List of Indigenous Australians in politics and public service
Encyclopedia
Numerous Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

have been notable for their contributions to politics, including participation in governments and activism in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.
Others are noted for their public service, generally and in specific areas like law and education.

National

  • Neville Bonner
    Neville Bonner
    Neville Thomas Bonner AO was an Australian politician, and the first indigenous Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia...

     -- Liberal
    Liberal Party of Australia
    The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

     Senator
    Australian Senate
    The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...

     for Queensland, the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to the Parliament of Australia
    Parliament of Australia
    The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...

  • Aden Ridgeway
    Aden Ridgeway
    Aden Derek Ridgeway , Australian politician, was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales, from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australian Democrats. During his term he was the only Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament.-Early history:Ridgeway was born in Macksville, New South...

     -- Australian Democrats
    Australian Democrats
    The Australian Democrats is an Australian political party espousing a socially liberal ideology. It was formed in 1977, by a merger of the Australia Party and the New LM, after principals of those minor parties secured the commitment of former Liberal minister Don Chipp, as a high profile leader...

     Senator
    Australian Senate
    The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives. Senators are popularly elected under a system of proportional representation. Senators are elected for a term that is usually six years; after a double dissolution, however,...

     for NSW
  • Warren Mundine
    Warren Mundine
    Warren Stephen Mundine is an Australian Aboriginal leader and the former National President of the Australian Labor Party . He is a member of the Bundjalung people....

     -- Former National President of the Australian Labor Party
    Australian Labor Party
    The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

  • Ken Wyatt
    Ken Wyatt
    Kenneth George Wyatt AM is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing the electoral division of Hasluck in Western Australia for the Liberal Party of Australia...

     -- Liberal MHR
    Australian House of Representatives
    The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

     for WA

New South Wales

  • Linda Burney
    Linda Burney
    The Hon. Linda Jean Burney MP, an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Canterbury for the Australian Labor Party since 2003...

     -- ALP MLA, first NSW Indigenous MP and former president of the ALP. First Indigenous deputy leader of the ALP in NSW.

Northern Territory

  • John Ah Kit
    John Ah Kit
    John Leonard Ah Kit is a former Australian politician. He was the Labor member for Arnhem in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1995 to 2005....

     -- ALP MLA
  • Alison Anderson
    Alison Anderson
    Alison Anderson is an Australian politician. She has been a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since 2005, representing the electorate of MacDonnell, and is a prominent indigenous activist and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Central Zone Commissioner...

     -- MLA since 2005; 2008-09 Minister for Natural Resources, Environment and Heritage; Minister for Parks and Wildlife; Minister for Arts and Museums; and Minister for Indigenous Policy; resigned from the ALP in August 2009
  • Matthew Bonson
    Matthew Bonson
    Matthew Thomas Bonson is a former Australian politician. He was a Labor member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, representing the seat of Millner from 2001 to 2008. Prior to his election, he worked as a local solicitor...

     -- ALP MLA
  • Marion Scrymgour
    Marion Scrymgour
    Marion Rose Scrymgour is an Australian politician. She has been a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since 2001, representing the electorate of Arafura. She was the Labor Party Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from November 2007 until February 2009, and was the...

     - ALP MLA, first female Indigenous minister in Australia.

South Australia

  • Sir Douglas Nicholls
    Douglas Nicholls
    Sir Douglas Ralph "Doug" Nicholls KCVO, OBE, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.Nicholls was the first Aboriginal person to...

     -- first indigenous Governor of an Australian state (Governor of South Australia); Pastor with the Churches of Christ in Australia; first indigenous Australian to be knighted

Western Australia

  • Ben Wyatt
    Ben Wyatt
    Benjamin Sana Wyatt is an Indigenous Australian politician. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly since March 2006, representing the electorate of Victoria Park.-Early life and education:...

     -- ALP MLA, and Western Australian Shadow Treasurer.
  • Ernie Bridge
    Ernie Bridge
    Ernest Frances "Ernie" Bridge is an Australian politician and country music singer. He was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly from 1980 to 2001, representing the electorate of Kimberley, first as an Australian Labor Party representative and then as an independent MP...

     -- ALP MLA
  • Carol Martin
    Carol Martin
    Carol Martin is an Australian politician and the current member for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of Kimberley for the Australian Labor Party, having first been elected to that position in 2001 following the retirement of Ernie Bridge...

     -- ALP MLA. The first Aboriginal woman to be elected to any Australian Federal, State or Territory Parliament.

Public servants

  • Geoff Clark
    Geoff Clark
    Geoff Clark is an Australian Aboriginal politician and activist. Clark led the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission until it was effectively disbanded in 2004.- Personal :...

     -- led the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
    The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives...

     (ATSIC)
  • Gatjil Djerrkura
    Gatjil Djerrkura
    Gatjil Djerrkura OAM was an Aboriginal leader and indigenous spokesman in the Northern Territory and Australia.He was a senior elder of the Wangurri Aboriginal clan of the Yolngu people...

      -- led ATSIC
  • Stan Grant
    Stan Grant (Wiradjuri elder)
    Stanley Vernard "Stan" Grant, Sr. AM is an Elder of the Wiradjuri tribe of Indigenous Australians from what is now the south-west inland region of the state of New South Wales, Australia.-Background and language work:...

  • Big Bill Neidjie
    Big Bill Neidjie
    Big Bill Neidjie was the last surviving speaker of the Gaagudju language, an indigenous language from northern Kakadu after which the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park is named. He was a senior elder of Kakadu National Park and a traditional owner of the Bunitj estate in northern Kakadu,...

     -- Last Gagudju speaker, and central figure in the foundation of Kakadu National Park
    Kakadu National Park
    Kakadu National Park is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km southeast of Darwin.Kakadu National Park is located within the Alligator Rivers Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It covers an area of , extending nearly 200 kilometres from north to south and over 100 kilometres...

  • Lowitja O'Donoghue
    Lowitja O'Donoghue
    Ms Lowitja "Lois" O'Donoghue, AC, CBE, DSG is an Aboriginal Australian retired public administrator.She was named Australian of the Year in 1984 and 1990, and was inaugural chairperson of the now dissolved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission .-Personal life:Lowitja O'Donoghue was the...

      -- led ATSIC
  • Charles Perkins
  • Roberta "Bobbi" Sykes
    Bobbi Sykes
    Roberta "Bobbi" Sykes was an Australian poet and author...

  • Neville "Chappy" Williams
    Neville Williams
    Neville "Chappy" Williams is an elder of the Wiradjuri Nation, in Western New South Wales. Known as "Uncle Chappy" to those who follow indigenous Australian customs, he is a regular at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and a key opponent of the Barrick Gold Corporation's gold mine project at...

  • Galarrwuy Yunupingu
    Galarrwuy Yunupingu
    Galarrwuy YunupinguAM is a leader in the Australian Indigenous community, and has been involved in the fight for Land Rights throughout his career...

  • Mandawuy Yunupingu
    Mandawuy Yunupingu
    Mandawuy Yunupingu , born 17 September 1956, is an Aboriginal Australian musician, most notable for being the front man of the band Yothu Yindi.-Early life:...


Activists

  • Faith Bandler
    Faith Bandler
    Faith Bandler, AC also known as Ida Lessing Faith Mussing is an Australian civil rights activist of South Sea Islander heritage. She is a campaigner for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders. Bandler is best known for her leadership in the campaign for the 1967 referendum on...

  • Robert Bropho
    Robert Bropho
    Robert Charles Bropho was an Australian Aboriginal rights activist and convicted serial child sex offender from Perth, Western Australia. He was convicted of multiple cases of child sexual abuse...

  • Gordon Briscoe
    Gordon Briscoe
    Dr Gordon Briscoe AO is an Indigenous Australian academic and activist. He is also a former Association football player.-Early life:...

  • Burnum Burnum
    Burnum Burnum
    Burnum Burnum was an Australian Aboriginal activist, actor, and author. He was born a Woiworrung and Yorta Yorta man at Wallaga Lake in southern New South Wales...

  • Kevin Buzzacott
    Kevin Buzzacott
    Kevin Buzzacott , often referred to as Uncle Kev as an Aboriginal elder, is an Indigenous Australian from the Arabunna nation in northern South Australia...

  • Paul Coe
    Paul Coe
    Paul Coe ', a Wiradjuri man, is an Australian Aboriginal activist. He was the son of Leslie Coe, and the grandson of Paul Joseph Coe and Edith Murray and the great grandson of Thomas Coe and Jessie Mary, née Waggerah ....

  • Ken Colbung
    Ken Colbung
    Kenneth Desmond Colbung, AM, MBE , also known by his indigenous name Nundjan Djiridjarkan, was an Aboriginal Australian leader who became prominent in the 1960s. He was awarded an MBE and an AM for his service to the Aboriginal community.-Early life:Colbung was born on the Moore River Native...

  • Essie Coffey
    Essie Coffey
    Essie Coffey , OAM , was born at Essiena Goodgabah in southern Queensland. She was a Muruwari woman and the co-founder of the Western Aboriginal Legal Service and served on a number of government bodies and Aboriginal community organisations....

  • Chicka Dixon
    Chicka Dixon
    Charles "Chicka" Dixon was an Australian Aboriginal activist and leader.He was active in campaigns around the 1967 referendum and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, dedicating his life to the fight for basic human rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.In 1970 Dixon was...

  • Mick Dodson
    Mick Dodson
    Professor Michael James "Mick" Dodson, AM is an indigenous Australian leader, a member of the Yawuru peoples in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia. His brother is Patrick Dodson, also a noted Aboriginal leader.Following his parents' death, he boarded at Monivae...

  • Pat Dodson
  • Gary Foley
    Gary Foley
    Gary Foley is an Australian Aboriginal Gumbainggir activist, academic, writer and actor . He is best known for his role in establishing the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972 and for establishing an Aboriginal Legal Service in Redfern in the 1970s...

  • Pearl Gibbs
    Pearl Gibbs
    Pearl Gibbs was an Indigenous Australian activist, and the most prominent female activist within the Aboriginal movement in the early 20th century...

  • Peter Yu
  • Ken Hampton
  • Jacqui Katona
    Jacqui Katona
    Jacqui Katona is a western-educated Aboriginal woman who led the campaign to stop the Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern Territory. In 1998 the Mirrar Aboriginal people, together with environmental groups, used peaceful on-site civil disobedience to create one of the largest blockades in...

  • Marcia Langton
    Marcia Langton
    Marcia Lynne Langton is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal scholars. She holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia...

  • Yami Lester
    Yami Lester
    Yami Lester , is a Yankunytjatjara man, an Indigenous person of northern South Australia.In the 1950s, while still a young boy, he was blinded by a "black mist" from the south....

  • Vincent Lingiari
    Vincent Lingiari
    Vincent Lingiarri, AM , was an Aboriginal rights activist who was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to the Aboriginal people. Lingiarri was a member of the Gurindji people. In Vincent's earlier life he worked as a stockman at Wave Hill Cattle Station. He also played...

  • Eddie Mabo
    Eddie Mabo
    Eddie Koiki Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander who is known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights and for his role in a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius which characterised Australian law with regards to land and...

  • Michael Mansell
    Michael Mansell
    Michael Mansell is an Aboriginal lawyer and activist, who has dedicated his life to social, political and legal reform to improve the lives and social standing of Tasmanian Aborigines....

  • Yvonne Margarula
    Yvonne Margarula
    Yvonne Margarula won the 1998 Friends of the Earth International Environment Award and the 1998 Nuclear-Free Future Award. She also won the 1999 U.S...

  • Michael Mundine - CEO of the Redfern Aboriginal Housing Company
  • Jack Patten
    Jack Patten
    John Thomas Patten , known as Jack Patten was an Australian Aboriginal activist and journalist.-Biography:...

  • Noel Pearson
    Noel Pearson
    Noel Pearson is an Aboriginal Australian lawyer, academic, land rights activist and founder of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, an organisation promoting the economic and social development of Cape York....

  • Mum (Shirl) Smith
    Mum (Shirl) Smith
    Shirley Smith , better known as Mum Shirl, was a prominent Aboriginal Australian and activist committed to justice and welfare of Aboriginal Australians...

  • Harold Thomas
    Harold Thomas
    Harold Joseph Thomas is an Indigenous Australian descended from the Luritja people of Central Australia. An artist and land rights activist, he is best known for designing and copyrighting the Australian Aboriginal Flag....

     – designer of Aboriginal flag
  • Dennis Walker
  • Galarrwuy Yunupingu
    Galarrwuy Yunupingu
    Galarrwuy YunupinguAM is a leader in the Australian Indigenous community, and has been involved in the fight for Land Rights throughout his career...


Educators

  • Mick Dodson
    Mick Dodson
    Professor Michael James "Mick" Dodson, AM is an indigenous Australian leader, a member of the Yawuru peoples in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia. His brother is Patrick Dodson, also a noted Aboriginal leader.Following his parents' death, he boarded at Monivae...

     
  • Jeannie Herbert
  • Joe Fraser
  • Wendy Brady
  • Marcia Langton
    Marcia Langton
    Marcia Lynne Langton is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal scholars. She holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia...


Lawyers and judges

  • Bob Bellear
    Bob Bellear
    Bob Bellear was the first Indigenous Australian judge.Bob was born in the far north-east of New South Wales, and grew up near the town of Mullumbimby...

     -- first Indigenous judge
    Judge
    A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

  • Sue Gordon
    Sue Gordon
    Dr. Sue Gordon, AM, is a retired indigenous Australian magistrate from Western Australia.Born at Belele Station, near Meekatharra, Western Australia in 1944, she was separated from her mother and family at the age of four and raised at Sister Kate's home in Queens Park, Western Australia...

     -- magistrate
  • Pat O'Shane
    Pat O'Shane
    Patricia June O'Shane is a magistrate of the Local Court of New South Wales living in Sydney, Australia. A former head of the New South Wales Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, and Aboriginal herself, O'Shane was appointed a magistrate in 1986...

    -- magistrate
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