Sean Burke
Sean Burke is a valued Director of the Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust Board and is a Committee member of our Narooma Education Support Team.
My name is Seán Burke and I was born in the heart of Wiradjuri Country when we were living at Gooloogong on the Lachlan River. My father trained in carpentry and joinery after arriving here from Ireland during WWII and worked in many jobs, travelling to a number of locations around NSW. I have an older brother and had a younger sister who passed away a few years back.
My schooling changed a number of times as we moved around, finally settling in Queanbeyan after the mine at Captains Flat closed and I finished my studies in Canberra. I only ever wanted to save the world and become a priest.
Life at The Flat was difficult, being from a goody-goody Catholic family in a very corrupt mining town and top of my class at school. We got persecuted quite a lot so when we moved to Queanbeyan, I saw an opportunity to become someone else and be more popular. I became the popular rebel and clown at high school and lost the real me somewhere in there.
After leaving the priesthood and being quite suicidal, it took a good psychologist to help me sort it all out and also to realise that I wanted my mother to love me like she loved our local priest, hence my career choice.
After moving in with my then girlfriend, I was disowned by my mother for “living in sin”. I worked in a number of jobs and we saved up enough money to head overseas two years later. We got married in London before visiting my father’s family in Ireland despite my mother refusing to give us their contact details. We got pregnant in Ireland and our daughter was born in Canberra soon after getting home.
Earlier, I had the honour of being at the launch of Gough Whitlam’s ‘It’s Time’ campaign in Sydney in 1972 and I was there again for ‘The Dismissal’ at Parliament House in Canberra on Remembrance Day 3 years later. Dreams were shattered that day and I became active in resisting the Public Service cuts by Malcolm Fraser’s Razor Gang under Phil Lynch after returning home in the late 70s.
My four years in the Commonwealth Public Service taught me that I had a natural ability with systems where I sorted out the problems within the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ automatic system to deconfidentialise our foreign trade statistics that my job was to do manually.
This time was quite a nightmare for all of us as our brilliant, hyperactive daughter had severe eczema and asthma that hospitalised her on a number of occasions. We would bring her to the south coast and take buckets of sea water to her bath and virtually heal her skin over a long weekend. It became necessary for us to move down here.
We stayed in Canberra until our son was born, when I took leave without pay and we moved to Central Tilba where we bought into a restaurant business with friends. It was just too difficult with young children so that didn’t last long. I then found casual work wherever I could, opened a second-hand clothes shop and took a keen interest in the Central Tilba Urban Conservation Area, the heritage of which was classified as “unique” by the National Trust of Australia.
I was elected as chair of the Tilba District Progress Association and spent 10 years trying to get Eurobodalla Shire Council (ESC) to understand their responsibilities in protecting that heritage including twice personally taking Class 3 action against them in the NSW Land and Environment Court. This was also a very difficult time for our family as there was hostile opposition from segments of the community who believed that they should be able to build whatever they wanted on their own land. This hostility was one of the factors that led me to leave my family.
I met Guboo Ted Thomas and many other members of the Aboriginal community soon after moving to Central Tilba and learned how sacred Gulaga is to them, being Mother to the people of the Yuin Nation. I also heard the phrase “The Mountain called me back” many times and felt that call many times myself. I joined Uncle Ted as the conservation representative on the Forestry Commission of NSW’s Mt Dromedary Flora Reserve Advisory Committee in the mid-80s. The eastern half of the Mountain was classified as Flora Reserve and nominated by the government to be included on the World Heritage List.
Whilst working as the Excess Water Clerk with Bega Valley Shire Council (BVSC) in 1988, I found out that Forestry had commenced logging on the south-west slopes of Gulaga. Forestry ignored our advisory committee’s requests to stop the logging so urgent action was required.
I formed the Gulaga (Mt Dromedary) Protection Group along with many local Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. The campaign was run after hours from the BVSC office where I prepared and faxed media releases. The campaign centred around the significance of Gulaga to Yuin people and all quotes that I used regarding that significance came directly from Forestry Commission publications. Through representations to the Hawke government in Canberra, pressure was exerted on Forestry and the logging crew was withdrawn within a couple of weeks.
Sean and his son holding the banner they had made in 1989.
The Regional Forester at Batemans Bay was interviewed on WIN TV and said that they stopped because it was too wet and they’d be back once it dried out. He also said that a white conservationist has stirred up the Aboriginal people and convinced them that the mountain is sacred to them! They never did go back. NPWS and Forestry commissioned Dr Deborah Bird Rose to report on the significance of Mt Dromedary to Aboriginal people (https://aiatsis.gov.au/collections/item/M0069284). Her 1990 report recommended that the flora reserve be extended to cover the whole mountain, the name be changed to the Gulaga Flora Reserve and it be gazetted as an Aboriginal place. These recommendations were implemented, Gulaga National Park was later created in 2001 and handed back to the Traditional Owners in 2006, a wonderful celebration.
I opened ‘Taken At Tilba’, a heritage information centre displaying many of the William Corkhill photographs from the late 1890s and early in the 1900s. It was officially opened by Dr Deborah Bird Rose. The photos were printed from the glass plate negatives rescued by his daughter Sister Pearl Corkhill and donated to the National Library of Australia. Unfortunately, the business wasn’t a success so it closed with a big Failure Party.
As part of the campaign for Gulaga, I joined in the big campaigns for our Coolangubra, Tantawanglo and Egan Peaks forests and also worked as Police Liaison at a number of these protest actions. My campaigning for our forests has continued ever since, I’ve been arrested twice and spent 5 days in gaol cutting out a fine. On my second arrest, I was wrongly convicted in Moruya Court of intimidation, a criminal offence, for standing in front of a convoy of logging contractors, forestry officers and police. I appealed to the District Court and the conviction was quashed by the Chief Judge without the need for a hearing.
After the Gulaga campaign, I was offered a job with Merrimans Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) but was sadly dismissed after 18 months following a disagreement with the chairperson. I was then appointed by the Governor of NSW as Administrator for Bega LALC as they were not functioning. It took me 14 months to get them a clear audit which ended my tenure. I then took up a position as Manager of Umbarra Cultural Tours and got their financials to break-even point, excluding my wage that was funded by ATSIC. That funding wasn’t renewed by ATSIC so I had to leave and the funding was later reinstated.
The next step in my career was 14 years in Employment Services, initially as Admin Assistant with Mission Employment in Bega and then, after being headhunted for the first time, 10 years with Wesley Uniting Employment working as Employment Consultant and then Manager at Narooma and Moruya. We worked really well as a team and took pride in our achievements as the best performing site in the organisation.
My final job before retirement was working with Eurobodalla Shire Council to complete an 18 month contract to prepare a community plan for Wallaga Lake Koori Village. This was a very rewarding job where I got to talk with many members of the community, young and old, to record their dreams and aspirations in their plan.
Since retirement I have continued with my voluntary work and campaigning, and travelled extensively in Australia and around the world. I recently returned from my “swansong” 8 month trip around the world, spending time with my son, his Brazilian wife and my grandchildren in Brazil, lots of family members in Ireland and friends in France, Germany and Spain. I called into Japan on my way home and visited the atomic bomb memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki – a very disturbing experience indeed.
Throughout my life I have been a lover of music and a fighter for justice, our natural environment and human rights. I have attended many concerts and festivals, including Cobargo Folk Festival where I’ve volunteered at every festival since it started. I also used to volunteer at Woodford Folk Festival. I also tried my hand at acting, joining a local theatre company in a number of plays and getting a bit-part in The Man Who Sued God filmed in Bermagui with Billy Connelly and Judy Davis.
Over the years, I’ve marched for justice for our First Nations people, more recently for the people of Palestine, and for protection of our fragile environment. I do feel that native forest logging will finally end in NSW this year. However, by the way the state of the world is looking at the moment, I guess I’ll need to continue fighting for quite a while after that as I can’t stand back and watch injustice. We all must resist oligarchies and fascism.