“ I was born in Junee, NSW and I have 2 sisters. I spent most of my time helping Dad with the horses after school and on weekends during my schooling years. Dad was a Trainer and I went in some of the races. I did Year 12 at Junee High and within minutes of finishing school I left as there were no jobs, the only jobs were on the railway.
I went to Canberra and started in the Public Service. I got a room at Macquarie Hostel and my roommate Ray Anderson was also in my class at school. We shared flats and houses over a period and it was a pretty mad time.
I had all these economic theories in my head and I bored the crap out of all my friends every time I had a few drinks so I enrolled in the Australian National University and did a Bachelor of Economics. I completed my degree while still working full time and got 4 promotions over 5 years. There was not much time for anything else, 2 beers on a Friday night and that was it. The Uni offered me Honours but I was too exhausted. I got to Executive level 2 in the Public Service when I was 34 which is pretty young, however I didn’t want to go to the next level because it was too political. I was offered other jobs to develop new policies. The Ministers in Parliament House would explain to me what they wanted so I would turn that into a policy and advise them how to put that policy into practice. I also managed the consultancy that put together the River Cats in Brisbane.
My best staff were women who had a planning degree. I had mostly women staff because they worked so well. I worked on some large projects, one being the Northern Australia Forum. Basically Northern Australia was anywhere above the Tropic of Capricorn and also included Alice Springs, as far west as Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling Islands, as far north as Torres Strait, as south as Townsville. The idea was to get a response to specific regional needs rather that a blanket response. I facilitated 22 workshops across Northern Australia. I would take that info back to Canberra and tell them what they wanted.
We got everyone together in Katherine for the Northern Australia Forum which was an interesting exercise. The Minister was good friends with the Mayor of Katherine and really wanted to hold the forum in Katherine. I went and checked out the spaces to hold the forum. They showed us the largest motel, the bowling club, the golf club but we were having 2-300 people coming so these venues weren’t big enough. Just so happened they had a big cinema complex so we hired the whole space and had workshops during the day and movies at night. The people from Cocos Keeling Island are Suni Muslims, beautiful people and they wanted to know where the Prayer Room was for midday prayers so we fitted out the projector room for them.
2001 was the Centenary of Federation and was also the Centenary of the Public Service. Medals were handed out for each department, 5 previous employees and 5 current employees. The department I was in had 4,500 people and I was lucky enough to get a medal for Appreciation in Public Service. I travelled a lot with my work all over Australia so I spent a lot of time in planes.
During this time I married and divorced and I lost the house and all it’s contents and we had a daughter. I married again but really all I was to my wife was a walking ATM machine so down the track I lost it all again but didn’t mind so much because of my 2 sons. I lost the house, the furniture, some of my Super and the cars. I lived like a pauper after that and travelled by bike or bus. I allowed myself one coffee a week.
I was trying to get access to my boys but it was back in the day when the male was seen as the provider and nothing else. I tried to do mediation but she would never turn up and never speak on the phone through mediation. It was impossible and I still haven’t seen my sons who are now 30 and 32. I send Christmas, Birthday cards and letters and I never get a reply. We now have grandchildren we’ve not seen.
I was offered a placement as an Indigenous Community Volunteer on the Tiwi Islands so I took it. I was there for over 9 months and I worked 7 days a week. Beautiful people but there were cultural clashes. The elders wanted to teach the kids fishing and the teachers were saying, no they need to go to school. Both educations are great but there were clashes.
After working there I ended up being an ethical and moral whistle blower for the Council. There was a lot of corruption happening. My time was up and I didn’t want to go back to Canberra so I stayed in Darwin and I heard they were doing a reform of local government. They asked me to go and work for them, so I got a Director job there which was a massive job. I cut down the number of Councils from 64 to 16 Super Councils, brought in the one vote, one value and brought in that anyone could nominate to be a Councillor. I also was given the role of Manager of Tiwi Islands Regional Council. At times it was pretty scary with the corruption and there were times I received death threats but we got through.
I was lucky enough to do a world tour on an Australian Government passport in 2002. I wrote the first policy looking at transport with a sustainable development context. That was amazing.
In 2007 I saw Cas at work as we worked in the same department. I was so busy that I only had an hour spare on Sunday so we met up but we got on so well the time flew and I had to race to the airport. Long story short we’ve been together ever since. Casandra had 4 children and was living in Darwin. I went from living alone to living with a large family as the cousins would be there too. Cas’s children are Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander so you don’t just have your family in the home. Sometimes we had 8 kids but we had big houses and everyone had to pitch in. I was earning exceptionally good money then as was Cas. When I was 57 they offered me another 3 year contract in Darwin but I refused as we’d already bought our property in Bexhill.
Cas and I now live in our beautiful home on the hill here in Bexhill and we live off my Super which I built up again and Cas’s cake money as she supplies a lot of the Lismore cafe’s with her baking. I’ve done strategic plans for Indigenous communities here in Lismore. I’ve helped the Cabbage Tree Island mob get money for headstones. I’ve worked for 11 years with seniors driving the bus and was on the Care Services advisory board, I work at The Salvos every month and I’m now President of the Bexhill Quarry Parklands Association and we are in the process of finding an Engineer to do work on the quarry wall to see if it’s safe or not. We want to turn it into parklands as it’s right alongside the rail trail which is fantastic.
Our home was just bush so I’ve done all the landscaping including digging tons of rocks out of the hill with my mattock and a crowbar. The Echidna relocates them constantly. Casandra, the garden and our 9 Grandkids are my loves. There are 7 Grandkids in Darwin and 2 in Canberra so we do a bit of travelling. I wish I could see my other grandkids too.”
