25 Facts About Essie Coffey

Essie Coffey is known for having co-founded the Western Aboriginal Legal Service to serve western New South Wales, and for her 1978 feature film My Survival as an Aboriginal, the first documentary film directed by an Aboriginal woman.

Essie Coffey served on a number of community organisations and government bodies.

Essie Coffey lived in Brewarrina for much of her life.

Essie Coffey's father, Donald Goodgabah, was an elder of the Muruwari people, who resisted the government's forced relocations of Aboriginal people in the 1930s.

Essie Coffey was the youngest of eight children; she had two sisters and my five brothers, and the family lived in the bush with their parents.

Essie Coffey later said that she thought she was lucky to be brought up this way, free and able to learn her own culture and traditions, not having to grow up in a white man's mission.

Essie Coffey was a Muruwari woman, and was known as Essieina Goodgabah, and, later, "Bush Queen of Brewarrina".

In 1974, when a huge flood hit Brewarrina, Essie Coffey was called upon, along with Tombo Winters, Steve Gordon, and Phil Eyre, to mobilise the Aboriginal community to build levees.

Essie Coffey co-founded the Aboriginal Heritage and Cultural Museum in Brewarrina around 1991.

Essie Coffey served on several government bodies and Aboriginal community organisations.

Essie Coffey was an elected member of the NSW Aborigines Advisory Council, which led to serving on the New South Wales Aboriginal Lands Trust, which existed from 1974 to 1983.

Essie Coffey was an inaugural member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 1991, and a member of the Ngemba Housing Cooperative in the 1990s.

Also in the 1990s, Essie Coffey supervised the Community Development Employment Project in Brewarrina, and promoted the scheme as essential to Aboriginal self-determination.

Essie Coffey was a regional councillor for the Wakamurra region on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.

Essie Coffey had a deep interest in women's issues, and was co-founder of Magunya Aboriginal Women's Issue, helped to create the first women's knock-out football team in northwestern NSW.

Essie Coffey appeared in Philip Noyce's 1977 film Backroads as herself.

Essie Coffey said that she intended to call her next film Aboriginal Awakening.

Essie Coffey gave a copy of My Survival as an Aboriginal to Queen Elizabeth II as a gift at the opening of Australia's new Parliament House in 1988.

Essie Coffey wrote songs, releasing her first recording on a cassette tape, called "Number One", recorded in Adelaide on 12 March 1980 with "Bush Queen" on it.

Essie Coffey entertained audiences by playing guitar and singing country and western songs.

Essie Coffey won local and state competitions with her version of "Frankie and Johnny".

Essie Coffey was nominated for an Member of the British Empire but refused it, explaining "I knocked the MBE back because I'm not a member of the British Empire".

Essie Coffey lived in Brewarrina for most of her life, after moving there in the 1950s with her husband, Albert "Doc" Essie Coffey.

Essie Coffey felt pain for the loss of her traditional lands, which led to alcohol abuse during some periods of her life, which she did not conceal.

Essie Coffey died of a common cold, owing to her immune system having been weakened by kidney failure, on 3 January 1998, aged 56.