Fifty Years of Direct Action Conference Archive

Uncle Bob Anderson
Dr Robert Anderson OAM is a Ngugi Elder from Mulgumpin, Moreton Island in Quandamooka Country, South East Queensland and has family connections to the Jagera people. Known as Uncle Bob, he is well known for protecting the rights of workers through the union movement and was elected as a State Organiser for 14 years.

He has a long and distinguished history of community service for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. He was a member of the Queensland Council for Advancement for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the 1960’s and since then has received many awards. In 2001 he became one of the inaugural Queensland Greats, Brisbane Citizen of the Year and received the Order of Australia Medal (OAM). He is currently a member of the Griffith University Council.

Peter Wertheim
About Peter: Peter is a former lecturer in Philosophy at UQ (1964 – 1978) whose main area of interest was, and is, in social political philosophy. While at Melbourne University he helped found the journals Dissent, and, Prospect. Peter was active in various reform movements at that time. For the past three years, he has continued his work through Journey Lines, a meeting between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people devoted to understanding the Australian and global situation from an Indigenous perspective.

Dan O’Neill
About Dan: Dan O'Neill is a former lecturer in English who was a member of the English Department at the University of Queensland from 1965 to 2003. He was involved in the radical movement at that university from the year before the Big March, through the late 60s, into the late 70s civil liberties movement and on into the SEQEB dispute. He took a particular interest in the struggle for student-staff control of the university and did a lot of work on helping to create the book Up The Right Channels in 1970.

Diane Zetlin
About Di: Diane Zetlin became an activist during the 1960’s as a student at the University of Queensland. Her political activism has been in the women’s movement and the labour and trade union movements. She has worked as a University lecturer and has raised two daughters and two granddaughters.

John Piccinni
About John: John Piccini is a Post Doctoral Development Fellow at the University of Queensland, where he is working on a book provisionally titled Human Right: An Australian History. His most recent book Transnational Protest Australia and the 1960s appeared in 2016 with Palgrave.

Lyn Plummer
About Lynn: Lyn Plummer grew up on the North Coast of NSW and started a BA Dip Ed at Queensland Uni in 1966. She became involved in SDA and the civil liberties march and later the anti - Vietnam marches. Lyn has maintained an interest in public demonstration for environmental and social policy movements that stay important to her. During uni Lyn also worked in hospitality, factory work and fruit picking. All of these jobs added to a broad view of society and the need for strong social justice policy. After uni Lyn was a primary school teacher for many years and still is a Librarian. Lyn is an active community member who volunteers and maintains contact with current issues.

Lynda Boland interview pre-recorded at shown at the Fifty Years of Direct Action Qld event

Mitch Thompson: Interview pre-recorded and shown at the Fifty Years of Direct Action Qld event

Brian Laver - Interview prerecorded and shown on at the Fifty Years of Direct Action Qld event

Brian Laver - Interview prerecorded and shown on at the Fifty Years of Direct Action Qld event

Jim Prentice
About Jim: Activist; Doctorate in social movements; Lecturer in Politics and Social Movements; frequent Green's candidate; Union Delegate and EBA negotiator; Aged Care worker; Jim is the author of a study on 1967 Civil Liberties March in the Queensland Review 2007:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/queensland-review/article/remembering-the-brisbane-protests-196572-the-civil-liberties-movement/9A6C5A37ACFF716D477B54B948D813A5
His current campaign concerns Ipswich Station – the only underground station carrying coal and passengers. He is the Principal Contributor and Editor of the radical history website: www.epochfuture.com

Jennie Harvie
About Jennie: Jennie Harvie is a Migalloo woman who was born on Wakka Wakka country and has lived for the most part on Gubbi Gubbi country, where she lives now with her extended family. She was, and remains a member of the Women’s Liberation movement and was one of those who established Women’s House. She has been a social worker, community developer, policy writer, programme developer, manager, volunteer, academic, and activist and advocate in the areas of peace, women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues. She has stood for the Greens, once in State seat of Noosa and once in Federal seat of Fairfax. She remains passionate about ending violence against women and the formalisation of a Treaty with first Australians.

Lachlan Hurse
About Lachlan: Lachlan was introduced to the repressive nature of Queensland politics in 1977 when he stood on the railway tracks at Hamilton Wharf with approximately one hundred others from the Campaign Against Nuclear Power and other groups, trying to prevent the shipment of uranium. He subsequently participated in the Right-to-March campaign, and the Civil Liberties Coordinating Committee from 1977-79. He went onto union activism and now works for the National Tertiary Education Union and is currently one of their State Organisers.

Since the early 1980s Lachlan has been involved in Latin American solidarity. He has been President of the Brisbane Branch of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society for over 15 years. Lachlan is also a musician with the group Jumping Fences. Lachlan & partner Sue Monk run Foco Nuevo, a monthly concert in West End. With its 10th anniversary in early 2018, Foco makes a significant contribution to left culture in Brisbane

Cheryl Buchanan
About Cheryl: studied at the University of Hawaii as a scholarship-holder. Upon her return to Australia she became involved in the Brisbane Tribal Council, and attended the University of Queensland. During 1974 Buchanan worked as the race relations field director for the Australian Union of Students and spent several months visiting communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, encouraging their struggle for land rights. In 1975 she moved to Melbourne, Victoria, where she became director of the Black Resources Centre (BRC), which later moved to Brisbane.

In 1980 she published the first of a series of poetry volumes by Lionel Fogarty. This publication led to the development of Murrie Coo-ee, an Aboriginal publishing firm at Coominya which continues to operate under Buchanan's directorship.

Carole Ferrier
About Carole: Carole Ferrier is an Australian feminist academic. She is Professor in English at the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland. She has many published works about feminism, socialism, literature and culture.

Drew Hutton: Co-founder of the Qld Greens and the Australian Greens, academic & activist. His leading advocacy against pollution led to the Qld EPA. In 2011 he was elected president of “Lock The Gate” campaign against coal seam gas projects on properties. He resigned in 2017.He has been a regular spokesperson on the impact of invasive mining activities on agriculture Land, regional communities and ecologically sensitive areas. Drew has been social activist all his life.

Ian Lowe
About Ian: Respected scientist and tireless advocate for the environment. Author of 10 books and over 500 publications. International winner of the Konrad Lorenz Gold Medal as well as numerous other awards. Ian Lowe was a member of the Australian radiation, Health and Safety Advisory Council from 2002 to 2014. He has been a former member or chair of many other bodies advising all three levels of government in Australia. In 2001 Lowe received the Order of Australia for services to science, technology and the environment. In 2002 he also won the Eureka Prize for promotion of science.

Adrian Skerritt - The Cloudland Collective
About Adrian: Adrian has been a teacher unionist since 1992. He has been active in human rights and civil liberties campaigns in Brisbane since the late 80s. He is a member of the Cloudland Collective.

Ellen Roberts
About Ellen. Ellen is the Qld lead coordinator of Get Up- an independent community based movement campaigning on human rights, environmental sustainability, democratic participation. Get Up is aggressively attacked by the Liberal and National parties for their social advocacy. It must be doing something right! (Get Up) speaks about community organising in the "current era."