Ruby Hammond

{{short description|Aboriginal Australian activist}}

{{use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}

{{use Australian English|date=January 2021}}

{{Infobox person

|name = Ruby Hammond

|birth_date = 1936

|birth_place = Blackford, South Australia

|death_date={{Death date and age|1993|04|16|1936|||df=y}}

|death_place=Adelaide, South Australia

|nationality=Australian

|occupation=Aboriginal rights activist

}}

Ruby Florence Hammond {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100%|sep=,|PSM}} (1936 - 16 April 1993) was an Australian Indigenous rights campaigner and the first Indigenous South Australian to seek election to the Federal Parliament.{{cite book |last=Forte |first=Margaret |title=Flight of an eagle: The dreaming of Ruby Hammond |year=1995 |publisher=Wakefield Press |location=South Australia |isbn=1 86254 353 4}}{{cite web |title=South Australia: past and present, for the future |url=http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=441&c=2002 |website= www.samemory.sa.gov.au |access-date=26 July 2013}}

Hammond was born in 1936 in Blackford, an independent Aboriginal community on the south-east coast of South Australia, and was a member of the Tanganekald group of the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong.{{cite web |title=Ruby Hammond |url=http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A68686 |publisher=AustLit |access-date=26 July 2013}} Ruby obtained school certificate in 1952 but the tough conditions at work in a shop made her touch racism against her.[http://ia.anu.edu.au/biography/hammond-ruby-florence-18216 Hammond, Ruby Florence] (1936–1993)

At the age of 32 she became a member of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia and was active throughout the 1970s and 1980s in the pursuit of equal rights for Aboriginal people, including professional roles at the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, the Department of Personnel and Industrial Relations and the National Women's Consultative Council (successor to the National Women's Advisory Council, later Australian Council for Women{{cite web | title=National Women's Consultative Council. (1984-1992)| website=Trove | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/571504?c=people | access-date=5 January 2021}}). She acted as a consultant to the 1977 Australian Law Reform Commission into Aboriginal Customary Laws which considered whether it was desirable to apply Aboriginal customary law to Aboriginals.{{cite web |title=Report No 31, ALRC |url=http://www.alrc.gov.au/sites/default/files/pdfs/publications/ALRC31.pdf |publisher=Australian Law Reform Commission|access-date=26 July 2013}} The commission's report outlined Aboriginal customary laws were not generally recognised by general Australian law, yet were a significant influence on Aboriginal people.{{cite web|title=Aboriginal Customary Laws|url=http://www.alrc.gov.au/inquiries/aboriginal-customary-laws|publisher=Australian Law Reform Commission|access-date=26 July 2013}} The report recommended that Aboriginal people should have the final say in the recognition of customary law.

Hammond was appointed by the Whitlam Government to the Australian National Advisory Committee on International Women's year (1975).{{cite news|last=Whitlam|title=Appointment of the Australian National Advisory Committee on International Women's year, 1975|url=http://pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/transcripts/00003382.pdf|access-date=29 July 2013|newspaper=Prime Ministerial Press Statement|date=11 September 1974}}{{dead link|date=April 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{cite web|title=Australian National Advisory Committee on International Women's Year|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/560033?c=people|publisher=National Library of Australia|access-date=26 July 2013}}

In 1980, Hammond advocated for a treaty which recognised Aboriginal sovereignty. Speaking as representative for the Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group, Hammond argued "we are the national minority; it is a treaty between two nations. The government must agree and recognise that we were here first".{{cite journal|last=Fenly|first=Julie|title=The National Aboriginal Conference and the Makarrata: Sovereignty and Treaty Discussions, 1979 - 1981|journal=Australian Historical Studies|year=2011|volume=42|issue=3|pages=372–389|doi=10.1080/1031461X.2011.583257}}

In 1988, she ran in the by-election for the Federal seat of Port Adelaide, becoming the first Indigenous South Australian to do so.

In 1990, Hammond was appointed Head of the Aboriginal Issues Unit for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Hammond served as Aboriginal Coordinator for the South Australian Department of Arts and Cultural Heritage from 1991 to 1993. In 1991, she joined with singer Archie Roach to publicly demand an inquiry into the Stolen Generations.{{cite journal|last=Buti|first=Antonio|author2=Parke |title=International law obligations to provide reparations for human rights abuses|journal=Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law|date=December 1999|volume=6|issue=4|url=http://worldlii.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurUEJL/1999/41.html|access-date=29 July 2013}} In January 1993 Hammond was awarded the Australian Public Service Medal, which was presented to her by Her Excellency the Governor of South Australia, Dame Roma Mitchell. She received a posthumous award for equal opportunity achievement in 1993.