Hear This 11th July 2025

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

S1 (00:18):
Take a look. Take a look inside the book. Take
a look.

S2 (00:32):
Hello and welcome to hear this. I'm Frances Kelland and
you're listening to the Vision Australia library and radio show.
Today we're celebrating Nadc week with a great selection of
books and samples. And just a warning. Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders are warned that this show contains names and
references to deceased persons. Hello and welcome to NAIDOC week

(01:01):
for 2025. NAIDOC week marks a powerful milestone 50 years
of honouring and elevating indigenous voices, culture and resilience. This
year's theme is The Next Generation Strength, Vision and Legacy
and celebrates not only the achievements of the past, but
the bright future ahead. Empowered by the strength of our

(01:24):
young leaders, the vision of our communities, and the legacy
of our ancestors. And I thought a wonderful book to, um,
have on the show would be Julia How One indigenous
Woman from the Pilbara Transformed psychology from humble beginnings in
the remote Pilbara, psychologist and Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman, has

(01:47):
redefined what's possible at every turn, despite neither of her
parents progressing past primary school and never having met a
psychologist before attending university, Tracy was the first Aboriginal person
in Australia to complete a PhD in clinical psychology, rising
to become one of the country's foremost psychologists. Against significant odds,

(02:11):
she commenced her own private business to challenge the way
the mental health profession responds to cultural difference, and recently
established a charitable foundation and scholarship program to mentor indigenous
people from our highest risk community to become psychologists. Tracey
draws on clients stories of trauma, heartbreak and hope and

(02:33):
connection from her years of practice, offering a no holds
barred reflection on how the monocultural one size fits all
approach to psychology is failing Aboriginal people, and how she's
healing those wounds. Julia is a story of drive and
determination of what it takes to create change when the

(02:54):
odds are stacked against you. Above all, it's a story
of one woman's love for her people. Let's hear a
sample of Julia how One indigenous woman from the Pilbara
Transformed Psychology by Tracy Westerman. It's narrated by Sally Turnbull.

S3 (03:11):
Mum and dad. Mavis and Mick Westerman were two people
from completely different worlds who found each other. Dad, a
Whitefella mum and Aboriginal woman who at the time of
their meeting wasn't even a citizen of her own country.
They should never have made sense, but the best relationships
rarely do. They complemented each other in ways that were
often hard for others to see from the outside. Mum

(03:34):
and dad were simple people with simple values to work hard,
raise a loving family and do everything in their power
to make sure their children had greater opportunities than either
of them had. Neither of them came from a conventional family.
Dad due to dysfunction. Mum due to the consequences of
the government policies of assimilation and cultural destruction, which ultimately

(03:54):
claimed both of her parents by her teens, so they
were determined to find in each other the salvation they'd
sought their whole lives. Every value we were raised with
was about the love of family. That's a force that
can overcome being born with very little else. I remember
dad regularly coming home with a bunch of flowers for mum.
No easy feat in the remote Pilbara, but he would

(04:16):
somehow manage it. He truly adored her. She, for the
most part, would feign embarrassment about it. Showing affection didn't
come easy for mum, but it did for dad. This
gave us the luck of having two parents who understood
their roles in raising Aboriginal children in a world that
would always need them to be tough, yet compassionate and kind.
Dad looked like he shouldn't have been as kind and

(04:38):
as sweet as he was. Decades of sunburn had weathered
his arms so much they resembled rawhide, even eroding the
tattoos he got as a young kid in the army,
which he'd joined to escape a dysfunctional background. Hard, manual
labor had made his hands resemble bear claws. They were
so large he had to use a pen to dial
the phone. Years of Bush mechanics and work as a stockman,

(05:01):
otherwise known as a ringer, had developed in him the
kind of intelligence that is the most valuable commodity in
the remote Pilbara. Dad had to learn how to fix
most things because his survival depended on it. Living in
such extreme conditions and remoteness where tradesmen and resources were
very limited. He was a jack of all trades, able
to problem solve his way out of any situation.

S2 (05:22):
And that was a sample of Julia, how one indigenous
woman from the Pilbara transformed psychology by Tracy Westerman. Tracy
is t a y. That's t r a y. Westerman
is w e s t e m w e s

(05:43):
t e m. And that book goes for 12 hours.
And the word Julia r j I l y means
my child in Tracy's. She's one of. She's a proud
nyamal woman from the Pilbara region. And that's in the
Nyamal language. Julia was a highly anticipated memoir. Doctor Tracy

(06:07):
Westerman has been on the talking circuit for a long time.
This memoir has been called groundbreaking, and according to The
Australian Financial Review, it is shaking up the hitherto white
world of mental health treatment. And there is an article
written by Doctor Tracy Westerman and it's on SBS. It's

(06:29):
a print interview, so sbs.com.au forward. So if you go
to Sbs.com.au, if you search for the surname Westerman, you
will be able to find this, um, this interview where
she really clearly outlines her particular journey and her perspective.

(06:52):
The article is called Fixing the Broken System of Indigenous
Child Removal. And when leadership denies racism, it results in
becoming systemic and irrefutably linked to escalating rates of children
being taken from family. So she's all over the internet,
a tireless advocate and professional in the field. You can

(07:15):
also go to the ABC and search for Westerman and
you'll be able to hear her being interviewed as well.
So there's a lot of information about Doctor Tracy Westerman
and her work. The next book is another non-fiction book.
It is Another Day in the colony and this is
by Chelsea Watego. A groundbreaking work and a call to

(07:39):
arms that exposes the ongoing colonial violence experienced by First
Nations people in this collection of deeply insightful and powerful essays.
Chelsea Watego examines the ongoing and daily racism faced by
First Nations people in so-called Australia. Rather than offer yet
another account of in quotes the Aboriginal problem, she theorizes

(08:03):
a strategy for living in a social world that has
only ever imagined indigenous peoples as destined to die out.
Drawing on her own experiences and observations of the operations
of the colony, she exposes the lies that settlers tell
about indigenous people. In refusing such stories, Chelsea tells her

(08:24):
own fierce, personal, sometimes funny, sometimes anguished. She speaks not
of fighting back, but of standing her ground against colonialism
in academia, in court and in media. It's a stance
that takes its toll on relationships, career prospects and even
the body. Yet when told to have hope, Wategos response

(08:45):
rings clear. F hope. Be sovereign. Let's hear a sample
of Chelsea Wategos Another Day in the colony. It's narrated
by Claire Boak.

S4 (08:57):
Every day I achieve something because I was born in
this skin. Every day I concede something. Because I was
born in this skin. Vernon Ah kee. This book was
written in the year that was 2020 best remembered for
Covid 19 and a renewed global Black Lives Matter movement
after the murder of African American man George Floyd at

(09:19):
the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The year 2020
was also the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's voyage along
the east coast of so-called Australia. It was to be
commemorated with a lavish year long party, courtesy of a
50 million tab covered by the federal government, which included

(09:41):
sailing a replica of Cook's endeavour around the continent in
some sort of sordid victory lap, which cook never actually sailed.
This proposed exercise was first proclaimed as a re-enactment of
Cook's voyage, and a chance for all to rediscover cook,
who gets a bit of a bad show. According to

(10:02):
then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, this expensive reimagining of white
feats and false discoveries was a reminder not just of
a colonial past, but a colonial present. As fate would
have it, the ship never set sail due to the pandemic,
the ship never reached its scheduled 39 locations, which included

(10:26):
Berinag or, as they refer to it, Possession Island, where
Captain Cook is alleged to have claimed Australia for the
British Crown in lieu of the party. We were greeted
with a grotesque form of eulogising of cook, which, as
it turned out, included some indigenous male commentators who testified

(10:47):
to seeing themselves in him. We were reminded that every
damn day really is just another day in the colony.
I tell of this time because this book was written
in a moment. It was a moment when my body
insisted I stop and stop I did. I took leave
from work, including much of the work that I loved doing.

(11:11):
From Twitter to Inala Wangara to the Wild Black Women
radio show. This moment would come to last a few
months and coincided with the progression of two race discrimination cases.

S2 (11:24):
And that was another day in the colony by Chelsea Watego.
Chelsea is c h e e a c h e
s e watego w a t e w e. And
that book goes for six hours and ten minutes. Another

(11:46):
day in the colony. Um, was on the New South
Wales New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards shortlist, the 2022
shortlist for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Victorian Premier's Literary
Awards shortlisted are the stellar um long list. So this book, um,
gained a lot of attention. And if you do go

(12:07):
to Chelsea Watego, you can hear Chelsea speaking on at
her on her website. Chelsea Watego forward slash, forward slash
and there are numerous lectures and speaking events, but you
can listen to and also on the ABC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation,

(12:30):
ABC network. If again, if you search for the surname
Watego w a t e g o. There are numerous
um interviews and talks from Chelsea Watego there. It's really
great to hear these, um, young First Nations voices having
an impact and telling things from their own perspective and

(12:52):
the whole process of truth telling to redress the balances
of how things have been perceived and judged for so long.
The next book is again non-fiction. It is the Boy
from Boomerang Crescent, and it's by Eddie Betts. How does
a self-described skinny Aboriginal kid overcome a legacy of family

(13:12):
tragedy to become an AFL legend? One thing's for sure
it's not easy. But then there's always been something special
about Eddie Betts. Betts grew up in Port Lincoln and
Kalgoorlie in environments where the destructive legacies of colonialism, racism,
police targeting of his Aboriginal people, drug and alcohol misuse,

(13:33):
family violence were sadly normalised. His childhood was defined by
family closeness as well as family strife, plus a wonderful
freedom that he and his cousins exploited to the full,
for better and for worse. When he made the decision
to take his talents across the Nullarbor to Melbourne to
chase his footballing dreams, homesickness be damned. Everything changed over

(13:57):
the ensuing years. Betts became a true giant of the
sport 350 plus games, 600 plus goals, multiple All-Australian nods
and goal of the year awards, and a league wide
popularity rarely seen in the hyper tribal AFL. Along the way,
he battled his demons before his turbulent youth settled into

(14:19):
responsible maturity. Today, the Melbourne tabloids, once dubbed Bad Boy
Betts is a dedicated husband and father, a respected community
leader and an increasingly outspoken social activist. Let's hear a
sample of The Boy from Boomerang Crescent by Eddie Betts.
It's narrated by Luke Carroll.

S5 (14:40):
We used to play Spot the Eagles as we flew
across the Nullarbor in our little two door magna. We
would spot them circling over the highway and count them
sitting on the dead kangaroos by the side of the road.
Mum always had the trip mapped out and planned ahead.
Sometimes we'll do the drive non-stop. Would stock up on

(15:02):
music cassettes at the servo. Though country music mainly like
Alan Jackson, a bit of Creedence. John Fogerty then would
play the cassettes and repeat for two days. Other times
he'd pull up and get a motel room in Border Village,
home of the Big Roo on the South Australia Western
Australia border. What I remember most is the long, flat drive,

(15:27):
the Eagles, sometimes a camel out on the plains or
some emus, the kangaroos along the road and the trucks
that wouldn't stop for anything. I loved those trips. They'd
take a couple of days. We used to pull the
seats out of the back of the Magna, put a
mattress in the boot and away we'd go. It'll be mum.

(15:50):
Me and my two sisters, Sarah and Lucy, shuttling across
the Nullarbor between Kalgoorlie and Port Lincoln. Would always get
somebody to come along with us to share the driving
with mum. We were always squeezing people in during the
long drive would play games to break up the time.
Car cricket was popular. I remember red trucks were an

(16:13):
out and the blue cars were falls. I'd also take
my mind off things by playing with a couple of
little teddy bears. I would lay up on the mattress
and pretend they were playing footy, taking screamers and hangers.
Before I knew it, five hours would have passed. My
imagination took me on to an Aussie Rules ground. Thinking

(16:35):
of my family, being like my uncles. Playing in the
Blackfella carnival.

S2 (16:40):
And that was a sample of the Boy from Boomerang
Crescent by Eddie Betts. Eddie is E double E, double E,
Betts is b e double T, b e double T,
and that book goes for six hours and 20 minutes.
The next book was published a little while ago, and

(17:01):
it's by Chloe Hooper. and it had a big impact
when it was, um, released. It's the Tall Man death
and Life on Palm Island in 2004. On Palm Island,
an Aboriginal settlement in Far North Queensland, a 36 year
old man named camp named Cameron Doomadgee was arrested for

(17:22):
swearing at a white police officer. 40 minutes later, he
was dead in the jailhouse. The police claimed he'd tripped
on a step, but his liver was ruptured. The main
suspect was Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, a charismatic cop with
long experience in Aboriginal communities and decorations for his work.

(17:43):
Chloe Hooper was asked to write about the case by
the pro bono lawyer, who represented Cameron Doomadgee's family. He
told her it would take a couple of weeks. She
spent three years following Hurley's trial to some of the
wildest and most remote parts of Australia, exploring Aboriginal myths
and history, and the roots of brutal chaos in the

(18:05):
Palm Island community. Her stunning account goes to the heart
of a struggle for power, revenge and justice. Let's hear
a sample of The Tall Man Death and Life on
Palm Island by Chloe Hooper. Um, I'm not sure of
the narrator.

S6 (18:21):
The stories of Chris Hurley and Cameron Doomadgee both led
to the Gulf of Carpentaria. I decided to follow them there.
It was part of Australia. I knew only by legend.
The Gulf country is the Wild West in another guise,
a lingering frontier replete with free ranging cattle, rodeos, cowboys
and people of no fixed address. The arid plains shimmer

(18:43):
in the heat and at night. Travellers on the primitive
backroads are said to be mesmerised by min min lights
uncannily hovering before them. Murrandoo, Yanner hometown of Burketown on
the Gulf waters, was where Hurley lived from 1998 to 2002.
60 miles from Burketown is Doomadgee, the Aboriginal settlement Cameron's

(19:03):
family came from and where Hurley also sometimes worked. There
had to be clues in both places, but if I
turned up alone, would anyone speak to me? Elizabeth and
Valmai wanted to come along to visit their family. Elizabeth,
the eldest daughter, had been living in Doomadgee for ten years,
and Elizabeth wanted to see her grandchildren before they got

(19:24):
too rusty. Valmai was thinking of moving her family back
to Doomadgee because, she said, the Bible shows one catastrophe
usually heralds another. She worried Palm Island might be hit
by a tsunami. I met the sisters in Townsville. They
were carrying their possessions in plastic bags. I bought them

(19:44):
each a travel bag and we flew to Mount Isa
over the mining towns. Smokestacks then boarded a smaller plane
that stopped like a bus at different Gulf towns, including Doomadgee.
The other passengers, about 15 of them, were government workers
and locals. Two young Aboriginal women were flying home from
the hospital holding their newborn babies. A private detective sat

(20:07):
in the seat behind me. He was taking the flight
to Cairns, the last stop. He'd been on a plane
like this when it nosedived after striking a kangaroo on
the runway. In the old days, he said, men stood
along the Mount Isa airstrip firing shotguns to frighten them away.
Now there was a P.A. system to replicate the sound
of rifles. When we reached 5000ft, we heard over the

(20:31):
hum of the engine and propellers, an alarm like whirring.
The co-pilot emerged from the cockpit, his face shiny with sweat.
To listen.

S2 (20:39):
That was the tall man. Death and Life on Palm
Island by Chloe Hooper. And that book, Chloe is. C
h Hooper is h o p e h e. And
that book goes for eight hours and 40 minutes. It

(21:00):
was originally published this book in 2008, and the Guardian
I'm looking at on the Wikipedia page here for the book,
and the Guardian was quoted as saying The Tall Man
has already drawn comparisons with some of the best of
that often derided genre true crime, and it fully deserves
the attention, like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and more recently, um,

(21:24):
Francisco Goldman's The Art of Political Murder, this gracefully nuanced
book is as much about the world in which a
death takes place as the nature of the death itself.
And the Sydney Morning Herald, ah, found it, quote, a thoughtful,
perceptive examination of an important Australian tragedy. It was the
winner in the 2009 for the Ned Kelly Award for

(21:47):
Best True Crime. Um, it was the winner of the
Queensland Premier's Literary Non-fiction Book Award in 2009, and nominated
and shortlisted for many, many other awards and and a
winner of other awards as well. That's the Tall Man
death and Life on Palm Island by Chloe Hooper. The
next book is by Anita Heiss and it is am

(22:09):
I Black Enough for you? This was originally published in 2012,
and again, it was a bit of a landmark book.
So in this book, um, am I black enough for you?
Anita Heiss says I'm Aboriginal. I'm just not the Aboriginal
person a lot of people want or expect me to be.
What does it mean to be Aboriginal? Why is Australia
so obsessed with notions of identity? Anita Heiss, successful author

(22:34):
and passionate campaigner for Aboriginal literacy, was born a member
of the Cree Nation of Central New South Wales, but
was raised in the suburbs of Sydney and educated at
the local Catholic school. She is Aboriginal. However, this does
not mean she likes to go barefoot and please don't
ask her to camp in the desert. After years of

(22:55):
stereotyping Aboriginal Australians as either The settlement dwellers or rioters.
In Redfern, the Australian media have discovered a new crime
to charge them with being too fair skinned to be
an Australian Aboriginal. Such accusations led to Anita's involvement in
one of the most important and sensational Australian legal decisions

(23:16):
of the 21st century, when she joined others in charging
newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt with breaching the Racial Discrimination Act.
He was found guilty and the repercussions continue in this
deeply personal memoir, told in her distinctive, wry style. Anita
Heiss gives a firsthand account of her experiences as a

(23:38):
woman with an Aboriginal mother and Austrian father, and explains
the development of her activist consciousness. Let's hear a sample
of am I Black Enough for You? By Anita Heiss.
It's narrated by Jennifer Gilchrist.

S7 (23:53):
I'm a Williams. My mob's from Cowra, Brungle mission, Griffith
and Canberra. But I was born in Gadigal country, aka
the City of Sydney, and have spent most of my
life living on Dharawal land at Matraville, which is strategically
placed between the Malabar Sewage Works, long Bay Gaol and
the Orica Industrial Estate. It's a place where I grew

(24:13):
up playing cricket in the street, walked safely to and
from school each day and where neighbours always had a
spare key to the house. My home suburb remains the
perfect setting for creative inspiration today. I am an urban
beachside blackfella, a concrete cowrie with Westfield Dreaming and I
apologize to no one. This is my story. It is

(24:35):
a story about not being from the desert, not speaking
my traditional language, and not wearing ochre. I'm not very
good at playing the clapsticks either, and I loathe sleeping outdoors,
but my story is of the journey of being a
proud Wiradjuri woman, just not necessarily being the blackfella, the
so-called real Aborigine. Some people, perhaps even you, expect me

(24:57):
to be since my late teens, when I entered tertiary
education and began my adult social life. I have been
expected by non-Aboriginal people at university, during school visits, at
writers festivals, at dinner parties, on plane rides and in
nightclubs to be all knowing of Aboriginal culture, as well
as able to articulate my predefined, exotic and somehow tangible

(25:18):
relationship with the land. This has become something I have
written and spoken about as I attempt, as an artist
and academic, to define myself in the world. I have
been born, socialised, educated and politicised into my landscape, my place,
my country. When I talk about my country, I don't

(25:39):
mean Australia generally, but Wiradjuri country specifically. My country is
central New South Wales around Cowra, Tumut, Brungle, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst,
Dubbo and Mudgee. It is this country that I'm patriotic to,
even though I have spent much of my life working,
studying and socializing on Gadigal land. It is because I

(26:00):
have lived most of my life in Sydney that I
was part of the anthology. Life in Gadigal country 2002,
which was a statement of recognition of country by its contributors,
all visitors to Sydney.

S2 (26:12):
And that was am I Black Enough for You by
Anita Heiss. Anita is. Anita. Anita heiss. H e double
s h e double s. And that book goes for
eight hours and 40 minutes. Thank you for joining us

(26:41):
on Hear This today. I'm Frances Gayland, and I'm I'm
probably still sound very nasally. I'm just getting over a cold.
That lasted quite a while. So I thank you for
bearing with me. And a very warm welcome to Alan, who, um,
spoke to Ann recently on the phone at the library
and mentioned that he enjoys the show and I'm so

(27:04):
appreciative of that. Thank you, Ellen, and I hope you
have a lovely weekend ahead. And I know I would
have spoken to you on the phone back in the
days when I worked in the library, because your name
is very familiar. If you would like to give feedback
about the show or about any of the books, it
is really welcome. It's always, um, makes my heart leap
with joy when I get some feedback. So, um, you

(27:26):
can always ring 1300 654 656. That's 1300 654 656. Or you can email
library at Australian. That's library at Australia. And um I
hope you have a lovely week and we'll be back

(27:47):
next week with more here. This.