Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world. Today,
Speaker 1: we're sharing a story that can't be forgotten. In Part one,
Speaker 1: I spoke to investigative journalists Douglas Smith and Emily Oli
Speaker 1: about how the authorities responded to the deaths of Aboriginal women,
Speaker 1: about how Indigenous people in Australia get treated differently, including
Speaker 1: in homicide investigations. Now, I want to take this story
Speaker 1: back to nineteen sixty five. That year, the Freedom Bus
Speaker 1: Ride was led by a young group of activists demanding
Speaker 1: Australia pay attention to the racism facing Aboriginal people.
Speaker 2: It was a ride which didn't so much break the
Speaker 2: shackles as it did open the eyes of Australia when
Speaker 2: it came to Aboriginal people. Racism and segregation was very
Speaker 2: much alive in country New South Wales. Nates wouldn't be
Speaker 2: allowed to work in the shops because they're not tiredy enough.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of them here, that's Scott good jobs
Speaker 1: in the cafes, and then they just won hold them.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty five, the great Charlie Perkins tries to
Speaker 2: bring these issues into the light.
Speaker 3: A lot of US Pradidans talk about, oh, yes, we
Speaker 3: want to give the abergine affair go. Then it's full
Speaker 3: stop and it's usually forgotten. They never go on to say, look,
Speaker 3: we've proposed we give such and such a scholarship to
Speaker 3: a number of abergees. Let us support average and organization,
Speaker 3: Let us vote in favor of any legislation which allows
Speaker 3: for the elevation of the Abiginal people. They don't do
Speaker 3: these things. They talk about it, but never do it.
Speaker 2: Many Australians didn't think there was discrimination in their country
Speaker 2: in the early sixties. The Freedom Ride was an attempt
Speaker 2: to show Australians what was really happening in their own
Speaker 2: backyards every day. Not only was their segregation, the state
Speaker 2: government was deliberately evicting Aboriginal people from their missions and
Speaker 2: stepping up it's assimilation policies.
Speaker 4: They think that the white man's eyes and what they are.
Speaker 1: What you just heard was media coverage of the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five Freedom Bus Ride. Today, I had a conversation
Speaker 1: with Aboriginal elder and activist Lyle Monroe. Lyle was a
Speaker 1: young Aboriginal boy in Maury when the bus came through town. Lole,
Speaker 1: tell me about your memories of that day.
Speaker 5: Well, it was as clear in my mind as as
Speaker 5: ever ever was. It was like it was yesterday. Is
Speaker 5: real history. It's something that happened. There's something that affected
Speaker 5: our lives at the time. It still still affects our lives.
Speaker 5: At the time. We were against still segregated on the
Speaker 5: Mission or the Aboriginal Reserve actually known as the Mission
Speaker 5: under the notorious Aboriginal Welfare Act, which was amendment to
Speaker 5: the previous Act of the Aboriginal Protection Act, which kind
Speaker 5: of kept our parents and our grandparents locked up on
Speaker 5: these out of sight areas, out of town, out of sight.
Speaker 5: The respective policies at the time, I think under the
Speaker 5: Aboriginal Protection Act it was a policy of we were
Speaker 5: expected to die out, and then the introduction of the
Speaker 5: assimilation program where it was advisable for Aboriginal people to
Speaker 5: move into town and to live somewhat of their lives
Speaker 5: in the white community. It was a very serious time
Speaker 5: for Aboriginal people because we've still not yet been recognized
Speaker 5: as citizens of the country until the referendum in nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty seven, which is two years away, and Aboriginal people
Speaker 5: were subject out of town, out of site, on places
Speaker 5: we referred to as concentration camps. Each manager, each mission
Speaker 5: at a manager. We had two managers because the the
Speaker 5: size of our mission and the population. We had a
Speaker 5: manager and assistant manager. They had the right to control
Speaker 5: the lives of Aboriginal people under this particular act, the
Speaker 5: Aboriginal wealtha Act. But in more we'd like to think
Speaker 5: we were double wheremy because of the council there during
Speaker 5: these bad days introduced a local by law to the
Speaker 5: Local Council Act, which restricted the presence of Aboriginal people
Speaker 5: right throughout the town. It had particular restrictions on places
Speaker 5: like the town hall. We had all these kind of
Speaker 5: experiences going on that we tried to come to groups with,
Speaker 5: but this act said at all. This act was an
Speaker 5: actual fact. If you looked at the history of this act,
Speaker 5: you'll see that it was a template for becoming apartheid
Speaker 5: system that operated in Queensland and they moved to South Africa.
Speaker 4: I think in the mid sixties.
Speaker 5: The restrictions from the town hall was based on the
Speaker 5: fact that we were deemed filthy. The particular restrictions referred
Speaker 5: to the dining room section of the town hall, all
Speaker 5: areas in town that served food. In fact, all areas
Speaker 5: of the town took advantage of this peace of legislation
Speaker 5: because it openly gave the town the right to openly
Speaker 5: discriminate against Aboriginal people. And that process continued until Charlie
Speaker 5: and the Freedom arrived in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to unpack with what you just talked about,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people really appreciate it. But what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is in your lifetime, and you refer
Speaker 1: to the mission or the reservation where your movements were restricted.
Speaker 1: Just explain that to people, because I don't think people
Speaker 1: really understand. And you mentioned the part and we all
Speaker 1: know what happened over in South Africa with that, but
Speaker 1: we had it here in this country in your lifetime,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people really appreciate it. So we'll
Speaker 1: just deviate a little bit from Charlie coming in with
Speaker 1: the bus. Just what life was like for you growing
Speaker 1: up in the town like that, where you excluded from
Speaker 1: locations for no other reason other than the fact that
Speaker 1: you're Aboriginal.
Speaker 5: Well, we weren't completely excluded. It became a bit of
Speaker 5: an embarrassment when we got to high school because we
Speaker 5: had the mission school that went to sixth class. It
Speaker 5: had a third class accepted level of education. But fortunately
Speaker 5: enough our teachers reached the frontier with that and continue
Speaker 5: to treat our school like the normal schools when we
Speaker 5: got to high school. Of course, most of us were
Speaker 5: good swimmers. We had some experiences there, like myself with
Speaker 5: about six of us. One day, two young people who
Speaker 5: were camping down from the mission the baby felling the river,
Speaker 5: and we ran down there and dived and pulled the
Speaker 5: baby out.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately it was too.
Speaker 5: Late, so we've had those experiences. Some of us were
Speaker 5: reaching into the high school swimming team, so every Wednesday
Speaker 5: afternoon a sport. I mean most of us was encouraged
Speaker 5: openly to take cricket and vigoro as a sport to
Speaker 5: avoid the embarrassment with the restrictions from the pool. Were
Speaker 5: restricted from the ovalves too, but at the time that
Speaker 5: was kind of come and go kind of thing. You know,
Speaker 5: we could go a be able to play Saturday morning football,
Speaker 5: but after that we'd have to vacate the area in
Speaker 5: the town.
Speaker 1: You talk it, you lived it. It's hard for me
Speaker 1: to even comprehend it. So yeah, you play football and
Speaker 1: then okay, well you're not welcome back to hang around.
Speaker 1: You've served your purpose, you've played football, and then go
Speaker 1: back to the mission. All the reservation. Is that what
Speaker 1: we're talking about.
Speaker 5: Well, it's spelled out loud and clear with the return soldiers,
Speaker 5: I mean most of our soldiers, because they weren't citizens
Speaker 5: of the country until sixty seven. The only way we
Speaker 5: could enlist and most all of our all of our
Speaker 5: soldiers were volunteers. And we see in the case there
Speaker 5: where all our soldiers returned basically directly sent back to
Speaker 5: the missions and no recognition of their role that they
Speaker 5: played in the You know, all the wars. Our men
Speaker 5: volunteered with all the wars, but our people were we
Speaker 5: weren't allowed. I mean, these same soldiers weren't allowed to
Speaker 5: drink in the RSSL clubs.
Speaker 4: At the time.
Speaker 5: There was no soldiers settlements supported to our soldiers. There
Speaker 5: was no pensions supported to our soldiers. In actual fact,
Speaker 5: the soldiers, the Aboriginal soldiers from Queensland, we paid no
Speaker 5: money to be involved in the in these these international issues.
Speaker 5: That was the indicator that we weren't wanted. Living on
Speaker 5: the mission some three k's out of towns are out
Speaker 5: of town, out of sight. We were segregated by a
Speaker 5: three foot fence with a barbed wire structure on the
Speaker 5: top of it. Now, I don't know whether people can understand,
Speaker 5: but when you can actually high jump that fence and
Speaker 5: when you watch animals come and go freely and starts
Speaker 5: putting crazy thoughts into your head.
Speaker 4: Even though we were young people.
Speaker 5: I mean I had some personal experiences where I'd go
Speaker 5: up to the gate the entrance to the mission and
Speaker 5: sit on the gate and the middle of the night
Speaker 5: and just wonder what's the problem, what's out there, what's
Speaker 5: on the other side of this. So at times I'd
Speaker 5: kind of sneak down the gate and stand on the
Speaker 5: other side of the gate, and I used to seek
Speaker 5: the misself, well, what's the difference. However, that was the
Speaker 5: fence that restricted our presence on the mission. When we
Speaker 5: got to high school, some of us entertained the idea
Speaker 5: in trying up with the swinging team. So on Wednesday afternoon,
Speaker 5: for instance, we'd arrived at the pool. In general sport,
Speaker 5: Aboriginal kids would be signaled out. We'd have to wash
Speaker 5: and scrub and the showers before we went to the pool.
Speaker 4: We had to have the.
Speaker 5: Trunks that the pool supplied. We couldn't wear ron swing trunks.
Speaker 5: And then we were allowed to dabble around in one
Speaker 5: corner of the pool. This was with the duration of
Speaker 5: the afternoon, and when that three o'clock bell rang, then
Speaker 5: it had come on the llowd to speaker all Aboragemal
Speaker 5: children remove themselves from the pool. That happened on a
Speaker 5: regular basis, on a weekly basis. However, we persevered with
Speaker 5: that because at least we were in the pool. At
Speaker 5: least we were in the corner of the pool, and
Speaker 5: they stood there, the teachers, and kind of made sure
Speaker 5: we stayed in that particular corner we lived. Under that legislation,
Speaker 5: we could go into town. We'd had our own bus,
Speaker 5: the bus to pick us up, drop us into town
Speaker 5: for movies, and then back on the bus back to
Speaker 5: the mission. The same with shopping.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the mission manager or the manager on the mission.
Speaker 1: Who did that and what was the role of a
Speaker 1: manager like restricting your movements and overseen.
Speaker 5: Well, under the Aboriginal Welfare Act, the local serge and
Speaker 5: the police station was actually the pursue administer minister the act.
Speaker 5: Managers and their wives were hired to control the lives
Speaker 5: of Aboriginal people on the mission. So to gain access
Speaker 5: to the mission, you first of all had to pull
Speaker 5: up and report to the man. To leave the mission,
Speaker 5: you had to report to the manager. But the manager
Speaker 5: and their wives. The only medication we were ministered by the
Speaker 5: manager's wife was stuff like pecure crameman and the ointment
Speaker 5: or whatever, skin rations and stuff like that. But this
Speaker 5: segregation also applied to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Next.
Speaker 5: Fact, the hospital segregation was the thing before Charlie Ham
Speaker 5: arrived in sixty five McMaster ward. It was the segregated
Speaker 5: section of the Maury Hospital where we were all born,
Speaker 5: and that we believe was the initiative for the introduction
Speaker 5: of that particular by law. We had also had an
Speaker 5: assistant manager and they were residents on the mission. The
Speaker 5: head master's premises home was a resident of the mission.
Speaker 5: So we had our own mission school for all the
Speaker 5: wrong reasons. I don't know why we're not allowed Aboriginal
Speaker 5: schools now for all the right reasons, but that was
Speaker 5: a system. It was hard trying to comprehend it. I
Speaker 5: suppose when when we became of age, but the scars experience.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 5: I mean for one white man and his wife to
Speaker 5: have complete controlled the lives of some six hundred people,
Speaker 5: and this was the law. It wasn't an accepted practice.
Speaker 5: The racism around New South Wells at the time it
Speaker 5: was an accepted practice. But in Maori it was a
Speaker 5: legislative practice. They actually created the local by law. And
Speaker 5: I was surprising that after all that, the confrontations, and
Speaker 5: that when Charlie and them eventually left, when we convinced
Speaker 5: the mayor to rescind them the bye law, they then
Speaker 5: reintroduced the by law. So Charlie them had to come
Speaker 5: back and demonstrate and do what they had to do
Speaker 5: then to have the bylow point finally scrapped forever.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the the Freedom Bus Ride and Charlie
Speaker 1: Perkins and I think there was twenty nine students from
Speaker 1: Sydney University and they traveled in rural New South Wales
Speaker 1: visiting towns that they believed there was discrimination and racism
Speaker 1: in the town and they went to, off the top
Speaker 1: of my head, Walgot, Maury and different places around the
Speaker 1: north and northwestern regions of the state. But the Freedom
Speaker 1: bus Ride people, yeah, we hear about it in America.
Speaker 1: I think most Australians would be more aware of what
Speaker 1: went on in the Southern States of America with the
Speaker 1: Freedom bus Ride. But this was very significant and changed
Speaker 1: the way people look at the situation and identify it.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the bus ride and what it
Speaker 1: actually achieved, where they went and what the purpose of
Speaker 1: the bus ride was.
Speaker 5: Well, the only village we out of the bus ride
Speaker 5: the Freedom Ride was from the odd home that had
Speaker 5: a television and the ABC was talking about this bus
Speaker 5: that was traveling through New South Wales towns and they
Speaker 5: were in Wolgot at the time, and we saw the
Speaker 5: demonstrations the outside the Ursel Club.
Speaker 4: And the swimming pool.
Speaker 5: On the way between Moore and Wolgot, the bus was
Speaker 5: run off the road by white hooligans that basically chased
Speaker 5: them out of town. The bus was run off the road.
Speaker 5: It ended up in the in the gutter on the
Speaker 5: side of the road. Some describe it has almost been
Speaker 5: fatal some of the students. There was quite a serious situation,
Speaker 5: but there was also a couple of carlos of young
Speaker 5: Murray men that also followed the bus to make sure
Speaker 5: that they were safe.
Speaker 4: They arrived in Maury.
Speaker 5: I think it's just so hard to understand that the
Speaker 5: reasoning and.
Speaker 4: Why the bus got there.
Speaker 5: But we were home on the mission and I think
Speaker 5: it was about maybe four o'clock in the afternoon. We
Speaker 5: were just leaving the mission swimming pool. This bus appeared
Speaker 5: at the gate and it wasn't a tourist bus. Because
Speaker 5: we were quite used to tourist buses. They'd give us,
Speaker 5: you know, check out sixpences and lollies and that type
Speaker 5: of stuff for us. This bus had an aura around
Speaker 5: about it in anticipation. We were kind of amazed that
Speaker 5: this time of the afternoon that a bus was coming
Speaker 5: onto the mission that we didn't recognize. We recognized the
Speaker 5: skool bus, the town bus, you know, the tourist buses,
Speaker 5: that type of thing, but this bus kind of had
Speaker 5: this strange aura around it about it. So we watched
Speaker 5: this bus travel slowly around the able coming to the
Speaker 5: manager's residence. They never pulled up at the manager's residence. Hello,
Speaker 5: what's going on here? Because everyone had to pull up
Speaker 5: with the manager's residents. And this bus pulled up and
Speaker 5: the doors opened, and there was this handsome black man
Speaker 5: okay to the front of the bus and just simply said,
Speaker 5: we'd just like to come in have a swim in
Speaker 5: the town bars. So eleven of us, of course jumped
Speaker 5: on the bus, not knowing what was going to happen.
Speaker 5: Of course, drove to the swimming pool. Charlie and the
Speaker 5: students started to negotiate, you know, our entry that wasn't
Speaker 5: acceptable because of the Bye law. They basically lived by
Speaker 5: this by law. Everything their excuses for their racism was
Speaker 5: all tied up in this by law. But keep in
Speaker 5: mind it was also a new kind of learning for
Speaker 5: us too, I mean, being segregated and then being segregated
Speaker 5: from everywhere else and I mean your thoughts were segregated, whole,
Speaker 5: your whole being was segregated. I suppose it never had
Speaker 5: the effect and I said it had on our parents
Speaker 5: and our grandparents because with their generations it was an
Speaker 5: accepted practice. This is how it is, you know, this
Speaker 5: is how we are.
Speaker 4: Nothing is going to change.
Speaker 5: We're subjected to this with it. No one's going to
Speaker 5: question it because of the authority at the time they
Speaker 5: were taking the kids away all this type of stuff.
Speaker 5: The policies were their integration you know, to smooth dying
Speaker 5: pillow quote unquote, then the assimilation program, which was entirely
Speaker 5: different based on you know, they need to assimilate and
Speaker 5: to be like other Australians. But what intrigued me was
Speaker 5: being boarding school and coming home with me uniform on
Speaker 5: and the bus had dropped me at the mission gate.
Speaker 5: I'd get off the train, get a bus, a school
Speaker 5: bus had dropped off the mission gate.
Speaker 4: Then I have to report to the manager. I'm home.
Speaker 5: And when I was leaving it, I have to report
Speaker 5: to the manager to go back to Delasell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your parents and manager.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, So and the managers had their rule was strict.
Speaker 5: We had some managers that were quite acceptable. There were
Speaker 5: other managers that were tyrants and completely controlled the situation.
Speaker 5: They had the right to walk into a home and
Speaker 5: inspected at any given time. They had the right to
Speaker 5: do whatever they wanted to do with your home. They
Speaker 5: could move you from your home. Those who accepted the
Speaker 5: dog tags we call them, like the freedom papers that
Speaker 5: were given to particular Aboriginal people. That sort of stuff
Speaker 5: was in the process. Rugby league was starting in our communities,
Speaker 5: which was basically the way out for a lot of
Speaker 5: us young people, because our day was like while whilst
Speaker 5: the parents were shopping, we were playing set him on
Speaker 5: competition and with that we're allowed to go to the
Speaker 5: day's matinee after the after the football, and but it
Speaker 5: was always back to the mission. There was always that
Speaker 5: bus or that car going back to the mission. There
Speaker 5: was always that gate closing behind us, and there was
Speaker 5: always that three three foot fans.
Speaker 4: To contend with.
Speaker 1: The way you're describing that, it's not this similar to
Speaker 1: being in the prison. Yeah, someone that can come into
Speaker 1: your home at any time without reason, move you at
Speaker 1: any time without reason, allow you in or out under
Speaker 1: their control, it's.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the only food source available to us was
Speaker 5: there was a Lebanese family there called the Lurhoods, who
Speaker 5: I would think that a lot of our people would
Speaker 5: have been in serious trouble if it wasn't for that family.
Speaker 5: They breached the restrictions and made sure that you know
Speaker 5: that they came down to the mission again against the
Speaker 5: manager's wishes, or they'd park outside the fence against the
Speaker 5: manager's wishes, and they bought the necessary food like bread
Speaker 5: and butter.
Speaker 4: And yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Mentioned that the other day. And it's ironic, isn't it
Speaker 1: that well leving those immigrants are the ones that the
Speaker 1: tree did you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, as humans, and we're still very much associated with
Speaker 5: the Lohold family, same as we are with the Perkins family,
Speaker 5: the two families that played a big role in a
Speaker 5: big part of our history.
Speaker 4: In the town.
Speaker 5: And that's how that's basically how we lived until Charlie
Speaker 5: and the Freedom Right arrive undred and sixty five.
Speaker 1: We've got this going on in our country. Do you
Speaker 1: think people are aware of the history of or understanding.
Speaker 5: Well, Sadly enough, the majority of Aboriginal people are not
Speaker 5: aware of this.
Speaker 4: Part of our history.
Speaker 5: So this history has been kind of shoved in the
Speaker 5: corner and the two hard basket, and where's those who
Speaker 5: witnessed those that was witnessed it. And there's still hundreds
Speaker 5: of us alive from that system, and we still bear
Speaker 5: the scars. A lot of our young people, particularly in
Speaker 5: our town. A lot of the young people are now
Speaker 5: starting to come to grips with the fact that it happened.
Speaker 5: And of course it's a lot of mus spellbound that
Speaker 5: this kind of thing actually happened to their parents who
Speaker 5: were still here. And so keep in mind at the time,
Speaker 5: Maury was also divided up the community out of the
Speaker 5: black community, like we had a place called the Mission,
Speaker 5: the Middle Camp, the Top Camp, and the common Now
Speaker 5: the Top Top Camp were Aboriginal people that came in
Speaker 5: from Terry, Io when they closed the mission there and
Speaker 5: then I think nineteen twenty three nineteen twenty four, some
Speaker 5: of them went to Boggabill and Mung and Dai and
Speaker 5: all around the place, but most settled in Mare. And
Speaker 5: the Top Camp was on the riverbank with all their
Speaker 5: huts and the type of stuff with dirt flaws in
Speaker 5: that they had an invisible fence around them. Because no
Speaker 5: matter whether we were all Aboriginal people were subjected to
Speaker 5: the Aboriginal Welfare Act. That was the controlling factor and
Speaker 5: that stayed with ustil nineteen sixty seven. And like I
Speaker 5: said before, that did night our whole existence. So up
Speaker 5: until nineteen sixty seven, no Aboriginal people in this country
Speaker 5: theoretically never existed.
Speaker 1: You're considered a citizen now, Your parents or the people
Speaker 1: before you went through life not being considered a citizen
Speaker 1: and managed under the Flora and Fauna.
Speaker 5: Well, whether or not that actually was the case of
Speaker 5: whether it was just a myth that covered the situation
Speaker 5: at the time, but we certainly weren't counted in the census,
Speaker 5: the statistics, and I think it was more or less
Speaker 5: an accepted fact that we were then treated and counted
Speaker 5: the most of raw and foreigner.
Speaker 1: So people talk about the nineteen sixty seven referendum, what
Speaker 1: exactly did it mean?
Speaker 5: Yeah, basically, you gave the federal government the right to
Speaker 5: enact laws will be up of Aboriginal people. The confusing
Speaker 5: part was that we were led to believe that was
Speaker 5: the first time that Aboriginal people were allowed to vote,
Speaker 5: and that was the myth that company that that narrative
Speaker 5: all the way through until we'd realized ourselves.
Speaker 1: Looking at the bus ride the other towns, and it
Speaker 1: got a lot of media coverage at the time, and
Speaker 1: it was significant, and yeah that's scary. Yeah, well scary
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. That it was challenging, the
Speaker 1: challenging the norms, and as you know, I think you
Speaker 1: spent your lifetime fighting the systems on different things. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the impact that it's had on the
Speaker 1: direction of your life later. But do you think that
Speaker 1: was an awakening looking at it now sixty years ago,
Speaker 1: the Freedom Bus ride, and it was a significant part
Speaker 1: in the history of this country.
Speaker 5: I don't think it was an awakening as such. I
Speaker 5: think it was a realization and understanding that these things
Speaker 5: were going on. That we were aware of it, but
Speaker 5: we didn't kind of comprehend it. I mean, the learning
Speaker 5: process with us, other than the normal education process, was
Speaker 5: the way we lived the things that were happening. You know,
Speaker 5: the Mission bus came, took people to town. We go across
Speaker 5: the bed area every morning with our little billy cans
Speaker 5: to get the milk. That was our access to milk.
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying there, Love, because as a kid,
Speaker 1: what's what goes on is what happens. You don't question it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you're accepting it. You might understand it, but okay,
Speaker 1: this is just the way the world is.
Speaker 5: Well, it was pretty kind of daring to like we'd
Speaker 5: have our little billy cans every morning, about twenty of us,
Speaker 5: and we'd all travel. But it became pretty dicey and
Speaker 5: wet weather because you had to dig your toes into
Speaker 5: the bank and won't be tired if you spilt that milk.
Speaker 5: We had a system if someone spilt their milk, then
Speaker 5: we'd all kind of top it up a little bit,
Speaker 5: you know, to get it all level again.
Speaker 1: But no.
Speaker 4: Spilling the milk was it was in the ship cardinals in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you were going to cop it or someone was
Speaker 5: going to cop it, but but that was a normal
Speaker 5: system to us. It was though we didn't it was
Speaker 5: any different to what was going on in the town
Speaker 5: and around us. But the Freedom Right also awaken some
Speaker 5: of the young white people too, because what was going
Speaker 5: on Saturday Morning Camp in particular, was race relation. I mean,
Speaker 5: is the town kind of come to grips with this
Speaker 5: important issue, and our young people were basically breaching all
Speaker 5: these frontiers Saturday morning football. I mean, we've still got
Speaker 5: friends from way back then. I mean, why didn't someone
Speaker 5: ask us about how to deal with this race relations
Speaker 5: question in Mauri? Maybe some of us kids would have
Speaker 5: had some answers, even trying to explain to our own
Speaker 5: children about what happened, and then watching the impact and
Speaker 5: when our young people start realizing, like how do you survive?
Speaker 4: How to you know? But we did.
Speaker 5: We've always survived for some reason or other. I mean,
Speaker 5: it was hard. It was always straight back to the mission.
Speaker 5: It was always from the mission to there or straight
Speaker 5: back to the mission. But we survived somehow we've survived.
Speaker 5: But the impact of the Freedom Ride has still not
Speaker 5: been realized, simply because it's not a part of for instance,
Speaker 5: education curriculum and that part of the that that part
Speaker 5: of the country, no one talks about it. It's like
Speaker 5: if it's taboo, and Aboriginal people were taboo, but now
Speaker 5: the narrative their stories taboo because it reconnects us with
Speaker 5: the way we were simply the only the only thing
Speaker 5: we've had these discussions with the white people.
Speaker 4: That we grew up with.
Speaker 5: It wasn't something to be looked at and to be
Speaker 5: examined for all the wrongdoings.
Speaker 4: It was something that just happened.
Speaker 5: We we you know, our lives were controlled, so it
Speaker 5: must have been good for if these decisions were made
Speaker 5: for us, they must have been decent decisions or whatever.
Speaker 5: But there was a lot of bad decisions. I mean,
Speaker 5: we weren't allowed information. Like when they took our brothers
Speaker 5: and sisters into the end of the stolen generation system,
Speaker 5: we just realized they were gone. No one officially told us.
Speaker 5: So a lot of information was kept from us too
Speaker 5: by our parents because of what it was and the
Speaker 5: effects that it would have had on us. So at times,
Speaker 5: our parents were shielding us all the time from these
Speaker 5: phenomenons that were affecting our lives that we weren't aware of.
Speaker 1: Ye And you can understand that as a parent, that's
Speaker 1: something that you would do. But the fact that the
Speaker 1: significance of the Freedom bus ride, you're saying that it's
Speaker 1: not something that people widely know or the details of it.
Speaker 1: It's something that we all should know, shouldn't we Well.
Speaker 5: It should be part of the educational cricket on It's
Speaker 5: a history that I mean, you know, we're flooded with
Speaker 5: the white history. There's nothing about us other than our existence.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's hard to sit down and explain to your grandchildren.
Speaker 5: But again a lot of this, a lot of that
Speaker 5: information was kept.
Speaker 1: Promise, do you think do you think what happened with
Speaker 1: the bus ride and you saw the results from it
Speaker 1: or the interest, does that shape your life? Because you
Speaker 1: know you're described as an activist and you've been at
Speaker 1: the foreth front of a lot of change on indigenous
Speaker 1: aspects and the way things are handled. Do you think
Speaker 1: that gave you a taste or shaped you in the door?
Speaker 5: It certainly gave us an insight into the results of
Speaker 5: the direct action at the time, the Aboriginal Advancement groups
Speaker 5: suggest forming and in more e the Aboriginal Advancement Committee
Speaker 5: was in actual fact the more emissions Skilled PNC association.
Speaker 5: So that involved into the pritical to fathom at all,
Speaker 5: as they're probably the bravest people I've ever encountered in
Speaker 5: my life up until later on in life, but just
Speaker 5: to understand that a group of young white people, thirty
Speaker 5: of them in fact students with this young black radical
Speaker 5: I mean their lives could have been cut short directly
Speaker 5: coming out of Sydney let alone going through places like
Speaker 5: Dubbo and Canable and Gila Gumbo and Walgut and then
Speaker 5: eventually coming to Maury. It took a lot of guts,
Speaker 5: It took a lot of intestinal fortitude. I mean, this
Speaker 5: area is still controlled by the Country Party, the National
Speaker 5: Party Blue Ribbon seatry throughout northern New South Wales well
Speaker 5: seventy four years of my life. So a lot of
Speaker 5: the racism, it was part of the system. White people
Speaker 5: could do whatever they wanted with us. There was no
Speaker 5: police thet to predict because there was no law there
Speaker 5: to protect us. So we had to be very careful
Speaker 5: and at the same time being aware of it. When
Speaker 5: we started being aware of it and being careful with it,
Speaker 5: to realize our parents, in all the difficult as they
Speaker 5: were facing, were still shielding us, you know, from this
Speaker 5: bad stuff. And it wasn't a matter of our parents
Speaker 5: teaching it, teaching us this stuff. It was a matter
Speaker 5: of us evolving and finding out ourselves and it just
Speaker 5: became a part of our education that But at the
Speaker 5: same time you tin to come to grips with yet
Speaker 5: it's still happening to us, like why doesn't anyone say
Speaker 5: something about it? Why doesn't someone do something about it,
Speaker 5: and it's never happened. We had the same situation now
Speaker 5: I talk about the cancelated deaths in Maury. No one
Speaker 5: seems to be interested. I mean, at the moment we're
Speaker 5: doing our history and eulogies in Maury, but it's another
Speaker 5: phenomena that's affecting our groups and our families and our nations.
Speaker 5: Were seem to be always shoved in the hard, hard
Speaker 5: basket part of the eyes, you know.
Speaker 1: And so it's a shame that we're sitting here talking
Speaker 1: about something that happened sixty years ago, and now sixty
Speaker 1: years later we're talking and there's still issues that have
Speaker 1: concerned for you.
Speaker 5: I shed a few tears there the other night. I
Speaker 5: mean that town turned out against us. There was only us,
Speaker 5: eleven kids and the students. There was no Aboriginal growing
Speaker 5: ups or anyone. And to walk the gauntlet, you know,
Speaker 5: about twenty yards from the pool door to the footpath,
Speaker 5: and to see Charlie beIN drug drug out that night,
Speaker 5: and you know, the whole town and the local hotel
Speaker 5: across the roads is empty, and these people came from
Speaker 5: everywhere and there was just us and the students. Thirty
Speaker 5: what forty one of us, and they they they chuck
Speaker 5: to everything they could at us, bottles, rotten eggs, anything
Speaker 5: they could lay their hands on. I was trying to
Speaker 5: traumatizing experience. The eldest in the bus, right, I think,
Speaker 5: was the sister soone's owner. She was fifteen, our group
Speaker 5: was thirteen and the mean brother, and then we're twelve
Speaker 5: and eleven, so we were basically kids. And to witness
Speaker 5: that it still gives me creeps when I think about it,
Speaker 5: but it was it was quite a terrifying experience.
Speaker 1: Would imagine that. I would imagine that was extremely terrifying,
Speaker 1: like having that much anger and yeah, animosity directed at
Speaker 1: you for what. Well.
Speaker 5: The savors place that night ironically was the mission the
Speaker 5: mission gates, you know, home again, So it was like
Speaker 5: from the frying pan into the fire kind of thing
Speaker 5: and reversing all the time. So but later on I
Speaker 5: don't think it affected us that much until later on
Speaker 5: we started realizing that's when that's when it started to
Speaker 5: kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, my observation of and looking at the things
Speaker 1: that you've done with your life, it's instilled something in you.
Speaker 1: You've got to taste for it. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you want change, there's got to be You're got to push.
Speaker 1: Nothing happens unless you push. And your life sort of
Speaker 1: been shaped by that. I think it'll be fair to
Speaker 1: say very much.
Speaker 4: So, Yeah, the fire in the belly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, as Charlie word lit, the fire in the belly,
Speaker 5: I think we all inherited that, some of us in
Speaker 5: Maria's shaped our future, particularly our politics. Basically after freedom
Speaker 5: in sixty seven, three four years, four years, five years,
Speaker 5: we all started kind of gathering in Sydney, all talking
Speaker 5: the same language, and then from there they say, the
Speaker 5: rest is history. I mean, the formation of the average
Speaker 5: infrastructures call androids, marches, the resistance, the reminder of you know,
Speaker 5: the past is back there, the particular act acts that
Speaker 5: controlled us, and it needs to be discussed, particularly in
Speaker 5: country towns, because the racism in country towns is basically
Speaker 5: a big part of us based on having people scared.
Speaker 5: Like sometimes when I'm sitting out talking with common Raids,
Speaker 5: it's even hard for us to at times to comprehend
Speaker 5: that we actually are still here, but we live, we
Speaker 5: live that light, and they're still reminders there, you know,
Speaker 5: and it manifests in ways sometimes that it can be sudden.
Speaker 5: Your action reactions can take a lot longer, but the
Speaker 5: impact when it comes, wow, you know.
Speaker 1: I think the sad part with it, Lole is that
Speaker 1: you take your foot off the throttle and ye stop
Speaker 1: and it reverts reverts back. But yeah, you've set things
Speaker 1: in place. And when I say you, it's it's not
Speaker 1: just you, as you readily acknowledge, it's a whole range
Speaker 1: of people that have been fighting to make things a
Speaker 1: level playing field. Aboriginal legal services is one that comes
Speaker 1: to mind, and that's helping your people find themselves before
Speaker 1: the courts and having someone that can properly represent them
Speaker 1: and not be disadvantaged. So a whole range of things.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for what you've done. Your
Speaker 1: name comes up in circles I mix with all the time,
Speaker 1: and you've thought of in a.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've had some privileges one could call privileges, you know,
Speaker 5: all inspired by that, particularly that one night. Being one
Speaker 5: of the organizers of the average refrastructures and the national bodies, the.
Speaker 4: Visits to.
Speaker 5: The Representative voice to for instance, the Subcommission and Human
Speaker 5: rights there in Geneva in eighty three eighty four, I
Speaker 5: studied at a major international first people's program there in
Speaker 5: Strasburg for six weeks. I had some interesting people, have
Speaker 5: got some interesting friends. When comes to mind with Prince Mahato.
Speaker 4: Sounds interesting, he's now king. Let's see of Lisuto.
Speaker 5: He was an eighteen year old when we studied there
Speaker 5: at Strasburgh. Yeah, I've got some other interesting friends. Some
Speaker 5: are welcome, some are not.
Speaker 1: You know, well, life's are full of interesting characters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, been some interesting places, seen some interesting things,
Speaker 5: a lot of heartache at times, but the artat's only
Speaker 5: there for you allowed some of the people. It takes
Speaker 5: a lot longer to realize that, you know, what we're
Speaker 5: talking about is what we witness. A lot of our
Speaker 5: a lot of our people, our age, have forgotten about
Speaker 5: this scene. So you find yourself continuously in this educational program,
Speaker 5: this edit occational process of reminding your brethren that, yeah,
Speaker 5: this actually happened to us, brother, this actually happened to
Speaker 5: our sister. You know, we're still alive. Its hundreds and
Speaker 5: hundreds of us still alive to tell the story that
Speaker 5: never happened seventy years ninety years ago. They just happened
Speaker 5: in our lifetime, you know, and so hard to tell
Speaker 5: the kids that a three foot fence. I mean, when
Speaker 5: you tell the obvious black kid in Maury that you were,
Speaker 5: you know, locked up with a three foot fence, they'd say,
Speaker 5: you're joking. That's that's that's that never happened. Well as
Speaker 5: your pop asking then asking mom and dad. You know, so,
Speaker 5: at times is very hard for us to even get
Speaker 5: the message across. At times we succeed. Other times the
Speaker 5: pressures are so great that, you know, we haven't lost
Speaker 5: the battle. The battle has just been kind of put
Speaker 5: off for a time, you know. But then the realization
Speaker 5: that you were part of it and you were subjected
Speaker 5: to it, that then you have to kind of work
Speaker 5: out how you come to grips with that, whether you're
Speaker 5: going to let that effect the rest of your life,
Speaker 5: whether you're going to play the victim thing for the
Speaker 5: rest of your life, or you're simply going to open
Speaker 5: your mouth about it. We simply said no. I mean,
Speaker 5: all our struggles were based on and Comroy people and
Speaker 5: Gagery people. Our lingo is tied up in no. You know,
Speaker 5: we're known as the no people. But that simple word,
Speaker 5: and that's what everyone expressed. Just simply said no. Charlie
Speaker 5: and them expressed it, you know, to the racism. No,
Speaker 5: we expressed it. No, it was all knows most of
Speaker 5: our lives, you know, and that's how we got in
Speaker 5: the door. That's how i've boys started to be. And
Speaker 5: then you had some great leader black leaders that came
Speaker 5: out of our struggle, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 5: them is still around.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that you are telling the story
Speaker 1: and the way that you lived your life and I
Speaker 1: understand that no I'm not going to accept that is
Speaker 1: a very strong and powerful, powerful message. So that's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to get you on the on the podcast,
Speaker 1: to put it out there and tell the people the story.
Speaker 1: Now some people might go, I'm not interested that happened
Speaker 1: sixty years ago, but you're a living example of a
Speaker 1: person that's still alive but still remembers it and the
Speaker 1: impact that's had on you and the difference. And I
Speaker 1: hope people do understand their history because the more more
Speaker 1: I learn, the more I'm just okay. It opens my
Speaker 1: eyes to a lot of things.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, it's like it's like these people, I think they've
Speaker 5: got the same problems. They want to go over and
Speaker 5: see other countries, you know, and they haven't been in
Speaker 5: this country. They haven't seen this country there.
Speaker 1: Let's look in their way and backyard. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: but look, let's finish up now again. And I think
Speaker 1: it just shows a character of you're on to talk
Speaker 1: about the Freedom bus ride, talking about issues from sixty
Speaker 1: years ago and how you have to fight and learn
Speaker 1: to say no, and we're not going to take it.
Speaker 1: We're going to move forward, not let it break you.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for what you've done throughout
Speaker 1: your life. Thanks for coming on to Eye Catch Killers,
Speaker 1: and it's been great to have a chat. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll be speaking again a lot down the track.
Speaker 4: It's your pleasure, you got it. Yeah, cheers really seaside