Aden Ridgeway (b. 1962), Aboriginal rights advocate and former politician, was a senator for New South Wales from 1999 to 2005. A man of the Gumbayynggir people, he was brought up by his mother, aunts and grandmother in Macksville, New South Wales and had worked in the public service before being elected to the Sydney Regional Council of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission in 1990. In 1995, he was appointed executive director of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council. Having joined the Australian Democrats in 1990, he was appointed Convenor of the Democrats’ Policy Committee (NSW) in 1997 and was elected to the Senate in the 1998 Federal election. During his Senate tenure he served as the Democrats’ spokesperson on policy areas such as Arts, Human Rights, Tourism, Industry, Overseas Aid, Financial Services and Regulation, and Reconciliation – the subject of his stirring first speech – and as Deputy Leader of the party in 2001–2002. He is the former chair of the National NAIDOC Committee, Bangarra Dance Theatre and Indigenous Tourism Australia; and a former member of the National Indigenous Working Group on Native Title and the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Since leaving politics he has co-founded the social change agency, Cox Inall Ridgeway, and held roles with bodies including the Healing Foundation, the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, Recognise, and Indigenous Voice.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 2005
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