Vai Stanton

Violet Frances "Vai" McGinness Stanton Mimbinggal (1929–1995) was an Australian Aboriginal human rights activist. She was known for her advocacy for Aboriginal communities living in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Personal life Stanton was born in 1929 in Mataranka, Northern Territory, into a Kungarakany and Gurindji family. She was the second of nine children born to Jack McGinness, the leader of the North Australian Workers' Union, and his wife, Violet Wakelin, who had been forcibly removed from her family as a child and sent to the Kahlin Compound before being put into service for a white family when she was 16.

Stanton was educated in Darwin and Katherine. During the bombing of Darwin in 1942, she and her family were evacuated to South Australia. Stanton later returned to the Northern Territory, where she worked as a wardsmaid in Katherine Hospital and completed a correspondence certificate course in English.

During the 1960s, the Stantons built a home on land purchased near Southport, named Lok Landji. Stanton was buried there following her death in 1995.

In 1972, Stanton was invited to be part of the Advisory Council on Social Security and Welfare by Bill Hayden, the Minister for Social Security, representing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders communities. In her role, Stanton drew attention to issues Aboriginal people experienced accessing social security that she felt the government was not paying attention; for example, being unable to access the old age pension due to many older Aboriginal people at that time not having birth certificates to prove their ages. Stanton helped rewrite the Department of Social Security's servicing manual to ensure the department's processes took into accounts the needs of Aboriginal communities.