Faith Bandler's Impact On Aboriginal Australians

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Since the first fleet arrived on the rugged, yet beautiful shores of Australia, Indigenous australians have been treated appallingly and have even be recognised as ‘flora and fauna’ by the invading Europeans. They have been discriminated against by unequal pay and citizenship rights, no recognition of land rights and racial prejudice. However, after the 1930’s certain people have achieved change through fighting for aboriginal rights which has had a huge impact on Australia. One of these people was a woman, Faith Bandler a South Sea Islander Australian.
Her father had been kidnapped from his home in the South Sea Islands and forced to work for no pay in the Queensland cane fields when he was just 13 years old. After serving in the Australian Women's Land Army During World War II, and received less pay …show more content…

Faith Bandler co founded the Aboriginal Australian fellowship in 1956 and since then has been regarded as an activist known for promoting the rights and interests of Indigenous Australians. The Aboriginal Australian Fellowship aimed to formally put an end to the NSW state government Aborigines Welfare Board, which was originally founded in 1883 and known as the Aborigines Protection Board. Faith disagreed with the actions taken by the board which contributed to the ‘Stolen Generation’ through separating indigenous children from their families and sending them to missions where they were treated unequally.
Because of this involvement Faith became the Secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.Within this role she became the force which initiated the campaign for a national referendum to gain Indigenous Australians citizenship rights by effectively removing a discriminatory law from the Australian Constitution. By 1957, she and Jessie Street and a friend and driving activist launched a petition gaining thousands of signatures for the

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