“I grew up in Brisbane and that’s one of the things that might surprise people who know me, that I grew up working class in QLD. I was the first in the family to go to university and I only really got there because of the Whitlam reforms that made it free. I went to study Law and I remember arriving on the first day, with my public school education looking forward to meeting a whole lot of kids starting Law and all the big private schoolers already knew each other. There was this little group of wallflowers around the edges and that was the 10 or so of us amongst the hundred or so of them. Under free Uni you had to be very high achieving to get through but we did.
My father was heavily into the Labour party and it was the Bjelke Petersen era. My poor Dad lived through 22 years of Federal Liberal Government and more years than that of QLD Coalition government, so he was used to turning up every year and losing. He died a few years ago at 95. I owe a lot to my Dad. He was really smart and incredibly emotionally sensitive for his generation. I remember when I was young he said to me, ‘Be careful doing too many favours for your friends because if they feel they owe you, they may choose to resent you instead.’ As I got older I’d do favours for friends and just dismiss it as mutual aid the best I could. He was right. You don’t want people to feel indebted to you. Another thing he used to say was, ‘Oh look, parents, they give to their children and all we really want is that you pass that on to yours. It doesn’t have to come backwards up the tree.’
My Mum is still alive at 94, sharp as a tack. Still drives the Statesman V8 to the shops. I describe her as a kind of feminist of her generation. She was a stay at home mum but she was the household manager. She had complete access to bank accounts. She had the car and my father caught the bus to and from work. She ran things and he was happy for that. I have a sister 8 years older and a brother 5 years older, both of whom became Police. When I was 15 I thought that’s what you do but I remember it was the late 70s and the idea of having short back and sides was bit scary and I was doing way to well at school to join the force.
My idea was I might go into Politics which everyone thought was a bit crazy and the choices were becoming a teacher or doing Law. When the results came in I got into Law. Strangely enough I became a Law teacher which I’ll go into later. I did the Law Degree which was fine but I didn’t realise that I was ADHD until a few years ago. Going to Uni was fine but working in a Law firm… I could not do it. I left after 8 months and that was the start of a big life melt down. Here I was, a working class boy made good, got the job in the big Law firm and all of a sudden..Bang! I was out of there and travelling Australia on the beautiful dole that we had in the golden age of Social Security. The family were massively disappointed. The other big part of the story is growing up in Bjelke Petersen QLD. I’ve grown up already knowing fascism, already knowing a compromised democracy.
When I was going to Uni, it was during that wild time where Punk Rock was emerging in Brisbane and London. It was all going off. Brisbane was the most policed city in the world under Bjelke Petersen. Students, Gay, Aboriginals, Activists, Unionists, they were all in Brisbane and they had this mobile patrol. They literally had tens of dozens of police cars with no other point to them other than patrolling Brisbane. If anything came up they would swarm to locations. People from NSW had no idea. They would come up and say, ‘I’m arriving at Roma St Station and I’ve got my backpack so I’ll just walk to your place.’ We’d say…’No, no, no, you do not walk with a back pack in Brisbane, you will be pulled over and searched.’ It was wild.
So in the mid 80s I decided to go to Far North QLD. I’ve always loved the Tropics. Compared to NSW it was a wild and scary scene then as well. It was post the Cedar Bay raids. For those that don’t know, the road went only went as far as Cape Tribulation and to get to Cooktown you had to go the back way. So the hippies had found this beautiful tropical beach with reefs, fresh water creeks, flat land and they’d set up this pacific island style community where they built their huts and grew food. An old tin miner, Cedar Bay Bill had the lease over the area. He gave them a vague legal right to be there. I don’t think he minded with all the naked, hippie girls.
Bjelke Petersen sent an illegal land invasion into the Cedar bay community with helicopters, patrol boat and Police and they burnt down huts and arrested people. What was going on the early 80s was frightening. You were either on the side of the authorities or you were outlaw. Hippies were classed as outlaw so it was a strange scene. I stayed in that area for a couple of years. I arrived after Cedar Bay raids but you could still go in there and camp. It was gorgeous because there were all these mature fruit trees growing in the rainforest. You’d set up a bamboo hut, get the cable drums and make tables, prawn nets and hunt for fruit. It was feral fantasy. The National party was determined to push the road through the rainforest and that’s what the Daintree Blockade was about in 1983/84. I arrived after the blockade to what was called the Old Blockade site.
I remember when I first started running with the Hippies. The first lot were the hedonistic jugglers and fire twirlers, happy sac kind of scene. I was interested in the girls and they weren’t the slightest bit interested in me because I was an intellectual and that was so nerdy and unacceptable. I really thought that my mind made me totally unsexy. It wasn’t till I met actual Greenies I realised Hippies with politics, I found my people.
In 1984 we got involved in the campaign for the Wet Tropics Declaration. It was actually a good way to activate for change because tourists were there looking at the rainforest and you’d get to say:-‘ Isn’t it beautiful, it really needs saving.’ There was no internet so it was different to trying to tell them in the city to when they were actually there appreciating it. We put on the most feral festival. It was absolutely free with music. We didn’t provide much. It was called the Rainforest Survival Festival.”