“I found a deep drive of purpose while I was in India. I realised there and then that I felt compelled to be active, to be doing something and it had a protectionist aspect to it. It was kind of like a justice feeling that things were wrong in the world and we need to be part of fixing those, not just sit back and watch them. I came back to Melbourne and helped my Mum and Dad who were having some problems at the time. Within a few months of that I landed in Lismore.
Three days in Lismore and I found myself in the back of a panel van heading straight out to a forest protest in the back hills behind Grafton at Chaelundi. That was the beginning for me. I joined an incredible group of people, the North East Forest Alliance and between us we were working on a strategic plan of how we were going to protect the old growth forests of Northern NSW. That was an incredible time! We all got very smart together in the sense that we knew what we were fighting for was really important. Once those forests are gone, they really are gone. Hundreds and hundreds of years old Eco-systems which are housing some of the most threatened and vulnerable animals and plants that we know.
We talked about timber and jobs and I, coming from a very working class background realise jobs are probably the most important thing in families lives but when I broke through the polarisation and the dichotomy as in..you can either have an environment or jobs I realised, No, we are smarter than this! We are much bigger than this! In fact managing our forests for their values rather than their timber as such. Yes, timber is important but we can plant for that. That’s where I really switched on to how things work. We ran campaigns that involved the law. Court cases about protecting the environment were being won. I was learning about environmental law and I was watching the politics of what was happening. I was lobbying Parliamentarians. I remember in the 1990s having conversations with Penny Wong about protecting the forest. It was the intersection of politics, law, community education, frontline democracy and ultimately after many years of campaigning we won in a sense.
I can now go to a number of places in NSW and see that they are protected. I can go to National Parks and know in my heart and soul that they are there today because a group of us acted then. They are now protected. This idea that it was legal to cut forest down at that time was right. No! Just because something’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right.
A few things happened. I had a very happy time when I had my first child very young. I was 20 when I had her. That’s how I am a Grandmother now. I met someone, fell in love, settled here, bought land, built a house and then I had a very sad time. My brother who was living in Melbourne took his own life when my daughter was 12 months old. It was such a sad time in our lives. He was not well, he was a beautiful young man, 24 years old, incredibly talented and artistic. He played beautiful music, just so talented. He was also a fabulous writer but he was lost and probably too sensitive for the world in a way. He seemed to be on track then he’d get a bit unwell and one day he just decided that was it. In a way it was a continuation of that element that had been running through our family a long time. I feel in that sense.… To the extent a person can, I feel like I understand mental unwellness on a level that hopefully others don’t have to understand. I know how deeply immobilising that unwellness of mind can be. In a way, I was never prepared to just accept that that’s an unwellness that is uniquely held by an individual. I keep looking at in the context of society. Why did my brother have to feel so estranged from his community? That’s why places like Lismore and regional communities are so special, because we do know each other a lot better. The 80’s were particularly about the individual. Some of the things I learnt through that was the importance of connectedness and community. How in fact that is the measure of well being. Some of the most cut through medical research that came through this year from the States was…What are the key factors to longevity? We were all expecting…didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, ate well, jogged every day. In fact it was none of those. The number one factor was if you had a good, active social life and a connection to a social network of people you maintain through to your old age. We are getting smart about this stuff.
It was in the 90’s a dear friend of mine got involved with a group of Lawyers for the environment. Lawyers for Forest. He said to me..’Sue there’s going to come time where you can’t be an environmental campaigner and a frontline activist all your life. You have a daughter who is going to go to school and what’s next for you?’ I’d not thought about that. I’d always thought of myself as cannon fodder. Just shoot me out and I’ll get it done wherever I need to be. He said, ‘Have you considered law school?’ I said, Oh God no! I just got through my HSC. I did fine but I was always much more interested in what was going on in the world. He said, ‘SCU in Lismore has a great Law school, go check it out.’ For one it was called the School of Law and Justice so it already had this immediate appeal to me. I felt a bit intimidated, the stigma of getting through a law degree. My sister was the first to go to university in our whole family. We were really a lower working class family.
I applied as a mature age student, I was 24 and it was incredible. I worked and studied, did really well first semester, second semester I was acing it and getting HD’s. I drove all my lecturers mad because we when were allowed to come up with our own assessment tasks all mine were about the environment and politics. I finished my law degree, won University medal and got first class honours. Law was my tool. It made perfect sense to me. It was a tool that was very powerful and I could actually use it to really fight for justice.
Half way through my law degree I ended up having another child. I remember sitting an exam and my lecturer kindly let me sit my exams and stop the clock every 20 minutes to breastfeed my 3 day old infant. SCU was incredible for teaching law in a way that wasn’t going to churn out students only to become rich, transactional lawyers.
I came out of Uni and worked as a Lawyer in Lismore. I loved it. I worked for people in my community, whether it was helping them buy their first home, write their will or represent them in the criminal court. I just got a real glimpse of how the community of Lismore works in the sense of the legal system.”