Standing up for rights: a lifetime of advocacy honoured
Growing up on an Aboriginal mission, every aspect of Aunty Millie Ingram's life was controlled.
So when she challenged an unfair dismissal at the chocolate factory where she worked in the 1950s, Ms Ingram surprised herself.
"Coming off a mission under the control of mission managers, that wasn't the done thing," the Wiradjuri woman told AAP.
"I stood up for myself and I won."
Ms Ingram had moved from central west NSW, where she grew up on Erambie Mission, near Cowra, to Redfern to find work.
She started working at the factory, enrolled in night courses and so began a lifetime of steadfast activism for Aboriginal people.
This advocacy spans decades across government, education, land rights and grassroots initiatives.
"I've had a lot of experience," Ms Ingram said.
"But my main experience is being Aboriginal ... I was surrounded by wonderful people, not only my own family, and particularly all the matriarchal people."
The "jewel in the crown" for her is the establishment of the Wyanga Aboriginal Aged Care program, which supports local Elders.
At 85, and an Elder herself, Ms Ingram remains on the program's board and doubts she'll ever stop working.
An appointment as a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for significant service to the Indigenous community of NSW in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours List, spurs her on even more.
"If this gives me a voice and a platform that I can keep advocating for us to become a better Australia, that's what I'll do," Ms Ingram said.
In the Torres Strait, Harold Matthew hopes being awarded a Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia for service to the Indigenous community of Thursday Island can inspire others.
He co-founded the Torres Strait Island Running Festival and Thursday Island Deadly Runners, but when he became a member of the Indigenous Marathon Project in 2014, he wasn't a fan of long-distance running.
Seeing the physical, mental and spiritual health benefits of running, Mr Matthew was hooked, and he's proud to be bringing his community along for the trip.
"I can see the ripples in the community," he said.
"In the mornings and evenings you always see people out on the island running and walking and I think it's so unreal how far we've taken this."
Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been recognised for their contributions in health, community advocacy, education and land rights including inaugural co-chairs of the First People's Assembly of Victoria, Geraldine Atkinson and Marcus Stewart.
Dr Atkinson was appointed an officer (AO) of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the Indigenous community, to education, to First Nations self-determination and to reconciliation, while Mr Stewart was appointed an AM for significant service to Indigenous advocacy.
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It followed weeks of pro-democracy protests after the death of former Communist Party of China chief Hu Yaobang, who had sought to liberalise the country. Chin, then 32 years old, had arrived in Sydney months earlier and was staying at a friend's house when the news broke. "I feel my heart was beating together with the people in Tiananmen Square," he says. He recalls asking his friend to drive him to Chinatown, where many Chinese students were gathering. "Everybody was weeping and shouting. All these students showed their anger towards the barbaric Chinese government. I was one of them." Days later, then-prime minister Bob Hawke delivered a tearful tribute to the victims of the crackdown. Afterwards, he announced Chinese students would be allowed to remain in Australia. Some 42,000 permanent visas were granted to Chinese citizens — including Chin. "We were so lucky. Nobody had any idea that could happen," he says. 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We have to treat ourselves as humans. We've been here for a long, long time … we are Australian, we are working and we are paying tax. Deng Athum Athum and his family are preparing to open a restaurant showcasing local dishes in the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown. "Australia is a multicultural country, where everyone comes to make Australia home, to show what they have in their home. [With] this restaurant, I'm bringing South Sudan right here in Australia … to showcase what kinds of food that we cook," he says. With escalating violence spilling over from the conflict in neighbouring Sudan , there are warnings that South Sudan may be on the brink of a return to civil war. Athum has been in touch with loved ones – and is once again fearful of the country's future. "But the leaders are doing their best for this not to happen … I'm optimistic that South Sudan is not going to collapse." The first time Asif Ali Bangash saw big seas was when he fled his home country by boat, in search of safety. Bangash is a minority Shia Muslim from the city of Parachinar in north-west Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian violence. "I fled from Pakistan because of the situation in my hometown," he says. "I came here [to Australia] by boat in 2012, which was very dangerous and scary for me." At the time, Bangash was 22 years old. Leaving his parents and brothers, he travelled to Malaysia and Indonesia before coming to Australia. "It was a small, wooden boat … we were 200 people on the boat, and we [would] just think about that it can sink [at] any time," he says. "But still I had hope that I can go and reach [the] safe place." Bangash recounts rough seas at night, where they "didn't see anything". There was no hope at night time. At one point, I was just thinking, 'we are all dying very soon'. Asif Ali Bangash Bangash reached Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory off the far north coast of Western Australia and the site of an immigration detention centre. It was emptied of detainees in October 2023. After one month, he was transferred to the now-closed Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in the Kimberley region of WA, where he spent two months. He experienced dehydration and pain — for which he was hospitalised for a week — along with anxiety and depression. "Psychologically, it was pretty much like prison. You can't go outside … you don't have any friends to bond with; to sleep, you don't have your own space in the room or anything like that," he says. "All the people who came with you in the same boat [are] getting out of detention, one by one, and you are the last." Bangash obtained a bridging visa while in detention at Curtin and was later transferred to community detention in Sydney, but his subsequent attempts to secure a protection visa were rejected. Unable to return home, he twice applied for ministerial intervention. Both his parents died while he was awaiting a determination. After 13 years in limbo, without work rights, healthcare or social support, Bangash was granted a permanent visa in March this year. Building a life and community in Sydney, Bangash now volunteers at Parliament on King in Newtown – a cafe and social enterprise that supports asylum seekers and refugees. He also donates blood to help "give a life back". Australia's policy towards asylum seekers and refugees gained attention in the early 2000s. In August 2001, a Norwegian freighter, MV Tampa , rescued 433 mainly Hazara asylum seekers who were in distress in a small fishing boat about 140 kilometres north of Christmas Island, in what was considered international waters. At the time, Hazaras were fleeing Afghanistan, fearing persecution from the resurgent Taliban. The Howard government refused to grant the ship permission to enter Australian waters. It proceeded to pass a series of laws known as the Pacific Solution , which meant asylum seekers arriving by boat could be detained and their claims for refugee status processed in offshore centres on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Another centre was set up on Christmas Island, with the government cutting off the territory from its migration zone. This barred access to refugee determination processes followed on the mainland. Agreements were secured for the Tampa asylum seekers to be taken to New Zealand and Nauru, as Howard positioned his government as tough on border control ahead of the 2001 election. Along with mandatory detention, iterations of offshore processing have defined Australia's stance over successive governments and have repeatedly raised concerns among human rights groups and UN agencies. Offshore processing continued until 2008, by which time boat arrivals had declined and facilities had been emptied. The incoming Rudd government acted on an election promise to dismantle the Pacific Solution. Replacing Rudd in 2010, Julia Gillard commissioned an expert panel, which recommended a range of measures, including offshore processing. The policy was reinstated in 2012 and has been in place ever since. "Offshore processing was never meant to be the main pillar of Australian immigration policy, but in practice, it became the sole pillar for an extended period," Gleeson says. In July 2013, a returned Rudd government announced that resettlement would no longer be available for any refugees offshore. "We had a significant number of people offshore who had been or were about to be determined to be refugees. They were being released from the detention centres in Nauru and on Manus Island, but there was nowhere for them to go from there," Gleeson says. "So began a period of Australia quite frantically trying to find third countries with whom to conclude settlement agreements." Despite a formal policy being in place, offshore transfers only occurred until 2014, when detention centres became full. The government then pivoted its focus towards maritime interception and turnbacks. "From 2014 to 2023, nobody arriving in Australia by boat was sent offshore … By 2023, the people who had arrived almost a decade earlier were transferred — either resettled or repatriated. Since late 2023, Australia has begun transferring a new group of people offshore, and we know very little about their processing, their status or their conditions," Gleeson says. Decades on, Gleeson says the generation of "artificial fear" around asylum seekers arriving by boat remains, "rather than that being portrayed as a reality of the world and something which can be effectively managed with a properly organised system". Reflecting on his own journey, Bangash says he'd always imagined a better life in Australia — a place where there would be "more humanity". In reality, his path has been long and difficult. While acknowledging "every country has rights to protect their borders", he says Australia "can do better than this". Shiao Lu Ooi's decision to come to Australia as an international student was based on a gut feeling. The Malaysian-born 22-year-old initially considered pursuing a study in the United Kingdom, but was drawn to "something really inherent about Australia". However, things didn't go as planned. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Australia to close its borders in 2020, so Ooi had to complete her first semester abroad. Ooi moved to Melbourne ahead of her second semester in 2022, after borders had re-opened. She recalls feeling insecure and anxious in the lead-up. "I caught COVID on my third day here, and I knew nothing whatsoever about Melbourne at that point," she says. "I remember being so scared and homesick, being like, 'I just want to go home. This is so tough, and I don't know how I'm going to navigate my life here'.'' Ooi says her experience was compounded by "rumours and misinformation" associated with COVID-19 and aggression towards Asian people during that time. I was very, very scared, to the point I kept on asking people, 'could I go out?' Shiao Lu Ooi In time, Ooi was able to explore her new city and form connections. She is now a youth adviser at the Centre for Multicultural Youth and the founder of Wombat Collective, a non-profit organisation that supports international students in engaging with grassroots initiatives. She says connecting with international students and other people from diverse backgrounds in Melbourne has offered her "the community that I always wanted". But Ooi believes COVID-19 has had a "spillover effect". "I would 100 per cent say that COVID definitely has altered perceptions of international students very negatively, and that contributes to how these issues like housing, financial difficulties and securing work still impact [them] to this day." When Australia closed its borders in 2020, migration levels — sometimes referred to as net overseas migration (NOM) — entered a shortfall as international students returned home. NOM refers to the difference between those who enter and leave Australia, and includes both migrants and Australians. The re-opening of borders prompted a rebound in arrivals. "We do expect a bounce back; that's just getting back to normal levels now," Stevens says. "What we experienced with COVID was hopefully a once-in-a-life crisis, and we do have to expect a bit of economic and therefore political instability in the years that follow." International students have also been singled out by some politicians for causing or exacerbating the housing crisis — a claim that has since been refuted in research from the Student Accommodation Council and the University of South Australia. Stevens says this cohort is being "scapegoated for economic problems not of their making" as a means of political distraction, calling the recent discussion on housing a "complete furphy". "At the same time, we're demonising a significant part of the Australian population who make important contributions to not just the economy but Australian culture and society overall." Ooi agrees: "It is not one-dimensional; there are many national and global factors that contribute to the housing crisis." "There are a lot of ways that I believe the crisis could be tackled – and this is not one of those ways, by pinning it entirely on international students," she says. The scapegoating of migrants is not a new concept to many migrant Australians, including Carina Hoang. The now 62-year-old academic and historian published a book in 2010 titled Boat People, chronicling the journeys taken by Vietnamese refugees, like herself. She believes the meaning of the term has changed significantly. "In my time, it's more describing this group of people who flee persecution, and their way of transportation was by boat," she says. "I felt as if at that time [in the 1970s] that people were welcoming boat people with more compassion, with humanity, with some understanding." I felt as if at that time [in the 1970s] that people were welcoming boat people with more compassion, with humanity, with some understanding. Carina Hoang Later, Hoang says the term "became demonised". "We didn't have a choice. Whether we went on foot, on the water [or] by air, those refugees are trying to flee hardship or persecution … and trying to find safety, even freedom, for themselves and their families," she says. "Being judged by the term boat people because of the way they came, it's not right." Hoang's journey led her to resettle as a refugee in the US in 1980. She migrated to Australia with her husband in 2006 and settled in Perth, where she has lived for the past quarter-century. She has since completed a PhD in refugee experiences and now works as the UNHCR's special representative to Australia. "I have Vietnam as the country where I was born, America where I lived for 25 years, and then now Australia … Out of those three places, I would call Australia home. Carina Hoang This project was designed and developed by Jono Delbridge and Ken Macleod, with video led by Pranjali Sehgal, additional reporting from Amy Hall and Chris Tan, and research support from SBS Chinese and SBS Dinka. It was edited by Anna Freeland. Your stories have shaped SBS for half a century. Together, we're just getting started. Join us as we celebrate 50 years of belonging on our SBS50 portal and SBS50 content hub .
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