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Smith, Kevin --- "From Labourer to Lawyer" [1997] IndigLawB 71; (1997) 4(4) Indigenous Law Bulletin 10

From Labourer to Lawyer

By Kevin Smith

As this paper was being penned, I was travelling around Australia as part of a community consultation team acting for a newly incorporated mainland Torres Strait Islander representative body.

Descended from the people of Ugar (Stephen Island) in the Torres Strait, my grandfather speaks Meriam Mir, the traditional language of the Eastern Islands and Torres Strait Creole. My mother was born on Thursday Island and my father was of English/Irish heritage. Married with two children, I am a solicitor with Paul Richards and Associates in Brisbane. I am also the Chairperson of the Brisbane-based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Corporation (QEA Legal Services--`QEA'), the Public Officer of, and active member of, Iina, a Torres Strait Islander organisation, and the solicitor and Public Officer of the National Secretariat of Torres Strait Islander Organisations Ltd. The latter organisations have, as their primary objectives, the promotion of Torres Strait Islander culture and the social and economic empowerment of Torres Strait Islanders.

Although from a multi-cultural background, I identify as a Torres Strait Islander. Growing up in a large family, in Garbutt, a working class suburb of Townsville with a strong Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, my mother ensured familial ties were strong. I had what you could call a liberal upbringing with discipline in the form of education. I graduated from Ignatius Park College, a Christian Brothers school in Townsville, aged 16. Though I lacked direction, I knew I needed a tertiary education and came south to Brisbane and undertook a Bachelor of Arts degree. I was then thinking of a profession in teaching or journalism.

Nevertheless, I decided to put it all on hold and travel instead. I saw Darwin and Broome before arriving in Karratha, a small public service town set amidst the burgeoning Pilbara mining region. There, for nearly two years, I laboured, making sleepers for train tracks to transport iron ore from the Hammersley Ranges. Torres Strait Islanders, renowned for their track-laying prowess, came from far and wide, creating a strong Torres Strait Islander presence in this remote Western Australian mining town.

It was there that I also witnessed abject poverty, in the Roebourne Aboriginal community. Taken from their traditional lands in the Pilbara Ranges, the Aboriginal people at Roebourne, like so many others, had fallen victim to alcohol abuse and violence. I witnessed, first hand, institutionalised dependence.

By now, body weary, I wanted a career. My sister, Catherine Pirie, then a law student, had obtained a position with Paul Richards and Associates, the retained solicitors for the QEA. She advised me of their need for another clerk. In 1987, I crossed the country to became a law clerk. I commenced studying part-time in 1988, while working full-time as an articled clerk for Paul Richards and Associates and was admitted in December 1994 on the completion of my Law degree at the University of Queensland.

Through Paul Richards and Associates, I became involved in civil litigation, family, administrative, company and criminal law. A major client was the Builders' Workers' Union (now the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union or CFMEU). Ideologically, I was at home. I had the luxury of dealing with the salt of the earth people from my labouring days and with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community where there was an instant rapport. My law degree was providing the theory; my life, the invaluable experience.

Embarking on my articles, I became all too aware of the injustices and inequalities which were perpetrated on Australia's indigenous people by the English legal system. This fuelled my sense of justice as I became involved in cases such as that involving an awards night for an indigenous football club in Rosalie, a Brisbane suburb, in 1986. A phalanx of police officers with dogs raided a peaceful assembly with subsequent arrests. The media captured the fracas on film. Although I was not present, as a law clerk reading the evidence, my eyes were opened; there is such a thing as police brutality. I witnessed the system working against that Aboriginal community as attendees were subsequently charged with the usual litany of `obscene language', `resist arrest' and `assault police'.

I am a strong believer in self-determination. I act as a legal adviser to, as well as being a member of, several Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-based organisations. In July 1995, as Public Officer for Iina, I had the opportunity to attend the Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva. One of its agenda items was the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It became evident that, irrespective of country--east, west, communist, capitalist-- the problems are the same. Later that year, in November, I had the opportunity to represent Iina in Geneva at the inaugural meeting of the Working Group of the Commission of Human Rights with the mandate of representing mainland Torres Strait Islanders. I made submissions on the Draft Declaration which is still plodding its way through the UN hierarchy to hopefully one day be adopted by the General Assembly. To me, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services are the flagships for self-determination. Their demise would be an omen of sad things to come. Last year, the QEA had serious problems when an Administrator was appointed by the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations and it teetered on the edge of liquidation. A new board was elected to secure funds to continue operations from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. This was no easy task after having undergone internal reviews amidst considerable public scrutiny. In this context of public disdain for indigenous affairs and amidst allegations of rorting in indigenous legal services, we had to secure funds to avoid being merged with the mainstream legal service and avoid becoming an indigenous unit within the Legal Aid Office (Queensland).

The need to implement basic accountability measures was dire. Appointees to the new board were not enthusiastic to inherit the problems of the past but were aware of the challenges for the future. The board comprised a wide cross-section of indigenous professionals with

long-standing associations with community-based organisations. Despite being the youngest and least experienced, I was elected the Chairperson. I have drawn considerably and gratefully on my colleagues' wealth of experience. With the assistance of this expertise, along with the patience of an already overworked staff, I can confidently say that we are well down the road to restructuring the entire organisation for the benefit of the indigenous community of the South East Queensland Region. We have also managed to engage the services of an indigenous Chief Executive Officer and Principal Legal Officer.

Although hard decisions are never popular ones, we embrace change and look forward to the future and trust that at least this flagship will soon sail into calmer waters. I would like QEA's legacy to be that of a proficient legal service provider for the South East Queensland Region; not just to provide exceptional legal representation, but also to constitute a nursery for future indigenous lawyers and legal support staff.

As an indigenous lawyer, and as Chairperson of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service which is there for the benefit of all Australian indigenous people, I proudly espouse the existence of two indigenous peoples in this country--Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Regrettably however, the needs and aspirations of Torres Strait Islanders all too frequently play second fiddle to our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. On more then one occasion, I have been privately reminded by members of our Aboriginal community that Torres Strait Islander people shouldn't sit on boards of indigenous services and that my people are not as disadvantaged as Aboriginal people. It sometimes appears that we have no deaths in custody; that we are not victims of past assimilationist policies; that our children are less affected by the sting of a racist barb; and that the bricks of institutional barriers are not cemented with the same mortar. This is not only factually incorrect and demoralising, it is also divisive. We have a common cause; social justice for all indigenous people.

As previously stated, I am currently involved in the formation of a national body to represent Torres Strait Islander people. Although predominantly to provide assistance to mainland Torres Strait Islanders, that body will have the interests of all Torres Strait people as its sole priority, irrespective of where they reside. The objective is to promote Torres Strait Islander culture to mainstream Australia, to increase the awareness of two indigenous races and to ensure Torres Strait Islander people receive access and equity in combined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service provision.

The political need for a specialist mainland Torres Strait Islander body is the result of a desire for homeland Torres Strait Islanders to obtain greater autonomy. In my opinion, victory for our homeland people, in achieving self determination, places mainland Torres Strait Islanders in a weakened position for access to and equity in indigenous service provision. The knee-jerk reactionary attitude of Australia's political leaders in slashing funds to indigenous programs is not only setting adrift the tenuous hope of reconciliation between Australian indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, it has a more tragic repercussion. As a result, our own indigenous community-based organisations are taking on an `under siege' mentality that is detracting from Australian indigenous peoples' solidarity. The establishment of the National Secretariat is as much to protect the rights of mainland Torres Strait Islanders as it is to ensure that there is never a need to reconcile Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In the future, I intend to maintain my involvement with the QEA, although I will be downgrading my commitments to pursue further studies in the next six months. I plan to undertake the Practice Management Course with the intention of buying into the practice where it all started--Paul Richards and Associates. In doing so, I will maintain my goals of providing legal service to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and to the CFMEU. I also hope to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander solicitors continue to be employed by this practice. Although Paul Richards is not an indigenous person, he has a long tradition of giving indigenous lawyers the opportunity to start their professional careers. Indeed, solicitors Tony McAvoy, Ribgna Green, my sister, Catherine Pirie (nee Smith), James Evans (Jnr), the recently employed articled clerk, Gary Lui, and myself, all started with Paul Richards and Associates.

My view is that it is a shame that our current Australian political leaders will not allow this nation to break free from its adolescence and take its place as an independent nation in the global community. They lack the vision to appreciate this right of passage does not lie in impressive balance of payments, but rather in the healing of deep wounds in the body of our society which have been caused by the dispossession and colonisation of our indigenous peoples.

All Australians will suffer while our leaders fail us. In the meantime, indigenous individuals must achieve positions of influence: through election to parliament; through appointments to the Bench; by sitting in boardrooms of major companies; as senior public servants of non-indigenous government departments and agencies; as high ranking police; as doctors; teachers; economists...I know education is the key. And while I am a lawyer, I may, in the future, explore the possibly of mainstream politics. I would see this as learning yet another language, the language of politics, to give voice to the needs of my people.


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