Robert Riley (10 December 1954 – 1 May 1996) was an Aboriginal activist advancing Indigenous issues in Australia.

Early life

Soon after his birth, he was removed from his family and placed in state care at

Sister Kate's A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer ...

Queens Park, Western Australia Queens Park is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Canning. Its postcode is 6107. There are 6,853 persons living in Queens Park. The top five ancestries represented in the suburb were English, Chinese, Australian, ...

. He was almost ten years old before he knew his mother was alive and was reunited with his family when he was 12. He wrote a publication whilst he was the CEO of the Western Australian Aboriginal Legal Service Inc telling of his experience of forced removal (known as the

Stolen Generations The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church miss ...

). ''Telling Our Story'' was described as "the most comprehensive description of the experience of Aboriginal people removed from their families undertaken in Western Australia".

Later life and death

Riley was Chairperson of the National Aboriginal Council and part of the negotiating team on the

Native Title Act The ''Native Title Act 1993'' (Cth) is a law passed by the Australian Parliament, the purpose of which is "to provide a national system for the recognition and protection of native title and for its co-existence with the national land managemen ...

. On the national political stage, Riley was senior advisor to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, as well as Head of the Aboriginal Issues Unit of the

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) (1987–1991), also known as the Muirhead Commission, was a Royal Commission appointed by the Australian Government in October 1987 to Federal Court judge James Henry Muirhead, ...

. He established the Perth

Aboriginal Medical Service Aboriginal Medical Services Redfern, known as AMS Redfern, formerly the Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) is an Aboriginal Australian health service in the Sydney suburb of Redfern. Established around 1971, it was the first Aboriginal community ...

, the

Aboriginal Child Care Agency Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to: *Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology * Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area *One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...

, the

Centre for Aboriginal Studies Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

Curtin University Curtin University, formerly known as Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), is an Australian public research university based in Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. It is named after John Curtin, ...

and Western Australia

Aboriginal Media Association Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to: *Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology * Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area *One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...

. He was awarded the Human Rights Medal in 1996. In 1995, Riley announced in two speeches that a trio of older boys had sexually abused him during his time at Sister Kate's. On 1 May 1996, Riley died by suicide in Perth at the Bentley Motor Lodge. In the days leading to his death, he was unemployed and was charged with major motor infractions.

Honours

In 2004, the Centre of Aboriginal Studies established the Rob Riley Memorial Lectures in his honour.Rob Riley Memorial Lecture Series
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riley, Rob 1954 births 1996 deaths People from Perth, Western Australia Members of the Stolen Generations People educated at Perth Modern School Australian indigenous rights activists