13 Facts About Faith Bandler

Faith Bandler was made a member of the order of Australia in 1984, and a companion of the Order of Australia in 2009, after turning down an appointment to be a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1976.

Faith Bandler was awarded an honorary doctorate from Maquarie University in 1994, a Human Rights medal from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and was named one of the 100 inaugural Australian Living Treasures by the National Trust of Australia.

Faith Bandler was then sent to Mackay, Queensland, before being sent to work on a sugar cane plantation.

Faith Bandler was later known as Peter Mussing, a lay preacher and worked on a banana plantation outside Murwillumbah.

Faith Bandler cited stories of her father's harsh experience as a slave labourer as a strong motivation for her activism.

In 1934, Faith Bandler left school and moved to Sydney, where she worked as a dressmaker's apprentice.

In 1956, Faith Bandler became a full-time activist, co-founding and becoming active in the Sydney-based Indigenous rights organisation Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship along with Pearl Gibbs, Bert Groves, and Grace Bardsley.

Faith Bandler became involved with the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement, which was formed in 1957.

The campaign, which included several massive petitions and hundreds of public meetings arranged by Faith Bandler, resulted in the 1967 referendum being put to the people by the Holt government.

In 1975, Faith Bandler visited Ambrym Island, where her father had been kidnapped 92 years before.

In 1974, Faith Bandler started working on four books, two histories of the 1967 referendum, an account of her brother's life in New South Wales, and a novel about her father's experience of blackbirding in Queensland.

In 1952, Faith married Hans Bandler, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, Austria, and lived in Frenchs Forest.

Faith Bandler died at the age of 96 in February 2015.