The Hon. Dr Meredith Burgmann AM
Meredith Burgmann has a lifelong commitment to advocating for social justice. Although now well-known and respected for her contributions to public life as an academic and parliamentarian she made her first notable appearance in the public sphere as an activist. On 6th of July 1971, with her sister Verity and some trusted friends, she invaded the field at the Sydney Cricket Ground, disrupting the match being played against an Australian Rugby Union team and a racially selected, all-white South African team. Although there were many arrests that day, that of the Burgmann sisters made the front page of many newspapers in Australia and around the world.
Photograph Courtesy of Meredith Burgmann and the City of Sydney
Later that year, quite unexpectedly, Meredith received an unsolicited letter from Sir Donald Bradman, Chairman of the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket, then the sport’s governing body. From this initial letter, began what would develop into a frank exchange of correspondence between the young activist and the eminent sportsman. In these, some handwritten and some typed they addressed (from their very different perspectives) the topic of a tour by the South African Cricket team scheduled for the summer of 1971-72. Subsequently on Bradman’s recommendation the series was cancelled. Sir Donald would later confirm that the exchange between himself and the unyielding Burgmann was transformative.
The decision to abandon the tour and ban future high level sporting contacts with the apartheid regime in South Africa was an important contribution in furthering its international isolation. And Bradman’s intervention was consequential, and it earned him the respect and friendship of Nelson Mandela. Once the world’s greatest cricketer, Bradman incrementally withdrew from his high-level posts within the game’s administrative bodies as the 1970’s progressed.
Meredith Burgmann was subsequently jailed for her active resistance to racism, though in 2021 on the 50th anniversary of the event she was (deservedly) celebrated in the same Sydney newspapers that had previously been so damming. She taught Industrial Relations and Politics at Macquarie University, becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1989, continuing in that role until her election to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1991, representing the Australian Labor Party which she had first joined in 1971. She would become President of the Legislative Council in 1999, a role she retired from in 2007. Meredith is a self-described ‘sporting tragic’.