Our democracy is a rare jewel, I say. Yes, we should aim to make it better, but it is like this for a reason. Our forefathers and -mothers got a lot of things right. We have separation between church and state, and between the courts and elected representatives. Elections are free and fair, and citizens not only have the right to vote, they can stand for public office too. These important institutions are there to serve everyone, and no one party or person should be able to buy their way into power.
I acknowledge that getting work and putting food on the table for their families, and the education of their children, will be their most important tasks.
Yet I urge them to consider, once they’ve got a foothold, how they might give something back—as those who received recognition for community service today have done.
We seesaw through the national anthem, for the second time this morning. A portion of the crowd is dressed for the occasion, a few in the national costume of their country of origin, among whom a number beam and sing proudly. There’s another cohort that has already drifted away, indifferent to the lyric, taking a clue from Aussie casual, in thongs, jeans, T-shirts.
The sun, now higher in the sky, is as bright as the faces of the excited new arrivals. Blazing yellow light splashes on the flash mansions hugging the cliffs nearby, and on the red-brick public housing flats further south, where quite a few of these recent arrivals will spend their early years.
Surging up against the cliffs that bookend the beach, the ocean is a well-cooked broth, warm and getting warmer: after millions of years of natural selection, and thousands of years of humans accumulating survival skills and taking over the planet, these new Australians are part of the generation that has outrun evolution, and, in their case, escaped their past as well—for them anything is possible.
As ever, the panorama takes my breath away. I look up to Dolphin Point on the Coogee headland. It hosts a memorial to the victims of a terrorist bombing in Bali that killed and wounded members of a local footy club and families from the area who’d gone there on holidays. It’s a symbol of the frailties of our region and a reminder, like this morning’s event, that we are an Asian nation.
The ceremony over, I wander past family groups and gatherings of young people who’ve come to the park to celebrate; many are covered in tattoos, fake and real, their summer gear prominently featuring the Australian flag. The Union Jack in the corner is still an eyesore to me, a reminder that we’ve got some way to go.
A CD is punched into a ghetto blaster and out chimes Essential Oils. ‘Give us a song, Pete!’ comes the shout. I can but smile and wave.
‘Happy Australia Day!’ someone else yells, as kids play chasings and cricket and the holiday mood radiates across the beach. If all these young people can get the best start possible, with a true love for their neighbours and this country, then nothing should hold them, and us, back. So much lies in wait, and there’s so much to experience, so much to do, living in what to me is the best place on earth.
…
Finally I get back to my car and aim for Mittagong to catch up with my sweetheart. It will be a very late lunch and I don’t even notice the drive out of town, lost in thought after a big day of mixed emotions.
Oh, our beloved Rowe. I can’t wait to get back home.
Rowe had been our sanctuary and a labour of love, a never-ending project of repair and improvements undertaken in whatever spare hours we could snatch. A home shaped by laughter and occasional tears, and the routine of getting on with life, creating new memories.
The outside markers were school holidays and the two sets of important celebrations: Christmas and Easter from the old world, and Australia Day and Anzac Day from the new. Then came the rites of passage: birthdays celebrated with joy each time, as the family grew before our eyes.
Sometimes friends would gather and we’d eat and drink and play games—adults and kids—and listen to the music we grew up with, laughing about the silly, brave things we did, amazed at how quickly the years fly past.
In the Southern Highlands the seasons are distinct, more turbulent, less predictable. They arrive with changes you can sense—flora and fauna stirring—as if someone left the back door open and night air flowed in and filled the rooms.
Leaving autumn’s letting-go and dropping into winter, cooling nights and the still days give way to frigid. Winds sweep long distance over the ranges from the west and occasional frosts crackle the gardens and fields.
As it warms there come a few brief weeks when perfumes and aromas fill the paddocks and linger in the air, as the glorious colours of spring erupt. There are stems and branches and flowers budding and blossoming into the softer, dreamy days.
Then soft gives way to harsh—and to hot, of course. But here in the Highlands it could still double back, as clammy fog pushes over the escarpment from the east, holding the heat of summer at bay, while mists drift, otherworldly, in the valleys.
Once summer really took hold, if we were stuck fast, we’d just have to suck it up and bake for a week or so, and hope the bush wouldn’t erupt in flames.
The small block next to the house was my special project. Here weeds ruled, but bit by bit they’d been punished, pulled, poisoned and then holes were dug and scribbly gums, snow gums, waratahs—anything that ‘used to grow round here’—planted to bring some lustre.
If the naysayers were out in force, and torrents of whinge from talkback tyrants, media mavens and professional pessimists were pouring down like a summer storm, I’d get out for a couple of hours and meander in the glade. With the solar radio delivering cricket live and Jim Maxwell and the ABC crew swapping yarns, I could drink in the cool shade, catch up with my brothers and far-flung mates by phone and refresh while planning some more landscape changes. From little things . . .
I’ve been faithful in love and friendship, I can say that much. And I’ve tried to be faithful to my inner voice, to my God, and to the future. I’ve stumbled, fallen and then got up again, but I can still hum a tune, and even wrote a few while finishing this account, so I know that while there’s life there’s hope.
The wisdom of the elders is the cliché used to describe the learning of a long innings, but we are so addicted to the shiny and the new, our elders are mostly ignored altogether. But now even I’m starting to feel like an elder, only too aware that life moves fast and in circles—and here it comes again.
The moon tracks across the northern sky, its creamy shine reflecting off the roof. The end of another day is announced by the frogs and birds, the sound drifting up from the dam as the evening cools and the passing traffic dies away.
The night sky showers its forever light, as I in turn look out—head filled with preoccupations, dreams and plans—into the cluster of constellations.
I call up moments of pure happiness: when each of my girls first called out ‘Dada’; a blue-green day driving in the hills of France, just Doris and me, when the wind died away and the floating calm seemed to last forever; on my own at my favourite faraway break, catching a crest of water all the way to shore.
If I wait long enough I’ll see a shooting star, try and catch it, and put it in my pocket. It carries the stuff we all came from, now falling from the heavens back to earth.
I can see new life taking root in the ground, new lives fuelled by love, bound one to the other, growing into tomorrow.
Mum and Dad in Martin Place, Sydney, holding hands in the early days.
With my brother Andrew, 1956.
Top: Mum and Dad with Andrew and me.
Posing on the bonnet of our Holden, around 1957.
With Emily Jane Collin, our gran, in about 1960.
Barker College athletics team, 1965. I’m the one with the blond hair in the back row, third from the right. BARKER COLLEGE
Young, and waiting for a wave.
Andrew and I at Lyndall’s twenty-first birthday party. Soon after, they were married.
An early Devil’s Breakfast gig at Burgmann College, ANU, with bass playe
r Damian Street, 1974.
Graduating with an arts degree, ANU, 1975.
Fresh-faced band in front of our rehearsal studio, 77 Albert Avenue, Chatswood, 1976. PHILIP MORRIS
Getting physical, Mawson Hotel, Newcastle area, 1978. GEOFFREY MOORE
Early Oils at the Flicks Theatre, Manly, 1979. JAN PAUL
Going through a few songs, 1979.
The Sun, 31 October 1979.
It gets louder towards the end of the show. MIDNIGHT OIL ARCHIVE
Close and hot, Stagedoor Tavern, Sydney, 1979. DAVID KNOWLES
Trying to get a song going, with Jim Moginie in the background, 1980.
Grabbing some takeaway, location unknown, about 1980. PHILIP MORRIS
Taking off at the end of the night, early 1980s. MIDNIGHT OIL ARCHIVE
Above: Shooting our first film clip, ‘Run by Night’, 1978. PHILIP MORRIS
Below: Sweetwater Festival, 1983. G.R. CARROLL
Left: Sydney Entertainment Centre, 1983. TONY MOTT
MIDNIGHT OIL ARCHIVE
Below: Nuclear Disarmament Party press conference, YWCA, Sydney, 1984. ANTHONY WEATE/NEWSPIX
With Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew, Surfers Against Nuclear Destruction (SAND) competition, Alexandra Headland, Queensland, 1985.
‘Oils on the Water’, Goat Island, Sydney Harbour, Australia Day, 1985. ADRIENNE OVERALL
Blackfella/Whitefella tour, Northern Territory, 1986. RAY KENNEDY/THE AGE
With Gary Morris on the Blackfella/Whitefella tour. RAY KENNEDY/THE AGE
Leaving the church on our wedding day, Manly, 1985.
At Palm Beach, Sydney, with our firstborn, Emily, 1986.
Just warming up on the Blackfella/Whitefella tour, 1986. RAY KENNEDY/THE AGE
Doris and I at the ‘other’ Australia Day rally, Hyde Park, Sydney, 1988. PETER POYNTON
Diesel and Dust. KEN DUNCAN
RAY KENNEDY
US Diesel and Dust tour, 1988, featuring Rob’s corrugated iron tank as an extra drum. SUSAN ALZNER
Filming ‘Blue Sky Mine’, Kalgoorlie, 1990, with the fire brigade lending a hand. KEN DUNCAN
With Prime Minister Bob Hawke at the opening of the new ACF headquarters, Melbourne, 1989. MICHAEL POTTER/NEWSPIX
Protest gig outside the Exxon Oil building, Sixth Avenue, New York, 1990. CHUCK PULIN
Blue Sky Mining. KEN DUNCAN
Filming ‘Forgotten Years’, Verdun, France, mid-winter, 1990. YOURI LENQUETTE
Band and crew pulling over to look at snow, some of us for the first time, Canada, early 90s.
A Glen Preece painting to commemorate the successful campaign halting a dam on the Fitzroy River, near Broome, Western Australia, 1999. GLEN PREECE
Doris and I backstage with Sting after one of his rainforest concerts, Sydney, early 1990s.
Greenpeace launch of NRG, a solar-powered recording (various artists), Los Angeles, 1994. ANDREAS SMETANA/GREENPEACE
Preparing the ground for a new reserve at Broadmeadows, Victoria, 1991. JAMIE DAVIES/NEWSPIX
Stills from Shoalwater: Up For Grabs, a film by David Bradbury, Shoalwater Bay, 1992. PETER SOLNESS
On the shoot for the Australian version of the ‘Truganini’ film clip, 1993. JOHN VELLA
Performing at the Clayoquot Sound protest site, Vancouver Island, Canada, 1993. MIDNIGHT OIL ARCHIVE
‘In the Valley’ film clip, Broome, 1993. JOHN VELLA
A 1993 promo shot for Earth and Sun and Moon. ANDRZEJ LIGUZ
Bands wear black. A Rolling Stone cover shot, 1993. ANDRZEJ LIGUZ
Extended family, back row, from left: me, Matt, Lyndall, Doris and Andrew. Front row, from left: Em, May, Darcy, Grace, Maude and Jack.
The family in Amsterdam, 1992. From left: Emily, May and Grace.
From left: May, Em and Grace, back in Australia, 1994.
Doris and I at the Kangaroo Valley shed, 1989.
Trying something different, Sydney, 1996. ANDRZEJ LIGUZ
The ‘Stop Jabiluka mine’ march, Jabiluka, 1998. To my right is Jacqui Katona and to my left are Tom Uren and, in the blue skirt, Yvonne Margarula. CLIVE HYDE/NEWSPIX
Closing ceremony, Sydney Summer Olympics, 2000. RICK STEVENS/FAIRFAX
Jabiluka blockade, Kakadu, at the height of the protests, 1998. BRENDAN FITZPATRICK
With José Ramos-Horta, Diplomacy Training Program, University of New South Wales, 2001.
With Gough Whitlam, Mick Young Charity Race Day, Randwick Race Course, Sydney, 2004. RENEE NOWYTARGER/NEWSPIX
With Mark Dodshon (left) and Damian Trotter, between Docker River and Kintore (Walungurru), 2003.
With Dames (left) and Doddo on the beach near Shelburne Bay, Cape York, 2003. Glen Preece was behind the camera.
With, from left: Tim Freedman, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke on Gough’s 90th birthday, 2006.
Greeted by protestors outside a restaurant, Hobart, 2007. RAOUL KOCHANOWSKI/NEWSPIX
At the despatch box, House of Representatives. GARY RAMAGE/NEWSPIX
Global Warming rally, Sydney, 2007, from left to right: Don Henry (ACF), Tanya Plibersek, John Connor (Climate Institute), George Newhouse, me, Anthony Albanese, Alec Marr (The Wilderness Society), Bob Brown and Cate Faehrmann (Nature Conservation Council of NSW). LISA WILLIAMS/NEWSPIX
With Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Parliament House, Canberra, during the Gonski school funding campaign, 2013. GARY RAMAGE/NEWSPIX
With William Parmbuk, Wadeye settlement, Melbourne, 2012. AARON FRANCIS
Taking a lucky catch at the Big Bash Celebrity Twenty20 cricket match, SCG, for the Victorian Bushfire Appeal, 2009. GREGG PORTEOUS/NEWSPIX
With my one and only.
With the girls, from left: Grace, May and Emily.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the many friendships and collaborations that permeate Big Blue Sky, I am truly grateful. In music, conservation and politics, my life has been shared with many others and I greatly value these numerous, often unnamed partnerships.
Thanks to my band mates—Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie, Martin Rotsey, Bones Hillman, Peter Gifford and Andrew James—and our manager Gary Morris, who are such a big part of this memoir. Thanks also to friend and legal adviser Peter Thompson, Arlene Brookes in the Oils Office who assisted greatly, Paula Jones, Craig Allan and Sony Music Australia.
Part of this book concerns the Australian conservation movement. I commend those dedicated activists and many volunteers who have made such a difference to the health of our precious environment, and who I enjoyed working with over many years.
Thanks to my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander friends and colleagues who have allowed me a unique insight into Indigenous Australia, and whose struggle for proper recognition and a fair go remains unfinished business.
I would also like to thank the many staff, volunteers and advisers, including Wayne Smith, Bryce Wilson, Louise Moes, Rick Youssef, Sarah McCormack, Chrissie Mallon, Jill Morante, Cara Davis, Kate Sullivan, Phillipa Dimakis, Liam O’Dwyer and Paul Martin, who worked in my electorate and ministerial offices, and whose commitment to Labor values underpinned our joint efforts.
Additional thanks to the electors of Kingsford Smith, the Kingsford Smith Federal Electoral Council, including Tony Bowen, Dominic Sullivan, Matt Thistlethwaite and Chris Bastic; and to Labor Party members, including Tony Slevin, Geoff Gallop, Sandra Strong, Paul and Sue Tracy, Sue Myerhoffer, Christine Kibble, Patricia and Peter O’Brien, Peter Castaldi and Zoe Reynolds—among others—who never wavered in their support.
I am especially grateful for the assistance of Judy Middlebrook, Mark Dodshon, Kate Pasterfield, Denise Spinks, Ben Pratt, Simon Balderstone, Jenny Hunter, Phillip Toyne, Donna Petrachenko, Cameron Mellor, Peter Wright, Andy Palfreyman, Lisa Paul, Laurie Brereton, Craig Emerson, Warren Snowdon, Alan James, Robyn Kruk, Penny Kerr, Paul Gilding, Charlie McMahon, John Connor, Don Henry, and Andrew and Matt Garrett, who all took time to provide additional information, review sections or make helpful suggestions.
To fill
the gaps in my memory, I have drawn on Mark Dodshon’s Beds Are Burning, Andrew McMillan’s Strict Rules, Paul Kelly’s The End of Certainty, Kerry-Anne Walsh’s The Stalking of Julia Gillard and George Megalogenis’s The Australian Moment. Of course any errors or factual distortions are my responsibility alone.
Many thanks are owed to Richard Walsh, who first encouraged me to consider a memoir; Jane Palfreyman, my publisher at Allen & Unwin, for her enthusiasm and advice; Ali Lavau and Sarah Baker, for their judicious editing and suggestions; and my agent, Deb Callaghan, for her constant support.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Doris for her sound counsel during the writing of this book, and to my daughters, Emily, May and Grace, for hanging in.
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