Good luck to anyone trying to pull the wool over Aunty Margaret Gardiner's eyes.
"She wasn't backward in coming forward, she'd ask a question, even if it was a bit prickly," her brother, Uncle Andrew Gardiner, recalled with a smile.
The family of the respected Wurundjeri elder, who passed away aged 63 this month, has given permission for her name and image to be used.
Uncle Andrew said his sister could be fairly blunt as she pursued bureaucrats, agencies and individuals for information on the issues affecting her community.
But there was a purpose to her tenacious investigations.
"To make sure that they were doing the right thing by the community that should have been dealt with," Uncle Andrew said.
With a careful eye for detail, Aunty Margaret was constantly building up a "helicopter view" of Victorian Aboriginal affairs.
"Her priority was cultural heritage, because that grounds everybody and that maintained her grounding as an Aboriginal woman," Uncle Andrew said.
"She felt the need to do the right thing and not take handout grants from the government necessarily because she didn't want to feel a cultural cringe that we were owning to the government rather than making decisions for ourselves about our cultural heritage."
'A fierce fighter for her people'
Born in Birchip in Victoria's north-west in 1958, Aunty Margaret spent her early childhood years in nearby Charlton, before the family later moved to Melbourne.
There, she and her brother became more tightly connected with their mother's family, including Aunty Winnie Quagliotti, a key elder in the Wurundjeri community who established the Wurundjeri corporation.
As a young woman, Aunty Margaret was quick to get to work for her community, starting off with a job at the Dandenong Aboriginal co-operative.
Through the 1970s and decades that followed, there were big changes in Victorian Aboriginal affairs as a surge in the number of community-run bodies delivered greater self-determination to Indigenous communities.
Aunty Margaret was in the thick of it, working at the former Mirimbiak Nations Aboriginal Corporation with Victorian native title groups to help traditional owners assert their rights over country.
She was also involved in significant projects capturing the oral histories of Victorian traditional owners, accumulating a deep knowledge of Aboriginal history across the state.
"She had that teaching and grounding about how to talk with elders and had that information and who was allowed to see it," Uncle Andrew said.
Most recently, she sat on the board of the Birrarung Council, helping give a voice to the interests of the Birrarung (Yarra River) through a set of legislation she helped her Wurundjeri community push forward.
After years of involvement in different community organisations, Uncle Andrew said his sister's contributions would live on in simple but profound changes, such as improved access to housing and health services for Aboriginal people in Dandenong and Melbourne's south-east.
"A lot of people say she was a fierce fighter for her people and she had this strength and she was staunch … yeah, because she kind of had to, she had to be able to do that representation for people," he said.
In a letter of condolence to her family, a senior lawyer who had worked with Aunty Margaret gave their own insight into the elder's formidable reputation.
"[The lawyer] mentioned that she was somewhat challenged at times to be able to respond to Marg's questions, because they were very particular legal questions, and she'd go 'ok I'll have to go and research that'," Uncle Andrew said.
'She just led the way'
If you dropped in to see her, odds were her phone would be ringing hot, as Aboriginal community members from across the state sought her frank advice on matters of cultural protocol.
Gary Murray, a multi-clan human rights advocate who is a descendant of several nations including Wamba Wamba, Dhudhuroa, Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung, said Aunty Margaret was a "leader at the highest level" when it came to cultural matters.
"In terms of the knowledge that she had from her ancestors and from her own connection to country, as well as where she worked," he said.
As a multi-clan elder, she fought to protect the cultural interests of her other nations too, heading to court to raise her concerns about the right people speaking for country.
"I think she was outstanding in those matters," Mr Murray said.
"She was always very articulate, very strong, exerted her rights … she just led the way."
She was never one to embrace the spotlight but her family and others who worked alongside her say Aunty Margaret's legacy shouldn't be understated.
"Marg was one of those ones who did it quietly but very strongly and didn't like to be acknowledged or recognised in a sense," Mr Murray said.
"More recently, a particular university was offering her an honorary doctorate and she was very strong on saying no, she didn't want it."
Uncle Andrew, who is part of the First Peoples' Assembly working to prepare Victoria for state-based treaties, said his sister was wary but interested in where that path could take her community.
"She was reserving her opinion about treaty, to see how it would work," he said.
"But she wasn't going back on what Wurundjeri's opportunities and aspirations needed to be, either."
Aunty Margaret is survived by her children Jemima Gardiner, Luke Gardiner, Mathew Gardiner and Jesse Rotumah-Gardiner.
A private funeral is planned for September 5, when she will be laid to rest at Coranderrk Aboriginal Cemetery in Healesville.
