Good Samaritan still taking on challenges
Determined to be part of the industry he had fought so hard to join one final time, Mr Raicevic set up a legal practice in Drysdale.
But after eight years, he knew he needed a major change.
His first stint abroad was setting up a law school within a college on the Solomon Islands.
“We had a three-bedroom house, no TV, no radio . . . but it was a fantastic, basic lifestyle,” he said.
“The first year I had to design the course, source which textbooks we would use, which were compatible with Pacific situations. I later trained two Solomon Island lecturers,” he said.
“In my off time, I developed a banking law course and also a police prosecutors’ course for the Royal Solomon Islands Police constabulary and delivered the training for that as well.”
In his time away from the campus, Mr Raicevic also time to become president of the Honiara Rotary Club and chairman of the Pacific Regional Rotary Against Malaria campaign.
“We did brochures and got medical clinics (to educate people) that mosquitoes breed in water so you can’t leave cans of tuna or fish around,” he said.
“We then focused on supplying people with bed nets which are dipped in pyrethrum.
“I arranged to donate 600 nets to the college so each student had a bed net and in that year none of our students got malaria.”
Mr Raicevic’s first job in Papua New Guinea, where he has spent most of his subsequent time, was the three-year Legal Capacity Building Project in 2000.
“There were 23 judges, 110 magistrates and 320 clerks of courts . . . my job was to upskill and train them on rules of evidence, judgment writing,” he said.
He has designed and facilitated training for coroners and magistrates in PNG, paralegals in Samoa, human rights investigators in East Timor and the anti-corruption commission in Indonesia.
Mr Raicevic said it could be a slow process to gain the trust of the locals in a new place but on the whole, they welcomed the assistance with open arms.
“When you first arrive you’re a white face among a sea of black faces and there is a little bit of concern, a little bit of resistance,” he said.
“PNG is the biggest recipient of donor aid from Australia, we give them $500 million a year in both cash and in-kind.”
But trying to balance the local customs, cultures and traditions with the law is an ongoing challenge heightened in PNG by the 900 different dialects and the fact that 80 per cent of residents live in rural society.
“That’s the challenge with these developing countries, they want all of the good stuff from western society but they want to retain their cultural stuff and the two clash,” Mr Raicevic said.
“There is still sorcery in PNG . . . they will chop hands off and they still have payback . . . you will see burnt out cars in the street because the driver hit a dog or a child, or compensation for rape through pigs and money rather than it going through the system. Child abuse and domestic violence are rampant.
“We do anti-carjack training every six months because there are on average two carjackings a day at gun point.
“If you want a safe (guarded) apartment to live in, the rent is $14,000 per month, $3500 a week.”
Port Moresby is a modern city, complete with traffic lights and highrise buildings but within a 3km radius there are people living with no water, no sanitation and no money to send their children to school.
In July 2015, Mr Raicevic — president of the Port Moresby Rotary Club — read that PNG had one of the highest rates of mortality of women from cervical cancer.
“We researched and found girls in Australia between the age of nine and 18 get vaccinated at high school free,” he said.
“The (Gardasil) vaccine that we wanted to purchase was $US220 and the girls need to have shots six months apart. We did some negotiation and got the vaccine for $4.40.
“We raised about $220,000. We raised half and got a matching grant from Rotary International in Chicago.”
With a target of vaccinating 24,000 girls, the club imported more than 50,000 vaccines from Switzerland before finding out they had to be stored between 3C and 8C.
“We lose power in Port Moresby all the time,” Mr Raicevic said.
“So we then bought a cool room, we bought a generator and we had a three guys on standby to make sure there was fuel for the generator.”
It is that contrast from the Australian life Mr Raicevic has led that keeps him motivated to return time and time again as a champion for change.
“The first gig in PNG in 2000, I was at Melbourne Airport and I was going over before my wife to do some scoping and there was a survey done on the world’s most liveable city down to the world’s most unliveable city and it had Melbourne as the most liveable and Port Moresby as the most unliveable . . . I thought what am I getting myself into?” he said.
“But I love the people, I love the challenge, each project that I have done has been completely different.
“I cannot recall one day when doing this work that I’ve got up in the morning and said I do not want to go to work today.
“The other jobs I have walked away and thought I don’t want to do that anymore. Out of all of these I have never walked away from one.”
As he approaches 70, retirement is still far form Mr Raicevic’s radar.
“I’m not a golfer, I’m not a fisherman, I’m not a bowler, I genuinely love working and I love this work,” he said.
“The school motto at Bell Park High was ‘accept the challenge’ and I think that’s what I’ve done.”