1. Michael Alexander Mansell was born on 5 June 1951 and is a Tasmanian Aboriginal activist and lawyer who has campaigned for social, political and legal changes.
22 Facts About Michael Mansell
1. 2.
Michael Mansell was born in 1951 in Launceston, Tasmania, the son of Clyda and Clarence Michael Mansell.
3.
Michael Mansell is a third-generation Cape Barren Islander, descended from the unions of Bass Strait sealers and Aboriginal women, including Watanimarina and Thomas Beeton and Black Judy and Edward Mansell.
4.
Michael Mansell's parents grew up on the Cape Barren Island reserve and moved to Launceston after World War II for employment reasons.
5.
Michael Mansell left school at the age of 15 and took a job at the Bell Bay aluminium smelter, later working for Tasmanian Government Railways as a labourer where he was "sacked when he punched a workmate who taunted him about his Aboriginal origins".
6.
Michael Mansell played senior Australian rules football as a young man, debuting for the Launceston Football Club at the age of 17.
7.
From an early age, Michael Mansell was a radical protester about the status and treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal people within the community.
8.
Michael Mansell undertook a degree in law at the University of Tasmania, graduating in 1983.
9.
Michael Mansell began a career as a lawyer, attempting to defend the rights of Aboriginal people, whilst pursuing an agenda of reform.
10.
Michael Mansell was the founding secretary of the Aboriginal Provisional Government in 1990.
11.
Michael Mansell played senior football for North Hobart in the Tasmanian Football League.
12.
Michael Mansell was named "Aboriginal of the Year", at the 1987 National NAIDOC Awards, and played a crucial role in the drafting of legislation for the Native Title Act 1993 that arose from the Mabo v Queensland case.
13.
Michael Mansell was an independent candidate to represent Tasmania in the Australian Senate at the 1987 Australian federal election held on 11 July 1987.
14.
Michael Mansell was unsuccessful, receiving 1,102 votes.
15.
Subjects that Michael Mansell has written about include the Australian Constitution, Aboriginal customary law, cultural and intellectual property, the Human Genome Project, land rights and Aboriginal sovereignty.
16.
Michael Mansell has often been involved in public confrontation with politicians and the media.
17.
Michael Mansell said he had Gaddafi's support for the establishment of an independent Aboriginal nation.
18.
Michael Mansell has suggested that Indigenous Australians should be granted a separate state or territory within Australia, which would be governed by Indigenous people and allow for greater self-determination.
19.
In 2001 Michael Mansell stated that "there were more phoney than real Aborigines in Tasmania and more than half the voters in the 1996 ATSIC election were not Aboriginal".
20.
In February 2008 Michael Mansell said on Australian radio that although he was happy that the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would offer a formal public apology on behalf of all Australians for the treatment of the "Stolen Generations", he referred to it as a "half-measure" if it was without compensation.
21.
Michael Mansell was one of 16 pale-skinned Aboriginal people named in a series of articles written by Andrew Bolt and published in the Herald Sun newspaper in 2009.
22.
In January 2020, Michael Mansell issued a three-page statement saying he does not believe Bruce Pascoe has Indigenous ancestry, and Pascoe should stop claiming he does.