Jessie Street National Women's Library

14/09/2026

The Alice Wheeldon Story – When Conscience Became a Casualty of War | Deidre and Chloë Mason

On 20 February 2014 Deidre and Chloë Mason presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.

About Deidre and Chloë Mason

The late Deidre Mason and her sister Chloë shared a family heritage of peace and social justice activism. Their great grandmother Alice Wheeldon, a suffragist and courageous anti-war campaigner, was subjected in 1917 to a questionable conviction for conspiracy to murder Britain’s Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.

Deidre and Chloë were both activists from an early age, joining their parents in anti-war, anti-arms race and anti-conscription action. They were unaware of their family’s rich heritage of standing for social justice until just prior to their father’s death.
Deirdre Mason died in 2017 after a lifetime of activism. Her sister, Chloë Mason, continued the work and in 2019 submitted an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission seeking referral of the Wheeldon case to the Court of Appeal and the quashing of the convictions.

Chloë continues to write and speak about the injustice suffered by her family and its wider implications, including the human costs of war, undercover policing of political movements and the integrity of the criminal justice system.

Summary of the presentation

Chloë and Deirdre Mason told a poignant story of persecution suffered by their family during the First World War and its enduring impact across generations. Their parents revealed the truth only in 1986, when their father was dying. Until then, the sisters knew little of their grandparents’ imprisonment or the events that had shaped their father’s life.

Their great-grandmother, Alice Wheeldon, was a socialist, suffragist and anti-war activist in Derby. In December 1916, a Ministry of Mu*****ns security agent, posing as a conscientious objector, approached Alice and offered to arrange safe passage to America for members of her family in return for poison allegedly intended for guard dogs at a London internment camp. Alice obtained the poison from her son-in-law Alf Mason, a dispensing chemist, and handed it to the agent. The agent subsequently reported a supposed plot to poison Prime Minister David Lloyd George and others.

A highly publicised trial followed in 1917. Alice, her daughter Winnie and Alf were convicted and imprisoned. The case was used to discredit anti-war activists, while Alice was portrayed as a dangerous criminal. She died in 1919 and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Decades later, research began to challenge the official version of events. Historian Nicholas Hiley uncovered evidence that the undercover operation extended beyond suspected German activity to surveillance of socialists, suffragists and anti-war campaigners. In 2013, Alice’s reputation was further restored when a blue plaque was erected on her former home, describing her as an ‘anti-war activist, socialist, suffragist’.

At the time of presenting the talk Deidre and Chloë Mason were continuing their campaign to clear the family’s name, highlighting the dangers of secrecy, undercover policing and failures of disclosure. Their story demonstrates how wartime repression can create injustices that endure long after the conflict has ended.
Postscript: On 15 June 2022, the BBC reported that the Criminal Cases Review Commission had declined to refer the convictions of the three people found guilty of conspiring to assassinate the prime minister to the Court of Appeal. While acknowledging that the application raised credible grounds for questioning the convictions, the Commission considered the age of the case and the likely cost of further proceedings. It nevertheless noted that the evidence presented could create a ‘real possibility’ that the convictions might ultimately be overturned. Downloads of the application, the CCRC's decision, and response to it are online (https://alicewheeldon.org/criminal-cases-review-commission).

Margot Simington’s report on Deidre and Chloë Mason’s talk was published in the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter Volume 25, Number 2, May 2014. A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.

www.nationalwomenslibrary.org.au

14/09/2026

Australia's first female High Court judge.
"While serving on the High Court, she contributed to decisions that shaped Australian law, including the landmark native title case, Mabo vs Queensland.
In the decision, Ms Gaudron and fellow High Court judge William Deane wrote of Aboriginal dispossession as "the darkest aspect of the history of this country"."
Vale Mary Gaudron.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-14/australia-first-female-high-court-judge-mary-gaudron-dies/107149916?fbclid=IwY2xjawUUfZJwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR7y-OjNtmxFNDHU07-q4RBtjt5ln-p1ZHWdFoNM2mKJbMV1OUtrD-xaw40pzw_aem_6oGeIOznb9w43sTn6zBIYQ

Pioneering Australian judge Mary Gaudron has been honoured for her contributions to Australia's legal landscape after her death at age 83.

13/09/2026

I’m not racist but… | Dr Anita Heiss

On 18 November 1999 Dr Anita Heiss presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.

About Dr Anita Heiss

Dr Anita Heiss is a member of the Wiradjuri nation of central NSW and one of Australia’s most prolific and well-known authors. Her publications include the historical novel “Who Am I? The Diary of Mary Talence”, “Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight) – Publishing Aboriginal Literature”, and “The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature”, co-authored with Peter Minter. Her adult fiction includes “Not Meeting Mr Right”, “Avoiding Mr Right”, “Manhattan Dreaming”, “Paris Dreaming” and “Tiddas”. “Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms” was longlisted for the Dublin International Literary Prize. She also edited “Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia”, which was named Small Publisher Adult Book of the Year at the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards.
Anita has also made a significant contribution to children’s literature, including “Kicking Goals with Goodesy and Magic”, co-written with Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin, and “Yirra and her Deadly Dog, Demon”, developed with students from La Perouse Public School.

A passionate advocate for Indigenous literacy, Anita has worked in remote communities, encouraging young Indigenous Australians to write and share their stories.

Anita is a Lifetime Ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and an Ambassador for the GO Foundation, Worawa Aboriginal College and the Sydney Swans. She is Publisher at Large for Bundyi Publishing, a First Nations imprint of Simon & Schuster, and continues to work as an author, public speaker, MC and advocate for Indigenous literature.

Summary of the presentation

Our final speaker for 1999 allowed the series to finish on a real high. Anita gave of herself with energy, enthusiasm and commitment. She provoked much laughter, but there was always a serious intent behind the comedy pieces.

At the outset Anita declared she was there to talk about her writing, not to answer questions on Aboriginal health, housing, land rights, ATSIC etc. But of course, her work makes effective use of such issues, operating through irony and comedy; 'taking the p**s' as she says.

On the issues of political correctness : everyone now wants a blackfella at everything, whether or not it's relevant. Anita feels she was a victim of that when she was the only Aboriginal invited to the Byron Bay Writers Festival a few years ago. Out of that experience she wrote the poetry collection Token Koori. It also gave her the idea for a skit that was broadcast on Radio National. Here is an edited version. Anita works for Rent-a-Koori − we hear what happens when a customer calls.

“Token Kooris − blackfellas for hire. We provide Aboriginals for weddings, parties, panels, protests, conferences, christenings, cabarets, corroborrees, homecomings, house warmings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, balls, barbecues, benefits and for all denominations. All major credit cards and government cheques accepted. Your call is very important to us. Please hold. ... Sorry to keep you waiting. How may I help you? So you want a Koori - who looks like a Koori of course...They must have dark skin and a fat nose and skinny ankles... Oh, you want them to speak pidgin? Right. So what is it you want them to do? Speak on land rights, history, art, kinship system, Aboriginal law, sacred sites - oh, and sacred rites as well. But you don't want them to mention genocide or invasion?...You want them to play the didgeridoo, cook bush tucker throw a boomerang...and do a traditional dance. Right Yes, Well, for all of that we charge $250 a day for a surrogate Aborigine and only $100 for the real thing, because you know they don't get paid the same, right?”

The above gives some idea of the flavour of Anita's talk. She also read us her alternative preamble to the constitution Anita had some criticism of the Australian history curriculum in our high schools. She recounted an experience at one school she was visiting, talking to senior students, and she could not get any response from them. She did not know if they had ever met an Aboriginal before, so she started asking them questions. Had they read Sally Morgan's book? But they said they were reading Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith − this was in 1998. Anita asked why they were reading that and the teacher replied 'that was all the library had'. So, thought Anita, rather than read nothing, they were reading a book by a white person about an Aboriginal axe-murderer!

Anita's parents (mother born on a mission near Cowra; father Austrian) have been her inspiration. She did her university honours thesis on the 1967 referendum and citizenship rights for Aborigines because, at that time, her father who was not an Australian citizen, was counted in the census; her sister − the daughter of a white man, was counted; heads of cattle were counted; but her Aboriginal mother was not.

Anita said that at the age of 22, she vowed she would fight until she was in tears about stuff, but at the age of 31, she now knows which fights she can win. She has learned to direct her energies in different ways. It would seem from her talk this day that she is fighting the good fight very successfully; with wit, humour and disarming honesty. Buy her books, watch her perform, listen to her voice. Be glad we have Anita Heiss to push us along towards a better understanding of her people − and of ourselves.

Jane Pollard prepared the report on the Lunch Hour Talk presented by Anita Heiss on 18 November 1999 for the May 2000 issue of Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter. A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.

www.nationalwomenslibrary.org.au

12/09/2026

Life in a Black and White Country | Cecile Yazbek

On 21 November 2008 Cecile Yazbek presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.

About Cecile Yazbek

Cecile Yazbek was born in South Africa into a Lebanese family and grew up during the apartheid era. She studied social sciences at Rhodes University in Grahamstown before working as a voluntary community worker in Cape Town.

In 1986, Yazbek migrated to Sydney with her young family. In Australia, she established Cecile’s Vegetarian Kitchen, a cooking school and catering service, while also working as a volunteer coordinator with Mercy Family. Her experiences of migration, community work and her Lebanese-South African heritage have informed her writing.

Yazbek’s first book, Olive Trees Around My Table: Growing Up Lebanese in the Old South Africa, is a memoir of her childhood and explores her experiences growing up within a Lebanese family and community in apartheid-era South Africa.

Her later fiction draws on the complex social and political world she experienced in South Africa. Her writing invites readers into the turbulent and interconnected lives of communities living under apartheid, exploring questions of identity, culture, family and belonging. Her Lebanese heritage and experience of growing up in South Africa have given her a distinctive perspective on the different cultural and social worlds that shaped her life and work.

Summary of the presentation

Cecile Yazbek’s Lunch Hour Talk drew on her reflections on her childhood in apartheid-era South Africa, her Lebanese family background and the experiences that shaped her opposition to racism and injustice.

A major influence was her father, a lawyer who had personally experienced racial discrimination and later became a committed anti-racist lawyer. From childhood, Cecile Yazbek heard the stories of people affected by apartheid and its complex system of racial classification.

She also reflected on the contradictions of growing up in a materially privileged household that employed African domestic and garden workers. Although some, including her nursemaid Rosie, became close to the family, she recognised that these relationships existed within a fundamentally unequal racial system.

The most powerful episode concerns Victor, an African gardener who became seriously ill when Yazbek was fifteen. Although Cecile called an ambulance, the driver refused to assist Victor after discovering that he was black. She described this experience as contributing to the anger about injustice that later informed her writing.

After moving to Australia in 1986, Cecile Yazbek began recording childhood memories for her children. She explains that she writes largely through the voice of the child she once was, attempting to express experiences for which she had no words at the time.
When Cecile gave the Lunch Hour Talk her book had been in print for 13 months. She recounted that she had received letters, emails and phone call from many people, quite distressed at their lack of knowledge of the facts of life under apartheid.

An abbreviated version of Cecile Yazbek’s presentation prepared by Kris Clark was published in the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter Volume 20 Number 1 Feb 2009. A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.

https://nationalwomenslibrary.org.au/

11/09/2026

The Art of Reading Other People’s Mail |
Dr Jacqueline Kent

On 17 April 2003 Dr Jacqueline Kent presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.

About Dr Jacqueline Kent

Dr Jacqueline Kent is a Sydney-based journalist, broadcaster, editor, reviewer, biographer and non-fiction writer whose career has encompassed journalism, radio and television, book editing, literary criticism, teaching and arts administration. She began her career with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, working as a journalist, radio producer and scriptwriter, before moving into book editing and freelance writing.

Kent has established a distinguished reputation as a biographer, particularly for her studies of the lives of women whose achievements and experiences illuminate broader Australian social and cultural history. Her first major biography, “A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, a Literary Life” (2001), explored the career of the influential Australian book editor Beatrice Davis. The book won both the National Biography Award and the Nita B. Kibble Literary Award in 2002.

Her subsequent biographies include “An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin” (2008), about the pianist and social activist, and “The Making of Julia Gillard” (2009), the first full biography of Australia's first woman prime minister. She later published “Take Your Best Shot: The Prime Ministership of Julia Gillard” (2013) and “Vida: A Woman for Our Time” (2020), her biography of pioneering feminist, suffragist and social reformer Vida Goldstein. Her memoir “Beyond Words: A Year with Kenneth Cook” (2019) was shortlisted for the National Biography Award.
Kent holds a Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Technology Sydney, awarded for her research into biography and the life of Hephzibah Menuhin. Her recent work includes “Bonjour, Mademoiselle!” with Tom Roberts, a biography of trans pioneer April Ashley, and “Inconvenient Women: Australian Radical Writers 1900–1970” (2025), which brings renewed attention to radical Australian women writers and their political and social activism.

Summary of the presentation

Titled “The art of reading other people’s mail”, Jacqueline Kent’s talk explored the art and craft of biography, emphasising that biography is fundamentally a form of storytelling. While traditionally biography often presented an exemplary life to be admired, contemporary biography draws on some of the techniques of fiction to transform extensive research into a compelling narrative. Its enduring popularity, she suggested, reflects our curiosity about other people: their personalities, motivations, relationships and experiences.

She stressed that successful biography requires more than assembling facts about a person’s life. The biographer must develop empathy and seek an insight into the subject’s mind and character. This involves understanding the complexity of the individual, their circumstances and the historical period in which they lived. Intuition can help the biographer interpret evidence and construct a portrait, but imagination must always be grounded in verifiable facts and reality. The resulting story must also remain engaging for the reader.

Jacqueline went on to illustrate these principles through her biography of Beatrice Davis, one of Australia’s most influential editors. Davis played an important role in establishing the importance of Australian writing for Australian readers at a time when Australian literature was often regarded as inferior to British writing. Although Davis declined Kent’s request to interview her, she left an extensive documentary trail in the A&R collection at the Mitchell Library. Letters, editorial correspondence, publicity material and photographs enabled Kent to reconstruct Davis’s professional life and relationships.

Reading this correspondence offered insights into the often complex relationship between authors and editors, including the tensions surrounding editorial judgement and creative authority. Kent demonstrated how seemingly small annotations and exchanges can reveal personality, emotion and professional relationships.

Ultimately, Kent’s talk presented biography as a careful balance between research and storytelling. By combining documentary evidence with empathy, historical understanding and the techniques of narrative writing, the biographer can bring an individual life − and particularly voices that might otherwise be forgotten − vividly into the present.

Shirley Jones’ summary of Dr Kent’s talk was published in the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter Volume 14, Number 2, June 2003. A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.

https://nationalwomenslibrary.org.au/

10/09/2026

Indigenous representation in museums – Politics behind politics
Dr Dawn Casey PSM

On 15 July 2010 during NAIDOC Week Dr Dawn Casey PSM presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.

About Dawn Casy PSM

Dawn Casey has built an extensive career in Indigenous affairs, cultural heritage and public policy, holding senior positions across both Commonwealth and Queensland governments and major cultural institutions.

In 1999 she became Director of the National Museum of Australia, a position she held until 2003. During her directorship, she was responsible for the Museum’s collections, preservation and research covering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, Australian society since 1788, and the relationship between Australians and their environment.
Dawn Casey is also a former director of the Powerhouse Museum, Western Australian Museum and a former council member of the University of Western Australia, Charles Sturt University and the University of Canberra; and chair of Indigenous Business Australia and the Indigenous Land Corporation.

Her awards for achievements include: Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities; Honorary Doctorate of Arts, Charles Sturt University; Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy, University of Queensland; Australia Day Public Service Medal (2004); Centenary of Federation Medal (2001) and the Clem Cummings Award for the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (2002).

Summary of the presentation

Indigenous representation in museums today has changed considerably compared with only a few decades ago. The question is: how has this happened, and why?

From 1788, Europeans took an intense interest in Australia’s flora, fauna and Aboriginal people. Aboriginal objects, photographs, films, sacred objects and human remains entered museum collections in Australia and overseas on a large scale. Motivations included scientific research, but also vulgar curiosity and sensationalism. There was an assumption that Europeans had a right to explore, classify, understand and display the human and natural world. Indigenous sensitivities were often considered less important than the interests of collecting institutions.

Indigenous people challenged museum practices as part of wider campaigns for human rights, land rights and recognition of cultural heritage. By the late 1980s, the fight for repatriation of human remains and secret/sacred objects was well underway. Aboriginal artist Ros Langford argued in 1983 that Indigenous culture and heritage should be controlled and shared ‘on our terms’.

In 2001 Australian museums held around 7,000 Indigenous remains; many have since been returned for reburial. Previous Possessions − New Obligations (1993), revised as Continuous Cultures − Ongoing Responsibilities (2003), reflected major changes in museum attitudes. Museums increasingly recognise custodianship rather than ownership, the importance of stories and intangible cultural knowledge, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures as living, contemporary cultures, and the need for genuine relationships with traditional custodians.

Museums are repositories of collective memory and places of education, inspiration and emotional engagement. They are also civic spaces where different viewpoints can be encountered and debated. Museums have become cultural storybooks, bringing objects, technology and personal stories together.

The Melbourne Museum (2000) and National Museum of Australia (2001) incorporated previously underrepresented histories, including massacres and the Stolen Generations. Video, digital media, Indigenous artwork and personal testimony allowed Indigenous people to tell their own stories. These approaches transformed visitors from observers into participants.

Museums cannot avoid being political: what they choose to tell – and what they omit – is inherently political. Exhibitions can challenge audiences more directly than books because they confront visitors physically and publicly. Aboriginal art can be both aesthetically powerful and a means of addressing dispossession, violence, identity and social justice.

Interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures has increased greatly. Yet there remains a danger of desensitisation to continuing discussions of disadvantage and dispossession. Aboriginal art remains a powerful way of witnessing to the truth and bringing human rights issues into the public arena. We should celebrate and encourage the role of Aboriginal art in telling these stories.

The report on Dr Casey’s talk was published in the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter Volume 21 Numbers 3/4 Jul/Nov 2010. A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.

https://nationalwomenslibrary.org.au/

09/09/2026

Peace, Not War
Dr Carmen Lawrence AO

On 6 March 2003 Dr Carmen Lawrence AO presented the inaugural Jessie Street National Women’s Library, Canberra, Library Lunch Hour Talk. The Canberra group was one of a number of groups set up outside Sydney in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

About Carmen Lawrence

Carmen Lawrence was born in 1948 in Northam, Western Australia. She attended the University of Western Australia between 1965 and 1968 and completed a PhD in 1983.
She entered the Western Australian Legislative Assembly in 1986, winning the seat of Subiaco for the Australian Labor Party. Following an electoral redistribution, she represented Glendalough in 1989 and 1993.

She replaced Premier Peter Dowding in February 1990, becoming the first woman to serve as a state premier in Australia. Following the defeat of her government at the February 1993 election, she served as Leader of the Opposition in Western Australia. In 1994, she entered federal politics, winning the seat of Fremantle at the 1994 federal election.

On entering the House of Representatives, she was appointed to the portfolios of Human Services and Health and was also Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Interests. She held these positions until the government was defeated in March 1996.

In 2003 Carmen Lawrence was the first woman to be elected National President of the Australian Labor Party. She was also the first to be directly elected by party members.
She retired from politics in 2007.

In 2022, Carmen Lawrence was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her ‘distinguished service to the people and Parliaments of Australia and Western Australia, to conservation, and to arts administration’.

Summary of the presentation

Over 70 people attended Carmen Lawrence’s presentation at the Lunch Hour Talk in Canberra on 6 March. Her presentation was delivered two weeks before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which began on 20 March, led by a US led coalition.

In February 2003, four weeks prior to the talk, in a comment on a cross-factional statement by Labor MPs against unilateral military intervention Carmen Lawrence had stated to The Age.
It's a more universal statement, it says we oppose war on Iraq and Australian military involvement. It would be a very brave soul who suggested that Iraq really posed an imminent threat to any other nation.

Against this backdrop of impending war, Lawrence used her presentation to examine Australia’s responsibilities under international law and its obligations to uphold the treaties it had ratified. The report on the talk in the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter stated that she ‘succinctly and forcibly put forward her views on Australia’s possible participation in the Iraqi war and the plight of people detained in isolated camps’.

Dr Lawrence’s talk aligned directly with the foundational charter of the Jessie Street National Women’s Library, which focuses on promoting international friendship, social justice, and peace − honouring the legacy of its namesake, lifelong peace activist Jessie Street.

The report on Dr Lawrence’s presentation by Cathy Sanderson appeared in the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter Volume 14 Number 2 Jun 2003. Unfortunately, there is not a recording of the talk. A copy of Lawrence’s notes for her presentation is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library. Visit https://nationalwomenslibrary.org.au to discover our full catalog.

08/09/2026

Thirty Years of Citizenship - Faith Bandler AC

On 15 May 1997 Faith Bandler AC presented the Jessie Street National Women’s Library Lunch Hour Talk.

About Faith Bandler AC
Faith Bandler, elected a National Treasure by the people of Australia, was born in Tumbulgum in NSW, and educated in Murwillumbah and Cleveland Street Night School in Sydney. After working in the Women’s Land Army during World War II and later in a woman’s fashion house and a men’s shirt factory, she co-founded the Aboriginal Australian Fellowship, which was solely responsible for the removal of all legislation discriminating against the NSW Aborigines.

In 1957 she helped launch a petition for a Federal referendum to amend the Constitution, which would allow Indigenous Australians to be counted in the census and thus be regarded as Australian citizens. Jessie Street, whom Faith had met at a peace talk in the 1940s, drafted the constitutional amendment. It was a 10-year-long campaign, and the referendum of 1967 resulted in an overwhelming ‘yes’ vote, when 90.2% of the Australian people voted in favour of the changes.

From 1957 to 1973, Faith was a central figure in the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. The welfare of Indigenous people and the removal of discrimination against them is an area which has absorbed much of her energies.

In 1973 she reported to the World Council of Churches in Geneva on progress in Aboriginal affairs and, in 1974, she founded the Australian South Seas Islanders National Council and made submissions on it to the Royal Commission into Human Relationships.

Faith refused an MBE in 1975, saying she could not accept such an award from a government that had kidnapped her father from his village in Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides) and brought him to work in the Queensland cane fields.

Faith has written several books, one of which, Wacvie, a prize-winning novel, tells the story of her father. She has been involved with writers and writing for many years, representing the Australian Literature Board at the South Pacific Festival of Arts in PNG in 1979. She was a special guest at the first International Women’s Writers and Publishers Conference in London in 1984 and in 1989 won the Pandora Press Award.

Faith was awarded an Order of Australia in 1984 and in 1995 had an honorary D.Litt. conferred on her by Macquarie University. In 1997 she was awarded the Human Rights Medal, Australia’s highest award for Human Rights.

Faith’s biography, Faith: Faith Bandler, Gentle Activist by Marilyn Lake, was published in 2002 and launched by the then Governor General, Sir William Deane.

Summary of the presentation
Faith Bandler presented the 15 May 1997 Lunch Hour Talk. Her topic was Thirty Years of Citizenship. Shirley Jones, founder and Board member of the Library, contributed a report to the May 1997 issue of Jessie Street National Women’s Library Newsletter.
This talk was an exciting event. The Jessie Street Auditorium was filled to capacity with a most enthusiastic audience. Faith spoke of the 1950s, which led to Pearl Gibbs and Faith forming the small organisation to campaign for a change to the constitution. She outlined the struggles they had, the constant work, the getting of names Australia-wide on petitions, the daily presentation of the petition to Parliament when it was sitting and finally, the strikingly positive outcome of the referendum put to the Australian people in 1967. It was a very moving talk and the audience was reluctant for Faith to stop. Jeannette McHugh thanked Faith warmly.

A recording and transcript of the talk is held by the Jessie Street National Women’s Library.