Faith Bandler AC
Image courtesy of the Mitchell Library.
Faith Mussing was born at Tumbulgum in 1919, one of eight children. Her father, Peter, had been kidnapped from Ambryn, an island in what was known as the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), and brought to Queensland to work on sugar plantations, as part of the practice known as Blackbirding. Awareness of her father’s past experience exerted a strong influence on Faith in her later political activism, as did her own experience of racism in her early life.
Faith was involved in establishing, with Aboriginal activist Pearl Gibbs and others, the Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship. The Fellowship began in 1956 and campaigned for Indigenous rights, bringing together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people for the cause.
In 1963 Faith Bandler became the New South Wales state secretary of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement representing the interests of Aboriginal people from New South Wales. She is well known for her active role in publicising the YES case for the Aboriginal question in the 1967 Referendum. The question read:
Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled — ‘An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the People of the Aboriginal Race in any State and so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the Population’?
The amendments to the Constitution were overwhelmingly endorsed, winning 90.77% of votes cast and having majority support in all six states.
Around the same time as the Referendum, Faith became involved in the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), including as their Secretary from 1970 to 1972.
Faith received many honours and awards for her work in the fields of social justice and human rights; she was awarded the Human Rights Medal in 1997, in 2000, Nelson Mandela presented Faith with a ‘Meritorious Award in Honour and Gratitude for a life of courageous advocacy for justice and for Indigenous people, for human rights, for love and reconciliation’.
In 2009 Faith was appointed a Companion in the Order of Australia for advancing human rights and social justice, and raising public awareness and understanding of the heritage of South Sea Islanders and women’s issues.
Faith Bandler passed away in 2015.