by Sue Williams
Father Bob watched them with interest, taking great pleasure in how well they were both doing. ‘Since the death of the first boy we’d helped, that sixteen year old, some of the other people we’d been helping had died. It was heartbreaking. Some had committed suicide; others had been killed in fights or in drug overdoses. It was so very hard each time anyone fell.
‘So to see these boys coming good, it was very rewarding. I’d look at them and thank Jesus they survived, and were doing all right.’
Brother Alex finally had his day in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court on 2 November 1988, and pleaded not guilty to the charge of being an accessory to murder. The police argued that he provided cash to the two sisters who’d been arrested for the alleged murder of the man in the boarding house; Brother Alex denied the charge. After hearing from both sides, magistrate Kevin Mason finally found insufficient evidence to send him to trial, although he rebuked the Jesuit for having been ‘far from frank’ with police.
So while Brother Alex had been cleared, his position with the Open Family Foundation was untenable. Father Bob’s old mate Frank O’Connor was given the task of telling him his role was over. It was a tough call to make, but everyone felt sure now that the Foundation would manage to survive without him.
At that, Brother Alex promptly vanished from Melbourne. It later turned out he’d returned to Perth and, many years later, was tracked down by another of his brothers. He’d also discovered their mother was still alive and had been searching for her lost children all her life. Alex made the trek to Scotland for an emotional reunion, during which she presented him with a wad of letters, written to him over the years but returned unopened by the Christian Brothers. He then came back to Melbourne, left the Jesuits, married and changed his name. He is now working in the areas of counselling and youth suicide, but he and Father Bob are no longer in contact. ‘It’s all past history now,’ says Alex today of his involvement with the Open Family Foundation and Father Bob. ‘He’s a very generous man but I don’t want to look back. I’ve nothing to add.’
Yet despite all the problems, it seemed vital that the Foundation continue its work with homeless kids. In 1989, following a two-year inquiry by the Human Rights Commissioner Brian Burdekin, his report ‘Our Homeless Children’ was released, revealing that between 20 000 and 25 000 Australian children, some as young as twelve, were homeless. The findings shocked the nation. Many of those children had left their family homes to escape from adults who were abusing them physically, sexually and emotionally and were living on the streets, in shopping centres, in squats, under bridges, in the bush and in clothing bins. The report, and the public outcry it caused, only served to harden Father Bob’s resolve to keep on helping.
‘We were always punching above our weight, especially where children had been sexually abused,’ says Father Bob. ‘A lot of the children were very difficult to help. But we always tried, we always offered. Sometimes kids refused our help but that didn’t matter. They knew we’d be there if they changed their minds.’
It wasn’t only teens and young men and women Father Bob helped, either. One day, he opened the door of the presbytery to see a basket sitting on the front step, with a soft mewing coming from inside. He bent down to pick up the basket and found a handwritten note attached to a blanket. ‘Please, Father Bob,’ it read, ‘look after my baby.’ The priest gently took the basket and its contents inside, and called the police. ‘In the old days, we would have called a local woman to look after a baby like that,’ he says. ‘But now, you have to call the police, have the baby “arrested”, and they either find the mother or a suitable home.’ Many years later, the adoptive father of baby Virginia would write to Father Bob, asking for a meeting. He then turned up at the presbytery with his daughter on his arm, so they could both say, ‘Thank you’.
Having successfully survived the loss of Brother Alex, an even more pressing problem for the Foundation presented itself: money. By now, the Foundation had street kids staying in the hostels, out the back of the presbytery in the Outback House and, as the number of children in need grew, even upstairs. Lots of projects were started up for them, some of which worked, and some of which most definitely didn’t.
One experiment was a sandwich shop in St Kilda, which Father Bob imagined as a social enterprise where street kids could be employed, learn new skills and earn their own living. It was a good idea, and a brave move, but it never really took off. ‘When it comes to the detail around some of those things, Bob’s not very patient,’ says Frank O’Connor. ‘So sometimes these things used to happen without anybody knowing. He’d meet an estate agent who’d perhaps say, “I’ve got this shop for you,” and Bob would say, “OK!” He’d then commit to it without perhaps enough due diligence. That shop absorbed a massive amount of money and it became a bit of a centre for a while where street kids would hang out, but it never really developed into a social enterprise where young people were actually learning enough skills to become self-sufficient and be able to get jobs elsewhere.’
Another expensive move was a grander version of the halfway house on Cecil Street, a much bigger house by the beach at Elwood. The kids loved it, but it never worked out quite as well as was hoped. That house was closed down after about a year.
A third venture that had its ups and downs was the purchase of a farm near Ballarat. The idea was a sound one: Father Bob saw it as a great place to move youngsters away from the streets, out of their familiar inner-city environment and away from its temptations to enable them to make a fresh start. In this, he was a forerunner of successful enterprises like the New South Wales–based Youth Off the Streets, run by Father Chris Riley. But just like Father Chris’s first farm, set up five years later, where two kids ended up having a baby together and others burned down a neighbour’s shearing shed, it was a tumultuous ride. Things went well at first, with the farm providing a wonderful place for kids to go for short holidays, and to serve as a healthy refuge. The young people who went to stay loved it. One of the groups presented Father Bob with a photograph album of them helping out at the farm, having meals at the big old wooden table in the dining room, and clowning around afterwards, together with a pile of letters of thanks.
Some were short and to the point. ‘To Father Bob, Thank you, Love Vicki,’ and ‘To Bob, Thanks for the trip, Dave.’ Others were a little longer. ‘Thanks, Bob,’ another read. ‘Thanks for having this trip and giving me the chance to get away to clear my head and to get away from everyone. Thanks, Stephen.’ Jim felt much the same. ‘Bob, This is to say Thanks for what you have done for us and this has woken me up about life. So thanks again, Jim.’ A trio got together to write a joint covering letter for the album. ‘Dear Father Bob, This album is given to you in gratitude for the wonderful time we all had. When we got there everyone was so nice. They all tryed [sic] to make us feel welcome. I feel we all benifeted [sic] in our own way, for me Flinders St steps are now in the past. I found that people can be nice with out wanting anything in return. I think trips like this can benifit [sic] a lot of other kids who like some of us have never been away. We are all deeply grateful for this opportunity. Thank you very much. All our love, Karen, Phil and David.’
But Father Bob simply didn’t have the funds to keep the farm running smoothly, especially since it needed around $15 000 worth of work. With Brother Alex’s departure, donations dropping because of the financial squeeze and so many other projects vying for the available cash, it started to prove simply too expensive to continue. In 1988, the live-in husband-and-wife team running the farm were told that their contracts were to be terminated. And at that, all hell broke loose.
The pair came to stay at the presbytery for a while, along with the kids already billeted there, then laid a complaint to the Melbourne Archdiocese, alleging the kids were getting up to all sorts of trouble, and that there were financial irregularities in the way both the farm and the Foundation as a whole were being run. They said too that they’d uncovered evidence of the misappropriat
ion of funds by the Open Family Foundation, Father Bob or others. The priest was shocked to his core. ‘The place up in the bush was a good one, but I just couldn’t keep it running,’ he says. ‘Then the girl who managed the farm, she turned. It was totally unexpected.’
But worse was to come. The pair had also passed on their claims to a high-profile media figure who was to prove a very vocal, and powerful, enemy.
13
Making a Powerful Enemy
It caught Father Bob Maguire completely by surprise. Ever on the hunt for more funds for the Open Family Foundation and now in dire financial straits with Brother Alex gone and so many projects needing money, in late 1988 he’d come up with the idea of a radiothon to raise money.
Since the 53-year-old priest was still regularly appearing on radio, particularly with his weekly shows variously on 3AK and 3AW, more and more on TV, and with a regular column in ‘The Catholic Advocate’, he was becoming a well-known personality, not only in Melbourne but nationally. He hoped an appeal for funds on the radio, talking about the Foundation and its good works, would help attract donations. The parish had been raising as much as it could – a walkathon had just raised a few thousand dollars and Father Kiss’s donations from the ANZ Trustees were proving useful – but there still wasn’t enough to fund everything Father Bob wanted to achieve.
To publicise the radiothon, Father Bob went on a number of radio and TV shows to talk about what they were doing. He was a welcome guest on most; he was rapidly becoming known as someone both worthy and amusing, with a great turn of phrase and interesting way of looking at things. On the surface, he could appear grumpy and gruff but, underneath, many people perceived him as soft-hearted with his causes, yet with the hard edge of someone absolutely determined to get things done.
So when Derryn Hinch invited him for an interview on 3AW, Father Bob was delighted to go on. Hinch was a very powerful figure in the media at the time, with the top-rating morning show, a series as host of the TV show ‘Beauty and the Beast’ under his belt, and the TV current affairs show on the Seven Network, ‘Hinch’.
What happened next was something he had no idea was coming. Hinch welcomed him on, then said, ‘I have here some affidavits …’ The priest was puzzled. He had no idea what an affidavit was but, from the tone of Hinch’s voice, it didn’t sound like a good thing. Hinch went on to say he had details of unsavoury goings-on among kids staying in the St Peter and Paul’s presbytery, and claims of financial mismanagement and misappropriation. Father Bob was, for almost the first time in his life, dumbstruck. He’d had no idea the claims were being treated seriously.
‘We were in a bit of strife at the time, as the Open Family Foundation had shrunk since Alex left, and we’d gone down from ten street workers to one to look after all the kids who still needed looking after,’ he says. ‘I was trying to handle nearly everything myself. There were some kids upstairs in the presbytery, and apparently some of the affidavits made allegations about what they might have been doing up there. Well, most of them weren’t angels – they were kids who’d been fighting for their survival on the streets and many of them were very damaged – but at least they were in a safe place. Hinch seemed to be suggesting I was responsible for everything about them, which would have been absolutely impossible!’
Father Bob stumbled through the rest of the interview, at one stage asking listeners if they could be absolutely sure where their own children were, and what they were doing, every minute of the day. When he came off air, he contacted the police, and invited them to come into the presbytery and investigate the claims. ‘I was innocent, but I needed to be cleared publicly,’ he says. While the skirmish helped give the radiothon even more publicity and turn it into a healthy fundraiser, he feared it might hurt his reputation in the long term. ‘I felt these kind of allegations, even though I believed them to be totally unfounded, could really damage the Foundation and the work we were doing.’
Hinch was already on record as having disapproved of some of Father Bob’s methods. He’d received a phone call once from someone who said he’d seen a young man knocking on the priest’s door and asking for money. Father Bob opened the door, the caller said, listened to what he had to say and gave him twenty dollars. The young man, Hinch then alleged, had later used that money to help pay for drugs.
If true, that would highlight a fundamental difference between the two men’s ideologies. Hinch believed Father Bob should have given him a food voucher, or set up an account at a local supermarket where he could have bought food. Father Bob, on the other hand, felt he had an unassailable duty to help young people, especially with guidance and support to make decisions of their own. If they asked for money and sometimes made a bad decision to spend that money on drugs, well, there was always the chance that maybe next time they came to him, they might talk to him more and end up making a better choice. He sometimes even answered the door wearing a hard hat. When the caller would ask why, he’d reply, ‘In case you hit me on me head!’ It would always raise a smile and sometimes be just the start of a connection Father Bob could work on.
‘I wouldn’t give someone knocking on the door any more than twenty dollars because there might be a possibility of them spending the money on drugs,’ says Father Bob now. ‘At the back of my head would be the thought that a hit of heroin back in those days would cost fifty dollars – that was before the price fell dramatically – so twenty dollars would be neither here nor there. It’s meant simply as a response to an immediate need; the fiscal cliff varies with each individual. You can’t have a committee meeting with experts every time someone rings your bell and says they’re hungry. It’s a gesture, and it’s a sign of respect not to question the person asking. It’s shades of grey, like that Lazyboy hip-hop song [‘Underwear Goes Inside the Pants’] where the singer talks about a homeless guy asking him for money, but he refuses, saying he might use it on drugs and alcohol, then realises that’s exactly what he’s going to use it on himself.’
Besides, Father Bob had grown up with a tradition of begging. His mother had had to beg from Legacy for help because she had no money, then from the pawnshops, while he’d begged first from Father McGorry in order to make it through the seminary, and later for his various charities. He knew what it was like to have to cringingly plead for cash, and he didn’t want others to feel the same shame or to go without.
Others too could see the sense of those twenty-dollar handouts. One of the regular parish volunteers, Colleen Miller, says Father Bob certainly wouldn’t give money to just anyone who asked, though. ‘Those early street kids he came across first, like Brian and Costas and the others, he felt he should always be there for them,’ she says. ‘They’d had such hard lives, he desperately wanted to make things better for them. And if any of those early ones spent the money on drugs, he’d think, at the end of the day, that it was better he gave them twenty dollars than they go off to rob someone for it, or burgle a house. People who want drugs are often desperate and they’ll do anything to get money, and their victims can be traumatised for a long, long time. If Father Bob could avoid that, he’d reason that was a wise thing to do.’
But wise or not, in Hinch Father Bob had made himself a powerful and resolute enemy, and one who would soon return to the attack.
While Father Bob was still helping support so many kids, some of them were still falling by the wayside. Without a good start in life, he discovered they never managed to develop the emotional resilience necessary to keep facing hurdles and clambering over them each time. He’d support some through enormous difficulties, only to hear a few days, weeks, months or even years later the terrible news he always dreaded: that another one had died by their own hand. Taking a heroin overdose, alcoholic binge-drinking, swallowing a lethal cocktail of prescription pills, being involved in a suspicious car crash or hanging themselves … It all happened far too often, and claimed way too many young lives.
‘A lot of people look at these kids on the streets and say they’re no-
hopers,’ he says. ‘I see kids who are someone’s son or daughter, someone’s sister or brother. They may be in a bad way now, but most have a very sad story behind why they’re there, and why they’re the way they now are. Kids have today become the innocent victims of thirty years of one-upmanship by adults who just don’t care, but pay more attention to being independent and getting ahead. This is a parish at war. If you lose the battle for kids, then you can say goodbye to the future. There’s nothing left. I never lose hope. I may lose my marbles, but never my hope.’
The toll of kids who’d died was mounting all the time and, by the end of the 1980s, it had hit twenty. Every death touched him deeply. ‘It was terrible,’ says Colleen. ‘He felt responsible for all those young people. Protecting them he saw as a duty that he took very seriously. It was very sad to see the number of young people whose lives were destroyed by the situation they were in. One died who was a father to a couple of children. That was a horrible shock. Another one was the friend of someone who died and spoke at his funeral, saying he was going to try to make a difference, so that wouldn’t happen to anyone else in the future. A couple of years later, he died, too. Father Bob always took it very hard.’