**Neville Thomas Bonner** AO (28 March 1922 – 5 February 1999) was an Australian politician, and the first Indigenous Australian member of the Parliament of Australia. He was appointed by the Queensland Parliament to fill a vacancy in the Senate. He later became the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to the parliament. Bonner was an elder of the Jagera people.

Biography
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Bonner was born on Ukerebagh Island, in the Tweed River in northern New South Wales. He never knew his father and had very little education. He worked on a farm, and in 1946 moved to Palm Island, near Townsville, Queensland. He became Assistant Settlement Overseer.

In 1960, he moved to Ipswich, and joined the board of directors of the One People of Australia League (OPAL). This was an indigenous rights organisation. He became its Queensland president in 1970. He joined the Liberal Party in 1967 and held local office in the party. Following the resignation of Liberal Senator Dame Annabelle Rankin in 1971, Bonner was chosen to replace her. He became the first indigenous Australian to sit in the Australian Parliament. He was elected in his own right in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1980.

While in the Senate he served on a number of committees. He was never a serious candidate for promotion to the ministry. He rebelled against the Liberal Party policy on some issues. Partly as a result of this, and partly due to pressure from younger candidates, he was dropped from the Liberal Senate ticket at the 1983 election. He stood as an independent and was nearly successful. The Hawke government made him a director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Bonner was almost unique in being both an indigenous activist and a political conservative. He owed his political career to this combination. Other indigenous activists treated him badly, and they accused him of being a "token" in the Liberal Party.

In 1979, Bonner was jointly named Australian of the Year along with naturalist Harry Butler. In 1984, Bonner was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. From 1992 to 1996, he was member of the Griffith University Council. The university gave him an honorary doctorate in 1993. In 1998, he was elected to the Constitutional Convention as a candidate of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy. 

He died in Ipswich in 1999, at the age 76.

Posthumous honours
------------------

The Neville Bonner Memorial Scholarship was set up by the Australian government in 2000. It gives money so that Indigenous Australians can study politics or related subjects at Australian universities.

The Queensland federal electorate of Bonner is named in his honour. A rugby league oval in Ipswich was named the Neville Bonner Sporting Complex in his honour. This oval was the home of an indigenous team, but is now the official home of the Queensland Cup team, the Ipswich Jets. The suburb of Bonner in Canberra, Australia's national capital, also bears his name. The head office of the Queensland Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services is named the "Neville Bonner Building".

Bonner was an active boomerang thrower. One of his boomerangs can be seen at the Old Parliament House in Canberra.

Other websited
--------------

* Listing of Neville Bonner's life in published media & books Archived 2009-06-14 at the Wayback Machine
* Classroom Resource Archived 2008-07-21 at the Wayback Machine
* Episode on Bonner's life and career on Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National's *Hindsight* program

| * v
* t
* e
Winners of the Australian of the Year Award |
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* 1960 Frank Macfarlane Burnet
* 1961 Joan Sutherland
* 1962 Jock Sturrock
* 1963 John Eccles
* 1964 Dawn Fraser
* 1965 Robert Helpmann
* 1966 Jack Brabham
* 1967 The Seekers
* 1968 Lionel Rose
* 1969 Lord Casey
* 1970 Norman Gilroy
* 1971 Evonne Goolagong
* 1972 Shane Gould
* 1973 Patrick White
* 1974 Bernard Heinze
* 1975 John Cornforth/Alan Stretton
* 1976 Edward Dunlop
* 1977 Raigh Roe/Murray Tyrrell
* 1978 Alan Bond/Galarrwuy Yunupingu
* 1979 Neville Bonner/Harry Butler
* 1980 Manning Clark
* 1981 John Crawford
* 1982 Edward Williams
* 1983 Robert de Castella
* 1984 Lowitja O'Donoghue
* 1985 Paul Hogan
* 1986 Dick Smith
* 1987 John Farnham
* 1988 Kay Cottee
* 1989 Allan Border
* 1990 Fred Hollows
* 1991 Peter Hollingworth
* 1992 Mandawuy Yunupingu
* 1993 *no award*
* 1994 Ian Kiernan
* 1995 Arthur Boyd
* 1996 John Yu
* 1997 Peter Doherty
* 1998 Cathy Freeman
* 1999 Mark Taylor
* 2000 Gustav Nossal
* 2001 Peter Cosgrove
* 2002 Patrick Rafter
* 2003 Fiona Stanley
* 2004 Steve Waugh
* 2005 Fiona Wood
* 2006 Ian Frazer
* 2007 Tim Flannery
* 2008 Lee Kernaghan
* 2009 Mick Dodson
* 2010 Patrick McGorry
* 2011 Simon McKeon
* 2012 Geoffrey Rush
* 2013 Ita Buttrose
* 2014 Adam Goodes
* 2015 Rosie Batty
* 2016 David Morrison
* 2017 Alan Mackay-Sim
* 2018 Michelle Simmons
* 2019 Craig Challen/Richard Harris (joint)
* 2020 James Muecke
* 2021 Grace Tame
* 2022 Dylan Alcott

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