Damned if I Do

by Philip Nitschke

  The mail came in twice a week on Conair’s DC3 and we’d go to the airstrip to collect the bags, empty them out onto the dirt floor in the central bush shelter, and I’d read the letters out loud. Frank Hardy was still a hero to the Gurindji and I wrote many letters urging him to visit. He never did and rarely replied. When he did reply, I read out his letters to a still, very respectful audience. Until you’re in a situation like that, you don’t realise what power the ability to read and write gives you. Over time I just naturally fell into the habit of putting my construction on the letters, giving them my own nuances and spin. The people would ask my opinion on the matters that came up and I’d say, ‘Oh, I think we should just ignore this, and we should go ahead with that.’ It gave me a lot of influence and I liked the feeling that I was doing something worthwhile. I don’t know how long I would’ve lasted as a gardener.

  I realise now that I was very arrogant at times; I was sure I could cope with whatever came up. The other side of this was that I became intolerant of whites who came in simply to observe or study what was happening, without (as I saw it) putting anything back in. Racists targeted me because of my identification with the Gurindji. I wrote letters that were published in the local Katherine paper, The Informer, and had to watch my step when in town. White people were worried: what would happen to the cattle industry if the big ­operators, such as Vestey, pulled out? If the Gurindji got their land, what claims might follow? I was challenged in pubs. I tried to talk my way out of these situations, but sometimes there were fights.

  Opposition to the Gurindji and their supporters took various forms. Attempts were made to sow dissent within the camp. Not long after my arrival, my father came up to Wattie Creek to visit. He’d always been interested in Aboriginal arts and crafts, and also wanted to see how his errant son was doing. One night, as dusk settled over the camp, a Toyota loaded with beer rolled in. It was driven by Van Der Build, the local Wave Hill policeman, accompanied by Len Hayes, the brother of the Wave Hill station manager, and Sabu Singh, a contract cattle musterer of Aboriginal and Indian descent.

  Gurindji elder Pincher Numiari took me aside. ‘Going to be trouble,’ he said. ‘Best you get out of the camp for the night.’

  We took his advice and retreated to the edge of the camp but my father, stubborn man that he was, stayed. Before long I saw the three men who’d brought the beer shoving my father around, pushing him and shouting, ‘Your son’s a bloody southern shit-stirrer and you both should get out of the Territory!’ There were no weapons involved and they weren’t actually hitting him. My father wasn’t hurt but he was very frightened, distressed and humiliated, and left the camp soon after. Those three wanted to drive a wedge between the Gurindji and whites like me. They were saying, ‘We’re your real mates and here’s the beer to prove it.’

  There were other incidents—provocations and threats—all motivated by racism and fear of change. We were branded as ‘do-gooders’, ‘southern troublemakers’ and ‘nigger-lovers’. A common accusation was that we were communists. It was a long way from the quiet of the university lecture room and laboratory. I was reminded of that world, though, when my PhD certificate, neatly rolled up in its cardboard tube, arrived by post. It was an incongruous object in that desolate place.

  There were problems with funding and directing the money to the right ends. Territory laws operated in favour of whites rather than blacks. For example, only pastoralists were permitted to own high-calibre rifles. To kill cattle for beef, the Aborigines had to use .22 rifles, which was a messy and cruel business. I tried to send them my cut-down .303 hunting rifle (which would have been illegal) but it mysteriously disappeared in the post somewhere between Katherine and Wave Hill.

  Many years later, I was amazed to see, in Katherine, at the main southern intersection of the Stuart Highway, a larger-than-life statue of Sabu Singh that the Northern Territory Cattleman’s Association had sponsored, on the basis he was a renowned stockman and pioneer. I thought him a poor choice for recognition as part of an industry built on honest Aboriginal labour. It seemed to me yet another example of the facts of Aboriginal history being overwritten by the white man.

  * * *

  My time among the Gurindji came to a sudden and unexpected end. Jenny had enough of roughing it after a while and began spending most of her time in Katherine. She sent down, via the twice-weekly Conair flight, food parcels to relieve the monotony of beef, beef and more beef.

  I was in Katherine on station business when we both ran into James Powell, an American who was a Vietnam vet and, apparently, more charismatic than me. Powell was camping alongside us at the Katherine low-level caravan park. He’d grown up on a farm in Oklahoma, and I was impressed by his extensive knowledge of horses and station work. He, in turn, was curious about Wave Hill and wanted to know more, so came back with us for a visit. Powell was an instant hit with the community, but was an even bigger hit with Jenny, who told me the bad news with a swift, ‘He’s terrific, you’re not much, and I’m leaving.’ Before I could argue, she ended our ten years, climbed up on the back of his Honda 450 motorbike and they roared off down the Stuart Highway, headed for Mt Isa. (There is a sequel to this story, which I’ll get to.)

  For nearly two years, through one summer and two wet seasons, I’d given the job at Wattie Creek all I had. I didn’t learn the Gurindji language, but I took a strong interest in their culture and the massive injustice they had been subjected to. It was tough physically and emotionally but also rewarding in many ways, and I thought myself something of a hero for sticking at it and earning the people’s respect. But that self-image fell apart completely when Jenny left. I collapsed in a heap, and couldn’t work or sleep; I was a ­liability and the Gurindji didn’t need a passenger. Vincent Lingiari advised me to get away and sort myself out. I left for Adelaide.

  Things there weren’t good at all. I thought I’d be welcomed as a hero returning from the front; instead, many of my university friends had moved on. Worse, some drew attention to what they described as the arrogant and patronising letters I’d written about my important role in this land rights struggle, yet here I was back in town, and falling apart just because my relationship had broken up. My parents had separated by this time and I didn’t get much sympathy there, either; my mother said she’d always thought things would fail with Jenny. I knew I had to get out of Adelaide. Then I got an invitation from Barry Frommelt, who I’d known at Flinders and who had visited me at Wave Hill. Come to Melbourne and start again, he said.

  SIX

  Melbourne, women and the Outback again

  I write of the Northern Territory of Australia, problem child of empire, land of an over-shadowed past and an ever-shining future of eternal promise that never comes true …

  Ernestine Hill, The Territory: The Classic Saga of Australia’s Far North

  Women have been pivotal to the directions my life has taken, and never more so than during the year and a bit I spent in Melbourne. I got a job as a tram conductor and fell in with an inner-city crowd that was interested and active in the Aboriginal rights cause. I had my Wave Hill credentials and the people in Melbourne didn’t know how badly it had all ended.

  I became involved with a woman named Virginia, who intrigued me because she was the total opposite of Jenny. She was a radical feminist, who wore overalls and was ­committed to separatist sexual politics—opposed to monogamy, and supportive of homosexuality and bisexuality. In early 1975, this intrigued me. She was a journalist, writing for radical papers like the Nation Review and Digger. Virginia was ambivalent about having a relationship with any male, let alone me, but thought we might be able to work things out if I were willing to change. So I did change—I modified my language, stopped the sexist expressions and conformed to this new style of relationship; sensitive and enlightened and well before my time. The relationship went along quite well for a few months and then I got a letter from Jenny.

  She was in
Mount Isa, James Powell was in gaol, and she was broke. She said it had been a mistake breaking up with me and she wanted us to get back together. It was a total shock; I thought it was over and had tried hard to forget her, but I somehow cobbled some money together for her ­airfare to Melbourne. I wanted her back and, since Virginia was so liberated, I thought something might be worked out. Jenny came, stayed a week, became pretty miserable and decided again that it was off, and so I paid for her to fly back to Mount Isa. She was there a fortnight, came back again to Melbourne and this time she stayed.

  So I was in a two-way relationship and, strangely, the women decided they wanted to meet. I wasn’t there, but apparently they got on well, and have spoken fondly of each other ever since. Then James Powell came to Melbourne, saw what was going on and erupted. He smashed up my Toyota, then threatened to kill me and I had to get the police involved. Jenny decided she had to get right away and took off to Kalgoorlie, eventually moving on to Perth.

  I still had strong feelings for Jenny though, and when I got a message from Perth that she’d met someone new, I thought I’d make a last-ditch attempt to get her back. I borrowed Virginia’s old AJS 350 motorbike, fixed it up and set off for Perth. It was a hell of a ride over the unsealed stretch of road across the Nullarbor; the corrugations were horrific and you couldn’t avoid them. I travelled with another couple of bike riders, whose machines broke down. I made it to Perth, only to find Jenny well and truly on her feet. She’d teamed up with Jay Harman, the wealthy Perth entrepreneur and financier of the Rajneesh (Orange People) sect, and was by then installed in his Trigg penthouse. They eventually married, had a child and divorced, but that visit to the west effectively ended the Jenny chapter in my life.

  On the way back to Melbourne, the bike broke down and had to be freighted back in horse transport while I hitched a ride in the truck. But on arrival, Virginia announced that she didn’t want our live-in relationship to be sexual any more.

  While all this was going on, I was still working on the trams, with a view to driving taxis. You were supposed to have a good geographical knowledge of Melbourne to get a cab licence and I thought tram conducting would help. However, after a year at the South Melbourne depot, I knew a lot about the Moreland to St Kilda route but little else. I did, however, meet a lot of different people in that job and mostly I enjoyed it.

  In many ways, things were more free and easy then. I’d often carry a little transistor radio in my conductor’s bag, as I’d always had an observer’s interest in boxing and admired the courage of the fighters, and used to listen to the major fights. On the day of the ‘thriller in Manila’ fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, a bunch of people travelling on the South Melbourne tram clustered around me to listen too. These days the conductors are gone, and no one entertains the passengers like that.

  I eventually got my taxi driver’s licence, but only worked driving yellow cabs for a few days, long enough to make me realise what a difficult job it was. I remember one night when a passenger asked to be taken to Richmond and then abused me and said he wasn’t going to pay. As luck would have it, we were in Swan Street and only a few hundred metres from the police station. I accelerated suddenly so he couldn’t get out, pulled up outside the station and asked again for the fare. He paid up.

  Around this time, I went on a black rights march and met up again with Jean Cully, a much-loved nurse who occasionally visited Wave Hill. She’d always spoken about her daughter, Paddy, who was also on the march, and we were introduced. Paddy had an unusual background, and was back in Australia after spending some time in Scotland. She made it clear she wanted to return there as soon as she could.

  I was intrigued by Paddy’s stories, and a relationship started that was to last over a decade and resulted in the birth of Philip Junior, my only child, in Alice Springs in 1977. Paddy was subject to black moods, had a strained ­relationship with her mother, and our temperaments meant we were never suited to each other. My involvement with other women, initially with Virginia—who Paddy hated, and it was mutual—and later with others, created emotional storms. Virginia threw me out of her flat, and tossed my stuff, including a splendid jumper Paddy had knitted from homespun yarn, out into the gutter. It was time to leave Melbourne.

  Paddy and I set off north. The plan was for me to go to back to the Territory, which she would use as a jumping-off point back to Scotland. Without the problems caused by other women the relationship improved. It was a very slow trip, moving some days, other days just camping in the bush and it took us over a month to reach the Northern Territory border; Philip must have been conceived on the way. We did eventually arrive in Alice, totally broke, and I got a job unloading and unpacking freight in the railway yard of the old narrow-gauge Ghan. Then I answered an advertisement in the Centralian Advocate, calling for applications for the position of ranger with the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service. I got the job and spent the next six years as a ranger, working first at Simpson’s Gap. At the interview I realised that while my PhD wasn’t highly regarded, my eighteen months on a cattle station was. I eventually got the job of ­southern mobile ranger, based in Alice Springs, but spent my time travelling hundreds of kilometres to the various parks up and down the centre of the Territory.

  In this time my relationship with Paddy went through many phases. Philip was born in Alice Springs Hospital, and initially, as our relationship was floundering, put up for adoption, but then quickly reclaimed. It was clear to us both that it wasn’t working and Paddy decided to continue with her long-planned trip to Scotland. I decided to go along for the ride, and then formally left them at Edinburgh Airport. We kept in touch though, and when I heard that she’d taken a job in China, at Kunming University, I took the opportunity to visit them both. It was a great trip—days across China by train on my own, re-meeting my four-year-old son, who was now at school, speaking Chinese, and once again enjoying the time with his mother. We began talking once again about her coming back to Australia. She did return, but it was never going to work and the Alice Springs relationship was toxic. I was repartnered with a new Jenni, and really didn’t want to resume family life. There were incessant fights and misery and eventually Paddy left town and started work on Central Australian Aboriginal settlements at Papunya and Haasts Bluff. Although I would occasionally visit for weekends, her eventual permanent relocation to Scotland surprised no one and finally brought to an end a difficult relationship which—except for Philip—I regret to this day.

  Philip was to return to Australia for his high school years. Paddy had established an Australian base in Hobart, the city she seemed fondest of, and although she was in and out of the country, Philip was able to finish high school and went on to the University of Tasmania, eventually earning a PhD in chemistry. Armed with his chemistry expertise, he initially worked at a winery but is now back in academe, at his alma mater. He lives in Hobart with his wife and three young boys. We’re on good terms and see each other when I’m down there. Like me, he enjoys his craft beer—I’m a bit of a beer snob and will go out of my way to get the right India Pale Ale. He, on the other hand, knows the chemistry of brewing, which is knowledge that I envy. We have that, and scientific language in common; as to his politics, I just don’t know.

  To this day, I’m not entirely sure what Philip thinks of my work. It’s not an issue we’ve discussed in detail. When I’m in Hobart campaigning or running euthanasia workshops he occasionally comes along to my public meetings. I’m sure he doesn’t disagree, but like many, probably wonders why anyone would keep on with an issue like this for so long and with so little obvious gain. He uses his mother’s last name, which has provided him with a degree of ­anonymity, although staff at the university know he’s my son and on some occasions, such as the conferring of his PhD, the media have also made reference to it. While my relationship with Philip is more that of friends than of father and son, he is a ­wonderful grandson to my mother, Gwen. He calls her regula
rly and visits her in Adelaide. One thing Paddy did do was instil in him a strong sense of family, maybe because her family was so fractured. On his twenty-fifth birthday, Philip inherited part of the substantial estate of his maternal great-aunt. That financial freedom has produced a young man who doesn’t have much to be angry about and I see him today as a contented father and husband who dotes on his family.

  * * *

  I came to love the life and the bush in central Australia when I worked as a ranger. The MacDonnell Ranges are ­stunning and I felt lucky to be there. Tourists I came into contact with would see me going about my work in a ­leisurely fashion and comment that I had the best job in the world. It didn’t always feel like it, when I was cleaning out pit toilets, or being bitten by centipedes when camping out, or ­scraping down barbecue plates, but mostly I agreed with them. I ­visited the small parks scattered over the vast area that didn’t have resident staff. That meant cleaning up, mending fences and controlling feral animals; I had the skills for that.

  I’d always enjoyed camping and it was a life that suited me—I’d roll out of my swag in the morning, put in a radio report about where I was and what I was doing, and then set about doing things at my own pace. I loved the freedom. I also got on well with most of the people I worked with, particularly Bob Darken, the senior ranger at Simpson’s Gap. He was an ex-wool classer, ex-policeman, ex-pastoralist, at one time a mate of iconic Australian actor Chips Rafferty, and a rough, idiosyncratic Territorian.

  But I got off to a rocky start. In my first week on the job, when I was still on probation, I ran up against one of the things that incense civil libertarians—an accusation is made that damages you and that your employers act upon, but one that you are not permitted to see. A letter critical of me came from Mike Reed, another ranger, and, once in the system, this letter immediately became ‘privileged information’. It wasn’t until twenty years later (when it was anonymously faxed to me in Darwin) that I learned what Reed’s specific allegations were. Some were minor, like that my vehicle had dripped oil in the Katherine Low Level Reserve camping ground where he was head ranger when I came into town from Wave Hill. However, he also denounced me to the Parks and Wildlife Service as a ‘political troublemaker’, who wanted to join the service to further the interests of the blacks in their efforts to take over control of Territory national parks. He accused me of being a communist, of having been funded at Wave Hill by unions that were themselves financed from Russia. (Interestingly, I recently met a researcher in Tasmania, who was a PhD student with the historian Henry Reynolds, doing work on the Wave Hill strike. She told me of an ASIO file on me, alleging that I was a member of the Australian Communist Party. Although I have often been in sympathy with their aims, I have never been a member of the CPA.) Finally, Reed claimed that I had lied about my tertiary qualifications, just to get the job. There was nothing in the letter about the quality of the work I’d been doing.