LEGACY OF EQUALITY

AS I get older ( although it’s not quite that “now the end is near and so I face the final curtain”, yet), I am starting to think of the good and the not- so- good I have done.

I’ve had an amazing journey that has led me to finding out just where I fit in here.

I entered Australia as an enlisted Australian soldier in 1970. I was born a Papuan- Australian as Papua New Guinea was an External Territory of Australia – the eighth state. My military number began with an eight, which indicated I was from the eighth state according to the 1948- 76 Constitution of the Territory of Papua. So, constitutionally, I’ve always been an Australian, a Papuan and a British subject. Just as well I didn’t try to run for Parliament.

When I was young, when times got hard back home, we had to survive on our traditional knowledge: growing our own food such as tapioca, bananas, sweet potatoes; catching fish; hunting pigs; looking for shellfish and so on. These supplemented our incomes.

I was from a family of nine: five brothers and four sisters. Imagine how hard we all had to work together to supplement our whole family. Yet, we did quite well actually; that traditional upbringing helped us to survive.

This wealth of traditional knowledge provided the natural adrenaline when the going got tough later on here in Australia. Many times my family and I had to work hard.

I chopped down trees for railway sleepers, worked on farms in the Woodstock and Majors Creek area, I plough- ed fields and had a reputation for hard work.

I didn’t know what marginalisation felt like until I became a victim myself. I didn’t realise for a while that I was discriminated against in the army. I was called names and joked about. Once, I was told to go in the guard house, but there was a coffin in there. I knew I was walking towards it ( we have great respect for the dead) and they switched the light off and said “smile” just to see my white teeth against the black. Every time in the army they called me a “black b----- d”, I never called them a “white b----- d” back. I never realised until later how much I’d been vilified. But I never retaliated.

It was the normalised behaviour of white on black in those days.

So, I learnt what marginalisation was; it was taught to me. It was like a sheep dog rounding up sheep, we blacks were controlled by the dominant group. While in the army, I went into a hotel where the dress code was strict. Even though I was immaculately dressed I was refused service at both the Vale Hotel and the National Hotel because I was black.

I began to wonder why one group of people was picking on another group just because of the colour of their skin. All this discrimination gave me an affinity with the indigenous people of Australia. I was magnetically drawn to marginalised issues because of my traditional upbringing of caring for each other. I became involved in Aboriginal affairs in a deep way. I felt I was drawing on my traditional knowledge to help and, in fact, one time I was employed by the state minister of Aboriginal affairs, Bob Katter, as an adviser.

In the late 1970s I was involved with the Jesuits and the Aboriginal and Islander Catholic Council and its outreach to marginalised groups. I was so involved that some non- indigenous people thought I was an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

In fact, in 1991, at a community meeting the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Community endorsed me as a member of their community. Not everyone has this close affiliation with Australia’s indigenous people, but it is something that I respect and value.

We were shoulder to shoulder as marginalised Australians and my inspiration came from Pope John XXIII – “see everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little”.

This still means a lot to me. I love working with people in this way. If we don’t work together gradually we will be too keen and not achieve anything.

I hope when I go, that it’s not like what Mark Antony said of Julius Caesar, that “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones”. Good can live on if what I’ve learnt is acted on: listen, listen, listen.

Today I’m part of a diverse community from many different backgrounds.

Marginalisation is no longer just a black and white issue. But it is still important how we as a community deal with those who are marginalised. More and more, it is about belonging. We’re all in it together.