Mimi Kwa (00:03):
People say life is a journey, not a destination. But how do you know you’re on the right path?
Jo Stanley (00:09):
If only we could see the signs when they appear.
Mimi Kwa (00:13):
Well, I’m Mimi Kwa.
Jo Stanley (00:14):
And I’m Jo Stanley.
Mimi Kwa (00:15):
And on A to Be, we speak to fascinating people about how they navigated their way to be here now, having profound impact on the world.
Jo Stanley (00:25):
We hope our conversations will help you reflect on everything you’ve been through to get here, the triumphs, challenges and bumps along the road.
Mimi Kwa (00:35):
And if you haven’t already, find your own map to what matters.
Thomas Mayo (00:40):
I was a wharfie when the 1998 Patrick’s dispute happened. They moved mercenaries in on the wharfs in the middle of the night, and physically dragged us from the cranes and locked us out of our livelihoods. I was 20 year old with three little babies. Tough. It was tough. So, it was through all of that, I learned about injustices, I learned to speak up, and then I began to apply that to my own people’s struggles.
Jo Stanley (01:02):
Thomas Mayo is one of the First Nations leaders who has led the yes campaign in Australia’s historic referendum for constitutional recognition.
Mimi Kwa (01:11):
I first met him when he was speaking at the Bendigo Writers Festival, and he actually recited the Uluru Statement from the Heart to a packed audience. And it was so moving, there was not a dry eye in the house. Everyone gave him a standing ovation. It was amazing.
Jo Stanley (01:28):
And Mimi, there is so much misunderstanding around what a voice to parliament even means. And Thomas’s mission has been to make it clear and simplify his message. And he has such intention around this. So, it begs the question, how do we know when we’re called to something much bigger and greater than ourselves? And how do we heed that call to give over and truly be of service to history?
Mimi Kwa (01:54):
This is a powerful conversation about equity, reconciliation, and a little boy who barely spoke up in class, and is now leading the movement of a nation.
Jo Stanley (02:07):
We hope you love this conversation as much as we did.
Mimi Kwa (02:11):
Thomas Mayo, welcome to A to Be. We are so excited to have you here because Jo and I can honestly not think of anything more important than what you are doing. So, you’ve had such a journey over the last six years. Who have you met? What have you been doing? I know that’s a really big question, but what are some of the highlights, I suppose, since you were entrusted with carrying the Statement from the Heart across Australia?
Thomas Mayo (02:36):
Yeah. Well, it’s been a long journey. At this point, it’s more than six years I’ve been working on this campaign, which leads to this opportunity where Australians will have the opportunity to answer the invitation that is in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. And the Uluru Statement, for the listeners, was made in 2017. And it was the culmination of 12 regional dialogues covering the entire continent and adjacent islands. It was 100 participants, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 100 participants, not to exclude anyone, but to ensure a cross-section of experiences and perspectives, different types of advocates, not just the loudest of our people, but the quieter healers and service workers. Those on the front line of that important work.
(03:23):
And after all of those dialogues, we elected delegates and we came together, the delegates at Uluru, in the heart of the nation, to bring together, basically, the priority set in those dialogues, what sort of constitutional recognition indigenous people would like to see. And we brought it together in one collective statement, and that’s the Uluru Statement. It was dismissed almost immediately by the government, but we predicted that. It was one of the lessons that go into the Uluru Statement, that we’ve had many statements and petitions before, all written to kings and queens, or parliament, that have ignored these petitions and statements that have all called for a voice over and over again.
(04:06):
And so, this time, this statement was written to the Australian people. And so, when it was dismissed, I was entrusted with the canvas that the statement is written on and the artwork is printed on. I encourage people to have a look at the beautiful image of that statement, and we built a peoples’ movement. And we didn’t take no for an answer. We know that we need a voice because it’ll be a practical thing to improve our lives. We know that we deserve constitutional recognition because, as science says, we’ve been here for over 60,000 years, let alone our artwork and stories that confirm all of this. And so, we’re now at a point where a government is allowing the people to respond, and that’s what a referendum is.
Jo Stanley (04:49):
So, you then toured around the country, essentially, with this sacred document. And to Mimi’s point, what was that like? Did you meet people? Was there a moment that you have carried with you since then that really struck you and you hold in your heart?
Thomas Mayo (05:07):
Yeah, I think, well, firstly, the moment when the Uluru Statement was endorsed at Uluru, there was 270 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people there. And there were some real warriors, leaders, people that had done some significant work in trying to improve our standing in this country and our people’s lives. People like Uncle Sol Bellear, who’s since passed on, but he was one of the leaders that established the first medical service in Redfern. Auntie Pat Anderson, who was a leader in the health space and was the co-chair of the process that led to the Uluru Statement. Just some really wonderful people. John Christopherson, a leader in the Northern Territory from Kakadu, from Arnhem Land. Tony Wurramarrba, the chair of the Anindilyakwa Land Council on Groote Island. Just some really, really significant indigenous leaders.
(06:07):
And to stand with them and endorse it… 250 of 270 endorsed it. A handful of our people walked out in protest. That’s normal politics, right? We’re not homogenous. We don’t all agree on things, but that was the most significant moment for me. It was difficult to reach a consensus. The nature of consensus is that it’s not everything that everybody wants, but I think it’s found the balance. Some people are saying, “It’s too powerful a proposal, this voice.” Some people are saying, “It’s too weak,” when really, it’s right down the middle. It’s an advisory body.
(06:37):
But traveling then with the statement, the first place I took it to was Gurindji Country. When I picked it up from… It had been painted in Mutitjulu, the community close to Uluru. Went to the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land, and that’s where I picked it up from. Took it to the Gurindji mob, the anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off, which in 1966, 200 Aboriginal stock workers and domestics and their families walked off Wave Hill Station because they were only being paid in rations. So, just some flour and tobacco, basically. They were doing 16-hour days. It was basically slavery that they were protesting. They say it was about equal wages.
(07:15):
You’ve no doubt heard the song by Kevin Carmody and Paul Kelly, From Little Things Big Things Grow, and that song is about that. But that was the first place I took it to. Met those elders and leaders, said that we got it right at Uluru. Then to Lombadina, and The Kimberley, a big meeting of traditional owners there. Yule River Bush Meeting in the Pilbara. And then, just crisscrossed the country for the last six years, really. Just helping people to understand what it calls for. It’s been a great experience.
Jo Stanley (07:44):
It strikes me that this is a podcast about origin stories and the making of who we are. And for me, this is such a moment in time for Australia. This is a historic moment where we get to choose what kind of nation we want to live in. And I see that image of you standing next to the prime minister. What a moment in time when he was announcing that there’s going to be a referendum. Do you remember standing next to the prime minister and thinking, “I’m a part of history”?
Thomas Mayo (08:12):
Yeah, it took a lot of work is what I was thinking about. I mean, the emotions for me really came about because of the hard work that had been done to reach this point. And so, there was the hard work that my ancestors and elders did to create the lessons that go into the Uluru Statement, to learn from our mistakes, to learn from what had been tried and what had failed, to learn from the games that politicians will play with our lives, these sorts of things, to learn from voices that we’d established that had been silenced by hostile governments and how important the voice is to taking our people forward. That was a lot of hard work in itself. And then, for us to have the debate and discussion, to, in an informed way, make the most of that unique opportunity that we had, which was to come together after such a well-formulated process of consensus building. That was hard work too. And then, the negotiations themselves.
(09:15):
So, the morning that I was standing with the prime minister and a whole lot of other indigenous leaders, we’d done months of work to negotiate what words would go into the constitution with an expert group of constitutional experts, former chief high justices, and the most respected constitutional academics. And we negotiated what the question would be and the words, and reached another agreement, really. And that was so emotional because I believe that we found words that indigenous people could say is true to what the Uluru Statement called for. It gives us a guarantee of a say, but in a way that is both constitutionally sound and could be accepted in a referendum. And we’ll find that out soon. But I think Australians will vote yes. The only reason they’d vote no is if they’re confused and if the fearmongers get through to make them scared of a change.
Mimi Kwa (10:20):
And that leads me to this idea that the antidote to fear and anger and doubt can only be trust. And so, you’ve written this handbook to try to cultivate trust in those people who do have fear or have doubt about the yes campaign, and what it means to vote yes in a referendum. Is that what you see as the way to overcome people’s fear around it? Is it just by making a watertight argument the way that you have?
Thomas Mayo (10:47):
Yeah, it’s a tool, I think. The Voice to Parliament Handbook: All The Details You Need, that Kerry O’Brien and I have written. To help people, I think, give the antidote to people, to use your terminology, because I think the antidote is love and-
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:11:04]
Thomas Mayo (11:03):
… terminology, because I think the antidote is love and care. I think that if people have conversations with others, with people who trust them and say, “I’ve taken the time to understand this. I can answer your concerns in a respectful way, in an informed way,” and say to others, “I have bothered to look into this and I am going to be voting yes because I believe that it’s safe, but also important to our nation and to Indigenous people,” then I think most people will just need that to quell their fears, someone that they love saying to them, “I’ve looked into this, I can answer any concerns you’ve got. I’m voting yes, vote yes with me.”
Mimi Kwa (11:42):
I’m going to quote the Dalai Lama here because I know Jo loves when I bring out a quote from the Dalai Lama.
Jo Stanley (11:47):
Love it.
Mimi Kwa (11:47):
I may need to check my sources. He says, “To accept what we cannot change and change what we cannot accept.” So we are really dying to know Thomas Mayo, what is it that made you the type of person who wants to change what you cannot accept?
Thomas Mayo (12:06):
Well, obviously firstly, my family is impacted by the realities of the traumas that we carry from colonization. So the genocide that followed, the forced assimilation, those really harmful discriminatory policies, and prejudice every day that when you look at what happened to that young fellow in WA not that long ago, that on the basis of my children being Indigenous and that something like that could happen just because they are Indigenous, that these are real impacts on my life and my children’s life today, that I believe when Australians unify around this, and there’s people trying to make this to bicycle, but really it’s a unifying moment that we’re talking about here, accepting that we have an Indigenous heritage as Australians, accepting that there is this gap that we must do something different to change, which is to guarantee a voice in the Constitution.
(13:07):
I think that’s going to go such a long way to stop racism. And it’s always going to be there. You can never get rid of racist altogether. It’s something that is always around. But I think with that acceptance, that unifying moment, that saying, “Yes, we believe that Indigenous people are part of who we are as Australians and something we should celebrate,” that’s going to improve our lives in that way, in such a symbolic way, not just a practical way that I talked about where a voice influences policies and laws.
Jo Stanley (13:42):
Thomas, we want to understand what has brought you to this moment in your time because you are a powerful leader. You’re having a huge impact on our country, and we’re thankful to you for what really is a lot of sacrifice. You’re away from your family and your children as you lead us towards what we hope is a yes. So even as you talk about your origin stories as a people, most of us don’t have as a part of our origin, our relatives, or our ancestors being dispossessed or persecuted or that generational trauma of genocide that you speak of. I cannot begin to fathom the impact of that on you as a person. Are you able to give us some kind of insight into what you carry because of that history?
Thomas Mayo (14:28):
I’m a very practical person, so I’ve already mentioned what it means to my family and everything, and then I look at how it affects other people, and then you look at the statistics that we should be ashamed of as Australians, let alone to Indigenous a problem that’s just Indigenous peoples alone. Indigenous people have a life expectancy gap of almost 10 years. I think it’s eight years, and as the Uluru Statement from the Heart says proportionately, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet, and it’s fact-checked and it checks out. Proportionately the most incarcerated people on the planet are the Indigenous peoples of our country. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but it has nothing to do with my culture or my DNA. My children can understand the difference between right or wrong, the same as any other child that’s loved and taught and cared for.
(15:27):
This shouldn’t be the case in Australia. I’m motivated by the practical change that this will provide. This is a matter of the honorary statement says, “These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness. We see constitutional change to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny, our children will flourish, they will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.” That’s why we call for a voice because it’s a structural and political problem, not a matter of Indigenous people, ourselves, our culture, our heritage, our lack of humanity. It can be fixed with a voice, and that’s what motivates me, just the pure logic of that and the desire to get change.
Mimi Kwa (16:19):
You are helping to bring a voice to a whole people, but when did you find your voice, Thomas? Because you’d spoken about as a child, you didn’t speak out and you were very quiet.
Thomas Mayo (16:30):
Yeah, a very quiet fellow. Even as a young adult, people thought I didn’t have a voice at all, I was so quiet in the workplace, but I think… Well, I know I found my voice really firstly because I’m moved by injustice. I’ve never been able to stand someone being mistreated sort of thing. But then on the wharf, I was a wharfie from when I was 17 years old and I learned about organizing. I learned about how to help each other, to stick together, to bring your voices together and get change. And so on the wharf, my union, the maritime unit of Australia, we didn’t use our strength of unity to just leverage decent wages and conditions, but there’s a long history of union supporting social justice struggle and in particular the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
(17:26):
And so I began to learn about politics, I began to learn about working together as a collective. I learned about injustices. I was on the wharf when the 1998 Patrick’s dispute happened, which is just briefly for those that don’t know about it, basically, the Howard government at the time colluded with Patrick Steven, and they moved mercenaries in on the wharf in the middle of the night and physically dragged us from the cranes and forklifts and locked us out of our livelihoods. I was 20 year old with three little babies. So it was through all of that that I learned to speak up and I learned about sticking together. And then I began to apply that to my own people’s struggles. Like when Tony Abbott was a prime minister in 2015, he cut hundreds of millions of dollars from services to remote aboriginal communities.
(18:15):
And I’ll just say this for the listeners, if you think about the repercussions of these sorts of decisions, you think about, and we hear it in the news a lot at the moment, to try and discredit our push for a voice, which is quite ironic because a voice is about resolving issues, but if people talk about the youth crime in Alice Springs, for example, which when you think about the decision to cut services to people with fetal alcohol syndrome that already have issues with domestic violence, which again, isn’t a matter of our Indigenous culture or anything, it’s a matter of poverty, these things are more prevalent where there is poverty and trauma is carried from generation to generation and a loss of hope, unemployment, low education, but the impact that that decision had is felt in those communities still today with it made things worse. And so yeah, I got more involved in those sorts of issues and it brings us to where we are today. Our voice is the way to close the gap.
Jo Stanley (19:20):
What about you personally though, Thomas? If you are someone who as a child, right up to being a young adult, didn’t say much, was pretty quietly spoken or kept your thoughts to yourself, was there someone for you that you could speak to, a person that you did confide in that was really important to you?
Thomas Mayo (19:37):
Yeah. The old workmates for me were very important in those days. People that had been involved in taking supplies to the goji mob during the Wakefield Walk Off in the sixties and seventies. It was important to learn that history and understand things, but also my own family, elders and uncles, talking to them about culture and history as well. They’ve really shaped me over the years.
Mimi Kwa (20:06):
You’ve really found your voice through writing as well, haven’t you? I mean, that started out as your real voice to a broader audience beyond just your work community. So how did the writing start?
Thomas Mayo (20:17):
Well, I’d been traveling with the Uluru statement canvas, the physical sacred document that I was entrusted with for about 12 months, almost without a break, because I never left it sitting in my hotel room or my cupboard at home. I was just constantly rolling this out in front of conferences or even small groups of half a dozen people, and met all these wonderful people that had different ways of understanding the Uluru statement and why they supported a voice. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, some maybe that nobody had ever heard of in these little communities. So I thought, I’ve got to share this experience and these photos that I’ve got of people standing posing with a statement and everything, and I thought I would do a little colorful picture book with short interviews, but I’d never written before.
(21:02):
And I rang Marcia Langton, I said, “I got this idea for this book.” And Marcia said, “It’s a good idea,” because Marcia had just written Welcome to the Country. So she hooked me up with a publisher, and next thing you know, I’ve never done an interview before, anything, I’ve never written more than a newsletter, and it’s 260 something pages, the book, Finding the Heart of the Nation, a narrative. But you see, I’ve got the confidence to do that, I think way back in year 11 when an English teacher, I got an A for a descriptive test that I did because sort of clicked in my mind. I’ll just do some big words and that sort of thing, and I’ll go all right, and I got an A, but she encouraged me. She said I should write a book one day and I never believed it. And when I had the thing that I believed in enough to get stuck into it and I had the opportunity, I went away and did it.
Mimi Kwa (21:52):
Have you reached out to her? Has she read your book?
Thomas Mayo (21:54):
I’ve tried to find her. Her name is Miss Arthur, if anyone knows her, she taught at Catarina College in Darwin back in 1993, I think it was.
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:22:04]
Thomas Mayo (22:02):
Back in 1993, I think it was. So yeah, I would love to get in touch with it.
Mimi Kwa (22:06):
Isn’t that beautiful that you, through this incredible work of Voice to Parliament, Uluru Statement of the Heart, you found your voice, you found an access to what has been inside you all along.
Thomas Mayo (22:21):
Yeah, it is. Who would’ve thought, hey? Quite… Little skinny Thomas-
Mimi Kwa (22:29):
Miss Arthur did.
Thomas Mayo (22:29):
Yeah, Miss Arthur. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s pretty incredible to think about.
Mimi Kwa (22:33):
It is. I mean, look at you now. You think back to your young, formative years, and you talked a lot about how you played sport and how you were really a part of your family and community, but now you are part of a much bigger family, a bigger community, and you’re doing something that’s actually impacting not only indigenous people in Australia and beyond, not only the entire Australian population, but you are impacting the world.
Thomas Mayo (22:59):
Yeah. Wow. When you put it like that. No, I’m just doing what I think is right. That’s all. Day by day. As I said before we started with the podcast, I don’t stress easy. I tell myself just to do my best. But actually on the topic of what this podcast is, the theme of the podcast, and this is what I tell young people now, that they might feel like they’re doing a dead end job sort of thing. Something that’s not really glamorous or amounting to anything, but it all adds up. And what I found when I wrote that first book and found myself having to tell my own story to give context to the whole thing, that all those little things that I did, when you bring it together, it’s something unique and it’s something that’s powerful if you just keep taking those opportunities and doing your best.
Mimi Kwa (23:48):
What’s one of those little things that you now look back and go, “Wow, that’s really, at the time I thought it was a nothing, and it was actually really a big part of the puzzle that makes me.”
Thomas Mayo (23:58):
Yeah. Oh, I guess firstly, becoming a delegate on the walk and just doing what I thought was right for my fellow workers. It was formative to have to stand up to a boss at the time that was quite intimidating and quite tactical in the way that he tried to split us apart and undermine us. The experiences of doing that, tough, it was tough, especially after the big ’98 Patricks dispute. It was hard work, felt lonely at times. Maybe that’s what gives me my calm now.
(24:33):
But then also to go back, actually, growing up, my father always told me I was stupid, basically. He often told me that when I got something a bit wrong, and just that in itself has probably shaped me. Maybe that’s why I’m calm. But then just sort of moments where I’ve gotten things done, things that I can be proud of, even if it’s small things like helping a worker on the job in my early twenties and working out slowly, working out, “Actually, I do have some brains.” I can actually write a book. I can actually represent people and articulate things, and it’s just, yeah, just bit by bit.
Mimi Kwa (25:15):
Has your relationship with your father, and it sounds like he was pretty tough on you, which obviously could have been personal to him, or just a generational thing as well, has that relationship and how that shaped you, really informed the way you relate to your children?
Thomas Mayo (25:32):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was definitely partly a generational thing. He was of the time of Torres Strait Islanders that were famously hard workers, right? Torres Strait Islanders have the world record for laying track, railway track in the Pilbara, in the heat of the Pilbara, just hard workers. And that’s like my dad has an attitude of just getting on with things. So very much of his time, although my aunties, say he’s harsher than, I know, he was harsher than the others. They feel a bit sorry for me now. They said, “Oh, I wish we had have said something back then.”
(26:02):
But he always had my best interests in mind. That was just his way of trying to make sure that I would have a good life. He didn’t want me to fail. He didn’t want me to do stupid things because he understood that the world wouldn’t love me like he did type of thing. And I’ve written a book called Dear Son that explores these things. Dear Son, Reflections from First Nations Fathers and Sons, and to analyze all of that, it was very healing. We still have a great relationship, my dad and I. He’s still grumpy and everything, but I love him a lot.
Mimi Kwa (26:35):
Your dad would carry a lot of intergenerational trauma as well. He was born before Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were even recognized as Australian citizens. So what sort of impact do you think all of that had on him and how that played out in his parenting?
Thomas Mayo (26:52):
Yeah. No, it’s certainly had an influence on his own parenting. I mean, he was so harsh because he was afraid for me, I think. But what I do, I didn’t answer your question before because I ramble on and get lost, but how I transfer these lessons onto my kids, I think is what’s important. I think understanding ourselves and keeping an open mind to why people are the way they are or do the things they do. I think that’s something important to teach our children, and that’s what I try and do now.
(27:21):
I was a single father for a couple of years and learned a lot through doing that myself. Some terrible attitudes that I had myself, gender roles and all this sort of stuff, that I’ve learned better. An example of that terrible attitude was that when my son got to a certain age, I wouldn’t hold his hand in public. I said, “You’re too old to hold my hand in public now. You’re a boy, and we shouldn’t be holding hands anymore,” which was just so terrible. And so basically, it’s something that I have learned. And to conclude the letter I said, “And I’m going to hold your hand.” He’s 23 now. I don’t think they want to hold my hand, but-
Mimi Kwa (28:00):
I have been forever shaped by my daughter, as I’m sure all parents are by their kids. How have you been shaped by your kids?
Thomas Mayo (28:12):
Oh gee, so much. One thing I’ll share is I remember when my first child was born, Shayla, and I was a crane driver and all the big machines down the wharf and work at heights and stuff like that. And up in the big crane, the container crane, they look like a big giraffe, those harbor cranes. And I was up there and I was never scared of anything, sort of thing. And I just remember this shift in my mind when my first child was born, and suddenly I felt every bump, and I don’t know what that was, but maybe you have this thing where you naturally start to think more deeply about surviving so you can look after your kids and everything. I don’t know if that’s an interesting story or not.
Mimi Kwa (28:54):
Yeah, that is. I remember as soon as I had my first child, I couldn’t read the news when I was a news anchor without crying in the break because everything affected me so much more.
Thomas Mayo (29:04):
It does change – .
Mimi Kwa (29:05):
Mortality was something that I considered on a daily basis, so I totally get it.
Jo Stanley (29:11):
Oh, it makes so much sense. I also really love when we read about your story, Thomas, and this conversation is always about putting together the pieces that make you who are right now. So I’m wondering about your physicality. You were a rugby player, I know that you learned island dances. You were a laborer. Do you feel that you carry a bit of your identity in your body?
Thomas Mayo (29:34):
Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know.
Mimi Kwa (29:37):
Like how you move or how you hold yourself?
Thomas Mayo (29:39):
Oh yeah. I’m pretty masculine and stuff. I like to keep fit. I love rugby. I love taking people on and all that. Yes, that does play out in the rough and tumble of this campaign. Sometimes when I’m standing in front of people and I know some of them are hostile, I do my best to not be intimidated by that sort of stuff. I feel like also for such a cross section, Australia is all sorts of people, and so I’m able to mix it with blue collar people, laborer workers. I was just talking to a bunch of workers this morning from a male dominated industry, but at the same time communicating in business meetings and all the rest.
Mimi Kwa (30:21):
So, Thomas, what’s just come up for me is, is there a sense of drawing on your ancestry, the Torres Strait Islander ancestry, the Aboriginal ancestry, and the past? I mean, it’s 60,000 years. We are here now, but that 60 millennia of history that walks with you?
Thomas Mayo (30:41):
Yeah, no, definitely makes me walk taller. Being connected to my culture and understanding it and knowing it, living and breathing it. It makes me think of how we can help indigenous children by helping them to connect with culture and be proud of who they are. I mean, we see it. I mean, even the experts will tell you that that makes a difference in how a child progresses through life and contributes to society.
(31:09):
I think about how the incarceration rates or the statistics around children in detention in the Northern Territory, almost all of the time, a hundred percent of the children in the youth detention facilities like Don Dale, which is still open, and I encourage people to have a look at what Don Dale, what happened there in 2016, what was exposed. But almost all of the time, all of the children are indigenous. And treating them the way that we treat children as young as 10 at the moment, only makes things worse. And we really need to do better about helping children to connect with culture, to give them that spring in their step and feel proud and be better contributors to society.
Mimi Kwa (31:48):
What is your sense of being? You’ve stepped into a very, very strong and powerful purpose in this life. So what is it to be Thomas Mayo? And actually, we should actually segue into the fact that you were actually Thomas Mayor not long ago.
Thomas Mayo (32:04):
Well, firstly, yes. I was Thomas Mayo last year. I’ve changed my name to Mayo, M-A-Y-O, instead of, took off the R from the end because my father’s generation, when they were christened, when his older brother was christened, the priest said that our name was spelled wrong, and it should be Mayor, with the R. And late last year at a ceremony, a tombstone unveiling ceremony, which is a very special ceremony in Torres Strait culture, my cousins and I sort of noted that my grandma and other elders, they were still Mayo on their headstones and we decided to change it back to Mayo. But what is it to be Thomas Mayo? I don’t know. I just do what I think is right from day to day. People probably think I’m more strategic than I am, but all I’m doing is just following my heart, doing what I know is right and doing my best.
Mimi Kwa (32:54):
What would you say to your younger self as well, who had no idea you would one day be where you are now?
Thomas Mayo (33:01):
Geez, I really would like to say to my younger self.
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:33:04]
Mimi Kwa (33:03):
… here you are now.
Thomas Mayo (33:03):
Geez. I really would like to say to my younger self to believe in myself then that I’m not stupid, and to have started to do some of the things that I’ve done earlier than I did, more time to make a difference.
Jo Stanley (33:15):
Oh my gosh. You started in the union movement when you were in your early twenties. That’s pretty good.
Thomas Mayo (33:21):
Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah. I mean, my mom said this to me. I say I was a quiet fella and not very confident, and my mom says, “Well, actually, you did put yourself out there and do this at basketball and then this at rugby. You were the captain and blah, blah, blah.” And yeah-
Mimi Kwa (33:37):
That’s a good story to tell.
Thomas Mayo (33:41):
But I’m not talking rubbish though. It’s just that’s how I feel about myself.
Jo Stanley (33:47):
The extraordinary courage that you must have in you, you must have extraordinary inner courage to be able to be a quiet person, yet still take on that role of leader in the unions and on the wharfs and all that. That’s not easy.
Thomas Mayo (34:04):
And I guess we’re all quiet. We all think of ourselves as quiet. We’re all unsure of ourselves, most of us, but that’s what I’d tell my young self. Be more sure of yourself. I don’t know.
Jo Stanley (34:14):
I love it.
Thomas Mayo (34:14):
Maybe that’s a quality though, to be a bit unsure and to be not so confident.
Mimi Kwa (34:21):
What do you say to your kids, Thomas? What advice do you give to them?
Thomas Mayo (34:25):
Oh, I just encourage them to do. Yeah, for example, my young fella wants to go to a fancy boarding school, and none of our other kids or us have had an opportunity like that, but he’s keen as. He’s seen all the opportunities, the activities and all that sort of stuff, and I just want to support them in what they want to do, and I think they can find their way then, as long as you’re there to love and support them. You guys are parents probably.
Mimi Kwa (34:51):
Yeah. Well, look, between us we have as many children as you.
Jo Stanley (34:55):
Between us. I only have one. Mimi has four, so she’s carrying a load there.
Thomas Mayo (35:00):
Yeah, good on you. That’s it.
Jo Stanley (35:05):
Hey, so we have a little feature on the podcast, Thomas, where we share the origin story of a well-known thing, and it’s a bit of a surprise and delight because one of us will surprise the others with it. Mimi doesn’t know what I’m bringing here today, but in this instance, what I’m sharing is an origin story of a saying, a well-known saying, which I actually used the other day and I thought to myself, “I wonder where that came from.” I will reveal the saying as I tell you the story, okay?
(35:32):
So it’s 1807. There was a man called William Cobbett. He was a journalist but actually didn’t really share… He wasn’t writing the news. He was an opinion writer, and he actually wasn’t published by the newspapers. He had his own weekly publication called Political Register. So you can imagine, he was an opinion writer writing his own opinions about politics of the day. I think we all know “journalists” who publish their own opinions in the daily papers. I feel like, yes, you get the sense of what this guy was like, to the point where actually, he was known as Peter Porcupine because he was so aggressive in the way he would take people down in his publications.
(36:13):
Anyway, it’s 1807 so we need to acknowledge it’s a devastating time in Australia for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people because it’s 19 years after Invasion Day. Also in Europe, the Napoleonic Wars are taking place, and the newspapers mistakenly announced that Napoleon had been defeated when actually he hadn’t. It was actually fake news and Peter Porcupine accused them of deliberately distracting from the real issues of the day with this fake news. Again, time hasn’t changed much. And to explain what was going on, he used this story of him as a boy where he used a particularly smelly fish as a decoy to deflect hounds from chasing after a hare, and he said that fish was a red herring.
(37:05):
So he was the first person to use, “That’s a red herring,” as a way of describing deflecting from actually what is going on with a whole bunch of other rubbish, right? Red herring.
Mimi Kwa (37:20):
Wow. I thought you were going to go with porky pies and – .
Thomas Mayo (37:23):
Yeah, I was thinking porky pie too.
Jo Stanley (37:26):
No, red herring, right? Because that’s what they used to do. They used red herring because it was particularly smelly to throw the hounds off a scent, right? And so he used that as a, “This is a red herring, this is fake news.” And I bring that up actually, Thomas, because to bring it back to the yes vote, we are just being inundated with red herrings, aren’t we? With the fearmongers, with the untruths about what the voice to parliament will be around how it’s going to be.
Thomas Mayo (37:54):
They are porky pies.
Jo Stanley (37:55):
Yeah, they are porky pies, but they’re all this notion of it being a constitutional minefield and how it’s just opening a can of worms and all this sort of stuff. We really need to remain focused on the truth as a matter, don’t we?
Mimi Kwa (38:10):
And it’s been so over complicated, hasn’t it? All you were trying to do, Thomas, is just simplify things because it is so simple, isn’t it?
Thomas Mayo (38:18):
Well, it is. It’s not complex. It’s a modest proposal to recognize indigenous people in our founding document by giving us a guarantee that we can have a say about matters that relate to us. Not a third chamber of parliament, not a right to veto. We’re not going to see the wheels of government grind to a halt. The greatest constitutional experts have debunked all of those myths. It’s just recognition with a voice.
Jo Stanley (38:43):
It’s a say on matters that are going to impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to recognizing the constitution. I mean, what kind of country do we want to live in?
Thomas Mayo (38:55):
This is a really important point. We’re the only nation that doesn’t have constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples or a treaty. We’re actually catching up here. It’s not even anything new. We’re just catching up with the rest of the first world countries in this world here.
Mimi Kwa (39:14):
Plus we pride ourselves on so many things in Australia, and yet we are so behind in this.
Thomas Mayo (39:20):
Yeah, yeah. We can do better. Australia, let’s vote yes.
Jo Stanley (39:24):
Oh, I think we need to leave it on that very powerful message, Mimi, do you think?
Mimi Kwa (39:28):
I think so. Thomas Mayo, you are just an extraordinary human being, doing what you are doing for the Indigenous people of Australia, for the entire Australian population. I know that I’ve said this before, but I cannot put too fine a point on it. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for doing what you are doing. We have been so honored to sit with you today and hold space for your story, your A to B.
Thomas Mayo (39:55):
Thank you, Mimi. Thank you, Joe.
Jo Stanley (39:56):
Thank you for listening. We love you joining us for our A to B chats.
Mimi Kwa (40:01):
Please see our show notes for our acknowledgement of country and all the people who help us put this podcast together, as well as interesting links to our guest’s work and other references that we’ve mentioned
Jo Stanley (40:14):
Such as your unverified frequent Dalai Lama quotes.
Mimi Kwa (40:18):
Oh yes, I still need to check those. So we are…
Jo Stanley (40:22):
Joe.
Mimi Kwa (40:22):
And Mimi from A to B.
Jo Stanley (40:24):
Get in touch and let us know whose A to B you’d like to find out about.
Mimi Kwa (40:28):
And we cannot wait for you to hear our next conversation.