Spotted In
A PNG broadcaster in Australia
Radio creates a sense of connection, crossing time and distance, linking family, ideas and entertainment, says Melbourne-based broadcaster Namila Benson.
Benson was brought up in radio and is keeping alive a family tradition. Her father, Warium Benson, was a Tok Pisin broadcaster with Radio Australia for nearly 40 years. The family moved from Port Moresby to Melbourne during the 1970s and Benson was born shortly after their arrival in Melbourne.
“So I used to go into work with dad at weekends,” she tells Paradise. “I love the story-telling element of radio.”
Benson says she realised how influential radio can be in remote parts of PNG when she visited her family village in Rabaul.
She says her grandfather, who wasn’t formally educated, could heartily debate a lot of global and regional issues.
“He was fluent in English and he knew what was going on in the world, and that was because of radio. He had his little transistor radio that he would sit with every day on his woven mat, and so I understood the importance of radio as a tool to engage and educate.”
She also recalls how being in the village connected her to her Melbourne home.
“We were sitting around the fire one night in our village. Dad turned off the tape recorder and switched to the radio and I realised we were listening to Kasey Kasem’s American Top 40. And I remember thinking – I was nine at the time – here is this guy in America, broadcasting the countdown. I listen to him in Melbourne, but here he is, also in Rabaul. It was a defining moment about the power of radio.”
Benson refined her broadcasting skills on community radio and graduated in a bachelor of comminications from Melbourne’s RMIT University in 2004. As a morning talk show host on community radio she covered issues and discussions relating to race, culture, gender, health, education, legal topics and more. Community radio also showcased her vast music collection of soul, global and hip-hop tunes. In 2008, she joined the ABC, working on Radio Australia’s The Loop and Pacific Break.
My grandfather was fluent in English and he knew what was going on in the world, and that was because of radio.
She was also a regular guest presenter on ABC TV’s Art Nation program.
When the ABC closed Radio Australia in 2014, Benson returned to community radio to focus on training and mentoring emerging broadcasters.
This included travelling to Port Moresby in 2015 for a couple of stints working with the NBC’s dedicated youth radio station, Tribe FM. Benson worked with the station’s handpicked team of presenters and producers prior to the network launching nationally later that year.
Benson, a mother of two boys, joined ABC RN (Radio National) in 2017, where she is a producer on the morning show Life Matters.
She and her grandfather speak snippets of Tok Pisin and the Tolai language, Kuanua, to the boys.
“Our home is filled with people, photos, paintings, bilums, baskets and bilas (ornamentation and body adornments) from PNG,” she says.
“I’m a proud Tolai woman and Matalau (her family village) is where my heart is, although I live in Melbourne. I have my feet firmly planted in both places, but as I get older, I am more and more inclined towards the island way of doing things.
“People say crazy, misinformed things about PNG. Which is not to say there aren’t challenges, but what we don’t hear enough about are the kindness of ordinary people, strong cultural pride, commitment to family and respect for elders. That’s what I cherish about my homeland.”
Music is also a key part of remaining connected with her homeland and the PNG diaspora in Australia. “Wantoks are really killing the game at the moment when it comes to the music and art scene,” she says.
Citing young Australian-based singers Ngaiire (R&B and soul). Kaiit Waup (neo-soul, hip-hop, jazz) and Airileke (musician/producer), Benson says she feels proud of how these PNG artists are ‘repping the fam’ (representing the family).
“They incorporate that wantok sense of family, culture and community to embed it in their professional lives through their music.”
Benson is on leave from the ABC to ghost write the memoir of an Aboriginal elder. The book will be released this year – another style of storytelling, she says.
“But I’ll always be a radio girl at heart, whether it’s traditional radio or podcasts.”