Leaving his family outside in the car, sweltering and starved, he had gone into the office where he was interrogated by a white woman in a condescending manner. Instead of relief he was given advice: Go out and get a job.
I was incensed—this had come from a woman who was being paid a living wage out of the Aboriginal budget, supposedly employed to assist Aboriginal people. It reminded me, too, of my own experience, years before in Newcastle when I had been embarrassed and distressed about having to plead a case for poverty in front of a stranger. I had come away with a food order. Lionel, with all those children to feed, had received nothing but an affront for his pain.
That night, after his interview, he knocked a flimsy door to a store off its brackets and helped himself to some groceries. He repeated this crime in several country towns as he travelled around looking for work. It was pitiful to sit in the court and hear different storekeepers, who had been flown down for the trial and were being accommodated at government expense, give the judge lists of the items they had found missing: baby food, cans of powdered milk, bandaids. This was the nature of the crimes Lionel had committed.
After court, I met Lionel and Jean. Like many others, I was amazed by Lionel’s skills and bushcraft in eluding the police. (A police report had told that Lionel’s vehicle had broken down and, with the few tools he had, he’d converted the truck from automatic to manual transmission to keep it going.)
‘The police—they could have found me. They had every waterhole staked out. They knew where I was,’ he told me.
‘So why didn’t they catch you?’
‘They were being paid double and triple time. Why would they want to catch me?’ he replied.
One night, he said, he had walked behind a small group of police playing cards near a waterhole to fill up his canteen. They knew he was there, and he knew they knew. He thought they would take him then, he was so close he could see the cards that they were holding. But no, they had all studiously avoided glancing up to see him.
When at last the police caught him, they beat him, he said. They blamed him because the Force had been embarrassed by the publicity the case had generated. The press had estimated that about half a million dollars had been spent in the search.
I reiterated to Lionel that there was money in the fund we had established on his behalf to help him out. He said he preferred to go with the lawyers the state had provided. He wanted his wife to receive the money because, as he was to be sentenced, she’d be doing it tough to keep the family together in his absence.
It was Christmas 1971, and we were pleased when we went around to the house where Jean was staying with friends or relatives and were able to give her some money.
That Christmas, too, Russel spent his allowance on buying a set of Tweed perfume and talc, the first real gift he’d ever purchased for me, apart from toy cars and the like which he’d presented me with in the past. My little boy was growing up.
In Sydney and Melbourne, since the referendum, it had been possible for Blacks to go into a hotel and have a drink. Some hotels still discriminated against us by refusing us entry, and these were battles we had yet to take on, but generally speaking we were served.
In Perth, however, it was back to the bad old days. Neal, Jenny and I went to a number of places where they were admitted but I was refused. Some friends we had made then told us of a hotel that would serve us. We went there, and yes, they would sell us a drink—but we’d have to stand around in the backyard to drink it.
We also learned that WA state laws prohibited Aboriginal people from crossing the state borders, and non-Aboriginal people were not permitted to transport them. Fortunately these laws were not rigidly enforced, or we would never have been able to arrive there in order to receive the publicans’ refusals!
A few years later, a Sydney-based Wiradjeri Elder, Shirley Smith (MumShirl), would also visit Western Australia and be refused service from a range of places, including cafes and accommodation houses. A diabetic in need of regular meals, she was compelled by one of these refusals to forgo her medication. She complained to the local unions, which threatened to cut off the water and power to the businesses concerned.
I recall people in those days would frequently ask me why I was an activist. They often didn’t understand when I told them that we just wanted to be treated decently.
6
When I’d reluctantly put Russel on a plane back to Townsville after we had returned from Perth, I cadged a ride with some priests who were driving to Sydney. I checked in with Leonie and Margaret, but basically my intention was to pursue news in the Black community. I needed to stay in touch with events as they unfolded in order to keep my Review articles relevant and up-to-date. I visited the Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS), a shopfront office which offered free legal advice to Kooris. It had been modelled on an idea from the Black Panthers in America, so Denis Walker had informed me. At the time most Kooris just pleaded guilty to anything they were charged with, for a variety of reasons including misunderstanding of the charges against them, unfamiliarity with the legal process and no access to legal advice.
There was also talk of establishing a medical service along the same lines, with volunteer staff, to provide badly needed attention for sick Aboriginal people. I was taken by the vibrancy and enthusiasm of many of the people concerned, including Gordon Briscoe, Naomi Mayers, Paul Coe and the two Garys, Williams and Foley.
Leonie had, by this time, moved out of her city flat to a house in Epping. I had never warmed to her husband, but whenever I was in Sydney I stayed with them, giving Leonie some assistance and company because Terry was away so often. While I was there I packed my clothes into two small suitcases, which I called ‘summer’ and ‘winter’, as I was now ready to live a nomadic life in an effort to track down news.
After a few days I returned to Melbourne to keep tabs on the Brockman Defence Fund and find out how to send copy into The Review office from elsewhere. Then I travelled back to Sydney once more. I was pleasantly surprised when I was brusquely confronted by Naomi Mayers as I was checking out some information with people at the Clifton Hotel, one of two hotels frequented by Blacks in Redfern. She asked me where I had been during the intervening week.
‘Why? Why do you want to know?’ I asked guardedly.
‘Because we needed you here. We looked all over for you, we needed something written, something you could have done. We know you write for that newspaper. Well, you can write for us too!’ she replied.
The reason for my pleasure at these remarks is that it is often quite difficult for new people to penetrate cliques, and even more so when the members are all under enormous pressure and scrutiny from outside. The group of community activists who were in the process of setting up a range of services for the Black community had, of course, attracted the attention of ASIO and the police. How were they to know that any newcomer was not a ‘spy’?
I wrote on a range of Black community issues, particularly the plight of Aboriginal cotton-chippers in the fields around Wee Waa. They were on strike for better pay and conditions: their health and lives were under threat from aerial spraying in this chemical-intensive industry. As well, I attended numerous meetings to plan new services and strategies.
It was in the office of the newly established Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) that I first met MumShirl, whose awesome reputation had preceded our meeting. I had heard so many good things about this woman, but recently I had heard that she had been critical of me. Despite my fear of her reputation, which included smacking people down when they crossed her, I decided to give her the opportunity to size me up in person and for me to do likewise.
I asked her to step into the backroom so we could have some privacy, and then I put to her the rumours I had heard. She sat quietly for a moment and then, denying the rumours, she asked me to consider whether or not she would have made the comments that were being attributed to her: that I was an upstart and that I was leaping into the media spotlight from out of nowhere
. She proceeded to list everything she knew about me: that I was from Townsville and had two children, my involvement with OPAL, my work for The Review, and my initiation of a support, publicity and defence structure for Lionel Brockman. I was impressed, given that we hadn’t met before, but still wary.
We agreed to work together for our common cause and the benefit of the community. It was not long, however, before we had won each other’s respect, and eventually she began to introduce me to people as her ‘daughter’. The first time she did that, she drew me aside later and said that she hoped I didn’t mind. I said I felt honoured.
I had learned that a conference was to be held at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, and I made preparations to attend. On my arrival I realised I had already met most of the main Black activists and speakers who were present. On 26 January 1972, when we were into perhaps the second day of the meeting, a rumour began to sweep through the crowd: an ‘Aboriginal Embassy’ had been set up on the lawn across the road from Parliament House in Canberra, they needed our support.
The idea, an Embassy for us Black Australians, who knew that even foreigners had more representation than us, was very exciting. Bruce McGuinness, from Victoria, offered me a lift, but I was reluctant to accept. He had driven me to the Aboriginal Advancement League when I was in Melbourne, and I’d found him to have a lead foot. He realised why I was demurring and immediately volunteered to travel at a reasonable speed. He drove a big eight-cylinder car, packed full of people, and as soon as we were ready we set off.
It’s impossible to adequately describe the ad hoc operation of the Embassy and the emotions that we all shared. By the time we arrived the beach umbrella that had constituted the Embassy for the first few hours had been replaced with a small tent. When large numbers of supporters began to roll into Canberra, local people supplied even more tents and, within a few days, we had the beginnings of a small tent city.
We were very apprehensive that the police would arrest us immediately, but the truth, when it came out over the next few days, added mirth to our emotional mix. At the time, the Northern Territory was just that, a territory, administered by politicians and public servants in Canberra, and containing quite large sections of Crown land. The government had framed a law that there was to be no camping on Crown land. However, because Crown land in the Northern Territory was home to dispossessed Aboriginal people who had nowhere else to live, this law specifically excluded Aborigines. The expanse of land in front of Parliament House was also Crown land, but it had obviously never entered the minds of the politicians that Aborigines would set up camp there.
And set up camp we did. There was a lot of work to be done and many willing workers. Just organising cups of tea and cleaning up afterwards was a chore, because we were situated a fair walk from the toilet block, our only access to water. There was no shower block, of course, so local people came by each day and picked up small groups of us to take to their houses where we could wash.
People from all over Australia began sending small contributions towards the support of our Embassy goal. Very few of those staffing the Embassy had any other means of support and generally our funds were very low. Most of the people involved, including myself, were without transport. Blacks in general could not afford cars. Simple tasks such as bringing in food—bread, sugar and cool drinks—required us to walk long distances.
It became apparent from the breadth of support we received, mainly from the kindly folk of Canberra, that we would have to start producing leaflets to tell people what we were doing and the reasons behind our actions, if we didn’t want to have to repeat this information several hundred times a day.
Five years had passed since the referendum in 1967, which had acknowledged Aboriginal citizenship, but still little had changed. Some states, notably Queensland and Western Australia, continued to have their own laws relating to Aborigines, many of whom were still confined on reserves and missions, and required passes handed out by white managers in order to go into the nearest town.
We all knew the conditions on these places were appalling and at last we had found the means by which, we hoped, to bring about desperately needed change. Black people, including children, were dying of starvation and neglect, out of earshot and view of the majority of white citizens who lived in the cities. We were excited by the prospect of throwing the truth out to the media so that everyone could look at it and make up their own minds. This was largely the mission that we took onto ourselves.
Tasks were allocated according to people’s skills and depending on who was present at any time. I was elected to be the Embassy’s First Secretary, in charge of generating information sheets—but our jobs were not exclusive. John Newfong, whom I had met in Brisbane many moons ago and who was then living mainly in Sydney, also shared some of the written work, and we were both required by circumstances also to be tea-makers, bottle-washers and carriers of water. Some people, including Chika Dixon who worked on the waterside, travelled up and down to Canberra from Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne by train on their days off to take part.
Most of us took the mission we had set ourselves very seriously. The original idea had been hatched in Sydney by Kevin Gilbert, but he was on parole and not allowed to leave that city’s limits. Kevin had found some willing bodies to undertake the Embassy’s establishment, but he later told me that he had no idea at the time that the spark of his idea would be fanned by the strong winds of discontent and support, and blown into a major fire which would irrevocably bring change across the country.
‘Go out and publicise,’ was a common refrain, and one I took quite earnestly. Apart from writing about what was happening, I felt that, since most Aboriginal people couldn’t afford newspapers, it was incumbent upon us to go to them and share with them what we were hoping to do.
I visited as many places as I could to spread the word. As the weather grew colder in Canberra my health suffered and I was treated for bronchitis and respiratory infections several times. Leonie must have grown tired of my comings and goings, often at strange hours in the middle of the night, to exchange the suitcase I was carrying according to my next destination. Like almost everyone else involved, I cadged lifts whenever possible, slept on floors and ate whatever I could scrounge.
We were all obviously under surveillance. No doubt there were those in positions of power who thought that we were a threat to national security, and didn’t see our bid for a decent way of life as a saving grace for a whole lot of desperately unhappy people.
Some politicians supported our efforts though, taking different ones over to join them for a meal in the parliamentary dining room. I met quite a few people that way. An election was looming at the end of the year and some, particularly Labor, politicians recognised that by our actions we had put Aboriginal issues firmly on the agenda. Also, as we were moving about the countryside visiting communities, we were encouraging our people to enrol to vote.
At the Embassy we were often buoyed by the media attention we received. As well as featuring the Embassy, they began to delve into conditions in which Aboriginal people lived, in an effort to highlight some of the issues that we were protesting against. This was the first time these conditions were given any in-depth or comprehensive attention, and we would have been quite pleased even if this was all our work had achieved.
Ian Sturzaker was one of many people in unlikely places who turned out to be very supportive. He had organised for me to meet Ranald McDonald, editor at The Age, in the hope that I might find some casual employment with the paper. When that failed, however, Ian promised me a hand-held loud hailer Ranald had once given him. The image of smartly dressed Ian, merchant banker, flying first class to Sydney carrying a loud hailer caused mirth amongst the Black movement and his own wealthy associates whenever they were told.
At various times, Ian had introduced me to some of his friends and colleagues; among them were Margaret and Leon Fink, Sandra and David Bardas, and a solicitor, Eric Strasser, all of whom were to pl
ay important roles over the ensuing years.
Ian rang one day and found me wracked with bronchitis for the second time in two weeks. The next time we met he put forward a proposition. I needed a safe, warm and dry place in which to recover between these jaunts to Canberra and around the country, he said, acknowledging what we both knew—that my light sleeping bag was little protection in the capital city’s freezing conditions. He was prepared to provide such a place for me on certain conditions. His stipulations were that I would use the place primarily to keep all my things together and to get on with my writing. He would be unhappy if I let the place become a crash pad for the many homeless people he realised I knew. I agreed. When he asked me which city I wanted it to be in, I said Sydney. I sensed his disappointment as he had a much wider circle of friends and acquaintances in Melbourne whom he thought I could tap for support on behalf of the Embassy. Nevertheless, he agreed and said he’d have a couple of places ready for me to look at next time I was in Sydney.
The first place I visited was perfect. A bedsitter, it consisted of only one large room with a bathroom and kitchenette attached. Located in Crown Street, Surry Hills, I was just a short walk from Redfern and the city. Eric Strasser had referred me to the real estate agent who managed the block, so I didn’t have to anticipate problems with the landlord. As the flat was unfumished, Eric offered to supply basic living and work furniture—a bed, wardrobe and desk—at his own expense as his contribution to the struggle.
One of the main reasons I was so pleased to have a space of my own was that, ever since the rape, I had developed a series of compulsive behaviours. The privacy of single accommodation allowed me to indulge in them without raising comment from others. I showered six, sometimes more times a day, and felt the need to wash my hands upwards of thirty or more times daily. Outside the flat I was drawn to sources of water—public taps, ladies’ rooms and even bubblers—in which to wash my hands. Although I had few clothes, I changed into clean outfits often during the day, always carefully washing the clothes I’d just removed even though I hadn’t worn them long enough for them to have become soiled. I refused to put any of my clothes into washing machines, washing them all by hand in a plastic bucket. Despite this obsessive emphasis on cleanliness, I never felt clean.
Snake Dancing Page 13