Biography – growing up

Biography

I was born in 1951 in the township of Brewarrina in northwest NSW into a state-controlled family. I grew up in fringe-dwelling shanty towns on the outskirts or Goodooga and Walgett. I was always advised by my Elders that bi-cultural education was essential.

I became the first Aboriginal high school captain at Walgett High where Aborigines comprised 30% of the students.

In 1969 I was accepted into an economics/commerce degree course at Sydney University but was attracted away from that by Charles Perkins’ call for human and civil rights for Aboriginal Australians.

From 1969 I became a leader in the Australian Black Power movement and was appointed by my peers as the first Aboriginal ambassador to white Australia after three comrades and I established what was later called the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on the lawns in front of Parliament House in 1972. (That embassy is still permanently manned by Aboriginal people and is now the primary rallying point for Aboriginal causes.)

I was taught Euahlayi customs and traditions through my people’s sacred ceremonies.

In the 1970s I returned to university to study law and political science.

In 1973 at the behest of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Foreign Affairs Minister Don Willesee, I was appointed to the US State Department in Washington DC to observe the conclusion of the joint parliamentary inquiry into the causes and results of the race riots in the United States in the 60s and 70s.

I then served a short time in the Australian mission to the United Nations in New York, where I learnt the procedures and protocols associated with complaints on human rights.

In 1979 I was engaged by Mr. William (Bill) Hayden, then parliamentary leader of the Australian Labor Party, to advise on Aboriginal budget allocations, in particular the real losses of funding for Aboriginal-specific programs throughout Australia.

In 1979 I was also appointed to the NSW Office of the Public Prosecutions in criminal law as an instructing officer (the equivalent of a solicitor).

In 1981 under Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, I was appointed to the National Aboriginal Conference, the only elected body representing Aborigines to the national parliament. In the NAC I became the deputy secretary-general, responsible for all research and writing of a treaty between Aboriginal Australia and the Commonwealth. Bob Hawke closed this down because his government feared Aboriginal self-determination.

From 1981 to 1984 I was back at the UN as representative of the NAC to deal with Indigenous rights under the Human Rights Commission’s Charter of the UN.

In 1989 I became the CEO of the Aboriginal unit of the former Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education, now the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. From there I went to the University of New England in Armidale.

I subsequently held lectureships in Aboriginal studies and Aboriginal politics at several Australian universities, writing and teaching units in Aboriginal studies that were inclusive of traditional Aboriginal society.

I left academia to resume campaigning for Aboriginal rights at the UN in Geneva, specifically in the working group on Indigenous rights of the UN Human Rights Commission, where I worked with other Aboriginal peoples of the world on a charter for Indigenous peoples’ rights. This has been ratified by Australia and is known as Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I am the National Convenor of a new political movement in Australia that promotes worldwide the continuing sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples. This “New Way” movement has held summits in Canberra, Sydney and, most recently, in Melbourne, from 1 to 4 July, where I chaired discussion on the themes of genocide, sovereignty and treaty.

I am also involved in connecting the sacred song lines of the ancient traditions of Aboriginal peoples around the world in an attempt to prove that they have a Dreaming that links them to the original Creation.

I have also played professional Rugby League football and I paint in the dot technique.

I live on and run a very successful and profitable sheep and cattle property with my wife Jutta on my ancestral lands straddling the New South Wales and Queensland border in the lower Ballone river system.

About Michael Eckford (aka Michael Anderson)
Culture
Biography – growing up
My wife Jutta
Farmlife
Committee memberships