian referendum - 90.77 per cent.
As a result, discriminatory sections were cut from the constitution, the Commonwealth was given power to legislate for indigenous people, and they were included in the census.
Faith Bandler enlisted in the Australian Women's Land Army during World War II and moved to Sydney, where she made dresses at David Jones and was inspired by Jessie Street and Pearl Gibbs to join the fight for indigenous people's rights.
With Ms Gibbs she formed the Australian Aboriginal Fellowship in 1956 and was a founding member the following year of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The referendum campaign, which she calls her proudest achievement, had begun.
As NSW director, she would drop off her children at school and travel to Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, churches, schools and kitchen tables to speak eloquently about the unofficial segregation that persisted in mid-20th century Australia.
The groups collected 80,000 signatures - eight times the required number - to ask for a referendum. The rest is history.
Mrs Bandler was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1984 but this year is being made a Companion - the highest honour - for her distinguished service through the "advancement of human rights and social justice, and by raising public awareness and understanding of the cultural heritage of South Seas Islanders, and to women's issues".
The daughter of a South Sea Islander who was "blackbirded" to work on sugar plantations in Queensland, she refused to accept the MBE from "an empire that had kidnapped and enslaved my father".
