Dr Matilda House (b. 1945), is a Ngambri-Ngunnawal woman who has dedicated her life to the pursuit of social justice for Indigenous people. A tireless supporter of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy since its founding in 1972, she helped found the Aboriginal Legal Service in Queanbeyan in the 1980s and had a key role in establishing the Australian National University’s Tjabal Indigenous Higher Education Centre in 1989. On the eve of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in February 2008, she became the first person to perform the Welcome to Country at the opening of Federal Parliament. Her contribution to her community was recognised by the ANU with the conferral of the Degree of Doctor of the University in 2017.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2009
© Juno Gemes/Copyright Agency, 2021
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