Jacqueline Gail Huggins was born in Ayr, Queensland, on 19 August 1956, the daughter of Jack and Rita Huggins. She is of the Bidjara / Pitjara (Central Queensland) and Biri / Birri Gubba Juru (North Queensland) peoples. Her family moved to Inala in Brisbane when she was young and she attended Inala State High School. She left school at age 15 to assist her family and worked as a typist with the Australian Broadcasting Commission at Toowong, Queensland, from 1972 to 1978. Thereafter she joined the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Canberra. In 1980 she returned to Brisbane and was a field officer in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.[1]
She has published a wide range of essays and studies dealing with Indigenous history and identity. She is the author of Sistergirl (1998), and co-author, with her mother Rita, of the critically acclaimed biography Auntie Rita (1994).[3]
In 2019, after the Queensland Government announced its interest in pursuing a pathway to an Indigenous treaty process,[8] the Treaty Working Group and Eminent Treaty Process Panel were set up, with Huggins and Michael Lavarch co-chairing the Eminent Panel. Their Path to Treaty Report was tabled in Queensland Parliament in February 2020.[9] Huggins said that a process of truth-telling, acknowledging the history of Australia, is a "vital component to moving on".[10] On 13 August 2020, the government announced that it would be supporting the recommendation to move forward on a path to treaty with First Nations Queenslanders.[11]
Huggins, with her sister Ngaire Jarro, wrote the story of their father, Jack, who spent three years as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II, and was forced to work along with around 13,000 others on the Burma-Thailand railway. The book, entitled Jack of Hearts: QX11594, was published in 2022. Jack was not treated badly upon his return, as many Aboriginal diggers were, and became the first Aboriginal man to work for Australia Post, the first Aboriginal surf lifesaver in Ayr in the 1930s, and the only Indigenous man to play rugby league both before and after the war.[12]