← A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard
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- [00:02]
Dr. June Oscar
We're women. We are women who love this land. We are women who don't fear reaching out and asking for advice from each other. And I think we do that far more easily than the men. And I think that if there's a group of people that's going to bring real change in this country, it will be through the women.
- [00:31]
Julia Gillard
Dr. June Oscar is a proud Bunnabar woman from the remote town of Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia's Kimberley region. I've come to know June because she now leads the First Nations Gender Justice Institute at the Australian National University. And of course, ANU is home to the Global Institute for Women's Leadership here, here in Australia. And we have the sister institute at King's College London. It was a real delight to join June for the launch of her institute earlier this year. In this podcast, we talk about her remarkable career, which has taken her from a cattle station in a tiny Western Australian town to serving a five year term as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. The story of how she got from there to all of her many achievements is a truly inspiring one. And a great theme that June talks about is hope. And I think for reconciliation in Australia, hope is such an important emotion, aspiration word. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I most certainly did. June, such a delight to have you with me for the podcast.
- [01:55]
Dr. June Oscar
Thank you, Julia. Great to connect again.
- [01:58]
Julia Gillard
We were together in March at the Australian National University for the launch of your institute and we're going to talk about that. But I really want to start right back at the very beginning. You were born in the Kimberleys. Can you tell me a little bit about your mother, your father, the place where you were born?
- [02:18]
Dr. June Oscar
Yeah, sure. And as you know, all of our stories are, we have our histories, our places that holds all of the memories that makes us who we are. So my beginnings started here in Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley, which is the southernmost point of Bonobo country, if you like. It's the Moai. It's the country of the Dangu people who are part of the Bonobo nation. And my mother was living on a cattle property called Brooking Springs, and she was part of the domestic workforce. So I grew up, I was born in Fitzroy Crossing at the old AIM Hospital, the Australian Inland Mission that Flynn helped to set up in these remote parts of Australia. And there was a hospital staffed by nurses and a visiting doctor. So I was born there in 1962, that's right on the banks of the Fitzroy river, and then returned some weeks later with my mother to Brooking Springs. So my father took myself and my mother to the police station and dropped us at the trackers camp. Then my mother went across the creek to the mission depot or mission establishment that the United Aborigines Mission people had established. And there were numbers of Aboriginal people who were seeking refuge and safe haven at the mission and became workers of the missionaries. And so we stayed there. And I can remember being there up until. Well, my memories are myself being three years of age and being at the mission from when I was born before my mother returned her and I out to Leopold Downs Station where my grandmother and my uncles and the rest of my family were again domestic and stockman working to the managers of that property. So, you know, pretty rough beginnings, but that's, you know, that's what happened.
- [05:15]
Julia Gillard
Certainly not an easy start in life. Certainly not an easy start. It left you being raised in what seems to me like a matriarchy with your mother and your grandmother, you know, very involved in your care as you were young. And so with that strong role modelling, your mother and your grandmother. When did it first occur to you that boys and girls were treated differently?
- [05:41]
Dr. June Oscar
Oh, well, you're right with my mother and grandmother being the primary, you know, caregivers parenting and raising me and who are my absolute strength, you know, they were my first teachers, they taught me everything I know and my first language is Ponoba, then having to learn English later on. But they were the people that were responsible for guiding my development as a child and onto, you know, passing. So everything I know comes from them. In our culture and the way we're raised, boys often are with their mothers and fathers and grandmothers and we both share in that space around the caregiving and the teaching by our mothers and grandmothers up until a certain age. The boys are then taken and guided by the male members of our family around knowledge and practice and understanding that boys need to learn until they're of age to go into ceremony, to go into manhood. And so we then really part company as siblings once they reach that age. But we're both cared for and nurtured by our mother and grandmothers until that time, if you like.
- [07:34]
Julia Gillard
And your early education is really a story of separation in many ways, isn't it? I've read that you were taken from your family and you went to a mission for your early education and that was 80 kilometres away from your home, from your mother, from your grandmother. You were living in dormitories and then you were identified as a very bright young girl. I'm sure you were a very bright young girl and you then went to Perth for secondary school. Can you tell us a bit about that time, about those separations, how you felt at the time and also in those schools? Were you taught things about what your role would be? Were you taught that a woman needed to be in the world in a certain way?
- [08:26]
Dr. June Oscar
For sure. Look, I can't remember the actual event, when it took place, when we were, when we were removed or taken from our mother. I think it was too traumatising for me that I've. I've just placed it somewhere in my memory and I can't pull it out, it seems, but I can remember the very first night in the dormitory, sleeping between cold sheets and in the dark and just everything about it was foreign to me and I cried and cried and cried all through the night. And a cousin who was older was in a bed next to me and she helped me to hop in to bed with her. I think I was about 5 years of age then and I couldn't understand what I was doing there, why I was there. And other girls who were there just kept saying to me, you cried a lot. I mean, for goodness sake, I was five years of age, first time away from my mother and just didn't have any idea what was happening to me. Eventually, you know, being made to feel some comfort and care with the other girls that were there, I settled and made friends and we all started to support each other, to understand and know that we can care for each other until we, we were back in the arms of our mothers again. So I focused on school and it was the Fitzroy Crossing Primary School. It was a government school several hundred metres down from the UAM dormitory, girls dormitory. And so I, along with my peers, you know, we were very fortunate. We had some very good non indigenous teachers and indigenous teachers in the school and we were encouraged to, you know, understand and learn numeracy and literacy. I loved learning English, I was fascinated by it and you know, really enjoyed books and reading and storytelling and, and it, you know, it goes on and I've listened to my peers, you know, share with me these days, you know, we're all in our 60s and mid-60s and they say to me, thank God I can read. I learned to read. Thank God we had the types of teachers who fought for our right to an education and they did fight, you know, as an adult I've had conversations with our first principal of the school and you know, him sharing with me the nonsense he put up with in fighting against bureaucracy and others who were Part of the decision making space, fighting for us to have a right to the level of education and how he wanted to assemble the best team to provide that to us. And he had the trust of many Aboriginal people who came and said, here's my child, teach him for me, look after him for me. And, you know, he shared with me some of those things. I'm very thankful to John Newman for the role that he played in fighting for all of us kids.
- [12:39]
Julia Gillard
Wow. Absolutely. And so you're in the girls dormitory, but you were being educated boys and girls in the classroom. And then later you went on to secondary school in Perth. I mean, what did you imagine your life would be at that point? What job did you imagine for yourself and. And did it in any way feel that, you know, there were certain jobs that were the kinds of jobs that women did or that only indigenous women did? Did you have that sense that you only had a limited set of choices, or did you have a sense that perhaps life could take you on some unexpected pathways?
- [13:21]
Dr. June Oscar
Oh, well, interestingly, you know, what we saw played out in front of us as kids, you know, our mothers and grandmothers and aunties were all housemaids and, you know, worked on their own country as workers in the big house, in the manager's house. And I thought, oh, well, I want to do that. I want to learn to cook, I want to learn to work in there. I didn't see it in its inequality and injustice. I just thought, oh, well, I want to do that. I want to be like them. And they were very good at it. They were very good at it. And, you know, as I got older, I thought, well, hang on, I really liked working in an office. And so I thought, I'm good at talking to people and I can become better at that. And I want to be a secretary. And so my early years and studies after secondary school took me down that path where I had excelled in my learning, where I did end up working in an office. And my first job was working as a telephonist for the state government offices in South Hedland. After college, and then I returned to Derby and worked for the Aboriginal Legal Services of Western Australia as a receptionist and typist because I could. I did very well in speed typing, so I enjoyed that. I did that and I continued on working for government agencies in that kind of role.
- [15:21]
Julia Gillard
You and I are around the same age, so I'm going to feel the need to say to our younger listeners, before computers, there were these things called typewriters. You'll probably be able to go and see one in a museum. And there used to be a job of reception and telephonist, because putting people through to the right line in the office was actually an art form, not something that people have to worry about these days. But I'm absolutely with you on all of that. I spent a fair bit of time typing myself in my early years. But you did return to your community and you became Deputy Director of the Kimberley Land Council. When I studied your cv, June, and thought about this podcast, I knew there was no way in the world that we were going to be able to talk about all of the remarkable things that you've done and the many times you were the first woman or the first indigenous person to do them. But I do want to take you to a few highlights. I want to take you to 1991, when you were in this Deputy Director role. You were 29, and the then Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, a man called Robert Tickner, rang to offer you a position on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, the federal government body at that stage, that was the peak advisory body for first nations peoples to the Australian government. Now, is it true you hung up on him because you thought it was a hoax?
- [16:58]
Dr. June Oscar
That's so true. That's correct. It was a busy day in the organisation that I worked in called Marawarrawara Aboriginal Resource Agency in Fitzroy Crossing. And it was payday, so we were processing payments, we were responding to queries and it was so busy. And this person rang and said, hi, it's Robert Tickner, you know, the Federal Minister for Aboriginal affairs, blah, blah. And I just thought, oh, yeah, this is someone having a go.
- [17:33]
Julia Gillard
Someone playing a trick.
- [17:34]
Dr. June Oscar
Yeah. And I hung up on him. And I said to the man next door to me, who was non indigenous and the head of the organisation, I said, oh, someone's just rung me and said he was Robert Tickner and, you know, that's someone pulling my leg. And yeah, so. And then. And he rang again and he said. And I thought, oh, okay, it is. It is the real deal here. And this is Minister Thichna. So, yeah, then had a chat with him and he expressed his invitation to me for me to consider being one of his three appointments to ATSIC at the time, chaired by the late Lower Chow o'. Donoghue. And I just said to him, that.
- [18:26]
Julia Gillard
Is a fantastic story.
- [18:29]
Dr. June Oscar
I need to go and talk to some people before I can give you an answer. And they were the, you know, the senior people in my community, the old men and ladies, and I Had to tell them that. That this offer was being made. They thought that I was going to be moving to Canberra. And they said, no, you can't go. We need you here. And I said, no, it's not. It's not for me to go to live in Canberra. It's an invitation to attend meetings in Canberra over a certain period of time. And then they said, yeah, okay, do that. You can help to raise the issues from our community. So, yeah, I told him, yes, I would accept the invitation.
- [19:20]
Julia Gillard
Well, thank goodness he made that second call. I think there'd probably be some government ministers who'd get hung up on and wouldn't try again. But we're very grateful he made that second call. And of course, you went on to serve in a really very major appointment in government as the first woman to be appointed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Social Justice Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission. But your pathway to that role, which you were appointed to in 2017, took you through so many remarkable jobs. You've been a filmmaker, you've run a cattle station, you've served in all sorts of representative capacities. And I mean, is there in your mind a thread that joins these various career highlights and occupations together? What made you think when you were doing something like filmmaking, that perhaps you would end up running cattle property?
- [20:29]
Dr. June Oscar
I think you're right. They're all interconnected and they speak to the many and varied, the whole story of our existence and different periods in time where I was, you know, and I grew up on, born of a country which became a pastoral property when colonisation came into the Kimberley, you know, much for the defence by Bunumber people against the. That arrival through Jandamara and the Boonaba people. And we've written about that, you know, in Jandamara and the Punaba resistance. The land itself is country that we and our generations of families going back to time immemorial have occupied. We hold the stories and the knowledges of that country. So being on country and looking at how now in this modern reality we can be engaging in different forms of development and economic development, but also allowing us to have a presence on that country and to continue to look after country and care for it as part of our family. So I thought it was important to be in the cattle business in, you know, sitting chairing the. Born of a cattle company at the time and making sure that, you know, we did well in that economic development time or opportunity. But also looking at the cultural significance of country and how do we continue to ensure access and use and Responsibility for people on these cattle properties. So being on country and looking after country and remembering and reconnecting with our people that have passed on, we relive the moments we shared with them out on country. So that's important for us, so we don't forget get, but we also look at, well, what are the other spaces that's important for us to be engaging in, to share understanding and knowledge around what are our priorities? And so for me it was around continuing to elevate our voices and our presence in and across spaces where they were important to us. So language and law and culture and land ownership, but looking at economic development, looking to hold space in the cultural interface between Aboriginal Australia and non Aboriginal Australia and to contribute to that space through creating relationships and sharing information and knowledge and not compromising who we are, but to say we have occupied this space since time immemorial through our ancestors. We are part of the continuous civilization, the oldest continuous civilization on Earth, and we have an important contribution to make to non Aboriginal people's understanding without threat, without fear. And for us to feel that we can hold ourselves strong and proud, with integrity and dignity and we can create better understandings and relationships. We just have to create those spaces to do that. And I thought for myself as one person, that was something that was important to me. So how can I help to bring the divide between us closer? And I think there's so many things that speaks to our humanity that makes matters that we might feel are different, but actually it's common and shared. And how do we come together with that kind of mindfulness around? There's so many things in common that we hold as human beings.
- [25:30]
Julia Gillard
Absolutely. I mean, you used your role as commissioner to do exactly that, to bring people together and to elevate voices. You travelled right around the country, you went to around 50 Aboriginal communities, you literally spoke to thousands of women and then you brought their voices in. A report to federal Parliament and to the nation in December 2020. Can you tell us a bit about that experience, travelling and talking to women and then articulating on their behalf what is needed for all of us to join together for a better shared future?
- [26:20]
Dr. June Oscar
Yeah, when I look back at it and I thought, oh, wow, I jumped on about 300 flights, you know, to get to some of these places. How did I do that? When I think, as you would appreciate, when you're doing something that's real and has such purpose and depth and benefits for so many, we try to work out how's the best way to include as many people into this conversation and to hear from them and be guided by them. So that being the focus, we wanted to reach women in all of our diversity across the country and to some of those places where they're often overlooked by engagement, you know, national engagement processes driven by timelines by government agencies. And they miss so many people and they miss some real quality information and advice around how members of our community are thriving and living out in different locations across this great country of ours. So we visited women in the city, communities in urban spaces. We know that there's a myth that people who live in many of these developed places have access to far more services. Well, that's not true. In many of these cases. They still struggle to access services and supports which you would assume they would have ready access to. I think we're getting better at that now, and that scenario is changing. But we went to some of these regional towns, you know, places like Mildura in Barking country, and engaged with people who were impacted by huge developments in, you know, one of the food producing centers in this country. Well, how are people coping with, with, with all of that? What, what are their stories? So we met with young people in the schools there and women of all generations in, in, around the community. We went out to places like, you know, the Torres Straits, where often they're out of sight. At Amun, we went to one of the furthest islands, Saibai, which is, you know, seven minutes on an outboard dinghy from Papua New Guinea. You can see the huts on the shoreline of Papua New Guinea. And we sat with women and heard their stories and witnessed the rising tides caused by climate change and the inundation that's happening there. And, you know, sadly, before too long, that will be one of the islands that will disappear because of this. So we sat in places like that. I was the first aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner to visit Murray island, the birthplace of native title, visited Koiki Mabo's grave, his resting place, welcomed by some of the remaining plaintiffs from the Mabo case, and sat with communities and returned to their communities to engage with women and engage with the men folk as well on the side with some of their issues. But we, you know, went to places like Yalata, you know, very near where the atomic nuclear thing took place in your home state.
- [30:28]
Julia Gillard
Yes, yes, the nuclear testing, yes.
- [30:31]
Dr. June Oscar
And sat with women, young women there and listened to them through the involvement and supports of interpreters and listen to what they had to say. We also, Julia, important for me to note that we also included in these national engagements, the engagement with gender diverse mob in our community that often overlooked in these gendered engagement processes. So it was the first time that women in the Northern Territory, the sister girls in the Tiwi island and gender diverse mobs of all different age groups came and said thank you. This is the first time ever we've been included in a international engagement process that's focused on women. And I was just so sad to hear that. That has been their experience, experience. And so I have, you know, made it absolutely clear that gender diverse mob need to be engaged with in this space. They need to be raising the issues that are their priorities from their lived experience. And so, you know, I'm really proud of the work that we've done in that space too. Take a very inclusive process to hear from as many. And we also received, you know, hundreds of submissions from organisations contributing to the questions that we were asking women. And we took a very strong human rights based approach to the engagements. We asked women, you know, what it is that, you know, enable them to achieve the things that they're achieving at community, family, organisational levels and what were the things that were causing them frustration and then thirdly, what is it that they needed to see happen to bring change into those spaces? And women talked about and built, talked about, you know, the, the need for their right to agency, their right to be co deciding and co designing their right to their voices from their lived experiences and the right for them to be respected, their voice to be respected in this space.
- [33:18]
Julia Gillard
Yes. And of course you are continuing, I mean you've changed role, you've move beyond the role of being a commissioner, but you're continuing this important work now at the First Nations Gender Justice Institute, which I had the very great honour of being there for the launch with you earlier this year. The Institute is at the Australian National University and of course the Global Institute for Women's Leadership is there too with its System Institute at King's College London. I know one of the themes of the Institute is looking at women's role in peace building. The way that first nations women are really activists in peace building, globally, nationally and locally within communities. And I wondered whether, you know, you wanted to say a few words about that, that peace, peace building role and what you want to achieve with the Institute.
- [34:19]
Dr. June Oscar
Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, it's a topic that's so relevant for all of us.
- [34:30]
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- [35:04]
Dr. June Oscar
Across the globe, women have roles in all of these different countries and spaces and are leading in, you know, the space of as peacekeepers, peacemakers, responding to the existing conflict and, you know, discord that's taking place we see internationally, but within our own country, I think, you know, first nations women can have support, real role in building peace and bringing understandings in such a way that respects individuals in reforming, reflecting and reforming and changing behaviours and attitudes, filling their minds with far more caring mindfulness around how we can do this. People are, you know, living and carrying intergenerational trauma, individual trauma, and there's so much that impacts the lives of everyone on a daily basis here and that really places stresses on, on people and their ability to cope and, and manage themselves and their relationships with others. So when I've sat with women, I've really listened to how first nations women are addressing this. And some of these leaders in the space are using their knowledges based on the customary law framework and the kinship and relationship thread that that's embedded in our way of living and reminding individuals that we have responsibility and obligation and expectations that others care for us, but we need to be actioning, living and displaying all of that ourselves. So, you know, I've listened to that being the approach that first nations women are taking and they're helping to present themselves as the carers and leaders that are uniquely positioned to address conflict and foster reconciliation and maintain social harmony. And when I look at this and I think of the investments that we could be making into the social fabric of community life, of national community life, we've really totally neglected the investment into the social fabric of what keeps us as Australians, supported but enabled to do the things that are important to, you know, renewing and restrengthening each other and having a far more healthier, respectful and reconciled relationship with each other.
- [38:26]
Julia Gillard
And June, looking at your work, I mean, you've talked about how Aboriginal women, Aboriginal communities want agency, how people want respect. Is that the pathway that takes us to reconciliation, that moves us back beyond where we ended up with the voice referendum last year.
- [38:47]
Dr. June Oscar
Yeah, look, I think we're all recovering from what I feel and, you know, this is my view about it. It was a real missed opportunity for the nation, a real missed opportunity But I'm optimistic, Julia, about the future because, because I see the empowerment of first nations women as a key opportunity to meaningful change. You know, we are strong, we have to carry hope and hope gives us the ability to lead, to care and to advocate for our communities. And that's always been our greatest strength. We never lose hope and we continue to push for recognition and equality and bringing in the allies, the sisters, to work with us and to walk with us. And I'm very grateful for the many people that I'm able to sit and share with my young team of staff at the ANU in the institute and the huge support that we receive and we enjoy from so many that absolutely believe in our right to self determination and how our voices can be included in all of these different spaces and we don't lose sight of our right to our identity, you know, as first nations women, as Australian women and that we live in a great country and there's so, so many opportunities here for us. And some of those opportunities, if they don't exist, we go and create them. And we know that we have some fantastic relationships in our organization from, with each other that can enable us to achieve that. For the young women, the young girls.
- [41:01]
Julia Gillard
Coming behind, it's fantastic to hear you talk about hope and having hope. I'm grateful for that. Where we always end this podcast is with a quote from Virginia Woolf. And the quote that I have for you comes from her book to the Lighthouse. And Virginia Woolf writes, what is the meaning of life? That was all a simple question, one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. And that quote made me think of you and your work because of all of the time you've been out there talking to women, talking to communities and finding, I'm sure, daily miracles illuminations matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. Do those words resonate with you?
- [42:13]
Dr. June Oscar
They do. And I think we continue to celebrate each of our achievements. As small as they are, they mean something in terms of, you know, the steps we make going forward, the right to be who we are as first nations women in this country, the opportunity, opportunities we have to create wonderful things that can make life that little bit easier for people. Even when times are challenging, we find those spaces of beauty and care and the love we have for each other and the belief that we don't stay here in this space of deficit of hopelessness. We can and we do find those points where the windows can open to let in, you know, light and fresh air. And that really, you know, comes deep into our soul to drive us to pursuing what we need to pursue next to deliver us out of this space of hopelessness. We need people to understand that they don't know each of our stories, that those stories belong to us. And it's a privilege when we do share because there's so many assumptions but being made about someone knowing your story better than you and that you are this and not that. And unfortunately, sometimes we hear that from the men in our community that you are this, you are that. Well, everyone has their story. Everyone knows their story and knows what's important. And you know, you've been a wonderful example and leader for us to look to, look up to and take encouragement and strength from your journey too, as a leader in our country. Julia and we're women. We are women who love this land. We are women who can, who don't fear reaching out and asking for advice from each other. And I think we do that far more easily than the men. And I think that's if there's a group of people that's going to bring real change in this country, it will be through the women.
- [45:03]
Julia Gillard
What a fantastic concluding sentence. June. I've so enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for joining me on A Podcast of One's Own.
- [45:12]
Dr. June Oscar
Thank you for the opportunity. I look forward to catching up next time.
- [45:22]
Podcast Narrator
A Podcast of One's Own is created by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at the Australian National University, Canberra, with support from our sister institute at King's College London. Earnings from the podcast go back into funding for the Institute, which was founded by our host, Julia Gillard, and brings together rigorous research, practice and advocacy as a powerful force to advance gender equality and promote fair and equal access to leadership. Research and production for this podcast is by Becca Shepherd, Alice Higgins and Alina Ecot, with editing by Liz Keen from Headline Productions. If you have feedback or ideas, please email us@giwlnu.eduau. to stay up to date with the Institute's work, go to giwl. Anu.edu au and sign up to our updates or follow us on social media Oolanu. You can also find A Podcast of One's Own on Instagram. The team at A Podcast of One's Own acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to the their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Thanks for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time.
- [46:59]
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