Submitted by Paul Daley on
The Museum of Australian Democracy is marking Bonner’s contribution to public life with a painting that traces his journey from a humpy on the Tweed to the Senate
It would be untrue to say the moderate Aboriginal activist Neville Bonner became the first of his people elected to federal parliament because he took the opportunities the Australian federal political system afforded him.
The truth is Bonner pushed through the openings he created for himself by assiduously straddling two competing worlds, one grounded in Indigenous tradition, the other almost exclusively the realm of white Australian male members of parliament.
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