National Volunteer Week 2022

One of the practices I learnt from my parents was the value of volunteering in the local community. They modeled  their belief in faith and neighbourhood in action and commitment.  My father was a life long member of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Geelong.  As well as a weekly meeting, Dad looked after the management of  Halstead Place, a hostel for rough sleepers. He also cared for the garden at our local parish Church and was a regular on the Meals on Wheels program.

My mother came from a family where commitment to school, church and community was ingrained as the way of living. As well as school Mothers Club and canteen rosters, Mum joined committees for the local parish and in later life, the management committee at her retirement village. As with many homemakers Mum also volunteered an amazing volume of cakes and goodies for fetes and fundraisers.  When our family were sorting out finances after Mum’s death we discovered her incredible generosity to causes and campaigns that worked for the common good.

I inherited much of this understanding and commitment to volunteering.  Some of my most treasured young memories are the days when my Dad would “dink me” on his bike to the hostel where he cooked and cared for rough sleepers.

On this National Volunteers Week I give thanks to those organisations that have provided me with opportunities for “Changing Communities. Changing Lives”  The change has been in my outlook and understanding of the world and how we work together to build community.

At 69 years old I look back with gratitude to the groups and communities that provided volunteering experience and life long learning for me:

• The Young ALP in Geelong
• St John’s Ambulance
• St Vincent de Paul Society
• Collingwood CYSS
• Catholics for Peace (A Melbourne based anti-war group in the 1980s)
• Palms Australia
• Friends of the ABC
• Brisbane Festival
• Annerley Community Bookshop (Now relocated at the Brisbane  Braille Centre)
• Brisbane Writers Festival
• Catholic Justice and Peace Commission Archdiocese of Brisbane
• L’Arche Brisbane
• Brisbane LGBTIQ Action Group
• Australian Catholics for Equality Advisory Board

As well as groups and associations I have been able to volunteer my services as a photographer to friends and public events as a citizen journalist. This is a role where I am able to use my images to  challenge social exclusion, prejudice and injustice.

As I begin a new era as a senior citizen I have taken up membership of advocacy groups such as   COTA for my generation.

My hope is to continue to volunteer for my community and causes that promote social change. I hope that through my volunteering at this stage of life I can mentor a new generation of awareness and commitment.

A Shameful Day in Parliament

This disgusting behaviour of Coalition members of Parliament should be called out and the Hindu community request for an apology should be honoured.

I am ashamed and embarrassed by the dominant culture of the LNP. 

I call on the Member for Brisbane, Trevor Evans MP to denounce this behaviour by his colleagues

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Australia Day 2020

Last night thanks to Jackie Trad I joined friends from South Brisbane at The Australian Dream - Free Local Screening. Sam Grant's speech concludes this powerful and disturbing documentary.

My life experience includes unlearning the racism of my childhood and cultural upbringing. It wasn't the vicious racism of name calling and shaming that this doco exposes.Rather it was the more insidious racism of silence,ignorance and cultural prejudice

In my childhood home my parents had two small prints of the work of Albert Namatjira. This was my only exposure to First Nations people as a young boy.My Catholic education from the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers made no reference to local or national Aboriginal or Torres Strait islanders peoples.

I was 26 years old when I first met an Aboriginal person at our community share house in Fitzroy. Brian was my age and a good friend for that year.

Due to travel I was 60 years old before I met my first traditional owner of the land on which i was born on #Wathauring Country. I hold in sacred memory the meeting with Wathaurong elder Uncle David Tournier RIP.

This weekend once again I stand with friends and colleagues of First Nations Peoples. I also join with those who are doing sorry business with the passing of two people.

Aunty Pamela Mam will be buried from Holy Trinity Anglican Church on Tuesday. Her passing has been acknowledged in public for her pioneering work in providing health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Griffith University in 2018. Her tributes included a statement from the Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles. Her life and achievements are celebrated across social media posts.

The other passing this week came to me via a text message from an elder of the community who wanted to let me know that "Sam: had passed away. Sam was a man I had supported during my work with survivors of childhood institutional abuse.

Sam had the look and the passion of a warrior for rights. He stood tall with a thick beard that added to his dignity. His body and soul carried the scars of childhood abuse that haunted him into his adult life.

Sam's life is recorded only in official documents and the records of his institutional history. His passing is shared among the community who knew him as one of the Forgotten Australians.

I had photographed both Aunty Pam and Sam. Both of them gazed into my lens with two very different stories of First Nations peoples that I will hold in sacred memory this weekend.