Neville Thomas Bonner (28 March 19225 February 1999) was an Australian politician, and the first Aboriginal Australian to become a member of the Parliament of Australia. He was appointed by the Queensland Parliament to fill a casual vacancy in the representation of Queensland in the Senate in 1971, and in 1972 became the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to the parliament by popular vote. Bonner was an elder of the Jagera people.

Early life

Bonner was born on 28 March 1922 on Ukerebagh Island, a small island in the Tweed River of New South Wales close to the border with Queensland. He was the son of Julia Bell, an Indigenous Australian, and Henry Kenneth Bonner, an English immigrant. His maternal grandmother Ida Sandy was a member of the Ugarapul people of the Logan and Albert Rivers, while his maternal grandfather Roger Bell (or Jung Jung) was a fully initiated member of the Jagera people of the Brisbane River. According to Bonner, his grandfather was "sort of captured ... out of the tribe" as a young boy and given an English name.

Bonner's parents met and married in Murwillumbah, New South Wales. His father abandoned his mother when she was pregnant with him, leaving her destitute. She subsequently moved to the Aboriginal reserve on Ukerebagh Island, where she had another son. After about five years, the family moved near Lismore, New South Wales, to be closer to Bonner's grandparents, living on the banks of the Richmond River under a lantana bush. His mother subsequently had three children with Frank Randell, an Aboriginal man who was employed by the local police. One of his half-brothers died as a child and he "witnessed frequent acts of violence by Randell against his mother".

Early activism and political involvement

While living in Ipswich, Queensland, Bonner joined the Coloured Welfare Council, which later merged into the One People of Australia League (OPAL). He was elected to OPAL's state committee in 1965 and served as president from 1968 to 1974. Bonner was considered a moderate within the Indigenous community, In 1970 he criticised the Black Power movement as divisive and likely to provoke racial conflict.

Bonner joined the One Mile branch of the Liberal Party in 1967, having attended meetings for several years at the invitation of his future stepdaughter Robyn Kunde. He campaigned for the "Yes" vote on behalf of the Liberal Party at the 1967 referendum on Indigenous Australians. He had previously voted for the Australian Labor Party (ALP), but was "annoyed that Labor should presume the automatic support of Aboriginal people" after an incident where the local Labor MP Bill Hayden challenged his decision to hand out Liberal-branded how-to-vote cards. His candidacy was reported by The Canberra Times as "the first time that a major party has endorsed an Aboriginal candidate for the Senate". He was the first Indigenous Australian to sit in federal parliament. However, he was "never seriously considered for a federal ministerial position". Fred Chaney believed that appointment as a minister would have interfered with his activism, while others believed that his lack of formal education and administrative experience counted against him.

Bonner regularly crossed the floor to vote against his party. According to a 2019 study, he crossed the floor on 34 occasions during his Senate term, the fourth-most of any member of parliament since 1950 behind only his Liberal colleagues Reg Wright, Ian Wood and Alan Missen.

The reaction to Bonner's election among the Indigenous community was mixed. He received death threats and on a visit to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy received "a steady stream of racial taunts from protestors during an outdoor interview". At the 1971 FCAATSI conference, Harold Blair denounced Bonner as a "black Judas" and stated "we do not regard him as a member of our race any longer". He received some support from Aboriginal university students who distributed how-to-vote cards urging voters to "put some colour in Canberra". In 1982, Bonner stated that he had "played the white man's game" and had to "consolidate myself within the party structure" to extend his time in parliament, allowing him to accomplish more as a result.

Bonner resigned from the Liberal Party on 11 February 1983 and announced he would recontest his seat as an independent. He rejected an invitation from Kath Walker to stand on a joint ticket. Bonner self-funded his campaign, driving around Queensland, and accordingly to The Canberra Times was "given more time on regional radio, television or newspapers than any other Independent, the Democrats, and, in many places, the Liberals". He was narrowly defeated by Democrats candidate Michael Macklin for the final vacancy in Queensland, polling 6.7 percent of the statewide vote.

Political views

Aboriginal affairs

Bonner's primary interest in the Senate was Aboriginal affairs. In his maiden speech he emphasised the importance of education and "wished to see Aboriginal Australians retain their cultural identity, while acquiring the economic, educational and social opportunities that white Australians took for granted".

Bonner was critical of the Whitlam government's attempts to expand the role of the federal government in Indigenous affairs. In 1973 he criticised the newly created National Aboriginal Consultative Committee (NACC) for the low enrolment figures in its elections and said that the creation of the body was a form of apartheid that would "divide Aborigines not only among themselves but also from the rest of the Australian community". In the same year he opposed the government's attempts to move the Australian border with Papua New Guinea and presented a petition by Torres Strait Islanders requesting to remain Australian citizens. Bonner also criticised the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Queensland Discriminatory Laws) Act 1975, which sought to override Queensland state laws, and said that if the government wanted to "go into Queensland and take control of Aborigines [...] they will do so over my dead body". However his relationship with Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen "gradually deteriorated", In the same year he supported Aboriginal protests during the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, although he unsuccessfully tried to prevent a march that had been deemed illegal.

East Timor

Bonner was a long-time supporter of the East Timorese independence movement. In September 1975, during the East Timorese civil war, he visited East Timor with Labor MPs Ken Fry and Arthur Gietzelt, where they met with Fretilin leaders including José Ramos-Horta. He subsequently criticised Gough Whitlam for the failure of the Australian government to provide humanitarian aid. Following the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975, Bonner told parliament that he had attempted to warn both Whitlam and Liberal shadow minister Andrew Peacock of the situation and that "all of us [...] should hang our heads in shame". In April 1977, he said that Fraser and Peacock had "blood on their hands" for their failure to support East Timor after the invasion. He subsequently crossed the floor to support a Senate inquiry into East Timor.

Later life

Following Bonner's electoral defeat, incoming ALP prime minister Bob Hawke publicly promised him a government post. He briefly acted as ABC chairman in April 1984, and in June 1986 was reappointed to a further five-year term on the board, concluding in 1991.

Bonner was a member of the council of Griffith University Council from 1992 to 1996 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1993. In 1998 he was elected to the Constitutional Convention as a candidate of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. He was made a life member of the Liberal Party in the same year. He died at a hospice in Ipswich on 5 February 1999, aged 76. He was granted a state funeral, held at St Stephen's Church, and interred at Warrill Park Lawn Cemetery. along with naturalist Harry Butler. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1984.

The head office of the Queensland Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services in Brisbane, built in 1999, was named the Neville Bonner Building. Despite having won two architectural awards (the RAIA Beatrice Hutton Award for Commercial Building 1999, a national award, and the RAIA (Queensland) F.D.G Stanley Award & Regional Commendation 1999), it was demolished in 2017 to make way for the Queen's Wharf development. The Neville Bonner Bridge, a footbridge built in 2023, and opened in August 2024, is part of the new development.

The Neville Bonner Memorial Scholarship was established by the federal government in 2000, a scholarship for Indigenous Australians to study Honours in political science or related subjects at any recognised Australian university.

In 2002, the Neville Bonner Award for Indigenous Education was introduced as part of the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT), which were established by the federal government in 1997. The inaugural award was won jointly by Marcia Langton and Larissa Behrendt.

A multipurpose 47bed hostel, managed by Aboriginal Hostels Limited, located in the Rockhampton suburb of Berserker, was redeveloped and reopened in July 2002 as the Neville Bonner Hostel.

The Queensland federal electorate of Bonner was created in 2004 and was named in his honour.

The suburb of Bonner in Canberra, created around 2008, bears his name.

In 2025, a statue was erected on the grounds of Old Parliament House that memorialises Bonner's boomerang-throwing demonstration.

Personal life

Bonner married Mona Banfield in 1943, in a Catholic ceremony at Palm Island's mission. His great-niece Joanna Lindgren was appointed to the Senate in 2015.

Bonner was taught to make boomerangs by his grandfather. In 1966, he established a boomerang manufacturing business named Bonnerang, with the assistance of his family. The boomerangs were handmade from the roots of black wattle trees, as Bonner refused to use synthetic materials. His company produced up to 450 boomerangs per week, but folded after a year due to a shortage of wood. After being elected to parliament, Bonner gave a boomerang demonstration in the gardens of Parliament House. In his maiden speech he called on the intellectual property of the boomerang to be reserved for Indigenous people, as non-Indigenous people were producing cheap synthetic properties. One of his boomerangs is held by the Museum of Australian Democracy.

See also

  • List of Indigenous Australian politicians

References

Further reading

  • Listing of Neville Bonner's life in published media & books
  • Classroom Resource
  • Episode on Bonner's life and career on Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National's Hindsight program