And Then the Darkness

by Sue Williams

  ‘You get sick of all the Aborigine shit,’ says one local. ‘People in the eastern states, they say we’re all equal, but some of us are more equal than others. I’m sick of everyone being told it’s our fault. It’s ridiculous. The cops can’t touch them [Aboriginals]. It’s stupid … I know what those black-loving, do-gooder, politically-orientated people think. All the money the government’s giving them, it’s phenomenal! But the white person’s being run down into the ground.’

  Tim Brookner, the publican at the Fitzroy Lodge, says there’s certainly racism around, although regarding allegations of KKK membership, he’s more circumspect. ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ he says. ‘People don’t gossip. They keep themselves to themselves. But I think drink and drugs are involved.’ Brookner is another newcomer keen to move on. ‘I’ll do my time here in the next year, then get out. Let’s say, the things you see on TV in the cities about black–white relations doesn’t bear any relation to life up here. Here, the benefits they can get are incredible. We’re the ones who don’t get a fair deal. But you give them more money and it seems to keep them quiet.’

  Bradley Murdoch certainly shunned the local Aboriginal population. But there was one man he couldn’t seem to avoid: Joe Ross.

  JOE ROSS’S MOTHER WAS A revered Bunuba Aboriginal leader, and his English father a hardy Liverpudlian orphan shipped to Australia as part of the post-WWII operation to clear out Britain’s over-crowded children’s homes and help populate the former colony, ironically, with fresh white stock. Despite promises that the 10,000 children were going to loving adoptive homes, only five did. Like most of the boys, Peter Ross, at the age of five, was sent to the Christian Brothers’ Boys’ Town, Bindoon, 100 kilometres north of Perth, and set to back-breaking work as an unpaid farm labourer from sunrise to sunset. The place later became reknown for its cruelty and, in 1993, responding to a lawsuit, officially apologised to its charges and paid reparations of $2.5 million to some of the children.

  Growing up with a father who’d endured such a grim childhood and a mother with a proud Aboriginal heritage, Ross became a fiercely independent and strong-willed young man with a burning sense of natural justice. He was brought up on tales of Jandamarra, a former leader of the Bunuba from the nearby Windjana Gorge, and was fond of re-telling his story, both for the pride he felt for his clan, and as a way of awarding him his rightful place in the panoply of Australian heroes. Jandamarra was a native tracker nicknamed Pigeon and used by the white police force to hunt down local Aboriginals stealing the Europeans’ sheep. But in 1894, Jandamarra rebelled, releasing a group of Aboriginal prisoners and permitting them to shoot the police constable holding them. From that point on, he became the country’s most notorious outlaw, waging guerilla warfare against the European incursion into the Bunuba’s traditional homelands and their bid to take them over for sheep, cattle and mining. Hiding by day in the limestone catacombs around the Windjana Gorge, he won numerous battles against the ever-increasing number of troopers sent out to find him, until being eventually shot and killed by a black tracker three years later.

  To most Aboriginals — and many white Australians today — Jandamarra is considered a hero and is often compared to Ned Kelly. ‘He was very much like Geronimo, the North American Indian leader who tried to stop people taking over their country,’ says Ross. ‘Whether you’d call him a bushranger like Ned Kelly, I don’t know, but to us, like Ned Kelly, he’s a hero, an Australian hero.’ With such a man as his idol, Ross grew up a rebel himself in a town with a black majority, yet with white Australians retaining most of the power and wealth. His parents provided solid examples of independent thinking; his mother presiding over disputes and often achieving consensus by saying very little, and his father one of only three Catholics in town who still managed to convince the bishop to build a church and convent in Fitzroy Crossing.

  Sent to boarding school in Darwin as a kid, Joe Ross had emerged educated, confident and with absolutely no time for prejudice. He demanded that he be treated fairly, and usually was. Trained as an electrical fitter and working as a well-paid mines supervisor for BHP, he returned to Fitzroy Crossing in 1993 when his mother fell ill, to set up Bunuba Inc with the community to improve health, education, and job opportunities in an area notorious for its poor literacy, alcohol problems and lack of work. In the two years since he’d been back in town, he’d built the company into a major landowner. His 600-strong group had acquired nearly two million acres of pastoral lease, and successfully ran 10,000 cattle at Leopold Downs. Other Bunuba Inc operations included a Community Development Employment Program, eco-tourism and town-based investments. With every new enterprise, there was always a struggle between those who were keen to maintain their tribal culture in isolation, and those, like Ross, who wanted to play a role in mainstream Australia. Negotiating carefully in his softly-spoken voice, Ross was quickly stepping into his mother’s shoes as a leader of his people, and most whites in the town regarded him with admiration and respect.

  In such a town, newcomers had a clear choice: either muck in and become a part of the wider community — or stay apart. Whites like Joe Ross’s dad, and most of the government workers, mucked in. People like Bradley Murdoch stayed well apart. ‘We tend to get lots of Murdoch’s type here,’ says Ross. ‘They’re misfits who’re not accepted in their own community. They can come here and go missing, and be left alone. You can be the most racist bastard in the world, but here, nobody gives a shit. Murdoch went around in black leathers pretending to be a member of the Gypsy Jokers. But he was an outcast to them too.’ Ross tended to ignore such people. He had enough work on his plate without them. Many of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Fitzroy Crossing had, over the past sixty years, been working on pastoral properties in the rich cattle country out of town, but their wages were extremely low, partly because station managers were paid by the government for their ‘maintenance’, as Aboriginals were still classed as government dependants. That changed in the late 1960s after the Australian Workers Union took up cudgels on their behalf, demanding equal wages for all. When the Arbitration Commission upheld their bid on 1 December 1968, many station managers refused to pay their Aboriginal workers equal wages, and instead simply forced them off the land that had been their home for generations. They flooded into town, angry, dispossessed and without the skills needed to survive away from the stations. Many of them soon turned to drink.

  In addition, there had been recent trouble over claims by Aboriginal people to their native lands. From the time of British settlement, Australian law had considered the land terra nullius — literally ‘land belonging to no-one’ — entitling the British Crown to everything. However, the High Court in its historic 1992 ‘Mabo’ decision, rejected this doctrine and held that Australia’s indigenous inhabitants were entitled to a form of native title over their traditional lands. In many parts of the country, particularly in WA, this decision was greeted with horror. The West Australian government acted quickly and passed its own native title legislation before the Commonwealth’s Act could be approved, effectively extinguishing native title and challenging the Federal law, and a number of large ‘dummy’ freehold leases were issued to head off any indigenous title claims. The High Court eventually found against the West Australian government.

  The affair increased confusion and bitterness about Aboriginal land claims, and Joe Ross had firsthand experience of this. A little piece of land on the main highway, marked with a red mound, was part of the Aboriginal landholding in the area, but Bradley Murdoch thought he’d develop it for a petrol station. With one of the dummy freehold leases, he’d even borrowed money from the bank to build his new enterprise. When it was pointed out to him that it was Aboriginal land and his lease wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, he was furious.

  He was broke again, and he needed someone to blame. His eyes alighted on Joe Ross, the charismatic man two years younger, almost to the day. The contrast was striking: Although physically, they were both tall, lean
and strong, Ross was a man taking control of his life, leading his community against the odds to a hopeful new beginning. Murdoch, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly embittered, and believed his entitlements were constantly being snatched away. He focussed all his pent-up rage on to the Aboriginal man who was going from strength to strength in both his career and his personal standing, and who seemed never able to put a foot wrong.

  THE COURT CASE, HELD ON 10 November 1995 in Perth, didn’t last long. Murdoch pleaded guilty to all charges and admitted receiving stolen guns, having them, loaded, in his possession, while drunk and unlicensed, and being armed in public in such a manner as to cause terror to people. The charges outraged the Aboriginal community, however. They felt attempted murder should have been on the charge sheet. Prosecution lawyer Katherine Hitchins told the court that Murdoch had been drinking all evening at the Fitzroy River Lodge and had been driving home towards the Brooking Spring Cattle Station when he came upon the Aboriginal group celebrating their win at the river crossing. Murdoch claimed they had blocked the crossing and sworn at him, forcing him to drive the alternative route, 5 to 10 kilometres longer, back to the station. There, in an alcohol-fuelled rage, he grabbed two rifles, drove the 18 kilometres back and fired at the group, aiming at the cars. He’d then hidden until the following afternoon. When police mounted a hunt for him, he eventually gave himself up, saying he hadn’t intended to shoot anyone, just to frighten them. He claimed he didn’t know any particular person there, but was ‘fed-up with Aborigines in general’. The two rifles, a .22 Magnum calibre Winchester lever action rifle fitted with a telescopic sight and a .308 calibre bolt action rifle, were both stolen, one during a burglary in Derby.

  A report from psychiatrist Ross Smith said that Murdoch was of a ‘fairly rigid character structure’ while his defence lawyer, Claire Rossi, admitted her client harboured a degree of prejudice towards Aboriginals. She also revealed that, when his long-suffering mother, Nancy, heard about what he’d done, she’d soon after suffered a severe stroke. But the prosecution claimed Murdoch had been involved in the worst-case scenario for an offence of this kind. ‘Somebody could have died; several people could have died or been seriously injured,’ Hitchins said.

  The judge, the Honorable David Charters, ticked off Murdoch for his ‘long-standing hatred of Aborigines’, told him violence was no way to solve problems, and passed a sentence of fifteen months’ prison.

  It was only later that Joe Ross bumped into the Russian backpacker. It turned out he’d been drinking with Murdoch the previous night and said he’d been told not to go down to the river after 9 p.m. because it could be dangerous. That evening, seeing the party preparations, the tourist had realised precisely what Murdoch had been talking about, and had tried to warn the Aboriginal community. The attack had evidently been premeditated, and Murdoch was lucky he hadn’t faced a charge of attempted murder or murder. ‘If I’d have been sitting properly, I could have been killed,’ says Ross. ‘But the police didn’t really push it hard. He was showing off to his mates.’

  It was to be Murdoch’s first taste of life inside jail, but by no means his last.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SEX IN THE CITY

  SYDNEY: SASSY, SEXY AND ONE of the most exciting cities in the world. For many British backpackers, it’s a place of almost constant sunshine, spectacular golden beaches, fabulous nightlife and endless opportunity — whether it be jobs to earn cash, the myriad sights or simply the cheap booze, constant partying and casual sex. It’s a beautiful city of four million people set around a spectacular harbour, and for new visitors like Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees, it was mesmerising. After the incessant rain of Britain and the hassles they’d faced in Asia, summer in Sydney was truly a slice of heaven.

  There was such a buzz in the air at that time too: January 2001 was a record month in a record year for overseas tourists visiting Australia. A combination of ‘The Best Olympic Games Ever’, an aggressive marketing campaign by the Australian Tourism Commission, and bargain airfares had made Sydney one of the hottest tickets around. That month, more than 426,000 international tourists arrived, some 18 per cent up on the previous year. And the British had responded to the call even more than most. Joanne and Peter were among 58,200 visitors from the UK in January, 25 per cent more again than in 2000.

  The pair checked into one of the numerous hostels that line the tourist precincts but immediately set about looking for somewhere more permanent to live. They planned to stay three to four months in Sydney before travelling around the rest of the country for another three to four, and wanted a good base from which they could work, explore the city and sample all the delicacies on offer. Peter asked around about good places to live and the answer was unequivocal. For backpackers, especially sun-starved travellers from Britain, there was nowhere more seductive than Sydney’s landmark Bondi Beach, just a twenty-minute bus ride from the city centre and a million miles from Huddersfield.

  On any given day in summer, Bondi glistens with hundreds of well-oiled bodies worshipping the sun, joggers pounding the golden sands, walkers meandering along the promenade, skateboarders flicking somersaults off ramps, bronzed, broad-shouldered lifeguards patrolling the surf and any number of locals and tourists there simply to people-watch. On a good day, sun-seekers arrive with the first rays of the dawn. Later, as the sunset ripens and long shadows of the buildings on the main beachside drag, Campbell Parade, creep across the sand, couples move to the numerous restaurants, bars and cafés along the strip.

  Peter and Joanne were entranced from the moment they set eyes on the place and visited the real estate agents just up from the beach. They’d already decided against the eight big backpacker hostels, and they avoided the many dirt-cheap and illegal shared backpacker apartments where as many as twenty would doss on mattresses on the floor. They were travelling cheaply, but not that cheaply. They’d come to have a good time, but they needed to live sensibly too. If they were both to find jobs and stay for a period, they’d have to rent somewhere they could come back to and relax. After a few days, they found exactly what they were looking for: a flat share in a small apartment block in North Bondi with a thirty-five-year-old Dutchman and his five-year-old daughter. It was nothing flash, in the middle of a row of similar scruffy, rundown blocks with cars crowding the road outside, but it was affordable and clean, and only a few minutes’ walk to the beach.

  Peter began calling round the firms he’d heard employed travellers, and was soon in luck, finding work fitting office furniture and equipment for a company called January Design. Joanne took a little longer. She canvassed the shops along the city’s main shopping street, George Street, with copies of her résumé, asking for work. One day, she dropped into the Dymocks bookstore by Martin Place. ‘I just wondered if you might have any work going for a few months?’ Joanne asked the owner, Gary Sullivan. ‘Not at the moment,’ he smiled back at her apologetically, ‘but leave a copy of that here, and I’ll keep you in mind in case anything crops up.’ As she walked disconsolately up the front steps to the street outside, one of the other workers in the shop caught Sullivan’s eye and shook his head. ‘Give her a go!’ he urged. ‘She’s a real looker …’

  Joanne phoned every couple of days to check if anything had cropped up and, when finally a vacancy arose in late February, Sullivan relented. ‘She was fairly persistent,’ he says. ‘I don’t think she particularly wanted to work in a bookshop but I think someone gave her a bit of encouragement when she rang one time, so she thought she was in with a chance. We get a lot of backpackers coming in here asking for work. On their visa, they can only work for three months at a time in one place, so we seem to be on the circuit. But Joanne worked out well. She was a lovely girl, a nice, fairly innocent kind of girl who, once you’d got to know her, had a very outgoing personality. But generally, she was quiet and soft. Peter came round a couple of times to pick her up, and he seemed a lovely guy too, also very quiet and gentle. He actually came and helped us a co
uple of nights with our stocktake too. They seemed well-matched. He looked after all the tax and banking for them both.’

  Joanne worked hard to fit in. When Sullivan told her he was planning a trip to the UK for the annual bookfair in March, and was going down to Brighton to visit his niece, Joanne insisted he call into the travel agent where she’d worked to say ‘hi’ to her old boss. In between marvelling that the beach was simply a pile of pebbles and trying to keep warm in the spring temperature of five degrees, he did. For the rest of the bookstore staff, Joanne regularly volunteered to go on coffee runs during working hours to the little stall around the back of the shop. As she grew in confidence, she also took it upon herself to organise staff social nights. ‘They’d go and dance and play pool and often drink too much,’ says Sullivan. ‘They were mostly young girls and they all got on very well so it was a natural thing to do.’

  Joanne revelled in her new life, and saw it as the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself. At home, she’d often been seen as shy and retiring; here, she took a deep breath, smiled and spoke to everyone she could, and soon became known as a bit of a live-wire. It was a role she’d never played before, and she loved it. ‘She was different to the other travellers who work at the store,’ says one of her ex-colleagues, Paul Jones. ‘They know they’re not going to be there for long, so they don’t care much about staff relations. But Joanne was different. She formed strong friendships with so many people at the shop.’ Among them, she became particularly close to another young woman of about the same age, Amanda Wealleans, and together they’d go to St Patrick’s Tavern around the corner on King Street on a Friday night, to listen to live music. On Thursday nights, a group of them would go to a pub in Newtown, a more raffishly colourful suburb a few kilometres away filled with secondhand clothing shops, cafés and live music venues. There they’d drink at the noisy, grungy-looking Cooper’s Arms, which offered cheap backpacker accommodation and meals and, with a pool table out back, often served as a meeting place for young travellers rather than inner city clubbers. After an evening out there, Joanne would often sleep the night at a friend of a friend’s place and go straight to work the next morning. Occasionally, they’d visit a smarter nightclub in Kings Cross, like the popular EP1, hidden away in a backstreet. One memorable night, Joanne was even persuaded to take half an ecstasy tablet there, her first taste of a feelgood drug being used so widely in the city clubs.