Neville Thomas Bonner Research Paper

Neville Thomas Bonner was the first Indigenous member of commonwealth parliament.

Neville Thomas was born under the palm tree on 28th March, 1922 on Ukerebagh Island in the Tweed River in the Northern New South Wales. He was the second son of Henry Bonner, an English migrant and Julia Rebecca, an Aboriginal from Jagera people. Henry deserted Julia when Neville Thomas was a small boy. After that Bonner moved to another Aboriginal place, Lismore with his mother where she met Frank Randell, who was her de-facto relation and Bonner’s step father.

Thomas Bonner was not allowed to go to normal school because he was an Aboriginal child. At the time only white people’s children were allowed. He finished some formal school. His first school was a

They lived in Hughenden, where he found nomadic work and his first son, Patrick was born. Bonner did many jobs, for example he was a seasonal worker on the mainland, native policeman of Palm Island and advancing position of assistant worker overseer with responsibility for about 300 people.

Neville Bonner became director of Native Affairs of Brisbane in 1957. Then he moved to Ipswich in 1960, where he related with the One People Australia League and he worked there for several years. After a decade he became the president of One People Australia League in Queensland. In 1971 he was the first Aboriginal person, who set in the commonwealth parliament.

Bonner worked on a number of committees in the Senate but he was never serious nominee for promotion to the ministry of the McMahon or governments. He refused to obey orders against the LIBERAL PARTY line on some issues. As a result he resigned from there and ran for the senate as an independent in 1983. A year later he was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia. From 1992 to1996 he was a member of the Griffith University Council, where he was awarded honorary doctorate in 1993. In 1998 he was selected as a nominee of Australians for the Constitutional Convention by the Constitutional