Minute by the Lord Mayor
To Council:
I wish to inform Council about the passing of
Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG on 4 February 2024,
who was best known for her lifelong advocacy for the health, wellbeing and
rights of Indigenous Australians.
Lowitja O’Donoghue, also known as Lois O’Donoghue and Lois Smart, was born on 1
August 1932. She was the fifth of six children born to an Irish pastoralist
(rancher) father and a Yunkunytjatjara mother in Indulkana, a remote Aboriginal community in northwestern
South Australia.
At age two, Lowitja
and two of her sisters were removed from their family and placed in the
Colebrook Children’s Home in Quorn along with thousands of other members of the
Stolen Generations. There her name became ‘Lois’ and she did not see her mother
again for more than 30 years.
She went to Quorn Primary School and later
moved to Eden Hills in South Australia where she attended Unley Girls Technical
High School in Adelaide. At 16, she was sent to work as a domestic servant for
a large family at Victor Harbor and later became a nursing aide and did some
basic training.
After a long struggle to win admission to
train at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), in 1954, she became the first
trainee Aboriginal nurse in South Australia. She remained at RAH for ten years;
after graduating in 1958 she was promoted first to staff sister and then to
charge nurse.
In the early 1960s, Lowitja
travelled to Assam in northern India to hone her nursing skills with the
Baptist Overseas Mission.
Lowitja returned to Australia in 1962 and joined the South Australian public
service as an Aboriginal liaison and welfare officer. In 1967, she joined the
newly established Department of Aboriginal Affairs and three years later was
appointed the Department’s regional director in Adelaide, the first woman to
hold such a position in a federal government department.
From 1970 to 1972, Lowitja
was a member of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement.
In 1976, she became the first Aboriginal
woman to be made a Member of the prestigious Order of Australia for her work to
improve the lives of Australia’s Indigenous peoples.
In 1977, she was elected chairperson of the
National Aboriginal Conference, a forum for the expression of Aboriginal views
that had been established by the Australian Government.
In 1979, she married Gordon Smart, a medical
orderly from the Adelaide Repatriation Hospital whom she first met in 1964. He
had six children from a previous marriage, but they had no children together.
In 1990, Lowitja
became the founding chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Commission, playing a key role in negotiating Australia's historic Native Title
legislation, which granted land rights to First Nations people, and in the
successful 1967 referendum, which saw them included in the national census.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Lowitja continued her tireless work and became a patron of
many health, welfare, and social justice organisations, earning a long list of
accolades and awards, including Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) in 1983, Australian of the Year in 1984, Companion of the Order of
Australia (AC) in 1999 and Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great (DSG), a
Papal Honour by Pope John Paul II.
She was also the recipient of honorary
doctorates from five Australian universities and named an honorary fellow of
both the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Royal College of
Nursing.
In 2010, the Lowitja
Institute was founded in her honour - a research body dedicated to advancing
Indigenous health outcomes. In 2022, the Institute announced the establishment
of the Lowitja O'Donoghue Foundation which seeks
funding for scholarships to assist Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
people.
Reflecting on their time together on the
National Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, the Minister for Indigenous
Australians, Linda Burney MP said:
‘Lowitja’s leadership and tenacity has been an inspiration
for generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, including
myself. She was a truly extraordinary leader. Lowitja
was not just a giant for those of us who knew her, but a giant for our
country.’
COUNCILLOR
CLOVER MOORE AO
Lord Mayor
Moved by the Chair (the Lord Mayor), seconded by Councillor Davis –
It is resolved that:
(A)
all
persons attending this meeting of Council observe one minute's silence to mark
the extraordinary life of Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue and
her outstanding contribution to the advancement of Australia's First Peoples,
Aboriginal rights and reconciliation; and
(B)
Council
express its sincere condolences to Dr Lowitja
O'Donoghue's family.
Carried unanimously.
S051491
Note – All Councillors, staff and members of the public present stood in
silence for one minute as a mark of respect to Dr Lowitja
O’Donoghue AC CBE DSG.