Faith Bandler
MTC Audio Lab

Great Australian Speeches

Faith Bandler’s Faith, Hope & Reconciliation

Read by Leonie Whyman

Leonie Whyman recreates Australian civil rights activist Faith Bandler's speech from the Talkin’ up Reconciliation Convention in 1999.

Faith Bandler AC was an Australian civil rights activist of South Sea Islander and Scottish-Indian heritage and a campaigner for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders.

As general secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), there are many campaigns for which Faith Bandler was chief instigator and spokesperson, but she was perhaps best known for her leadership in the campaign for the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal Australians.

Bandler was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on 11 June 1984, in recognition of her service to Aboriginal welfare and was invested as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2009.

This is her speech from the Talkin’ up Reconciliation Convention in August 1999, Faith, Hope & Reconciliation, read by Leonie Whyman.


Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this recording may contain names and words of deceased persons.



Thank you for tuning into MTC Audio Lab. You can hear more episodes from this series here.

While we're offstage, we begin this new initiative by experimenting with non-fiction texts and poetry in Great Australian Speeches, recreating chilling ghost stories in a dramatic reading of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and will be exploring audio plays when we can return to the studio.

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Published on 17 July 2020

MTC Audio Lab: Great Australian Speeches