Ann Weldon AM, the Wiradjuri woman who helped build the foundations of Aboriginal rights, housing, legal aid and healthcare from the streets of Redfern, passed away on Easter Sunday aged 73, leaving behind a legacy that stretches across decades of hard-won change for Aboriginal communities in New South Wales and nationally.
Known to many simply as Aunty Ann, Weldon spent more than five decades as a driving force in the Aboriginal community, holding roles that read like a history of the self-determination movement itself. Her family announced her passing with a tribute that captured the weight of the loss: she had gone, they said, “peacefully, yet defiantly to the Heavenly Dreaming.” They described her as a woman who “bravely walked where others feared, steadfast in her belief and knowing that her ancestors would guide her.”
The loss came within days of the passing of her close friend and fellow Redfern trailblazer, Dr Naomi Mayers, the Yorta Yorta health leader and original Sapphires member who died aged 84. The two women had shared decades of friendship, purpose and struggle, and their near-simultaneous deaths have prompted an outpouring of grief across Aboriginal communities nationally.
From Erambie Mission to the Heart of Redfern
Ann Weldon, nee Coe, was born in 1953 in Cowra and raised on Erambie Mission on Wiradjuri Country, on the banks of the Kalare, or Lachlan, River. Three years after the 1967 Referendum, inspired by the momentum of the Yes campaign and the Aboriginal rights movement taking shape in Sydney’s inner city, she moved to Redfern. She and her husband, Wiradjuri man George Weldon, settled in the area, buying a family home in nearby Dulwich Hill in the mid-1970s and cementing themselves in the Redfern community that would define much of her life’s work.
The timing of her arrival was significant. Redfern in the early 1970s was alive with activist energy, as Aboriginal people from across the country gathered in the suburb and began building the institutions their communities had been denied. Weldon did not stand on the margins of that movement; she was at its centre.
A Builder of Institutions, Not Just a Protester
Weldon stood apart for the breadth and lasting impact of her work. She helped found the NSW Aboriginal Children’s Service and the Inner West Aboriginal Community Company, and she actively supported the establishment of the Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern, one of the first Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services in the country.
A central figure in the creation of the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service, Weldon served for years as company secretary before becoming its first female CEO. Her leadership continued as the inaugural CEO of Aboriginal Land Rights NSW, a role that laid the groundwork for land rights across the state, according to her daughter, City of Sydney representative Yvonne Weldon.
“She travelled across New South Wales, met with Elders on Country, and worked with them to map out the regions and local land councils,” Representative Weldon said.
Weldon also served as the longest-running full-time Chairperson of the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office Board and held multiple positions on the ATSIC Regional body. She was a long-serving Aboriginal Liaison Officer with the Public Service Association and was pivotal to the creation of the PSA’s Aboriginal representative body, the first of its kind in the Australian union movement.
Representative Weldon said that right up until her final days, people continued to seek her mother’s counsel. Her mother’s wisdom, she noted, was something people came back to again and again.
Honoured, but Never Finished
The recognition that came to Weldon in her later years reflected the scale of what she had given. She was named the 2020 Dreamtime Elder of the Year at the National NAIDOC Awards, and in 2025 she received the Order of Australia for her dedication and significant service to the Aboriginal community, specifically for her contributions to housing, disability support and the union movement.
“I feel humble, I think it’s wonderful to be given that recognition,” she said when the honour was announced.
Organisations across Redfern and beyond paid tribute following her death. The NSW Aboriginal Land representative body acknowledged her “lifelong contributions to the fight for basic human rights and justice for Aboriginal people” and said her legacy would continue as a source of strength. Wyanga Aboriginal Aged Care described her passing as “a profound and heavy loss for community.” The Redfern All Blacks rugby league club called her “a Blak matriarch of Redfern community” whose “strength, leadership and unwavering commitment” had left a mark that would never fade.
Her family’s tribute summed it up: “We are heartbroken, yet heart-strengthened, that our beautiful Ann Pauline, Mum and Nin has left us. But we know her impact, her love, and her spirit will never leave.”
Ann Weldon AM is survived by her family and great-grandchildren.
Published 10-April-2026