Pemulwuy on the Block - ABC Encounter

Gary Bryson: Welcome to Encounter on ABC Radio National, I'm Gary Bryson. Today we visit Australia's largest urban Aboriginal centre, the Block, once notorious for drink, drugs and violence, but now on the cusp of a momentous transformation.

Lily Shearer: This is where they came when they disbanded the missions, you know, all those people that were taken and stolen from their families and placed on missions. And after they were disbanded, well they came here - primarily, yes, for work, because that's what they were trained to do - but they also came here in the hope of finding their families and returning to their own countries. And they did.

Bill Simon: See to me, this is like the heart of Australia, Redfern, it's only a little bit of ground here, but if they take this away from us, it's like ripping our heart out, because we're representing the whole Aboriginal nation of Australia here.

Mick Mundine:This place has changed and I think the reason why it's changed is the respect. I'm going back to the watering hole; that watering hole was stagnant, OK? Now, we've thrown the pebble in, the ripples flowing , and the good spirits are starting to flow. And once that happens, this place will flourish. And we know the seed has been planted.

Jack Callaghan: 'For thousands of years you, the Aboriginal people, have lived in this land with a culture that endures to this day. With an endurance that your ancient ceremonies have taught you. You're like a tree in a bushfire, leaves scorched, bark burned, but inside the sap still flows and roots are strong. Always the spirit of the God who's been with you, in your Dreaming, and your own way of touching the mystery of God's spirit in you, and in creation with its animals and birds, fishes, waterholes, rivers and hills. You have still the power to be born. The time for re-birth is now'.

And that was John Paul II in Alice Springs in 1986.

Gary Bryson: Parishioner Jack Callaghan reads the writing on the wall of the St Vincent de Paul Catholic church in Redfern. St Vincent's has a very close relationship with the Block, and with the Aboriginal people of Redfern. In many ways, it's where the modern story of the Block begins, with a charismatic young Catholic priest and a community mired in homelessness and destitution. It's a story that mirrors the plight of indigenous communities all over Australia, and it's one which gives hope for the future.

The Block is a few streets of run-down, inner-city sandstone terraces and former small factories, one of which has become famous as the boxer Tony Mundine's gym. On the outside wall of the gym is painted a large Aboriginal flag, a proud reminder of who this land belongs to.

And not just in a traditional sense. Most of the land is owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company. They've been buying up properties here since the 1970s. The housing is sub-standard, there have been problems with poverty, drugs and crime. In 2004, the Block was the scene of the Redfern riots, when anger spilled over into violence against the police. It's also prime city real estate, and the Aboriginal owners have had to fight off hungry developers anxious to move them out. Now, after a long battle, they've won the right to stay. In June, the housing company's own redevelopment plans were approved by the City of Sydney Council, and the Block is set to be transformed into a model urban Aboriginal community.

They call it the Pemulwuy project, named after the warrior who defined the British in the early days of settlement.

Mick Mundine:Hey Aunt.

Gary Bryson: Here's Mick Mundine, brother of Tony Mundine, and CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Company.

Mick Mundine:As you see we're at the back of the gymnasium. It's the Aboriginal flag. As you know it's an icon now, it's known all over the world, this flag. Look at it. Everyone knows this flag. It's only painted on the back of a wall. Now even when you're up in the air looking down you still can see this flag.

So you know, the flag, the land, the company, mate, it's... It's just a Mecca for our people. I think it's meant to be because if we can build a strong platform and pave the way and just show people if you can do it here in Redfern the Block, you can do it anywhere.

We are building brand-new apartments for Aboriginal people; we're talking about a home ownership scheme where our people will buy the home and they'll be respected more. And another thing, like you know, if the Block can be developed, Redfern will flourish, because I believe this is the main watering hole here for us, and at the present moment it's very dry, it's very stagnant, but we'll start cleaning out the well and really get it flourishing and get it flowing. And once the flowing starts happening, Redfern is going to be a beautiful place.

But see it's not even for our people, Aboriginal people. I want our community to be part of the general community. We've been isolated so long, they segregate blacks here, whites there - them days have gone now. It's all about respect and to start coming together. The housing itself as you know is Aboriginal housing, and everybody knows that. But the commercial side of things, I want it for everybody. I want it to be for the general community where people can start mixing together, and start respecting one another. Now you take the gymnasium, so many different nationalities train down there, it's right on the Block, right at the bottom of Eveleigh Street. Now if this is such a bad area why would all these people come and train here?. You talk about reconciliation, there's reconciliation here already. We want a bit of cultural arts centre where we start telling history about this community and about the past, the present and maybe the future. We're building a respite centre where people coming down for medical or legal reasons there's somewhere they can stay, and even our offices where we are now. we're going to build a college, part of the college, we're going to call it the Charlie Perkins House, because only for Charlie we wouldn't have got this building in the past.

Gary Bryson: Mick Mundine has lived and worked in the area for over 40 years.

Mick Mundine:I'm from up the coast, I'm a Bundjalung man . I've been around this area for about 46 years now.

Gary Bryson: Well, you've seen some pretty big changes in that time?

Mick Mundine:Oh look, when I first come to Sydney, that's the late '60s, early '70s I came to Sydney. I think they were the good times, they were the caring and sharing [times], and people would come to Sydney to start looking for families down here, and started coming together because... and a lot of people didn't have families, so they all got together. Sort of like a big meeting place, it was, and the '70s were really good years.

The place itself , it used to be all privately owned. There's a lot of different nationalities used to live in the Block, from European to Greeks. Of course in the early '70s it was very racist for Aboriginal people to get houses through private real estate. And a lot of our people were drunk so they couldn't find anywhere to stay and there was the church, a presbytery, up at Redfern Medical Centre and there was a minister named Father Ted Kennedy. Now he was the guy that sort of took them in, and plus Mum Shirl was involved, and then the Councils, you know, it was against Council ruling, and then the police got on it, and Father Ted couldn't have them housed there in the church. So a few of the drunks came down to Louis Street, there was about three empty houses I think it was, and they just squatted. Then the Council tried to get involved and the police got involved trying to kick them out, then the union put a ban on it. So a group of Aboriginal people got together and formed a committee and then got the company registered in 1973.

Col James:The history of it certainly goes back to when the New South Wales government decided to expand the railway network.

Gary Bryson: Architect and Redfern resident Col James has had a long association with the Block and its politics.

Col James:They hired a lot of Aboriginal people who knew their way around. They knew the bush, they knew where to camp, they knew where the water was, they knew where the sleepers were, and they were employed and they camped around where they were now, and when the work finished, they graduated back to Redfern, and that's where they were offered jobs by the government railways system.

However, they paid them a very poor wage. It was half of what the apprentices got, and the union, the Rail Bus and Train Union, went on strike to support the Kooris who should be getting a decent wage, and they used to meet in a shed which is still there, which was called Red Square, and the reason it was called Red Square was because it was leftish-leaning and it was a very politically oriented place. And the strike succeeded and they got their proper wages, and they camped here.

Gary Bryson: In its long battle to survive on the Block, the community has been able to count on the support of unions and left-leaning organisations. But an important part in the story of the Block has been played by prominent Aborigines, people like Judge Bob Bellear for example, or politician, Charlie Perkins. Col James.

Col James:Where the Housing Company is now was one of the worst pubs probably in Australia. It was disgusting. And Mickey had had enough, there were people getting pissed, and they chucked all over the place, and it was not what he thought the Aboriginal people would want to represent their culture. So we put out a petition and we were taking this petition around saying you know, we need to knock the licence off to get rid of this pub. And we were mucking around in the office up there, and Charlie Perkins arrived and said 'What are you guys up to?' and we said, 'Oh, we're trying to knock off this pub, we want to get it out of here, it's disgusting, and it doesn't reflect very well on the people', and he says, 'Right, give us the phone.' He got on the phone and he said, 'Hey, put me on to So-and-so', he says, 'I want you up here as quick as you can; I want you to buy this pub, right?' And bang-o, it happened. And to make matters better, he then flogged the licence to Darling Harbour and made a huge amount of money for the Housing Company. So the Housing Company respects Charlie Perkins, and they now would like to offer, and they have offered eventually, that site to the university for Charles Perkins College, and we're now orchestrating connections and involving the family and... it'll happen.

Gary Bryson: The architects for the Pemulwuy project are the Sydney-based firm Cracknell and Lonergan. Peter Lonergan and Julie Cracknell are the principals.

Peter Lonergan:The site is about 10,000 square metres, or just under a hectare, and it involves the parcel of land that's known as the Block, but also some land around the outside, so the site's sort of bounded by Lawson Street, or Redfern Station if you like, it runs down the railway line to Vine Street, and then across to Louis Street. That site previously had between 112 and 120 individual lots that were purchased by the Aboriginal Housing Company over a maybe 15 to 20 year period from 1974 up to the present date. They've administered that landholding and maintained and rented housing for Aboriginal families in those houses. Over maybe the past 15 years, as the houses became unmanageable, or unmaintainable due to the original nature of the stock - you know, they were old terrace houses in very poor condition when the Housing Company bought them - it became no longer feasible to maintain those houses, so during the last maybe 10 or 15 years, a lot of the houses have been demolished, and at the moment there's a large amount of very pleasant open space. So large grassed areas, if you like a bit like an urban park. So it's a big open site with the railway line on one side and the relatively new Redfern Community Centre on the other side, on the Western side. It falls as I said, from Redfern Station down to Vine Street in Redfern.

Julie Cracknell:It feels nice here, and the location has something to do with that and there must have been some special meaning here, just by its location. It falls down one side to an important food source, water source, and on the other side towards Botany, that's all the way from one side of Sydney to the other. That's one aspect, another is in its history. Very significant events have happened out of this place, important Aboriginal organisations have been established. Some people have gone now, people like Bob Bellear and Father Ted Kennedy and a whole lot of other people who were instrumental in getting the organisation set up. So many families from all over New South Wales have some association with this place. I just think it's, yes, in that sense I think it's a sacred, spiritual place.

Gary Bryson: Julie Cracknell and Peter Lonergan.

Gary Bryson: The Pemulwuy project is a big win for the people of the Block. The redevelopment will bring about basic improvements in living standards and economic opportunities. And not before time.

Angie Pitts is an urban planner currently with the New South Wales Federation of Housing Associations. She devised an award-winning social plan for the Block which was fundamental to the shape and scope of the Pemulwuy proposal. Devising the social plan gave her a firsthand insight into just how dire the problems on the Block have been.

Angie Pitts:There was sub-standard housing, it was inadequate housing, completely inappropriate, they're too small for Aboriginal families. They were dark, lots of chronic health problems as a result of the housing. There was quite a lot of substance abuse here, lots of crime and vandalism. There are lots of drug-related crimes, drug dealers.

{and} Children, there's lot of children at risk as a result of the drugs and the criminal element here - needles, paraphernalia everywhere. There was no services coming here - well there were some, but the services were quite inadequate. There wasn't a lot of services here at the Block, and the ones that were here, they were pretty much overworked and over-extended. There was real fragmentation in the community at the time because of the drug problems and lots of transients and drop-ins, huge problems with homelessness, which is initially why the Block was set up in the first place, because of the lack of housing for Aboriginal people. But the homelessness problem here is quite hidden, and the fact that people were just living with their relatives or friends, and this caused a problem with overcrowding which also caused problems with stress on the house - infrastructure and things like that. Lack of skills, unemployment, education, yes pretty much if you look at a macro level, what's happening with the disadvantage of Aboriginal people in Australia, it was very much reflected here on the Block in Redfern.

SIREN

Newsreader: Next a massive police raid on an Aboriginal community in the heart of Sydney.

Reporter: To the outsider, the Blocks of Eveleigh and Vine Streets in Redfern have physical characteristics more closely aligned to parts of South Africa or war-torn ...

Reporter: Eveleigh Street, or the Block as it's become known to generations of Aborigines, is the target of an urban ...

Reporter: While police have regularly patrolled the Block around Eveleigh Street in Redfern, it's the first time in many years that a raid involving such police numbers has been ...

Gary Bryson: Residents say that the low point in the Block's history was during the '90s. This is when it became notorious as a place for hard drugs, when crime and violence was endemic, and the Block was a no-go area for whites, even sometimes for the police.

Lani Tuitavake:There's been times that you would just feel like packing up and going because the drugs were just everywhere.

Gary Bryson: Lani Tuitavake is the Aboriginal Housing Company's general manager, and a long-term resident on The Block.

Lani Tuitavake:Everywhere you looked, people were using, the heavy drugs, I mean I'm talking about heroin and coke, and that was really bad, and for us, I first started here as a property manager, I didn't have experience in it, but , we were going into empties and you couldn't see the bottom of the ground you were walking on. Glass, syringes and things, and yes, just drugs everywhere. It wasn't hard to find the stuff, so that's been really difficult, and also we have seven children, and that was really, like I said earlier, there were times that you just felt like getting up and going, but we're still here. And really people became like... their territory was sort of marked out you know, without a line being there, so as a parent I had to make sure that where the footpath started and where my front door was, that was my territory and that I had to keep my guard up with my kids because to make sure that they weren't in harm's way and, yeah, it just makes your job as a parent much harder.

Gary Bryson: Thanks to the efforts of Mick Mundine and other community elders, the Block today has shrugged off the worst of its problems. The drug dealers have mostly moved on, and the Block itself is now an alcohol free zone.

Lani Tuitavake:We've come a long way from five and even ten years ago in the '90s, but as a community there's a special bond being here, and other people may say, Oh yes, because of drugs. It's not that, we're an urban Aboriginal community and there's a close bonding that we have here.

Mick Mundine:You go back ten years ago, how vicious this community was. But now, look at the community, it's really slowly turning around. This place has changed. And I think the reason why it's changed is the respect. We had a lady [police] commander Catherine Byrnes. When she first come here, she brought the respect between the police and the community. You see? What it all boils down to is respect. And it'll change. I mean, you've got to have a bit of faith, you can't be thinking negative all your life. If we're thinking negative, we're never going to go ahead in the future.

Angie Pitts:People are still here fighting for this place, fighting for housing, fighting for services. There's a huge sense of community and sense of place here, and it's the energy and the interaction of the community and the feeling of community here, it's just beautiful. And I guess people from the outside don't really see that and don't understand why we're putting so much energy in this place. It goes back, it's a historically significant place as well, and it's the area of the first civil rights movement, the first Aboriginal services started up here, the children's service, the Aboriginal medical services, the legal service. It's just a very important place for Aboriginal people, and I don't think that we would have been fighting so hard for 30 years trying to redevelop this piece of land if it had no significance.

Lani Tuitavake:There's been times that the Lord's hand has been on this place, and it's been the driving force.

Mick Mundine:You've got to have faith in life, and a lot of people said to us, This will never be done, you'll never get the approval. But I always said, Hey, you've got to have faith, have faith. You're doing the right thing by the community and by the people, by the children, you know, the Lord will provide.

Gary Bryson: Mick Mundine and Lani Tuitavake.

You're with Encounter on ABC Radio National, and we're exploring the Block, Australia's largest urban Aboriginal community in Redfern, Sydney. Once notorious for destitution and crime, the Block has finally won its near 40-year battle to remain in Aboriginal hands, and it's about to undergo a momentous transformation.

Ted Kennedy: I remember one cold night about 3 am being called out of my warm bed, by a man called Hughie who was drinking at that time. But he had a friend, and he really was very concerned that the friend didn't understand Christianity, so he asked me to go down and tell him about Christ. And of course that was one of the turning points of my life. I realised that it would be the greatest affront to Christ himself if I were to go back to that warm bed, having given a class in Christian doctrine in a place like this. I decided I think very strongly at that time that I had to open my home to the homeless and that I had to fight for social justice.

Gary Bryson: The voice of Father Ted Kennedy. Father Ted, as he was known by all, died in 2005 after more than 30 years as parish priest of Redfern, based at St Vincent de Paul's church. St Vincent's isn't actually on the Block itself, but Father Ted made it his business to get involved with the Aboriginal community there. As well as being instrumental in establishing the Block in Aboriginal hands, he also set up medical services and mediated in disputes with the police. More importantly, Father Ted shared every aspect of his life with the Aboriginal people in the true spirit of Christian love.

Edmund Campion:When he went to Redfern in 1971, he was already alert to the sort of things that might happen. But, I should say that he didn't go to Redfern with Aborigines in mind.

Gary Bryson: Edmund Campion is a Sydney priest, academic and writer, and the author of 'Ted Kennedy: Priest of Redfern'.

Edmund Campion:Providence placed him in Redfern, and providence introduced him to the Aborigines and from then on, his life became focused totally on the Aboriginal question, and he was there with the Kooris for over 30 years. And he became known across Australia then as a voice for the voiceless Kooris. And the Kooris built this white priest into their own story and made him part of their history.

Gary Bryson: Ted Kennedy came to the priesthood in the 1950s, a time of great theological ferment, when new and liberal ideas were being debated; ideas like primacy of conscience and the theology of poverty. These new ways of thinking would eventually inform the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, but they came alive for Father Ted through his work in Redfern.

Edmund Campion:The ideas were drawn out of him - the ideas were around, as you quite rightly say, primacy of conscience of course. Noticeably that would be picked up by the Second Vatican Council and made a teaching of the church. Similarly the talk of the preferential options for the poor, as the theologians call it, siding with the poor. Ted was alert to church leaders saying things like that. The Bishop of Rome, the Pope was saying it. The new head of the Jesuits Father Arrupe was saying it, and bishops all over the world were saying, as well as lay people and preachers like himself, that justice and working for justice, must be part of our religion, and this enabled him then to become the sort of priest that he was. You see, the history of the church is a history of ideas, so I agree with you in asking what were the ideas that activated him but what's interesting to me as a historian is how he didn't start with those ideas but he picked them up as he went along and confronted the real world.

These two things need and ideas, come together in several ways. One for instance, is the Block. Aborigines always wanted land, they wanted land rights, and the idea of land rights had never gone away and specifically in Redfern, they wanted that land that we now call the block. Now it so happened that Ted was instrumental here. In December 1972, listeners will remember it well, the 2nd December, the Whitlam government came in to Canberra. Now Ted had connections there. Whitlam's Minister for Aboriginal Affairs was a man called Gordon Bryant, and his secretary was Dick Hall. Not only that, one of Ted's great co-workers, Bob Bellear, the Aboriginal lawyer, knew Gordon Bryant through his father-in-law, Bo Williams, who'd worked with Gordon Bryant at the Ballarat Trades Hall. So early in '73, soon after Whitlam came in, Ted and Bob Bellear went down to Canberra and through Dick Hall they got to see, easily, Gordon Bryant, and said 'This land - the government could do something very positive by getting this land which is sacred to the Aborigines and giving it to them.' Bryant said yes, and he worked hard and quickly to make it possible. By July 1973 Cabinet had approved of a grant of a quarter of a million dollars to buy the land of the Block. A few years later, 1976 I think it was, the Aboriginal Housing Company was set up and by the end of that decade they owned 60 houses. Now between those two poles, '73, the grant from the Whitlam government to buy the land, and the end of the decade, there was a lot of activity in pursuit of justice.

You see once the Aborigines knew that this was theirs they started to move in, but a developer had already bought those blocks, and he had other plans, and they moved in and in fact squatted. There was a lot of that going on then. They moved in, and the police would roust them out. And this is where Ted's friends came into it. They would go down and they would be in the houses when they got word of a police raid, and so when the police raided, there were witnesses to what they did to the Kooris. Not only that, Bob Bellear went to his friends in the union movement and got them to connect these empty houses with water and electricity, they fixed up those houses. So once Ted had made it possible, the Aborigines were able to take over on their own. And that was one of the key things in his life, that he wasn't a do-gooder. He wanted to make it possible for people to run their own lives. He thought that people should follow the gospel in their own way, find their own way to God, and he thought his role was to support them in their journey, not to impose road maps on them.

Mum Shirl: Before Father Ted Kennedy come into the area, there was no place of safety for anybody, black, white, yellow, green or brindle to sleep. Or to have a wash, and to recuperate from the after-effects of withdrawal from alcohol. They'd live in empty houses and the police would arrest them, and then they'd go to jail for 14 days, even 2 months, sometimes 3, all depends on their records. Well Father Ted wouldn't broke that saga. And he opened up his home and he shared his blankets and his meals.

Gary Bryson: That's the voice of Mum Shirl, close friend of Father Ted's and a towering figure in the story of the Block. She passed away in 1998, and is remembered today with great fondness.

Edmund Campion:If you go into the Redfern church today, you'll see two pictures on the wall, one of Father Ted Kennedy and one of Mum Shirl, and they're on the same level. And he would certainly recognise that. She came into his life very early. She was a virtually illiterate Wiradjuri woman from Cowra who was on a disability pension. Her life changed when her brother went to prison and she visited him there. When he came out, under the old Consorting Act, he wasn't able to visit his friends in prison, so he got his sister to visit them, and she was so good at that, that it just became a life for her. She would travel all over the State, visiting people, and she had in fact a prison pass, very quickly was given a prison pass. Then when they'd come out of jail, a lot of those men would come to her to get them started again. She was called Mum Shirl by the way, because when she went to prison one time, they said, 'What relation are you to this prisoner?' and she said, 'I'm his Mum'. And that became her answer, and so she became known as Mum Shirl.

She could see, in concert with someone like, say, Dr Ferry Grunseit of the Aboriginal Medical Service, that there were health problems from the diet, from Koori diet, and so she organised people to take her down to the markets to do a fruit run, and get fresh fruit for Aboriginals, particularly for the children. She could be very outspoken on justice issues. Ted said of her at her funeral - it was a marvellous funeral - that she was the best theologian he'd ever met. She took the gospel purely and didn't spit out the uncomfortable bits as whites tended to do, but she took it plain. And when the gospel said, 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat', that is, Jesus, 'When I was thirsting you gave me to drink, I was homeless and you gave me a home', she took that literally, and so those people she saw in need to her were Jesus. Now it takes a pretty big Christian to be able to do that, and she did it day after day after day. Oh, a great woman.

Gary Bryson: Edmund Campion.

Lily ShearerThis land is spiritual. It's the heart of our spirituality.

Gary Bryson: Lily Shearer is the Cultural Development Officer at Redfern Community Centre, a fairly new building on the block, and one of the vital signs of rejuvenation.

Lily ShearerI lived here when I was a teenager at Murroweena [on the Block] on top of the preschool which was the girls' hostel for us country girls who wanted to further our education and yes, I lived there for 2 and a half, nearly 3 years. So I got very close to the community and the people who lived in and around the Block, and folk from Waterloo as well, and so yes, I have relationships spanning over 26 years with those people.

Gary Bryson: And where did you come from originally?

Lily ShearerI'm Muruwari originally, came from a little place called Brewarrina out the back of Bourke, where the crows fly backwards, as Uncle Max would say. So yes, a really small little community.

Gary Bryson: Big change coming to the city.

Lily ShearerOh huge change coming to the city. That's why I value my time back here, working on the Block, you know. We talk about payback, this is my payback for a great education opportunity which I grabbed with both hands and developed my career as a Cultural Development Officer as well as theatre practitioner making community theatre.

Spirituality is something we all have in common but we all have different songs, different creation stories, different dreaming stories which are our moral stories, and teach us how to be decent human beings, good and bad, right from wrong. And yes, I go to church every day as soon as I walk out of my bricks and mortar, into my church, into the natural environment. And whether that's got man-made aspects built up around it, we've always got our gum trees, we've always got the birds. I was raised Catholic and so I have lots of confronting issues when I was at boarding school at St Scholastica's about white is good and black is evil, and I thought o h, well I must be sort of bad because I had olive skin, so yes, I had really confronting issues, but I've explored my cultural spirituality, I've learnt more about who I am as a Muruwari woman, I trust in that, I believe in that. I believe in signs, I believe in prayer and that our prayers are answered. I know mine are daily here at Redfern Community Centre. Yes, I truly believe in the creator and our spiritual being and the essence of the land and how much the land can inform us, if only we stop and listen.

Gary Bryson: Lily Shearer from the Redfern Community Centre.

Your listening to Encounter on ABC Radio National, abc.net.au/RN, and we're exploring the largest urban Aboriginal community in Australia - the Block in the Sydney suburb of Redfern.

Elizabeth Farrelly:I think the spiritual nature of it is probably to do with history as much as anything.

Gary Bryson: Elizabeth Farrelly is a journalist and author who writes about architecture and the environment. She's also a Redfern resident, and a keen observer of the Block and its heritage.

Elizabeth Farrelly:Everybody who's here knows the kind of the narrative and participates in that, and there's the sense that everybody is Auntie or Uncle, and they're known that way in the community, Auntie Joyce and so on, there's a sense that those stories build up a kind of cultural humus in the ground and that's how the place grows. And I think that's so important, especially, probably, for a culture like the Aboriginal culture which is so story-based, which has a profound narrative base, and where there was no written culture, but it was all about telling the stories and repeating the stories, over and over and over. And that build-up is really what constitutes culture.

Gary Bryson: A vital part of the culture of the Block is to be found in the boxing gym and in the stories of the fighting Mundines. The epic battle between Mick Mundine and then State Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, will take its place alongside the winning bouts of Tony Mundine and his equally famous son, Anthony. Col James.

Col James:One of the things that unites people around Redfern is boxing. You know, there's the gym, that's very important, a lot of the people who gravitate to work here - like I'm a fighter, too, I learned how to fight in the country, and I've got a boxing blue from university. Not that I'm very good, but that was quite an integral part.

Gary Bryson: Central to the political fight was a strong committee.

Col James:Mickey needs support, he also needs people who have got a lot of know-how and who want to help, and so he and I talked to various people about whether it would enhance our position. One of the first appointments we made was to ask Tom Uren would he chair the Pemulwuy Project Committee and he said 'Of course I will'. Tommy is a real fighter.

By the time this board had been appointed and Tom Uren was there, and we had some very, very heavy people, like John Mant and Dick Smythe, and lawyers. There was almost a queue of lawyers that wanted to sue Frank Sartor. No, I think by the time we'd amassed this very heavy board, that by- passed the Redfern-Waterloo authority anyway. I mean they knew they were dealing with people who would not truck any sort of bullshit, and that the rumour that we were going to sue them was around anyway, so I think it prospered because there was opposition. There were people around here, the union for one, and the CFMEU and we had an instant demo any time we wanted it.

Elizabeth Farrelly:I watched the stand-off between Mick Mundine and Frank Sartor thinking they're pretty much of a type these two, you know, and it was almost as though they were both enjoying it to some extent, and they were quite well-matched, both bright and both stubborn, bull-headed. And it's interesting that so far it seems at least that Mundine has been the winner in that, who knows what's going to happen next of course. But the politics has been interesting; I don't really think that there was a push to get rid of Aboriginal people but there was a push to get rid of Aboriginal housing, and to replace it with much more amenable if you like, things like cultural centres and stuff. And you can imagine - I mean it may not have been like this, but you can imagine the devolution into a kind of Rocks-type souvenir culture selling didgeridoos and t-shirts. That would be a tragedy, it would be better to just get rid of the Block than to have that as its last representative, it seems to me. And a community is residential, that's what community means, and if you don't have houses here, you don't have a community.

Col James:The fight is what makes it happen, I mean it's very Mundine to have a real good brawl, not that it was a brawl, but the fighting instinct of the Mundines is quite central to their spirituality. They don't see it as anti-religion, or anti-spiritual.

Elizabeth Farrelly:The history of Aboriginality in white Australia seems very strongly symbolised by the Block, and the kind of determined remnants of some sort of Aboriginal culture here against all the odds, and in particular against the push - the quite legitimate push in fact of the city to expand south, which it needs to do because all the other sides of the city are water, so where can it go? And it's probably gone - not really as high as it can go - but certainly just about as dense as it can go in the city centre. So south is the way it really has to spread, and yet there is this dreadful coincidence that this is the last remaining piece of genuine Aboriginal culture and the longest-standing urban Aboriginal settlement in the country, and it has this remarkable centre of significance, as I understand it, and I'm not really the person to speak for Aboriginal culture, but the coming together, the confluence of the songlines if you like, from all over Australia. People come here from Queensland, from West Australia even, to be part of this community which I think is a really interesting thing, and makes it very important not just for Aboriginal people but for all of us.

Peter Lonergan:Where we are now is where there was a huge number of people here when the Prime Minister made the apology last year, and just looking across the site ...

Gary Bryson: The Pemulwuy project envisages a mix of housing, corporate and retail activities on the Block. Architects Peter Lonergan and Julie Cracknell.

Julie Cracknell:The Housing Company had developed a social plan over a number of years which defined how the housing should be laid out, that there should be 62 houses representing the number of original Gadigal families, a gym, which replaces an existing gym which has been successful recreational place for the local young people; a cultural centre, commercial premises to help fund the project and a gallery and elders' centre, and a respite centre which was one of the original ideas for the site back in the early '70s.

Gary Bryson: Can you describe then a typical flat here, what a typical flat will be?

Peter Lonergan:Yes, well I think what we tried to do in the first instance was to make sure that every apartment was north facing, so that it got good sun and light all day, all year. And then inside the apartments there's a large open living space, an open kitchen, and then when the apartments are above the ground, a very large outdoor terrace, so that the inside living room is complemented by an outside living room that's equal to or greater than the dimensions of the internal living room, so that there's this good relationship between the inside and the outside that's afforded by that northern orientation. So in a sense, they're kind of like town houses I suppose, but single level town houses. We've graded the outdoor spaces from private outdoor space to semi-private, which would be a space that's shared by the apartment building, to I suppose more public-private outdoor space that's shared by the whole development, so a space that runs down the middle of the six apartment buildings, but is only used by the apartment buildings. And then public open space which are a series of spaces that we've created around the outside of the buildings for the broader community and the community that comes through the site, so like the students going to Sydney Uni and people that are just sort of wandering around Redfern. So that there is this three or four layered approach to open space.

Gary Bryson: Peter Lonergan and Julie Cracknell.

The Pemulwuy project is the culmination of nearly 40 years of struggle for the people of the Block. Only time will tell if architecture and planning, and sound business sense, can help the community transcend their troubled past and achieve the self-determination they want. Elizabeth Farrelly.

Elizabeth Farrelly:Self-determination will be what they make it. If that's what they want to build, as far as I'm concerned, that's fine. It's got the same numbers as I understand it, that were here before the '62 dwellings. It's quite a different formula, not terraces there, mostly apartments and their courtyard and they've been designed that way with a view to community surveillance of public spaces and things - that's they hope, a safeguard against any return of the drug culture. I don't know whether that will work, you know, it's quite difficult to solve social problems with architecture, if not impossible. But I think that the sense that this is the Aboriginal Housing Company's proposal and it's going to be their land and their money and their houses, and they're doing it, will be extremely important. The test now of course is for them whether they can make that work, and whether they can really make it a viable community. So now really the ball is in their court. and this is going to be quite challenging, I think. But it will be brilliant to see them succeed.

Gary Bryson: Mick Mundine has no doubts at all that they will succeed. With the plans approved, he's hopeful that building might start within the next two or three years. But there's one final hurdle. The Aboriginal Housing Company doesn't yet have the estimated $60-million needed to turn Pemulwuy into a reality.

Mick Mundine:I believe that we will get the money. There is good people out there, a lot of good human beings out there, with commonsense and passion and a good heart. And they can see what the company went through, that we were really crucified, and I believe the money will come, it's just a matter of time. You've got to be patient, you've got to be humble and yes, the money will come.

You cannot get rid of the Aboriginal issue here, you cannot get rid of the spirit here, you know? Aboriginal people have been here since the beginning, and they will be here for the generations to come, so there's no point in trying to kick them out. Rather its best if they help us to redevelop the Block, because this is for everybody. We want to beautify Redfern, and I really feel that if the Block is not redeveloped, Redfern is never going to flourish because you're breaking that spirit. You can't rid of the spirit, and Aboriginal people will always be here. So, I just ... You've got to have faith.

Gary Bryson: Mick Mundine of the Aboriginal Housing Company, with the last word on this Encounter with the Block, in Sydney's Redfern. My thanks to the residents there, and to the parishioners of St Vincent de Paul's Catholic church in Redfern for their help in making this program.

Technical production was by Jenny Parsonage. I'm Gary Bryson, thanks for your company.

Jack Callaghan
is a parishioner and volunteer at St Vincent de Paul's Church in Redfern

Mick Mundine
is CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Company

Lily Shearer
is the Cultural Development Officer, Redfern Community Centre

Col James
is a Sydney architect and retired lecturer at Sydney University

Peter Lonergan
is a partner with the architectural firm, Cracknell and Lonergan

Julie Cracknell
is a partner with the architectural firm, Cracknell and Lonergan

Angie Pitts
is an urban planner and author of the Pemulwuy Project social plan

Lani Tuitavake
is general manager of the Aboriginal Housing Company

Edmund Campion
is a Sydney priest, academic and author

Elizabeth Farrelly
is a journalist and author who writes about architecture and the environment

Further Information

Photos of the Block as it exists today

The Pemulwuy Project, photographs and plans

The Pemulwuy Project social Plan (PDF)

The Block on Wikipedia

Aboriginal Housing Company

Father Ted Kennedy on the Religion Report

Father Ted Kennedy Obituary in Sydney Morning Herald

Cracknell and Lonergan

Publications

Title: Back on the Block
Author: Bill Simon
Publisher: Aboriginal Studies Press

Title: Ted Kennedy: Priest of Redfern
Author: Edmund Campion
Publisher: David Lovell Publishing

Music

CD title: Songman
Track title: Wonder
Artist: Nomad
CD details: AMI - AMICD7007

CD title: Songman
Track title: Garpi
Artist: Nomad
CD details: AM! - AMICD7007

CD title: Songman
Track title: 40 In The shade
Artist: Nomad
CD details: AMI - AMICD7007

CD title: Songbird Calling: Stories from Studio RCC
Track title: Aboriginal Land
Artist: Nadena Dixon
CD details: City of Sydney

CD title: Songbird Calling: Stories from Studio RCC
Track title: Flowers and Trees
Artist: The Block Brothers
CD details: Ccity of Sydney

Producer

Gary Bryson