I was 21 when I returned to Darwin. I had to wait until I was 21 because I was confused about my citizenship rights. It was not until the 1967 Referendum that Aborigines became Australian citizens …

When I walked into the Commonwealth Bank in Darwin, telling them I had worked in the bank down south, I got a job instantly. The resistance was in the south. I worked on ledgers, work I had never done. I remained for a year, returning south in 1971. In 1972 the Aboriginal tent embassy was set up in Canberra. There was an explosion of pride in being Aboriginal.

In Sydney in 1972 I went back to the PMG [Post Master General’s Department where I had worked earlier], to the mail exchange in Redfern, finishing at 5.30am. I was earning fantastic money and was able to breakfast in a restaurant every morning in King’s Cross, feeling so liberated. Then I toddled off to the Wayside Chapel and the bus. We collected food from the hospitals, then kids from the homes, and took them to the park for a three-course meal of cereals, hot tucker, and fruit. We’d then drop the kids back, to go to school with a full belly.

In 1963, when I was ironing clothes at the RAAF base, Australia asked all the primary school kids in Papua New Guinea what they wanted to be trained as and began putting them into high school on a study path enabling them to become doctors, lawyers and engineers. It wasn’t until two years after New Guinea got independence in 1975 that the Australian government came up with a program for training us: NESA (the National Employment Strategy for Aboriginals).

I went into NESA in 1980. Until then I worked in a variety of jobs, constantly backwards and forwards from Redfern to Darwin. I went for jobs I hadn’t been trained for. Because I was up-front about it people believed I had all sorts of skills. For six months I worked in a one-off course for chronically unemployed Aboriginals, showing them how they should present themselves for interviews. I didn’t have an idea myself. Out of that course 100% became employed, but in short-term jobs. I wasn’t able to sell the work ethic or, if I was the jobs weren’t there. Government departments, Aboriginal organisations and white business people  used the NESA scheme to exceed staff ceilings or gain free labour, and I had Aboriginal people in the class who had been bank robbers, rapists and mixed race, and who really hated being forced into an Aboriginal identity. I had to bear the brunt. At the other extreme were shy, innocent, young girls from the suburbs of Darwin or remote little towns out in the scrub. People from all walks of life were grouped under the umbrella ‘Aboriginal’. Blokes sat under palm trees outside the classroom with a flagon of wine and a packet of cigarettes, walking when they wanted to. It was hard for me because I didn’t know how to get around it. I knew my brief – to get them into the paid workforce. The blokes who were ‘coloured’ weren’t Aboriginals. They knew I was a ‘Black power bitch’. Sitting outside the classroom, they poked their fingers up, swearing at me. Today they realise only too well just where they are in Australian society and why they have never been able to get a job, and have stopped resisting being Black. They are mates of mine now.

The ringleader was the bloke I was with when Mum died. I had gone to the pub to get something to smoke because Mum was dying, and I needed it. I ended up with no money left for grog. He had a couple of dollars for beers and between us we had a merry old time. He is a diehard alcoholic. He teaches me a lot. I said to him one day: ‘There is no such thing as an alcoholic – anyone can overcome if they want to.’ He giggled and I realised I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. I presumed it was possible. How could I be so naive as to say anyone could give up grog, just a matter of making up your mind.

Years before, in 1980, I went to see Mum because I had to bury my little brother by myself. I’d sent her an urgent telegram: ‘Wally is dead. Am bringing the body home. If you are able to assist I would appreciate it. If not, I’ll understand.’ I prepaid her reply. Back came the message: ‘Unable  to assist. Kind regards.’ I stupidly thought Wally’s death would have affected my mother. Concerned for her to know there was no blame attached, I wanted to make sure she was all right. So I went to Townsville, off my usual  track. She said: ‘Can’t you get it through your fucking head I don’t want  fucking Abos coming around.’ She was half-Aboriginal. So I thought, right, you bitch, I’ll stay in Townsville and get into your home by hook or by crook.

I got a job at the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), fronting a drive-time program, interviewing people like Ian Sinclair and Gareth Evans. I had had ideas of becoming a journalist. When I was working with the Commonwealth Bank in Darwin in 1971 I was offered a job  as a cadet journalist, on the basis of my writing, with the Northern Territory News. My boyfriend, a policeman, said the paper was ‘anti-cop’. Being my first lover, there was no way I would endanger that so I chose to work in the bank. When I approached the ABC wanting to be a journalist the manager thought the editor of the newsroom was racist and that there would be problems. He was not wrong. He got me into public affairs as a program officer, the  ‘poor cousin’ of journalists. You’re not quite a journalist unless registered with the Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA), and there is a lot of resentment about public affairs program officers doing the work. No one explained to me that because three quarters of my duties were reporting I could gain admission to the AJA. You only find out these things later. Then you share it with everybody to make sure they know. I was supposed to be getting trained, but had ideas and wanted to share the vision of broadcasting  for Indigenous Australians. I went to  the Torres Straits for a weekend doing a documentary for a dance duo. I told the Torres Strait people of my hidden agenda: to get a media steering committee established …

Louise Liddy-Corpus (c) 1992

Louise Liddy-Corpus worked with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Townsville when it was the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). She is a feminist and strong advocate for women’s rights and Indigenous Australian rights.

This is an extract from ‘Taking Control Now’ in Breaking Through – Women, Work and Careers, Artemis Publishing, Melbourne, Australia, 1992 (Jocelynne A. Scutt, ed.).