Rebel with a Cause

Being told as a schoolgirl she didn't have the brains to keep going, Pat O'Shane AM defied the odds becoming one of the most brilliant legal game changers the country has ever seen.

Now 80, Pat is on the trail of her ambitious Federal election campaign, retracing along the way her exceptional leadership credentials and unstoppable gusto.

A self-confessed shy man with a fourth grade education, Jagera elder Neville was the first Aboriginal Australian to enter Parliament, sitting in both State and Federal Parliament for over 12 years.

When he finally turned his hand to politics after years on the road, he endured public 'token black' jibes, parliamentary loneliness, and corrosive conflicts within his own political party for crossing the floor on issues close to his heart.

Always choosing 'compromise over confrontation', Neville's vision was to work 'within the system'.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal's vivacious words, archives, hopes, and dreams are intertwined with the present-day activities of her talented family.

Born in 1920 and leaving Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) at 13 to work as a domestic, she later joined the army.

Earning a stripe for her service.

After the war, she married, had two children, and became activated in the Communist Party; the only group opposed to the white Australia policy.

There she was introduced to the realist writers and was supported to become the first Aboriginal to publish a book of verse.

Quickly rising to fame.

In 1988, she returned her Order of Australia merit and changed her name in protest the bi-centennial celebration.

Her poetic viewpoint and fierce visionary defiance - possesses a profound quality still resonating today in generations of Australians.