Community-led Holistic Health with Marjorie Thorpe and Professor Ted Wilkes

In this episode Lidia yarns with Nyungar man, Associate Professor Ted Wilkes and long time First Nations health activist (and her mum), Gunnaikurnai woman Marjorie Thorpe about the importance of holistic and First Nations led health services as well as healing spaces.

Professor Ted Wilkes is a Nyungar man and has spent most of his life working in public health for better First Nations health outcomes. Professor Wilkes has engaged at many forums and committees at the state, national, and international level, and is involved in many research initiatives dealing with alcohol and drugs in Indigenous Australia.

Marjorie Thorpe is a Gunnaikurnai woman and daughter of one of the founders of Victorian Aboriginal Health Service in 1973. Marjorie was a co-commissioner on the Bringing them Home stolen generations inquiry. More recently, Marjorie has campaigned to save the Grandmother trees on Tjapurong.


LEARN: Read Professor Chelsea Watego's Book "Another Day in The Colony"

DONATE: To Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS)

These recordings took place on the unceded sovereign lands of  the Wurundjeri  people of the Kulin Nation.


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Note: These episodes were recorded while Senator Thorpe was a member of the Greens. She now sits of the crossbench as a Independent Senator representing the Blak Sovereign Movement

Transcript

0:00

[Intro Music Playing]

Lidia  0:18  

Before we can move forward, before we can heal, we must tell the truth. This is truth telling, with me Lidia Thorpe. I'm a proud Djab Wurrung, Gunnai Gunditjmara woman. I'm a human rights, climate and forest activist, a mum, a grand-mum and a survivor of family violence. Now, I'm your Greens Senator for Victoria. This is a place to listen, stay open and learn, as I yarn with First Nations Elders, experts and activists about the injustices facing our people and importantly, the solutions and opportunities that can come from self determination through the right policy.

You just heard a song from the deadly Djirri Djirri, Wurundjeri women who dance and sing on Country for Country. This interview and all interviews will take place on Wurundjeri Country, the unceded sovereign lands of Wurundjeri and the Kulin Nation.

Lidia  1:46

Thank you everyone for joining an important conversation about Aboriginal Health and where the philosophy of Aboriginal Health came from, and some of the history that you may not know, that is still alive today and is still practiced today by many Aboriginal communities across the country. In this podcast, we are very lucky and honored to have Professor Ted Wilkes and Marjorie Thorpe. Now I'm not going to go into their background and the work that they've done, I'd rather hand straight over to them and get them to introduce themselves. So I'll start with Professor Ted Wilkes.

Ted  2:44

Thank you Lidia. And thanks for inviting us into this discussion, it lets us to remember what and how we've got to where we are. The  pathway for me, wasn't as early as Majorie. I was studying at university when NAIHO was being developed. And I do know that in the early days, the National Aboriginal and Islander health organisation, my understanding was that it had an eastern states focus, and it came out of the leadership from people living on the East Coast, predominantly. And the philosophy of NAIHO was, certainly by eyes, to allow Aboriginal people to speak freely about what it was we wanted to improve our quality of life. My understanding was impacted on my own by my own world, I'm a Nyungar man, I'm a Whadjuk-Nyunga man, I'm actually an elder in my family now, I have great grandchildren. And the number keeps growing, by the way. But yeah, we Aboriginal Australians realise that we were living in abject poverty in the, in the early parts of the last century. And as we all know, the history now is being uncovered where things that happened in the early history of Australia were quite outrageous. The colonising or the what we call, the Aboriginal people call the invasion of our ands and our spirits and our souls was, was untethered. We were just being taken for granted that we weren't accepted as proper human beings. And it wasn't until the 50s, or the 40s and the 50s, after the World Wars, that Aboriginal elders and Aboriginal people started to build the capacity and the strength to say to others, that, hey, you've done us wrongs and we want them corrected. And these not only came out of those younger people, but the older people that mums and dads were saying to us sons and daughters, we deserve better, and we're sorry we're not being able to give you a better quality of life, but how do we fix it up? And on the knowledge that the elders at that time, give us and participated with us, we started to establish a strength amongst the collective of people. It was very difficult to fight on your own but as a collective started to, to engage in the bigger cities like Melbourne and Sydney. We were watching from afar. And you know, I think those lobbyists in those days need to be congratulated. And NAIHO in its own right I mean, I want to read out just the first little part about what what they're what they saw as health; it was not just the physical well being of the individual, but the social, emotional and cultural well being of the whole community. This is a whole of life and it also includes the cyclical concept of life, death life. So it brought back into our realities that yeah, we have a different belief system in relation to how we're born, how we live on this earth as humans, and then what happens to us after we pass on into the other reality. And so this cyclical view that we return in a format or we return into this world in another reality, it sounds a little bit awkward, but it talks in a way which allows us to believe that there's a reincarnation. And people when they know that there are others coming after us to get this right. The fight becomes a lot more powerful. I might just stop there and allow Marjorie to introduce herself now because I have a tendency to talk too much.

Lidia  6:31

Thank you, Ted. And before Marj, and I must admit and confess that Marj is also my mum. Before Marj introduces herself, I just wanted to ask you Marj, as part of your introduction; The politics of health And I spoke to Nan Elma this morning, and she talked about the struggle of those politics of those days. And it wasn't a kind of a positive journey that Aboriginal people had to take, it was more of a political stance and fighting for these services. So I was just wondering if you could also as part of your intro, touch a little bit on what Nan spoke about this morning and let our listeners have an idea of where it came from, from that political struggle. Thank you.

Marjorie  7:24 

Yes, well that's correct. My name is Marjorie Thorpe and I’m Djab Wurrung woman from the western districts of Victoria and I live on my grandfather's country Gunnai in East Gippsland. Yes, the early days, was, I guess, as an awakening from the 67 referendum when which, before that I, I actually personally think that we were living in an *** era. So we all retreated, and called *** before 1967. And so it was the legacy of the dispossession. We were still locked up in reserves in, in Lake Tyers, for example, till 1967. And I'm not sure what the situation was in other parts of the country. And it was also the consequence of, you know, the activists like Uncle William Cooper, when he raised the issues and the comparison of what happened in Nazi Germany, with the Indigenous people in this country. So there was a long history of, of looking at what our struggle was. The Black Panther Party that arose from the influence of what was happening in the US at the time, was where young people in the day were saying, We've had enough of being treated like we are. And it became very outspoken and, and it was a recognition that we weren't going to, you know, let anybody say otherwise. And then we knew that we recognised that blak power was beautiful, that blak was beautiful, and not to be denigrated, like it was. You know, wasn't just talking about a militant type operation. It was about going into hotels where blacks weren't allowed into and deliberate that was an action in those days sitting in those hotels until we were asked to leave. And then, you know, raising the issues by obviously, the media, to the fact that we were barred from hotels, barred from a lot of places; theaters, swimming pools, you know, across the board. And so it was a recognition of being discriminated against and standing up and saying, hold on, we are people we've been recognised- well in the census, we weren't actually recognised. We were still considered as flora and fauna, which was the subhuman status that we lived under before granted, being counted in census. But some of those programs were that the Black Panthers undertook they were some of the early day, things that, that was empowering and giving encouragement and resources, given that there were very little resources in those days to do very much. But for example, people being given a dictionary if they didn't understand words, and you know, that's what happened in Melbourne. In Sydney, it was breakfast programs for children before they went to school in Brisbane, that pretty much was the same thing. So things like dictionaries to young people who, you know, didn't know much about language, English language in particular. Cameras, and setting up programs so people could learn about their situation, our people could learn about. that. So that was what the, what the Black Panthers did in those days. And a few of those people who were involved in that actually went on to become instrumental in the establishment of the first legal services and the first health services in Australia.

Lidia  10:39

Thank you. So if you could explain briefly both of you. What is the difference between a mainstream health service and an Aboriginal Health Service? And secondly, why is it important to have Aboriginal health services for Aboriginal people.

Marjorie  10:57

In the early days, people were afraid to go to doctors and hospitals, because when they went to hospital, sadly, a lot of those people were actually so ill by the time they got to hospital, they often didn't get back out. So the history of our people was when you went to hospital, there was a great fear of people dying in hospital, and that was what the stats showed us as well. They also were afraid to go to ordinary doctor surgeries in little towns and wherever, because we were very poor. In those days, we were living and still today, the lowest socio economic scale going so the poverty in our communities was extreme. So people were embarrassed and ashamed because they didn't have very good clothes and sitting in a doctor's surgery with non-Aboriginal people, you weren't made to feel very good. Racism was very much front and center in those days. And it was, it was quite blatant. So people didn't go because they didn't want to be discriminated against. And that was, that was why our people didn't seek medical attention when they needed to.

Lidia  12:05

So Ted, why, why do we still need them? Why should we be still supporting them? Because you know, that's something that I'm taking to the election, that we need to ensure that Aboriginal health services are properly funded. Can you explain to people why we need to ensure that that happens?

Ted  12:24  

Well, I think Marjorie has given the background to the poverty, the racism, all of those bad indicators about how do humans live in a society that's supposed to be one of the high flying societies in this world. And the background that Marjorie mentioned in relation to the racism and not being able to visit public space without feeling very insecure. In my world, I remember my dad having to wear a little dog collar when I was a very young person, and he wasn't allowed to run the streets after six o'clock. So white people really had us under the thumb. And when the movement began after ‘67, people started to get what might be called braver in relation to challenging the system. It opened up the eyes of all of the Aboriginal elders and Aboriginal people who wanted to be active in this field around Australia and so we looked at the media as Marjorie said, we had to attract the media, we had to attract significant politicians to understand that our voice was no longer going to be quietened. It was going to be now louder and prouder than ever. And it's, as I said before, those people who commenced the movement to be recognised and understood as our champions, but the reason we need Aboriginal medical service as opposed to mainstream services, is clearly based on what we today have, and we call them statistics, and we looked at the statistics, because we've been doing it for over 50 years now, and we say these statistics are proof enough for us to say that your mainstream systems don't work. And we want to develop systems where we were able to build them without capacity, and to also become the providers and the players in the game. So we wanted Aboriginal doctors, we wanted Aboriginal nurses, we wanted Aboriginal health workers. And that's another thing we should talk about the movement of, of our right to have Aboriginal health workers work as professionals alongside of doctors and nurses and others. But we were developing our knowledge based on what is the West, or the white way of looking after your health, in a predominantly white country, so we needed to know how we could live a quality of life, which was something that others were living, and they were all mainly white skinned people. So we fought, and today we know we need to heal services based on the statistics, the life expectancy, the morbidity rates are all out of kilter, they show that in most cases, people are still living at least 10 years, less than their non Aboriginal colleagues and in some regions around Australia, that is a lot higher. And in some families in Australia, that's a lot higher. And some families have become more adept at getting their children and the quality of life to be improved. But we aint anywhere near what we require in relation to being competitive, being resilient enough to make sure our children turn into deadly adults. We still got a long way to go, Lidia, and it started off--

Lidia  15:55

Why? Why, why is it so hard for Aboriginal people to maintain Aboriginal services? And particularly Aboriginal health services? Why is it so hard?

Ted  16:07

Well, we've got absorbed into the mainstream system in a sense. I think we had to do that. We have to remember in the days when ATSIC was in Vogue, and NAIHO had moved into another paradigm and called itself NACCHO. So NAIHO from the National Aboriginal Islander Health Organisation, which worked on a basis of consensus, so everyone was able to agree. But as we grew, as we grew into an organisation called NACCHO, we found that there were more people sitting around the table. And it was very difficult to get consensus, because we have our own diversity in Aboriginal Australia. Some of us live in very remote communities and still talk our language, still very much the hunter gatherer type societies back in them days. We've moved on a little bit, but we're still hunters and gatherers in many cases. But we do know that the quality of life, as I said before, is something that we have to fight for. The mainstream systems definitely aren't helping. We still have that fear that if we go to hospital, we're not going to come back out. We know that if we go to prison systems, we get treated very badly and there's a dinky die fear of racism in this country, still allowing white fellows to believe that we're not human beings in the proper context. And you know, terra nullius is something that we still wear with us, and we will fight to say no, we are fellas just to say that, but they still have the power. They run their governments with a system of controlling us, we know that of keeping us out on the poverty line or just above the poverty line. They have no real intentions in my eyes, to get us into a quality of life together with them in a short time, we can do it within a generation, if they put the resources in. We have talked about putting in hump funding, instead of levelled out funding that goes on for years and years, put in the billions of dollars that are needed upfront, build the houses, build the roads into these remote communities, get rid of the rubbish tips that are up the wind, bring some swimming pools into these communities, make sure that urban lifestyle for Aboriginal people is very similar to others. We need businesses, we need to be doctors, we need to be politicians, thank you for proving that we need people like you in politics, and we need to be a part of the mainstream system. But until we get our spirit and our health back, we demand that we have a pathway that we can control to do that. But having the pathway and controlling it can't be done unless we get the proper resources to build infrastructure around those pathways. That's why.

Lidia  18:58

So one of the other areas that we've, well through my journey, and my upbringing, and what I've been taught by my old people and talking to mob around the country is that people need healing time and people need a healing place. And a lot of our people don't have a place to go to heal. And so one of the other things that I'll be calling for, as part of me being a politician, but also going into election and talking about what I want to do as part of my role is to enable Clans and Nations to have healing places so that they could self determine what that looks like, but in the context of health. And Marj, I was just wondering if you could comment on what you think about that initiative and what that would mean or why that is important.

Marjorie  19:53 

Yes, well, as Ted just mentioned, and I actually had that thought, in my mind, right from the outset, is one of the first slogans or one of the many slogans that came about in the very early days was "land is health". And also combined with that, the dispossession, you know, and the removal and the dislocation and fragmentation of our communities and families has created a catastrophe for us, and we're still living that legacy. So we're really far behind the eight ball because we have no land to speak of. We also have lost our cultural values, and one of the things in the early days of the health services, there was that connection to those cultural values, you know when the move was made and it was pretty much forced on us at the time about the shift of policy. And we agreed to it, and the reason for our bad health was because we'd been subjected to substandard living conditions. And when you look at in human rights terms, you know, we were, we were subjected to conditions of life that were designed to destroy us. So you're talking about assimilation policies and policies in the early days and probably still have remnants of that right now is where the whole concept of the policies designed, were actually to assimilate us and therefore erase us. And that's what we're still suffering from, and some of the early research in the area of mental health research, you know, the reasons for our bad health is based on grief, trauma and loss. So we don't even have the will to be well, if you like, we’re suffering from so much, from abuse and trauma and poverty – poverty is such a debilitating position to be in. And when you can't feed your children with the healthy food that we should be eating, and we did eat when we were living more close to our, our culture and our land. When we were living off the land, we were the most healthy people on earth. So what happened in that 250 years that brought us down to be the sickest people on earth, because of our health status. We're a long way behind and, when we're trying to design the models to address that, you know, they're massive problems, and you just can't dole out the health money to go into programs, it's not enough. There is not enough to, to deal with the backlog of the consequences of the disposition and the invasion of our people.

Lidia  22:20

And that's incredibly important for people to understand that it's not separate. And that Aboriginal people look at life holistically. So you can't fix a broken finger, when the rest of the body’s falling apart, and your country's falling apart, and your family's falling apart, and people are being incarcerated. So if we don't look at health holistically, then we're starting way behind the eight ball. Now, I just wanted to ask, now, this is going to be a really hard question. Because these podcasts are something new for our elders. And, we want to get the message as clear as we can to our listeners out there. And so if there were, if you were the Prime Minister, and you could do three things in Aboriginal Health today, what would be those three things? Ted, I'll start with you.

Ted  23:24

Probably start crying because there's a lot more than three things that are required. But if we knew that we would be trying to use maybe a process which we've already got in place, and the words closing the gap I have a problem with, but it's a necessary requirement to make sure that we look after the children. And one of those would be what I would consider as one of those three priorities that children from birth need to be nurtured through and we know that the early, early years pathways are so crucial and important because physically and mentally, children need to be our hereafter, and we need to make sure that that's covered properly. The other other consideration that I would have is to make sure and Marj and I both talked about culture and land and health being one that we have access to land that can take care of the healing. And when you've got access to land, which gives you places to enjoy the water, which is on the land, and water is another issue, but the life systems out on the lands for many of our people, even those that live in cities. We should have proper access to places within cities, including rivers and parklands that we can acquire and access in our own unique way. So land is probably another priority that I would put up, so children, land and water and culture go together and the third one would be developing the infrastructure within the systems to be compatible. Rather than having an Aboriginal community organised structure out there on its own, it needs to be working in unison and compatible and not from an Aboriginal point of view it needs at the mainstream organisations need to be put on notice that they need to be compatible, and working in line with the cultural obligations that they have to make to Aboriginal people. So those are my three major ways of saying we can then start to think about closing the gap, closing the gap is not going to happen in my lifetime, probably won't happen in my children's lifetime. So, I'm frustrated with the terminology of closing the gap.

Marjorie  25:51

I agree with all that Ted said, I think that but to get that, that so long, protracted process. That's a problem that we have so frustrating. So I think we need a Treaty that recognises the First Peoples of this land. And I think that part of the reparations, which needs to be figured out, in terms of loss of land, loss of income, loss of health, as a consequence of not having that land, and therefore losing our connection with our culture, we have to address those issues. And I think that the, what's happened as a result of that, just how hard it is trying to work through this, you know, this quagmire of policies and rules and regulations of how it's supposed to get any money is that we need to be enabled to be able to do those things for ourself. And we don't need others to do it for us. Yes, if we need expertise to, you know, if for some technical reason, Well, fine, but it needs to be totally in control. And this is a very difficult aspect of it, because everyone wants to be in control. But I think if you go back to traditional structures, and adapted those to the 21st century, then I reckon that you would find a way to a better decision making that should be based on who has the authority to make those decisions. And it should be in agreeance with other family groups within that particular area of land. And I think that the, the dislocation of people from dispersal from their lands, being locked up on missions and reserves to the children being taken away, is a massive hard hit to our people, is because what's happened to those people who have been removed from that they are suffering from enormous problems relating to identity, and self confidence and, you know, a whole range of other areas that have serious consequences on their mental health. And I think that our grief, trauma and loss and they're only little words, but they relate to huge issues that most of our people are facing right now. So we need to find ways for healing that needs to happen on country, that's critical. And the children, of course, the children need to be put up there as sacred, they are sacred, and that we should be doing all of the above for our future generations.

Ted  28:27

Let me just add there, the comment Marjorie made about the Treaty, if we get the Treaty right. Okay, if we get the Treaty, right, and it has to come down through the national government of this country, because they're the ones that are representing the Westminster system and the British colonisers and the invaders. We can do all of those other things. And we can do them in a shorter time than we would otherwise want to do it. At the moment, we're lingering, we're loitering. And we've been cleverly manipulated by some very insincere others, who sit in Parliaments and who sit in mining industry boardrooms, and who sit in other boardrooms. So we need to get them out of our way and we need to talk directly with the politicians in this country about a Treaty. And then we can bring about all of these good things.

Marjorie  29:20

And I think Treaty has to be based on full prior and informed consent of the people whose land and the Peoples, of which there are many groups of Peoples across this country, all need to be included. I think that what we have right now is that we have the power and the resources are on one hand, and on our side of it, we have the we have the power because we have not given consent and there needs to be a reconciliation of how do we go forward to a better country than what we've got right now for everybody.

Lidia  29:57

Thank you, you know, that's a lot of history. And I think, between you, there's almost 100 years of experience. Both of you have worked in Aboriginal Health Services, both of you have been CEOs of Aboriginal Health Services. And both of you have been very senior in being at the table and trying to fight governments to change their ways in how they operate with us and deal with us. And, and you are both very well respected elders, in your own communities and nationally. But I just want to say thank you both very much. Marjorie, what are you holding up there? Because it's a podcast so people can't see your jumper. Okay, what does the new t shirt say I'm holding

Marjorie  30:52

up a new t shirt that I got from Areeka

Lidia 30:57

Right, and what does it say?

Marjorie  31:00

It says “land back”

Lidia 31:01

“Land Back” there you go

Marjorie 31:02

I got it this morning in a parcel.

Lidia  31:05

Okay, well, you've heard it here, first on the Lidia Thorpe podcast on Aboriginal health. And we have two very staunch Elders with us in conversation about the philosophy of Aboriginal health and the politics of Aboriginal health. So just to finish off, then, if you could just have a brief comment on what is the role right now of Aboriginal Health Services in COVID? Or what should it be?

Ted  31:35

I believe that they're doing their best. And we have to trust that the leaders of our organisations and the NACCHO and the peak bodies, we've placed a lot of trust in them. And I do believe they're given it their best shot. And it's a hard road in there when you're working alongside mainstream systems. My take on it would be to, to certainly support those structures that NAIHO and NACCHO have built into the system. At the moment some of the AMS’ is being integrated and assimilated back into mainstream systems, we need to be wise enough and careful that we don't allow ourselves to be absorbed back into the mainstream and therefore become mainstream players. So that's my major point and that that is also true to the Aboriginal legal services and the Aboriginal land councils around our country. Those are probably the main three that I would say guess we need to protect with a rigor that allows us to feel good.

Marjorie  32:41  

I think health services are doing the very best they can. I think it's important that people help those who are in lockdown and in fear of this COVID that we need the very best information that is available based on the science. And also people need to stay connected, because there's a lot of people that are having a hard time who have been locked down. You know, sometimes they haven't got food, they haven't got anyone to talk to for two weeks. That's frightening. So I think communication is critical for our people that they're not isolated or out there on their own. You know, one thing that I must say that is missing that we didn't mention, and I meant to is everyone needs shelter. Everyone needs to be able to be sheltered from the storm. Housing is a massive problem. You know, the substandard housing our people live in, is an indictment on this country. And housing is very critical for good health.

Lidia  33:41  

Yes, it is. And housing enables good health. It also enables a lot of other opportunities in your life. So thank you for making sure that that was part of this podcast, because that is how Aboriginal people look at the holistic approach to oneself being in good health and being able to participate in life.

Ted 34:07  

Can I just add to that the issue of housing is certainly very important. It's the most important issue that confronts us if we get the shelter for our families, and for those people living outside of cities in cold and hot climates. Yes, that's necessary, but the social determinants of health which, white fellas use, and these were framed by two scientists from London, ma Martin Wilkinson, and they cover about 10 of these and there are things like housing, transport, our mob need proper transport, income, we need proper income so that we're not scraping the barrel of incomes. We need proper respect for others. So we talk about neighbours. We talk about all of those o ther issues, the development of food sources for our children as we we've already heard Margie talk about breakfasts and lunches and we still have children going to school hungry in this country. So these determinants of health are all important, but there are about 10 or I can't remember more, but yeah, housing is the predominant one. And if we can get that fixed up, I reckon that we can make some inroads into improving our poverty within a generation or two.

Lidia  35:31  

[Outro Music Playing]

Thank you very much. I'm sitting here on more Wurundjeri country and Ted and Marj are sitting in Perth in WA

Marjorie  35:42  

Noongar Boodja 

Ted  35:44  

She's in Noongar now, we're not going back. Noongar Boodja, yeah, that's Noongar land

Lidia  35:50  

Well, I'll be over there soon to come and get ya. Thanks for your time hey, and take care and stay safe.

Ted  36:00  

No worries. Thank you.

Lidia  36:06  

If you have been inspired by anything you've heard in this podcast, check out the show notes for ways to continue your learning and how you can take action and be part of taking this country forward. 

This podcast is authorised by me. Senator Thorpe at four Treasury Place East Melbourne, Victoria 3001.