Even in retirement, Sue Gordon is working to help society’s disadvantaged.
FROM her role in Aboriginal affairs in Roebourne in the 1970s to her recent appointment as president of The Federation of Western Australian Police and Community Youth Centres, Sue Gordon has a long-established relationship with ‘the force’.
Coming out of retirement for the role at PCYC, Ms Gordon is part of the team overhauling the organisation’s WA operations.
She says the PCYC isn’t just basketball and boxing at the local halls, and cites the Rockingham PCYC Weld to Life Program as an example.
The program works with the juvenile justice team and the local Tafe to build career skills and opportunities among troubled teens.
Other programs, such as the Midland PCYC midnight basketball program, which takes young people off the streets of Northbridge and provides them with a safe environment, are Ms Gordon’s proof that the programs in place are helping to develop, rehabilitate and propel youths in a good direction.
“It is not just about knocking a basketball around,” she says.
The organisation is receiving a shake-up on Ms Gordon’s watch, with the board being expanded to include the likes of former Wildcats captain Andrew Vlahov and representation from regional and metropolitan clubs.
Ms Gordon is the first civilian president of PCYC, and was invited into the role by ex-president and police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan last year – one of the many firsts in her career.
She was the first indigenous person to head a government department as commissioner of Aboriginal planning in 1986, the first indigenous magistrate in her role at the Children’s Court in 1988, and one of the first five commissioners of the Bob Hawke-established Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Commission (ATSIC).
Ms Gordon takes it in her stride, however.
“I think sometimes I was in the right place at the right time. I don’t know if I set out to achieve all those things,” she says.
Her first foray into Aboriginal affairs was in Roebourne, where she worked for the local welfare office and the only indigenous corporation at the time, Ieramugadu. Her memories of those days paint a picture of an overzealous era in indigenous-government relations.
To start with, the number of people wanting to ‘help’ the people of Roebourne was at extremes,” Ms Gordon told WA Business News.
“When I was working in Roebourne and living in the Pilbara, there was an Aboriginal affairs coordinating committee, and they still exist; government agencies meet to discuss Aboriginals.
“At one time we counted 71 agencies in 1980-something who were visiting Aboriginal people in Roebourne.
“We listed them, federal government, state government, local government, church groups, non-government agencies and individuals who would visit Roebourne on a regular basis. At that time there were only about 600 Aboriginal people. They all want to visit and help, but there is no coordination.”
It was during her time in Roebourne that housing was established for local communities.
“The despair was still there. There were still Aboriginal reserves as they were called, and then the village got built. And after cyclone Trixie [1975] the reserve got demolished and the Aboriginal people just moved into the village,” she says.
“People were just allocated a house. When they lived on the reserve, there was some sort of order. It might have been a reserve, but people who shouldn’t live next door to someone else because of tribal reasons didn’t.
“Then you had to get the home makers scheme set up to tell people how to live in a house. A whole new lifestyle evolved and the alcoholism got worse, you just watched it happen.
“It was just so sad… no-one asked the people.”
Later, Ms Gordon would regularly travel solo across hundreds of kilometres to remote communities including Jigalong, many of which were built – and remain – on similarly volatile social ground.
“Jigalong was established in the 1940s by the Apostolic mission; they herded four different tribal groups into Jigalong and that is why there was all that fighting. I have family there, and there is still that tension because those groups should not live together,” she says.
Her many experiences in the field of Aboriginal affairs across WA and the Northern Territory led to a high level of understanding and expertise, which former premier Geoff Gallop banked on when he recruited Ms Gordon to head an inquiry into the government response to reports of child abuse and domestic violence in Aboriginal communities in WA.
The Gordon Inquiry, as it was commonly referred to, made 197 recommendations for changes to indigenous communities and relations.
Arguably one of the most successful implementations was the development of remote policing services and multi-function facilities in Aboriginal communities.
“I have worked with police for a long time. Even when I was in the Pilbara I was in the old Commonwealth Employment Service, getting jobs for Aboriginal people, when I was in Hedland,” she says.
“I have been working with Andrew Forrest on the Australian employment covenant, and it is full circle because I knew Andrew’s mum and dad in the 1970s.
“Going from that background in the Pilbara to working in the Aboriginal Development Commission ... gave me the insight that Aboriginal people are quite capable of doing anything but they just need to be given the tools and capacity to do it.”
Ms Gordon has also gone full circle with regard to at least one of the organisations and projects she is associated with in retirement – the redevelopment of the site of Sister Kate’s Children’s Home into an aged care facility for former Sister Kate’s residents.
Ms Gordon was brought up at Sister Kate’s after being removed from her family and brought to Perth in 1948.