Background
She was born next to a railway track. At the age of 11, she was removed from her mother Heather, and taken to Brisbane and placed in a convent.
She was born next to a railway track. At the age of 11, she was removed from her mother Heather, and taken to Brisbane and placed in a convent.
Heather was not told of Justine"s whereabouts for more than ten years, and spent much of that time searching for her. In 1991 Justine Saunders was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM), for her services to the performing arts, her services to the National Aboriginal Theatre, and for her assistance in setting up the Black Theatre and the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust. In 2000, through the indigenous Senator Aden Ridgeway, she returned the medal in protest at the emotional turmoil her mother was suffering over the Howard government"s denial of the term "stolen generation".
Saunders died of cancer at Hawkesbury District Hospital, Sydney, aged 54.
She was a member of the Woppaburra indigenous people, from the Kanomie clan of Keppel Island in Queensland.