Housing New South Wales and Uncle John Hill

Mrs DAWN FARDELL (Dubbo) [2.00 p.m.]: There are many hardworking staff in the State's bureaucracy, most of whom I am sure try to fulfil their roles with due diligence, integrity and compassion. They are at once the regimental face and the blunt instrument of government policy. It would appear that a good public servant is able to empathise with their clients while administering to the letter the immovable dictates of their departmental guidelines. A case in point is the situation that currently exists in my home city of Dubbo where Housing New South Wales is in the process of relocating an 80-year-old man from the home he has rented for the past 40 years. Uncle John Hill, who is one of the most respected Aboriginal elders in the Dubbo community, will be 81 this year.

Uncle John wants to remain in the house that has been his family home for the past 40 years. I fully support the Government's policy of disposing of all public housing in the Gordon estate, and the wonderful effects of the downturn in crime have been well noted. Uncle John's home must be sold and he must be moved to a unit in another part of the city. However, no policy should be without some flexibility in special circumstances. I have been fighting hard for Uncle John, Rose and Mr Ryan to remain in their homes. They are elderly, and there is no reason they need to be moved. But the department does not make allowances for sentiment. Due to the inflexibility of the department's policy in this case, there is likely to be a showdown when the time comes for Uncle John's forced removal.

His friends are many and his eviction will not be without protest from his legion of supporters. I am one of those supporters. I have made many representations to the Minister for Housing, and recently I was advised that the department has given until November 2008. If the bulldozers come to remove Uncle John, I will be there in the lounge room with him. Few people outside Dubbo would know of Uncle John, which is unfortunate as his story is one of remarkable achievement in a city that has never fully accepted its Aboriginal heritage. In the hearts and minds of his many friends, Uncle John is a legend. Last year he recorded a CD of songs and poetry documenting his memories of life in Dubbo and his early years on the Talbragar mission.

The recording documents in poetry and song his life as a youngster growing up on the river flats at Dubbo and his later battles with alcohol and loss of family. The fact that he has reached 80 years of age in an era when the life expectancy for Aboriginal men is 20 years below the national average makes him more extraordinary, considering the fact that he spent most of his life in a drunken haze. Although fond of music as a youngster, he was discouraged by his peers whenever he attempted to play anything, and when he was older he was too drunk to learn. It was not until his senior years that he took up the guitar and was taught by the late Gordon Leigh.

Uncle John was born in a terrace house in Gipps Street, North Dubbo, on 22 September 1927. His parents lived at the Talbragar mission prior to his birth, and the family returned there regularly until its closure in the 1960s. John's earliest recollection of life in Dubbo was living in a kerosene tin humpy on the banks of the Macquarie River. He started school at North Dubbo Public at age six. His address in the school register was listed simply as "riverbank Dubbo". He stayed at school until he was 14, and then went to work at a Chinese market garden where he earned seven shillings and sixpence per week. At the age of 20 he had his first taste of alcohol when he met up with some friends in the park one day. As an indigenous person he was not allowed in the pubs, so he drank in the parks and back lanes or on the riverbank.

It was not until the 1967 referendum, which gave Aboriginal people a degree of equal rights, that John ventured into the pubs. For many Aboriginal people it was a licence to drink themselves to death. To get his life back, Uncle John needed specialist rehabilitation care, which he received at the Langton clinic in Sydney and Booth House run by the Salvation Army. It worked and the transformation was astounding. For a man who once drank methylated spirits and scrounged butts out of the gutter, John was so successful in giving up the smokes and alcohol that he was offered a position on the staff of St Vincent's Hospital detoxification unit, Gorman House. He spent more than a decade working at the unit, but eventually his heart drew him back to Dubbo.

When John returned to Dubbo his wife of 40 years, Linda Coombes, had died three years earlier, adding to the loss of three of their children, two girls in childbirth and a son who died from heart failure as a young man. John lost another of his sons in 2006, and is now one of the few survivors of his generation. The worst thing he has discovered about getting old is loneliness; most of his old mates are gone. He is one of the last of his era, which is why he felt a sense of duty to document his memories so that future generations will have some idea of what life was like. But his gentle nature does not entirely suppress some of his more assertive views regarding the way Aboriginal people have fared as a result of European settlement. He often quotes the old saying, "We got religion and they got the land".

Another issue John finds difficult to reconcile is the certificate of exemption system that was in place prior to the 1967 referendum. For John and many of his generation, being forced to carry a piece of paper to allow them to walk unfettered around the country was a degrading and humiliating experience. But Uncle John does not dwell on the hardship and injustices of the past. Instead, he makes the most of what time he has left to enjoy life and song. He is the first to admit that he made a lot of mistakes and that most of his problems were of his own doing. He has a few regrets but the one thing he would never change were those early years growing up at the mission. Nor would he swap the past 40 years he has spent in his little fibro cottage in Spence Street. Spence Street is Uncle John's home. Unfortunately for him, home is not a concept recognised by certain faceless executives of Housing New South Wales.

Question—That private members' statements be noted—put and resolved in the affirmative.Question—That private members' statements be noted—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Private members' statements noted.Private members' statements noted.

[The Deputy-Speaker left the chair at 2.05 p.m. The House resumed at 2.15 p.m.]

Mr Speaker (The Hon. George Richard Torbay) took the chair at 2.15 p.m.