Michael Mansell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michael Mansell
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Michael Alexander Mansell
5 June 1951 Launceston, Tasmania, Australia |
| Residences | Hobart, Tasmania, Australia |
| Alma mater | University of Tasmania |
| Occupation | Lawyer, activist |
Michael Alexander Mansell (born 5 June 1951) is a Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) activist and lawyer who has campaigned for social, political and legal changes.
Mansell is partly of Palawa descent from the Trawlwoolway group on his mother's side and from the Pinterrairer group on his father's side, both of which are Indigenous groups from north-eastern Tasmania.
Early life
Mansell was born in 1951 in Launceston, Tasmania, the son of Clyda and Clarence Mansell. He is a third-generation Cape Barren Islander, descended from the unions of Bass Strait sealers and Aboriginal women, including Watanimarina and Thomas Beeton (parents of Lucy Beeton) and Black Judy and Edward Mansell.
Mansell's parents grew up on the Cape Barren Island reserve and moved to Launceston after World War II for employment reasons. The family remained connected with Cape Barren Island and the muttonbirding industry. As a child he lived for periods in Lefroy and George Town, attending high school in the latter. Mansell left school at the age of 15 and took a job at the Bell Bay aluminium smelter, later working for Tasmanian Government Railways as a labourer where he was "sacked when he punched a workmate who taunted him about his Aboriginal origins".
Mansell played senior Australian rules football as a young man, debuting for the Launceston Football Club at the age of 17. His football career was interrupted by a serious car accident, but he later returned to high-level football with the North Hobart Football Club.
Legal career
From an early age, Mansell was a radical protester about the status and treatment of Tasmanian Aboriginal people within the community. However he discovered that mere protest was an ineffective measure to achieve his aims of land rights and improved conditions, and the radical tactics that he and other Indigenous rights protesters employed in the 1970s were abandoned.
Mansell undertook a degree in law at the University of Tasmania, graduating in 1983. He began a career as a lawyer, attempting to defend the rights of Aboriginal people, whilst pursuing an agenda of reform. Since then, he has become a qualified barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, and the High Court of Australia.
In 1972, he and others set up the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, of which he was chairman and legal manager. He was also the founding secretary of the Aboriginal Provisional Government in 1990. Mansell also played senior football for North Hobart in the Tasmanian Football League
Mansell was named "Aboriginal of the Year", at the 1987 National NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) Awards, and played a crucial role in the drafting of legislation for the Native Title Act 1993 that arose from the Mabo v Queensland case.
Mansell was an independent candidate to represent Tasmania in the Australian Senate at the 1987 Australian federal election held on 11 July 1987. He was unsuccessful, receiving 1,102 votes (21,451 votes were required to win a seat).
