08/09/2026
Thirty Years of Citizenship - Faith Bandler AC
On 15 May 1997 Faith Bandler AC presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.
About Faith Bandler AC
Faith Bandler, elected a National Treasure by the people of Australia, was born in Tumbulgum in NSW, and educated in Murwillumbah and Cleveland Street Night School in Sydney. After working in the Women’s Land Army during World War II and later in a woman’s fashion house and a men’s shirt factory, she co-founded the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship, which was solely responsible for the removal of all legislation discriminating against the NSW Aborigines.
In 1957 she helped launch a petition for a Federal referendum to amend the Constitution, which would allow Indigenous Australians to be counted in the census and thus be regarded as Australian citizens. Jessie Street, whom Faith had met at a peace talk in the 1940s, drafted the constitutional amendment. It was a 10-year-long campaign, and the referendum of 1967 resulted in an overwhelming ‘yes’ vote, when 90.2% of the Australian people voted in favour of the changes.
From 1957 to 1973, Faith was a central figure in the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. The welfare of Indigenous people and the removal of discrimination against them is an area which has absorbed much of her energies.
In 1973 she reported to the World Council of Churches in Geneva on progress in Aboriginal affairs and, in 1974, she founded the Australian South Seas Islanders National Council and made submissions on it to the Royal Commission into Human Relationships.
Faith refused an MBE in 1975, saying she could not accept such an award from a government that had kidnapped her father from his village in Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides) and brought him to work in the Queensland cane fields.
Faith has written several books, one of which, Wacvie, a prize-winning novel, tells the story of her father. She has been involved with writers and writing for many years, representing the Australian Literature Board at the South Pacific Festival of Arts in PNG in 1979. She was a special guest at the first International Women’s Writers and Publishers Conference in London in 1984 and in 1989 won the Pandora Press Award.
Faith was awarded an Order of Australia in 1984 and in 1995 had an honorary D.Litt. conferred on her by Macquarie University. In 1997 she was awarded the Human Rights Medal, Australia’s highest award for Human Rights.
Faith’s biography, Faith: Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist by Marilyn Lake, was published in 2002 and launched by the then Governor General, Sir William Deane.
Summary of the presentation
Faith Bandler presented the 15 May 1997 Lunch Hour Talk. Her topic was Thirty Years of Citizenship. Shirley Jones, founder and Board member of the Library, contributed a report to the May 1997 issue of Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter.
This talk was an exciting event. The Jessie Street Auditorium was filled to capacity with a most enthusiastic audience. Faith spoke of the 1950s, which led to Pearl Gibbs and Faith forming the small organisation to campaign for a change to the constitution. She outlined the struggles they had, the constant work, the getting of names Australia-wide on petitions, the daily presentation of the petition to Parliament when it was sitting and finally, the strikingly positive outcome of the referendum put to the Australian people in 1967. It was a very moving talk and the audience was reluctant for Faith to stop. Jeannette McHugh thanked Faith warmly.
A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.
