Why we need Aboriginal role models

Apart from obvious reasons like inspiration, setting an example, or showing what is possible, there's a more opaque reason we need Aboriginal role models: the media.

Journalists lack interest in reporting about Aboriginal achievers. "When you hear of some brilliant Indigenous person working in any of the professional sectors," says Jeff McMullen, a journalist himself, "the media turns away... The media needs to shift its message to an empowering one that gives individuals and families as a whole a sense of inclusiveness.” ^[1]

Read my tips for journalists.

Who's missing? Let me know if you think there's a famous Aboriginal Australian missing from this page!

David Unaipon

If you live in Australia, do you know that you're probably carrying a famous Aboriginal man in your wallet? David Unaipon (1872 - 1967) was a Ngarrindjeri man, a preacher, inventor and writer. Among his patents was a helicopter design based on the principle of a boomerang. ^[2]

The front of Australia's 50-dollar note, first issued on 4 October 1995, features David Unaipon along with drawings from one of his inventions, and an extract from the original manuscript of his book Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines, for which he is known as the first Aboriginal author.^[3]

Before the redesign in 2018, the 50-dollar note showed a couple standing in front of Raukkan Church. They are Milerum "Clarence" Long (about 1869-1941) and Polly Beck who were living in the Raukkan community (Unaipon's birthplace) in the Coorong area, southeast of Adelaide, in the late 19th century. They are the great-grandfather and great-grandmother of Aboriginal footballer Michael O'Loughlin. ^[4] Milerum was the last initiated member of the local native tribe. He was highly respected and played a huge role in the recording of history of the native people of the Coorong area. The illustration is based on a photograph provided to the designer by Jean and Henry Rankine from Point McLeay. ^[5]

When the Reserve Bank of Australia issued the newly redesigned $50 banknote in October 2018, Westpac delivered a batch of banknotes to a branch in the small town of Tailem Bend, on the Murray River in South Australia, where David Unaipon died in 1967.^[6]

The new $50 banknote shows shields from Unaipon’s Ngarrindjeri nation which depict particular clan groups, lands and waters, and represent the kind of traditional technologies from which Unaipon drew inspiration for his own inventions.^[7] It depicts two types of shields used for defence against spears. The rounder of the two was made from the bark of the red gum tree, the slimmer shield from wood beneath the bark. Both were decorated with ochres, white pipeclay and carvings.^[8]

The banknote also includes references to a spiritual and cultural practice Unaipon wrote about, the Ngarrindjeri peoples’ spiritual connection to all living things (called Miwi).^[9] That connection, or sixth sense, is located in the pit of the stomach ^[10] and symbolised with an exchange of naval cords. The banknote includes two such cords painted by Yarraldi Aboriginal artist Muriel Van Der Byl.

David Unaipon fact file

Cathy Freeman

Cathy Freeman is one of the most well-known Aboriginal Australians. Her skills and achievements as a runner have been seen by people all over the world as she has competed in multiple Olympic Games.

Freeman's greatest achievement was being the first Aboriginal person to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event (400 metres sprint). Freeman was further honoured by being given a vital role at the Sydney Olympics (2000), which was the lighting of the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony.

On 28 April 2018, Cathy received the Order of Merit award, the Australian Olympic Committee's highest honour.

Cathy Freeman fact file

Neville Bonner

Neville Bonner was Australia's first Aboriginal politician. He then became a senator for Queensland and served for twelve years (1971-1983). He was also the first Aboriginal person to sit in federal parliament.

A central focus to his work as a politician involved improving the conditions of his fellow Aboriginal people. Bonner helped change the face of Aboriginal rights in Australia. He was an honest man who never let anger dominate his work.

Neville Bonner fact file

Archie Roach

Archie is Australia’s beloved, respected and admired Aboriginal singer/songwriter. He captured the hearts and minds of a nation in 1990 with his debut album Charcoal Lane and the landmark song Took The Children Away which tells the story when he was stolen from his family. Throughout his life Archie has worked tirelessly to heal the Stolen Generations.

In the late 1980s Archie and his long-term partner and soul mate Ruby Hunter formed a band, the Altogethers, with several other Aboriginal musicians.

In 2010 Ruby died, shattering Archie. In mid 2011 he was diagnosed with the early stages of lung cancer and had to go into rehabilitation.

Archie has gone from singing songs about suffering and pain to more uplifting songs after letting go of the past and overcoming his challenges.

Archie Roach fact file

Bronwyn Bancroft

Bronwyn Bancroft is an Australian artist who is amongst the first Australian fashion designers invited to show her work in Paris. Trained in Canberra and Sydney, Bancroft worked as a fashion designer, and is an artist, illustrator, and arts administrator.

In 1985, Bancroft established a shop called Designer Aboriginals, selling fabrics made by Aboriginal artists including herself. She is also a founding member of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative.

Art work by Bancroft is held by the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. She has provided art work for more than 20 children's books, including Stradbroke Dreaming by writer and Aboriginal activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal, and books by artist and writer Sally Morgan.

Bancroft has a long history of involvement in community activism and arts administration, and has served as a board member for the National Gallery of Australia. Her painting Prevention of AIDS (1992) was used in a campaign to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in Australia.

Bronwyn Bancroft fact file

Adam Goodes

Adam Goodes was a champion Australian Rules (AFL) football player with the Sydney Swans. He holds an elite place in AFL history, playing 372 matches over 18 years, winning two Brownlow Medals (2003 and 2006) and two premierships (2005 and 2012). Adam is a four-time All-Australian (2003, 2006, 2009, 2011), member of the Indigenous Team of the Century, has represented Australia in the International Rules Series and was inducted to the Sydney Swans Hall of Fame. He is also Australian of the Year 2014.

Adam was actively involved with several Aboriginal sport and community programs. He spent time working with troubled youth, including those in youth detention centres. Together with his cousin and former teammate Michael O’Loughlin, Adam established the Go Foundation which provides educational scholarships and support to the next generation, from kindergarten to tertiary level. Adam co-chairs the foundation, focused on promoting education, employment and healthy lifestyles. His other business, Indigenous Defence & Infrastructure Consortium, helps Aboriginal businesses to win contracts.

Adam is a great role model and advocate for the fight against racism both on and off the field. In 2013 he objected to a racist slur from a teenage fan. Because of this he endured more than 12 months of booing from audiences which led to a "I Stand With Adam" campaign against racism. In September 2015 Adam retired from AFL for good, exhausted, and booed until his last match. Twofilms document his 'final quarter'.

Adam Goodes fact file

Albert (Elea) Namatjira

Albert Namatjira (Elea is his birth name) was the first Aboriginal person to become an internationally renowned artist. He always enjoyed painting whilst he was growing up, but it was not until 1934 (aged 32 years) that he began to paint seriously. A man named Rex Battarbee taught Namatjira a lot about the skill of painting, and Namatjira showed Rex some of the best places to paint in Australia. Namatjira's art was very different to traditional Aboriginal art.

His first exhibition went on show in 1936 in Melbourne, where his paintings sold out. His success continued and his paintings became very valuable. Although he had become very successful and made a great deal of money, Namatjira still had to follow the strict laws placed on Aboriginal people during that time. He was not allowed to buy a home or any land, and could not rent a property.

In 1957, Namatjira became the first Aboriginal person to become an Australian citizen. His art and his life made governments aware of how Aboriginal people were being treated in Australia during that period.

Albert Namatjira fact file

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

Emily Kame Kngwarreye is one of Australia's most significant contemporary Aboriginal artists and one of the 12 bestselling female artists. Emily was born at the beginning of the 20th century and grew up in a remote desert area known as Utopia, 230 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs, distant from the art world that sought her work.

Although Emily began to paint late in her life she was a prolific artist who often worked at a pace that belied her advanced age. It is estimated that she produced more than 3,000 paintings in the course of her 8-year painting career—an average of one painting per day.

Her painting Earth's Creation (1995) first sold for $1.056 million and again in 2017 for $2.1 million. ^[11]

For virtually two-thirds of her life she had only sporadic contact with the outside world. It was not until she was about 80 that she became, almost overnight, an artist of national and international standing. She received the Australian Artist's Creative Fellowship award in 1992.

Her remarkable work was inspired by her cultural life as an Anmatyerre elder, and her lifelong custodianship of the women's Dreaming sites in her clan country, Alhalkere.

Emily Kame Kngwarreye fact file

Benn Harradine

Ben Harradine is the Australian and Commonwealth discus champion, and the first Australian male to reach the Olympics final in this discipline.

At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Harradine became the first Aboriginal athlete to represent Australia in a field event, and in 2010 the first Aboriginal Australian to win a gold field medal. ^[12] Benn is coached by his father Ken and Melbourne's stalwart throws coach Gus Puopolo.

Benn studied Exercise Physiology at University of Newcastle and Deakin University in Melbourne. He can speak German and a bit of Swedish (he lives part-time in Sweden). Benn only found out his Aboriginal heritage in 2005 when he was 22 after his father wrote letters trying to discover who his relatives were. ^[12]

He is a speaker and role model for young Australians of all backgrounds. He was a mentor for Athletics Australia's Jump Start to London 2012 program.

Benn Harradine fact file

Evonne Goolagong Cawley

Evonne Goolagong Cawley AO MBE is an Australian former World No. 1 female tennis player. She was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s, when she won 14 Grand Slam titles: 7 in singles (four Australian Open, two Wimbledon and one French Open), 6 in women's doubles, and one in mixed doubles.

Evonne, nicknamed Sunshine Supergirl, ranked in the top 10 for nine years and climbed to the top of the rankings for one week in 1976. She was the first Aboriginal Australian to win a Wimbledon Tennis Championship in 1971. She won Wimbledon again as a mother in 1980, only the second woman to do so. Nicknamed “Gong”, she finished her career in the mid-1980s.

Renowned for her grace, ethereal touch and fluid speed around the court, Goolagong Cawley started playing as a young girl by hitting a ball against a wall with a board from an apple crate. Spotted by a neighbour she started playing at the local tennis club before moving to Sydney as a 10-year-old where she went to school and received coaching.

In 1993, the NSW State Transit Authority named a RiverCat ferry in Sydney after Goolagong.

Evonne Goolagong Cawley fact file

Lowitja O'Donoghue

Lowitja O'Donoghue CBE AO (also known as Lois Smart) is an Aboriginal Australian retired public administrator. At the age of two she was taken away from her mother, who she was not to see for 33 years. She never met her Irish father from whom she inherits her last name.

In 1967 Lowitja joined the Commonwealth Public Service as a junior administrative officer in the Adelaide office of the newly formed Department of Aboriginal Affairs. After 8 years she became the Director of the Department's office in South Australia, a senior officer position, responsible for the local implementation of national Aboriginal welfare policy. This work was recognised in 1976 when Lowitja became the first Aboriginal woman to be inducted into the new Order of Australia.

In 1990, she was appointed inaugural chairperson of the now dissolved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC),^[14] a position she held until 1996.

In December 1992, O'Donoghue became the first Aboriginal Australian to address the United Nations General Assembly during the launch of the United Nations International Year of Indigenous People.

Following her retirement, she formally added the name Lowitja to her existing legal name, Lois O'Donoghue Smart, to emphasise her Luritjan heritage.

In February 2015 she launched the Lowitja Institute – Australia’s National Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research.

She continues to be a speaker, writer, mover and shaker on behalf of her people.

Lowitja O'Donoghue fact file

Anita Heiss

Anita is one of Australia’s most well-known Aboriginal writers. Her books range from historical novels to children’s books and poetry collections. In 2007 she released her first 'chick lit' title (or as she says, tongue-in-cheek, "choc lit" ^[15]) that sought to find common ground between mainstream and Aboriginal Australia and showed the difficulties of navigating relationships, especially for educated Aboriginal women.

She is constantly working to enhance her readers' understanding of Aboriginality for which she has been labelled "destroyer of stereotypes". ^[15]

She is also working for the publication of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, a snapshot of 200 years of Aboriginal literature.

Anita is a strong advocate for Aboriginal education and works to ensure that Aboriginal literature is written and produced by Aboriginal writers and companies.

Lots of my first dates turn into cultural awareness training workshops.

— Anita Heiss ^[15]

Anita Heiss fact file

Aboriginal Australians of the Year

Each year on Australia Day (January 26th) Australia honours the Australian of the Year, persons who "inspire us through their achievements and challenge us to make our own contribution to creating a better Australia" ^[16].

Here is a list of the Aboriginal Australians of the Year.

• 2014 Adam Goodes (AFL player)
• 2009 Mick Dodson (Professor of law)
• 1998 Cathy Freeman (athlete)
• 1992 Mandawuy Yunupingu (Yothu Yindi band leader)
• 1984 Lowitja O'Donoghue (nurse and ATSIC chairperson)
• 1979 Neville Bonner (first Aboriginal parliamentarian)
• 1978 Galarrwuy Yunupingu (Yolngu leader, brother of Mandawuy)
• 1971 Evonne Goolagong Cawley (tennis player)
• 1968 Lionel Rose (boxer)

Fact In 2014, there were 14 Aboriginal finalists for the Australian of the Year Awards. By 2015, one in 7 Australian of the Year recipients were Aboriginal.

It's this increasingly casual reaction to Indigenous achievement and success that is a marker of how far we've come. It's becoming unexceptional to have successful Indigenous filmmakers, artists, doctors, academics, lawyers, nurses and politicians. This is the other side, the often - and unfortunately - untold side, of the story we hear about Indigenous Australia.

— Mick Dodson, Australian of the Year 2009 ^[17]

Check out the collection of famous Aboriginal sports people.

Aboriginal role models

Who do you look up to? Who's inspiring you? A role model. We all need them to motivate us go through tough times and gather our self-discipline.

But there are only few notable Aboriginal Australian role models to inspire Aboriginal children. Politicians, actors, musicians, comedians—most of these in Australia are non-Indigenous.

Part of this problem is the high rate of Aboriginal unemployment, but also the appalling low rate of airplay for Aboriginal music and the few occasions where Australians can celebrate their Indigenous actors in Aboriginal films. Sport, particularly football and rugby league, is the only area where Aboriginal players are so successful that, at times, they outshine their non-Indigenous team mates.

Video: Role Models and Leaders Australia

Role Models and Leaders Australia (RMLA) is a not-for-profit charitable organisation which aims to develop and empower Aboriginal youth through leadership, sport and education. It runs Girls' Academy programs in high schools with Aboriginal girls in Years 7 through to 12 who experience poverty, sickness, misfortune or disconnectedness from their community. RMLA operates several Aboriginal Girls Academies across WA, the NT and NSW, catering to more than 850 Aboriginal girls.

Case study: Samantha Harris

Samantha came into modelling when she was 10 or 11 years old. Since then her modelling career has brought her success and fame. She is now considered a role model for Aboriginal children ^[18].

The daughter of a father of English-German descent and an Aboriginal mother, Samantha grew up in Tweed Heads, northern NSW. From an early age her mother entered her in child beauty pageants.

While in high school she won a Dolly Magazine model workshop, and about 2 years later became a finalist in Girlfriend magazine's Model Search.

Harris became aware of her Aboriginality, and that her mother is a member of the Stolen Generations.

Being called a role model for Aboriginal children now sits comfortably with Samantha, although it initially confused her—being relatively young herself.

Harris is an ambassador for the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence in Sydney, and One Laptop per Child Australia. Once a year she travels to Uluru to mentor young and aspiring models.

The Sydney Morning Herald listed her among the "most influential people in Australian fashion" in 2016.

Samantha Harris fact file

[Being a role model] I think it's great that indigenous girls can look up to me and they can set goals for themselves because I have pursued what I have wanted to do.

— Samantha Harris ^[19]