Chapter 38

Lesley

After the National Reconciliation Convention, I was more determined than ever to continue my battle for justice against the government – even without the backing of the Aboriginal community. Jean Dalton pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of my case – it wasn’t the strongest of cases, but I was undeterred. I’d come this far in my campaign; I wasn’t about to give up.

Although the filing cabinets at home were filled to the brim with government records I’d gathered during my research, there were still pieces of evidence missing. Without them, the lawyers said, my prospects of winning were slim. So I made yet another trip to Brisbane, on a mission to plug the holes in my case.

The latest premises to house the re-named Department of Family Services and Aboriginal and Islander Affairs was by no means new, although an improvement on the old building that had once stood across the road. The elevator rattled and groaned, then shuddered to a halt on the second floor. I’d been told by the ‘personal histories’ staff, down on level one, that key government financial records relating to Aboriginal savings accounts and the welfare fund were kept under wraps in a restricted access room on level two. There I headed, no longer intimidated by the department and its white officials.

I pushed the service bell located next to a locked door. It swung open to expose the busy bureaucracy. A young attendant stopped, wide-eyed and surprised to see me standing in the foyer of this restricted-access level.

‘Hi,’ I shot out a hand with a nice-to-meet-you smile. ‘I’m Lesley.’

‘Yes, I know who you are,’ she replied, awkwardly accepting my handshake. I was taken aback by my apparent notoriety, as if I were some sort of radical to be avoided.

‘I’d like to see the financial records the department has on …’

‘You’ll need to make a request to the manager and she’s not here,’ she said, cutting me off mid-sentence, as if there was nothing more to discuss.

‘So …’ I sighed, with a sarcastic raise of an eyebrow, frustrated at having to prise snippets of information from a so-called servant of the public. ‘Do you know when she’ll be back? Or perhaps I can make an appointment to see her when I’m next in town?’

The young official looked Aboriginal in appearance. But she wasn’t sympathetic to my questions, and the longer I stood there, the more agitated she became. Normally I’d have asked about her mob and we’d have introduced ourselves the way blackfullas generally did. But I held back.

‘Look,’ she whispered, inching closer; for a moment, it seemed I’d broken through her stony exterior. Her eyes looked cautiously over my shoulder towards the elevator’s door. ‘I can’t be seen talking to you.’

I guess it was understandable that the government’s dealings with me changed after my Letter of Demand had been served; which was then followed by a Writ filed in the Supreme Court registry, signalling the start of legal proceedings. Gone were the days of easy and inconspicuous access to files, leather-bound books and archive boxes that had been tucked away on shelves and forgotten. While these records had been out of sight and out of mind, so was my research. In the early days this had been to my advantage, allowing me to snoop around unattended in libraries, archive facilities and even in the Department of Native Affairs offices. As long as I stayed in my designated room, they’d let me copy what I liked. This informal arrangement worked because no one knew what was at stake, and they’d doubted my persistence.

‘Oh, you won’t get very far,’ I’d once been told. But I was not going away. Nor would I allow myself to get lost in the paper maze of records, documents and files, which all too regularly led to dead ends.

Lack of money to finance my campaign, Aboriginal politics, stalling tactics from successive governments – none of these could stop me. My Letter of Demand and Writ made this clear. However, the Queensland Government was just as determined to defeat my case. Where I had to assemble a team of legal people who were willing to work for free, the government, with its massive resources, could pick the canniest for theirs. They had access to my personal departmental file containing my work and savings account transaction history, and detailed file notes on all meetings and telephone conversations I’d had with government representatives. They were under orders from their manager to be guarded in their interactions, so as not to jeopardise the government’s position. Some in the department were as nervous of me as I had once been of them.

On 13 June 1998 the Labor party won the Queensland state election. My campaign had outlasted two governments and this was now the third. As each new government came into power, there was a shuffling of public servants across departments. Despite all these changes, there was yet to be justice and recognition for Aboriginal workers.

I was sceptical whether the premier-elect, Peter Beattie, would be any different from his predecessors. As with governments before him, he rebranded the old department with the more politically correct title: Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy. There was, however, one change that did catch my attention. The appointment of the department’s bigwig – the new executive director, the equivalent to the chief protector, or director, of Native Affairs, who had once ruled like a tin god over the lives of Aboriginal people – was now held by a smart and savvy thirty-something blackfulla, a woman by the name of Kerrie Tim.

For months after her appointment, at government events, I’d watch from across the room the way Kerrie mingled with Elders and community folk. It seemed that whoever had raised her had done a good job. She respected Elders in the way the old people once taught – a way many of our young people appear to have forgotten, or not yet learned. She’d take the time to talk with Elders, squatting beside their chairs while they spoke, so that she wasn’t standing over or casting a shadow upon them.

Not only did Kerrie behave differently, she also didn’t look like other high-ranking people in government. Blackfullas would laugh whenever ‘the suits’ attended community events in the park. To us, their dark pants and jacket, teamed with white cotton shirt and solemn face, looked like they were in a state of mourning. Good on them for wanting to be respectful and dressing professionally, but at an outdoor festival in the midday heat couldn’t they wear something more comfortable – or at least take the bloody jacket off and try to fit in! Kerrie was different; she knew how to switch between worlds – with power suits reserved for the politics of Parliament House and jeans for sitting under a tree in the park, talking blackfulla politics with the mob.

There was little about Kerrie Tim that fitted my stereotype of how I thought a departmental head should look and act. But then, bigwigs in the Queensland Government had never before included an Aboriginal woman, and especially someone so young.

*

At the International Women’s Day dinner of March 1999, I saw Kerrie work her way towards me through an adoring crowd.

‘Hello, Aunty,’ she said, when she reached my table, and then bent to kiss me on the cheek. This was her way of showing respect to me as an Elder although she was the one with the high falutin’ job.

‘I know we’ve seen each other before, but we really haven’t had a chance to talk. Do you mind if I join you?’ she asked, pulling a chair out and waiting for permission to sit.

‘Let me begin by apologising to you,’ she said.

‘What for? You haven’t done anything wrong.’ My response sounded pissy, although I didn’t mean it to be. Sure, I was suspicious, but I didn’t begrudge her my respect just because she was working for the other side.

‘Aunty, I’ve been reading your file.’

‘File!’ I said defensively, although this really shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

‘The department has kept a file documenting the contact you’ve had with the government over the years. Other than the sheer size of your file, what shocks me is that the majority of interactions you’ve had with my department are via letters, which have therefore first gone to our lawyers. I can’t believe it’s been such a while since anyone of seniority in the department has taken the time to sit down and actually talk with you.’

‘That’s right, it’s been a while,’ I agreed. ‘Whenever I visit the department, it’s like no one wants to talk to me in case they get into trouble.’

‘Well, I’m sorry if that’s how you’ve been made to feel,’ Kerrie offered. I wanted to believe in her sincerity, but I’d been stuffed around by well-meaning people many times before.

‘I also apologise, as the executive director,’ she persisted, sensing my doubt, ‘for your lack of opportunity to meet with a senior officer of the department.’

I peered deeply into her eyes – the glistening black pupils – in search of the true emotion that made her say those words to me. When we were growing up in the Camp, the old people told us, ‘If you want to tell if a fulla has a good spirit, look him in the eye.’ I couldn’t see any traces of cunning or deceit, or of a government representative trying to butter me up with kind words and a fake apology.

‘So, Aunty, if it is okay with you,’ Kerrie continued, ‘I was hoping we could spend some time getting to know each other – talking blackfulla-to-blackfulla – with no lawyers involved, just you and me?’