Rob Riley
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Robert Riley was an Aboriginal activist advancing Indigenous issues in Australia.
Soon after his birth, he was removed from his family and placed in state care at Sister Kate's in Queens Park, Western Australia. He was almost ten years old before he knew his mother was alive and was reunited with his family when he was 12. He wrote a publication whilst he was the CEO of the Western Australian Aboriginal Legal Service Inc telling of his experience of forced removal, Telling Our Story, the most comprehensive description of the experience of Aboriginal people removed from their families undertaken in Western Australia.[1]
| “ | He got involved in activist politics in the late 70’s and came into prominence during the Noonkanbah dispute of 1980 when he was working at the WA branch of the Aboriginal Legal Service. This protest paved the way for the modern land right movement"[2] | ” |
He was Chairperson of the National Aboriginal Council, and he was also part of the negotiating team on the Native Title Act.
On the national political stage, Mr Riley was senior advisor to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, as well as Head of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
He established the Perth Aboriginal Medical Service, the Aboriginal Child Care Agency, the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University and the Western Australia Aboriginal Media Association. He was awarded the Human Rights Medal in 1996.[3]
In 2004, the Centre of Aboriginal Studies established the Rob Riley memorial lectures in his honour [4][5]
| “ | Ann Arnold: Sister Kate's has gained a new notoriety in the west, because that's where Rob Riley, an influential and revered Aboriginal leader, spent his childhood.
Last year (1995), in two emotional - and televised - speeches, he spoke out about how he'd been sexually abused by three older boys while at Sister Kate's. After a tumultuous 12 months, when he was involved in serious driving offences and lost his job, he committed suicide last month (hanged himself at a room in Bentley Motor Lodge on May 1st, 1996), at the age of 41. Ann Arnold: St Mary's Cathedral was filled with Aboriginal people, many of them in tears as songs which have now become anthems, like Archie Roach's 'Take the Children Away', were played. And tributes appeared in the West Australian newspaper for three weeks after Rob Riley's death. [6] |
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[edit] References
- ^ Rob Riley, CEO ALS 1990-1995, Telling Our Story ALSWA
- ^ Dr Quentin Beresford "Rob Riley, An Aboriginal Leader's Quest For Justice" published by Aboriginal Studies Press
- ^ Human Rights Awards website
- ^ Curtin to honour indigenous statesman
- ^ Rob Riley Memorial Lecture Series
- ^ ABC Radio National - Background Briefing: 23 June 1996 - WA's Black Chapter
[edit] External links
- Curtin Indigenous Research Centre
- Posthumous Human Rights Awarded to Robert Riley
- Robert Riley Scholarships
- Rob Riley, a life lived in the cause of liberation
- Australia remains a deeply unreconciled nation, explains Quentin Beresford
- Rob Riley: Champion of Justice for Aboriginal People
- Obituary by Peter Yu, Executive Director of the Kimberley Land Council
- Curtin Indigenous Research Centre astract Key Note Address delivered by Rob Riley to the Annual Conference of the Australian Psychologists Society in Perth, WA 1995
- Goodbye Robert Riley tells the story of the last days of Robert Riley, the OIC of the Aboriginal Legal Service in WA. Goodnight Alan looks at a famous West Australian and his first night of doing time at Her Majesties' pleasure.
- The Noongar people of Western Australia have found a sense of acceptance after a harrowing past
- WA's Black Chapter. Cedric Wyatt talks of Rob Riley's suicide at Bentley Motor Lodge on MayDay 1996
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