Not Just Black and White

by Lesley Williams

  Alex reloaded the hungry photocopier with a new ream of paper and waited for the machine to begin copying another file. ‘Our people shouldn’t have been living like paupers. Our children didn’t have to go without, when there were millions of dollars sitting in our savings accounts we could have used to buy much-needed food,’ I almost shouted. ‘We weren’t welfare dependent; the government was dependent on us for our labour and wages! The government controlled our lives, and we paid for the bloody privilege of being controlled!’

  An official walked past the photocopier machines, but I didn’t care if people in the offices overheard us. Nor did I now have any fearful respect for such people, whose predecessors, to my mind, had so much to answer for.

  I left Dan to continue photocopying and gestured to Alex to follow me back into the viewing room, away from the humming of the machines. She heaved an archive box off a chair and collapsed into the cushioned seat. I sat down beside her, legs throbbing from standing all day. The breakfast I’d had at dawn seemed as if it was on another day. My mouth was dry and I longed for a strong coffee.

  ‘Who’d have thought we paid for our rations,’ Alex reflected.

  ‘And don’t forget,’ I interrupted, ‘we paid the settlement a maintenance levy for the cost of building and repairing our houses, sewage collection, to run the training farms, restock the shelves of the retail store, as well as the cost of regular medical treatment.’ The fact was, we had paid – involuntarily – to live our second-class lifestyle.

  ‘I paid for all of this with the levy out of my own wages and savings – and what upsets me most – I did so even when I was away working at Condamine and Taroom and not living on Cherbourg and eating their bloody rations!’

  Alex shook her head, unsure how to console me. She put a comforting arm across my shoulders. ‘If we’d paid for the rations, then you’d think we could’ve been provided with better food to eat – maybe sometimes some steaks instead of bones and scraps. That would’ve been nice!’

  ‘True,’ I managed to laugh. ‘Remember how the officials would stroll into the butcher shop and take the best cuts of meat, while we lined up outside in the hot sun waiting for the leftover bits to be shoved out of the window at us. I wonder if they ever paid for their rations; or were the rations a government handout paid for by us?’

  As the long and emotionally exhausting day wore on, my under-standing of the system became clearer. Each archive box, official letter and file note, revealed more of the picture of our life under this control. Yet of all the records kept on my family, the documents I needed most were noticeably missing: the records showing my personal savings account, the deposits of wages and the withdrawals. Without these documents I wouldn’t be able to prove the amount I was owed, or whether any of the money was misappropriated. I continued sifting through the loose sheets of paper, now spread across the table like a giant cloth.

  ‘From what I can make out from this bundle of documents,’ I said, ‘our personal property could also be confiscated by the government.’

  ‘What property? We owned next to nothing,’ Alex replied, confused by my comment.

  ‘That’s my point. The department had authority to take control of our furniture … and I suppose jewellery and other personal items we owned.’

  I thought about the sparsely furnished cottage we lived in at Cherbourg. There was hardly enough for everyday needs, let alone cars, art or anything else of value. I now knew that the government could have removed even Granny’s precious old tin box with all the trinkets she’d saved. No wonder she’d kept it hidden.

  ‘And check this out,’ I waved an official’s letter in my hand. ‘Those mongrels even kept some of Pa’s worker’s compensation money.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Remember when Pa worked at the sawmill and had an accident? When a piece of timber pierced his eye, causing partial blindness?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Alex frowned.

  ‘Well, the worker’s compensation money he received for that injury was also taken and controlled by the Department of Native Affairs.’

  ‘But that was his money, not theirs!’ she protested. ‘It was to compensate him because he couldn’t work any more.’

  ‘They did get some furniture out of it … remember the kitchen table, bed and fridge? But what happened to the rest? It should’ve been deposited into Pa’s savings account.’

  Alex stopped sorting. The room was eerily quiet.

  ‘Lesley, you’ve got to keep going with your research. We have to challenge the government for the return of our money – maybe even with a petition or a protest rally. Too many of the old ones have died without anything to show for their work.’

  In the silence, I knew what Alex was thinking. The graves of our loved ones were nothing more than mounds of dirt in the Cherbourg cemetery, with a few fading plastic flowers on them. There were no headstones adorned with doves and scriptures to remember them – just plain wooden crosses to remind us they were once alive and loved.

  Chapter 26

  Tammy

  Mum was obsessed with obtaining justice and having the evidence to prove it. In the master bedroom of our ‘shoebox-sized house’, reams of photocopied records were stacked on every available space – inside the wardrobe, on top of the wardrobe, under the bed, next to the bed, everywhere. Then the bundles of paper began creeping into other areas of the house, so a second filing cabinet was installed in a corner of the dining room.

  Yet somehow, amid such chaos, there was order, thanks to an elaborate colour-coded filing system Mum devised. A rainbow of brightly coloured folders began to contain the sea of white paper stuck with Post-it Notes that threatened to flood our home. The Mills & Boon romance novels from which she once sought solace were tossed out and replaced by hardcover autobiographies, acts of parliament and government policies. Next to her bed was a dictionary and highlighter, to mark the words she didn’t understand during her bedtime reading.

  Lesley

  By 1993, gone was the meek and mild Aboriginal the Protection Act had created. In her place was a hurt, angry and bitter middle-aged woman. As my personality changed, so did my words – I spoke of our wages and savings as being ‘stolen’ rather than of our earnings being ‘taken’. I also stopped saying our ‘money is missing’ and, instead, began accusing the government of fraud and misappropriation. As part of my campaign I became prepared to try tactics, which until then I wouldn’t have dreamed of using: protest marches, petitions and rallies – activities I’d once associated only with hippies and radicals.

  Alex and I worked the phones, calling everyone we knew to join our protest rally at ten o’clock at the Roma Street Forum in Brisbane. Announcements were made over the Aboriginal radio station, and flyers were distributed among community organisations. At dawn on the day of the rally, Tammy and I set off on the highway towards Brisbane in my temperamental Gem-Gem. Tammy was still a teenager – just turned fifteen – but already interested in this issue that was consuming my days. I wanted to make sure I had enough time to set up before the masses arrived. I had a good feeling about our first Justice for Aboriginal Workers’ Rally.

  Tammy

  By the time we arrived at the Roma Street amphitheatre, the clock tower of City Hall had struck nine. Nobody, except of course Aunty Alex, along with her husband Jeff and two children, was there.

  By 9.30, the highly anticipated masses had still not arrived, yet Mum remained hopeful. By ten o’clock, and even allowing for Murri time, it was clear the masses weren’t going to appear.

  The slight wind-chill and clear blue sky, so typical of a mild Brisbane winter, would have made for a perfect day. A trickle of people slowly filed into the Roma Street amphitheatre. Of the thousands of Indigenous people living in the greater Brisbane region, only about twenty-five bothered to turn up for our Justice for Aboriginal Workers’ Rally. The protest’s message – o
f returning stolen wages to Aboriginal workers – was lost in the vastness of the amphitheatre. Passers-by barely noticed our presence. To the average person on the street going about their business, we might have looked like just another group of blacks sitting in the park.

  I could see the disappointment in Mum’s eyes. The weeks of planning with her sister, the nightly long-distant phone calls, three-hour train trips to Brisbane, circulation of petitions, printing of posters and advertisements placed on community notice boards, were all funded courtesy of our overstretched home budget. Yet it had not achieved the powerful protest intended – the voices of twenty protestors weren’t even noticed by those walking past. There was little chance our message would be heard in the corridors of parliament, down the other end of town. Why should the government restore justice to Aboriginal workers when there was no public pressure to do so?

  ‘You be careful, Lesley,’ warned local Aboriginal leader Mervyn Reilly, as he packed away the redundant microphone and speakers hired for the rally. ‘When the government agrees to pay back our money, every man and his dog will be at these meetings. I’ve seen it happen lots of times. All them Johnny-come-latelys will be here,’ he gesticulated towards the endless suburbs, and all the thousands of faceless people who remained at home. ‘They sit back and do nothing, waiting for someone else to do all the hard work. Then they trample all over you to be bloody first in line when the government’s handing the money out. It always happens. That’s the problem with our mob.’

  Lesley

  Deep down I knew Mervyn was right. The turnout was disappointing. No, it was pathetic. The rally was a failure. But what cheered me up was the effort from those – predominantly elderly – who did bother turning up. A few hobbled along the road, needing assistance to walk. Some had caught public transport, and some had driven across the city to pick up others, despite being old themselves. I’ve always wondered if we might’ve had a better attendance if we offered to pay sitting fees. ‘No money, no turn up’ has been the motto for many of our mob; it’s been like this for years.

  I couldn’t understand people’s indifference. Didn’t blackfullas care if we were portrayed as ‘welfare-dependants’ or ‘dole bludgers’, despite contributing to the development of pastoral and agricultural industries for over a hundred years? Without the need to pay award wages, pastoralists kept their costs down with cheap Aboriginal labour, which made farming more profitable. Didn’t Aboriginal people want the recognition they deserved for the true value of their work?

  For some of our people, I can understand how attending a public meeting might be confronting. I had felt like that once myself. There could be something in their personal stories that made them shame. Possibly they were mistreated, having worked for years with little rest and insufficient food. Or maybe they were made to do things at night with their boss that beer could help them forget, only to resort to another bottle when the morning sun wakes them from a drunken haze. Or maybe the reason why more people didn’t turn up to the rally was because they thought it was a wasted cause – an injustice the government would never make right?

  Previously, when I’d circulated petitions throughout the community, many hesitated to sign. ‘I don’t like signing petitions … I don’t want to get involved,’ they said, pushing the petitions away. ‘The government isn’t listening to you now … what makes you think they’ll listen in the future,’ they argued. They had a point. I had to think of a new plan.

  *

  I needed a lawyer. One who would make the government sit up and listen. My sister, Alex, agreed with the change of strategy.

  ‘Don’t worry about the other blackfullas, especially those young ones who didn’t turn up to the rally. We’ll keep holding protest marches and community meetings to get the information out there among the people. But really, Lesley, you’ve got to take legal action – only the law can get back the millions of dollars that was stolen.’

  I didn’t know any high-ranking people. But our older sister, Honor, did. She seemed to know everyone and had friends everywhere – one for every occasion – whom she could call up and ask for a favour. If ever there were someone who’d know a lawyer, it would surely have to be her.

  Honor, as usual, offered to help. She took a moment to sift through her list of contacts, forged over the years while working at Yelangi, the first Aboriginal preschool in Brisbane. ‘Well I do have a friend who works for the Aboriginal Legal Service,’ she said. ‘He’s not a lawyer, but he could get you an appointment with one. Let me ring him.’

  Sure enough, her friend was able to arrange an appointment for a day or two later. Fortunately, it was the school holidays so we could stay in Brisbane a little bit longer. On the day of the meeting, Rodney, Tammy and I headed off into the city. They were now no longer kids but teenagers – Dan was almost twenty and living away in Canberra. I didn’t expect Rod and Tammy to come; perhaps they felt my excitement and wanted to be in on the action.

  The lawyer was late for our appointment, and this only added to my stress. I was nervous about speaking to someone as smart as a lawyer. I hoped he wouldn’t think I was dumb, especially if my nervous stutter returned. I paced the waiting room and distracted myself by looking at posters and community notices. How could I squeeze my whole life’s story of living in Cherbourg and working as a domestic into just a one-hour appointment? If I stammered and couldn’t get the words out, it would take even longer. The clock on the wall showed he was fifteen minutes late. Now I had less time and would probably need to talk faster.

  Tammy rose from her chair while I pretended to be interested in a notice pinned to the wall. ‘Just remember, Mum, the solicitor works for the Aboriginal Legal Service. He gets paid to provide legal advice to blackfullas. He wouldn’t be working here if he wasn’t interested in helping us with our problems.’

  ‘I know Tid-Tid, I’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.’ My eyes swung back to the clock. Eighteen minutes late.

  Finally the solicitor was ready to see me. We followed the receptionist’s directions to a room in which a plump whitefulla in a dark suit sat behind a desk.

  ‘Hello,’ he said in a monotone drawl, his face as expressionless as his voice. The lawyer – my lawyer – didn’t move from his chair. There was no handshake or welcoming smile, no nice-to-meet-you-Lesley greeting, like the one I’d received from the government bigwig, Jim Wauchope. Nothing.

  Rodney, Tammy and I remained huddled at the door, not sure if we’d been invited inside. Then something – an eyebrow – moved, a signal from the lawyer for us to sit. We sat, as obediently as I used to whenever in the presence of a white official. The kids instinctively followed suit.

  ‘I-I-I …’ I didn’t know what to say or where to begin. Over the previous twelve months I’d spoken about this stuff hundreds of times, to family and friends or anyone else who’d care to listen. But now the facts and figures I could so easily rattle off were blocked in the void, somewhere between brain and mouth. Now, when it mattered most, my voice quivered, my hands shook. I was letting myself down. It was that bad, even the kids lowered their heads, as if praying for help.

  ‘U-uh-hmm …’ I cleared my throat. ‘Nineteen-sixty-four w-w-was the first time I was sent out by the government to work as a domestic servant and … and I’ve never received my wages.’

  Rodney tilted his head in encouragement – egging me on to continue. And it seemed, thank goodness, as if divine intervention had finally come. My words were no longer getting stuffed up with stutters and I continued telling my story for some twenty minutes.

  The lawyer had reclined in his chair, feet on the desk, rocking back and forth. I did my best not to get distracted. Finally he spoke. The big flashy words and legal jargon spewed out of his mouth quicker than I could listen. I gestured to Tammy to write some notes, hoping she could understand. The lawyer glanced again at my records before skimming them back towards me. My precious papers fle
w across the desk like a frisbee.

  ‘There’s one small problem,’ he said, with a pinched smile. ‘You’re thirty years too late.’

  Years of research and campaigning had come to this! All of this had been a friggin’ waste of time. I had no case. What the hell was I thinking?

  ‘Th-th-thank you,’ my eyes watered and I could scarcely breathe at the thought of failing. I’d thanked him, I suppose it was habit. The lawyer said goodbye but didn’t move his feet from the desk.

  ‘Let’s go, kids.’ And they followed me out. I wished they’d never come.

  Tammy

  In the silence on the long trip home I saw Mum’s devastation. It tore away at me. I could sense her sadness, and this angered me. My brothers and I had become as much a part of our mother’s turbulent crusade for justice as she had. When Rod and I weren’t propping up the numbers at protest rallies or marches, we were spending part of our school holidays trawling through files in boring research facilities that were hardly teenager-friendly. Yet the hardest part of all, which I hadn’t expected, was that we had a front-row seat to Mum’s pain.

  Each time an archive box was retrieved from the bowels of an institution, it was unknown what would be found or what emotions it would evoke. For instance, in a prominent research facility located in a southern state, Mum and I stumbled across a bundle of black-and-white photographs showing close-up shots of different Aboriginal body parts. Ears. Teeth. Hands. Feet. It was as if the photographer had conducted an autopsy. Here was an Aboriginal person reduced to mere pieces, dissected and documented, all in the name of anthropological research.