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Racism just made these Indigenous rebels more determined

By Debi Enker

September 27, 2023 — 2.00pm

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains images and names of deceased persons.

Rebel With a Cause (series premiere) ★★★½
In a way, the title says it all. This four-part series offers a quartet of illuminating profiles of pioneering Indigenous Australians. All have made lasting impacts in their chosen field, be it education, law, politics, the arts or media. All, at various times, have been forced to dig deep, reassess their motivations and methods, and battle authority. And, for all of them, their work and commitment to their community has come at a personal cost.

Pat O’Shane, who features in the first episode of the biographical series Rebel with a Cause, was Australia’s first Aboriginal magistrate.

Pat O’Shane, who features in the first episode of the biographical series Rebel with a Cause, was Australia’s first Aboriginal magistrate.Credit: Jarod Woods

The subjects of the series represent a number of notable firsts. It opens with Kuku Yalanji woman Pat O’Shane, who was the first female Indigenous teacher in Queensland before training as a lawyer, becoming Australia’s first Aboriginal magistrate and then heading the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Jagera Elder Neville Bonner, who worked as a rodeo rider, dairy hand, cane-cutter and stockman, among other jobs, became the first Indigenous member of the federal parliament when he was elected in 1972 as a Liberal Party senator. Noonuccal poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal (previously known as Kath Walker) was the first Aboriginal woman to publish a book of verse. And Birri Gubba Gungalu media innovator and radio host Tiga Bayles was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of Radio Redfern, the first Aboriginal station, and later a formative influence on 4AAA in Brisbane as well as The Murri School.

For each of them, the confrontation with racial discrimination resulted in determination rather than bitterness or hatred. However, their accounts of the ubiquity, casual viciousness and sometimes the official endorsement of that prejudice are shocking. School buses that wouldn’t stop to collect Bayles and his younger brothers, so they rode horses to school. O’Shane being told by a primary school teacher that she didn’t have the brains to pursue her dream of being a doctor. Noonuccal’s horrifying description of her time as a domestic servant when she was a young teenager.

Produced by Brisbane-based Inkey Media and focusing on Queenslanders, the series employs four different writer-directors, although there are unifying themes and styles, and a recurring subject is the importance of education. Bayles notes: “There are two major vehicles for changing attitudes: information and education.” For Noonuccal, “Don’t hate, educate” became a motto.

The first episode, written and directed by Jill Robinson, focuses on O’Shane, and, given her strength and fierce spirit, it’s powerfully affecting when she’s moved to tears by a recollection from her early days as a teacher. She was working in a school starved for basic resources that had no library. Using her own money to buy a collection of Little Golden Books, she told the disbelieving students that they were allowed to take them home. “It was like watching kids pick up gold nuggets,” she recalls, with both the joy and the injustice vividly apparent in the memory. “It was something that just opened a different world for them.”

Tiga Bayles was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of Radio Redfern, the first Aboriginal station.

Tiga Bayles was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of Radio Redfern, the first Aboriginal station.Credit: SBS

More than might be customary in a series of profiles, Rebel takes time to establish its subjects’ connection to country, with the land repeatedly described as a place of restoration, rejuvenation and, at times, redemption. The series is punctuated by appreciative landscape shots, with episodes soaking in the natural attributes of the areas where the subjects were raised. Bonner’s is a minor exception, opening with a sweet joke at the start before it moves Ukerebagh Island, where he was born under a lantana bush as his mother was denied admission to the local hospital.

Throughout the series, there are judiciously used interviews with family members, friends and colleagues of the subjects. There’s not an abundance of them and the ones that make the cut are succinct and provide valuable contributions to the portrait. Equally considered and economical is the use of photographs, home-movies and archival footage.

Generally, the series’ focus is on the positives and trailblazing achievements, as well as these luminaries’ intelligence, dignity and dedication. It touches more lightly on the negatives and how their work and activism took its toll. Bayles’ stressful, tireless work in media and on land councils is seen by his brothers as the source of his eventual illness. For different reasons, O’Shane and Noonuccal both had struggles with mental health and felt guilt that their work took them away from their children.

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Overall, the series justifiably sheds an admiring and appreciative light on a dynamic group of individuals, independent thinkers and leaders in their fields who became champions for their people.

Rebel with a Cause is on SBS and NITV, Sunday, 9pm and SBS On Demand.

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