Indigenous advocate and author Larissa Behrendt has been named NSW Australian of the Year at an awards ceremony in Sydney.
The 41-year old academic was given the award on Thursday night "in recognition of her passionate and articulate advocacy for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders."
A Eualeyai and Kamillaroi woman, Professor Behrendt decided to become a lawyer at age 11 after her indigenous father found her mother's government `removal' certificate. Advertisement: Story continues below
It showed the date authorities took her from her family at a NSW sheep station.
Prof Behrendt practised in Legal Aid before winning a scholarship in 1993 to complete a doctorate in law at Harvard University where she focused on Aboriginal ideas of sovereignty.
After a stint at the United Nations, she returned to Australia in 1999 and was appointed a professor of Law and Indigenous Studies at the University of Technology (UTS).
She is the author of several books on indigenous legal issues as well as two novels.
Her first novel, Home, was inspired by the treatment of the indigenous stolen generations and won the 2002 David Uniapon Award and a 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Her second book, Legacy, a fictionalised account of her relationship with her father, was recently released. ---------------------
They didn't mention where, or what happen to her white mother.
So going by this information she is one of those disadvantage "stolen Generation"
I wonder where she would be now if she wasn't taken away and educated?
Sounds as though she still has a large chip on her shoulder, or maybe a strong feeling for her cause.
Either way she looks very-very white to me, and with her reported income,is not in need of any aboriginal benefits.
