Mick Miller

Michael John "Mick" Miller (16 January 1937 – 5 April 1998) was a notable Aboriginal Australian activist, politician, and statesman who campaigned for most of his life seeking greater social justice, land rights, and improved life opportunities for Aboriginal Australians in North Queensland and the rest of Australia.

Early life and education Michael John Miller was born on 16 January 1937 on Palm Island, Queensland, son of Michael Miller Senior (Waanyi) and Cissie Miller (née Sibley) (Kuku Yalanji), and eldest of seven children (five girls and two boys). meeting at Kiruna in Samiland (Sweden).

Having left teaching, Miller instead became an active member of the local branch of the Aboriginal Advancement League, and, by 1971-1972 had become vice-president of a Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. He also helped establish the original, politically active and influential North Queensland Land Council, of which he was chair for some time. with "pivotal impact on Government program policies for some time to come".

During the 1990s Miller chaired the State Tripartite Forum (a Queensland Government-sponsored Aboriginal health organisation) and in this way he became involved in many founding state policies and programs to improve the health of the Aboriginal people in Queensland. were campaigning for Aboriginal land rights. so confirming their reputation with the Queensland Government, and Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen for being trouble-makers and political dissenters:

In 1984 Miller wrote and narrated a film named Couldn't Be Fairer (the expressed point of view of the then Premier of Queensland) about that state's treatment of Aboriginal peoples. The film was produced in collaboration with filmmaker Dennis O'Rourke (including Western Australian mining magnate, Lang Hancock suggesting mass sterilisation; a town mayor calling Aboriginal people "savages", and a Queensland Graziers Association spokesperson dividing people into "true Aborigines" and "hybrids". )

Personal life Miller married then-schoolteacher Pat O'Shane on 5 May 1962 at St Monica’s Catholic Cathedral in Cairns, and together they had two daughters, Lydia Caroline and Marilyn Rose Miller.

He met Queensland-born journalist Barbara Joyce Russell in 1973, she moved in with him in 1974. In 1977 Miller dissolved his marriage to O'Shane, and married Russell on 23 July 1978 in the Cairns Botanical Gardens. They had a son together, but split up in 1987.

In 1998 Queensland's Land Rights newspaper summarised and described Miller and his life's contribution as follows: