{"id":1400,"date":"2015-02-22T22:21:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T22:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2015-02-22T22:21:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T22:21:38","slug":"mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO  &#8211; Remembering our icon."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1399\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration-624x519.png\" alt=\"Faith Bandler: Activist, author and Inspiration\" width=\"624\" height=\"519\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration-624x519.png 624w, https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png 668w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mrs Ida Lessing Faith Bandler (n\u00e9e Mussing) died today at the age of ninety-six.  Of Australian South Sea Islander and Scottish-Indian descent, Faith Bandler is considered as one of the top ten most important Australian leaders of the twentieth century and is profiled as such in the 1993 Australian Biography, \u2018 A series that profiles some of the most extraordinary Australian\u2019s of our time\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Faith was born in 1918, in Tumbulgum, northern NSW, the second youngest of eight children. At the age of 13, Faith\u2019s father Mr Peter Mussing was kidnapped under Australia\u2019s indentured labour trade from the island of Ambrym, Vanuatu and brought to work as a labourer in the Queensland cane fields at Mackay. Faith always regarded his coming to Australia as slavery, and said that he was never paid.<\/p>\n<p>After 14 years, he escaped from Queensland and settled on the Tweed and married Faith\u2019s mother who was of Scottish-Indian descent. Peter Mussing would later successfully challenge the deportation provisions of the Pacific Island Labourers Act of 1901. This act of mass deportation saw over 7,000 Melanesian labourers deported with minimal notice back to Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.  More than eighty islands were affected by the trade.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Clive Moore from University of Queensland said that he was saddened to hear of Faith Bandler\u2019s death.  \u201cI regard Faith as one of the greatest Australians of the twentieth century.  Marilyn Lake, in the title of her 2002 biography of Faith, described her as a \u201cgentle activist\u201d.  Faith was all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Malcolm Fraser described her \u201cability to inspire people of all races\u201d to take on the struggle for Indigenous Australian and South Sea Islander Australian rights.  Likewise, Fred Chaney, on the other side of politics, said that Faith was a charismatic leader who had a strong sense of justice.  Faith knew people in all walks of life and could lobby effectively at the highest levels, but she never forgot her humble upbringing in northern New South Wales.<\/p>\n<p>Faith in her early thirties was a peace activist. She had taken leave from her job as a dressmaker at David Jones in Sydney to attend a Soviet-sponsored youth festival in Berlin. Faith also toured Europe as a political dancer with the Margaret Walker Dance Group and performed at the Berlin Festival. When Faith returned home, skeptical of the communists, the security police confiscated her passport and had her sacked from her job.<\/p>\n<p>Faith\u2019s commitment as a gracious and savvy civil rights activist and leader assisted the establishment of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and led its successful \u2018right wrongs write YES\u2019 campaign in the 1967 referendum that saw the Commonwealth take power over Indigenous Australians away from the States and to have them counted in the national census.<\/p>\n<p>In 1974, Faith decided to direct her energies to the plight of her own people, the 16,000 descendants of South Sea Islanders. She founded the National Commission for Australian South Sea Islanders and, in 1975, made her first emotional journey to her father&#8217;s birthplace on Ambrym of which she talks about in a documentary.<\/p>\n<p>On her return, Faith worked closely with the Evatt Foundation and Australian South Sea Islanders leaders to produce the preliminary report on the social and economical status of her people, which triggered the 1992 Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission Report (HREOC\u2019s \u2018The Call for Recognition\u2019). This report led to her people, the South Sea Islander descendants of the indentured labour trade being recognised as a \u2018distinct cultural group\u2019 by the Commonwealth Government in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>Faith was a remarkable women, and she was a friend of many leading people in Australia, like Jessie Street, Charlie Perkins, Doug Nicholls, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Gough Whitlam, and internationally activists like the singer Paul Robson.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2012 we saluted Mrs Faith Bandler, as did the first woman Governor-General; Dame Quentin Bryce, honouring the daughter of a man taken from his South Sea island home to work as a slave in the Queensland cane fields. Mrs Faith Bandler received the highest honour the nation can award its people, the Companion in the Order of Australia Medal. Many years earlier she refused the offer of an MBE, saying she could never accept such as award from an empire that had enslaved her father.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Faith Bandler AO, some 22 years on since \u2018The Call for Recognition\u2019, ASSIs champion you for your foundation in working towards a united community.  You carried the baton for us, and today our people are still fighting for rightful inclusion in programs and services as the rhetoric of recognition lingers. We will never forget Aunty Faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mrs Ida Lessing Faith Bandler (n\u00e9e Mussing) died today at the age of ninety-six. Of Australian South Sea Islander and Scottish-Indian descent, Faith Bandler is considered as one of the top ten most important Australian leaders of the twentieth century and is profiled as such in the 1993 Australian Biography, \u2018 A series that profiles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Australian South Sea Islanders - Port Jackson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-22T22:21:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"668\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"556\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"w3media\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"w3media\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"w3media\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#\/schema\/person\/f4fd036803f57c51086d782f6838f5a0\"},\"headline\":\"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO &#8211; Remembering our icon.\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-02-22T22:21:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\"},\"wordCount\":772,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration-624x519.png\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\",\"name\":\"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration-624x519.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-02-22T22:21:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#\/schema\/person\/f4fd036803f57c51086d782f6838f5a0\"},\"description\":\"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png\",\"width\":668,\"height\":556,\"caption\":\"Faith Bandler: Activist, author and Inspiration\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/\",\"name\":\"Australian South Sea Islanders - Port Jackson\",\"description\":\"Representing the interests of Australian South Sea Islander people.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#\/schema\/person\/f4fd036803f57c51086d782f6838f5a0\",\"name\":\"w3media\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08b1573bd6321f8c673c1d63781e205992a1285a2f2fe71ff5551cf188a15f24?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08b1573bd6321f8c673c1d63781e205992a1285a2f2fe71ff5551cf188a15f24?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08b1573bd6321f8c673c1d63781e205992a1285a2f2fe71ff5551cf188a15f24?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g\",\"caption\":\"w3media\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/w3media.com.au\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/author\/w3media\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.","description":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.","og_description":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/","og_site_name":"Australian South Sea Islanders - Port Jackson","article_published_time":"2015-02-22T22:21:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":668,"height":556,"url":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"w3media","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"w3media","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/"},"author":{"name":"w3media","@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#\/schema\/person\/f4fd036803f57c51086d782f6838f5a0"},"headline":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO &#8211; Remembering our icon.","datePublished":"2015-02-22T22:21:38+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/"},"wordCount":772,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration-624x519.png","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/","url":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/","name":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration-624x519.png","datePublished":"2015-02-22T22:21:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#\/schema\/person\/f4fd036803f57c51086d782f6838f5a0"},"description":"Mrs Faith Bandler, AO - Remembering our icon.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/mrs-faith-bandler-ao-remembering-icon\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-content\/uploads\/faith-bandler-activist-author-and-inspiration.png","width":668,"height":556,"caption":"Faith Bandler: Activist, author and Inspiration"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/","name":"Australian South Sea Islanders - Port Jackson","description":"Representing the interests of Australian South Sea Islander people.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/#\/schema\/person\/f4fd036803f57c51086d782f6838f5a0","name":"w3media","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08b1573bd6321f8c673c1d63781e205992a1285a2f2fe71ff5551cf188a15f24?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08b1573bd6321f8c673c1d63781e205992a1285a2f2fe71ff5551cf188a15f24?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08b1573bd6321f8c673c1d63781e205992a1285a2f2fe71ff5551cf188a15f24?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g","caption":"w3media"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/w3media.com.au"],"url":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/author\/w3media\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assipj.com.au\/southsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}