All posts by Michael Burge

Journalist, author, artist
LGBTIQ Equality, My Story

I fought the law

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BOB'S WAY Attorney General of NSW until 2007, the Hon. Bob Debus.
BOB’S WAY Attorney-General of NSW until 2007, the Hon. Bob Debus.

A Writer takes on an Attorney-General.

NINETEEN months after the death of my long-term partner Jonathan Rosten, I received an email out of the blue via the Sydney Star Observer, one of Australia’s gay and lesbian news sources.

Weeks before I’d shared my story in an interview with a journalist from that paper, detailing the precarious legal and financial deadlock I had been subjected to by Jono’s family, their denial of our relationship, and their illegal actions which prevented me from accessing his death certificate.

I’d spoken about my experience to warn other gay couples in Australia, particularly in the city I lived in (‘gay friendly’ Sydney), that it was still a political act for two people of the same gender to live together, because they were not afforded the full protection of the law.

The email was from a man whose name I will not write here – we’ll call him Wayne – because what he told me could have gotten him sacked.

He worked within the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, presided over by State Attorney-General, The Hon. Bob Debus.

Wayne’s email was friendly, letting me know he’d read about my experience in the SSO, and wasn’t it great that the laws had recently been relaxed, meaning I could now get a copy of Jono’s death certificate with my name on it?

This was news to me.

I contacted the SSO and got Wayne’s number. He confirmed for me that, yes, working within the Registry, he’d witnessed directives that same-sex spouses were now to be granted access to their deceased partner’s death certificates. He wanted to remain anonymous because there were homophobes in very high positions within the department he worked in.

I rang the Registry, fobbing off the typical bureaucratic nonsense the telephonists engaged in. I already knew nobody but a top shit-kicker could help me, got put through, stated my case, and booked an appointment the next day.

The first thing that shocked me about the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages was the level of security. Bouncers, thick glass screens, metal detecting barriers, and an air of protection pervaded the place.

That’s when I realised why I’d had such a tough time with these bastards: they control access to some of the most important life decisions we enter into as citizens, so they expect problems, and they’re in a permanent state of lock-down.

Upstairs, the chief shit-kicker invited me to show him the documentation in my possession: statutory declarations, bank accounts, rental contracts, personal items, Jono’s journal; in all some sixty documents which proved various parts of our relationship.

His eyes widened, and he went to stand, saying he just needed to photocopy the first three. But I didn’t, couldn’t, let him go.

I got extremely angry and emotional at having to wait for this moment much longer than a straight spouse in my position would have had to. In the nineteen months prior I’d been brought to my knees emotionally, financially, and spiritually. I’d survived suicidal thoughts, processed deep shame, lost friends, and had to move far too often because I’d been forced to become a ball of unmanageable humanity by the shortcomings of one family and the internal regulations of this man’s department.

FINDING A PULSE in a homophobe can take some work.
FINDING A PULSE in a homophobe can take some work.

He was not getting away with just copying a few documents, this guy. I already sensed he was trapped between his feelings of homophobia and the new regulations which now required him to treat me equally, a full seven years after the NSW laws had changed.

He managed to squeeze out that he reckoned I had a very good case, and that if a new certificate were to be issued, all the old copies would be recalled for destruction.

Did he need the details of exactly where those fraudulent copies were now?

Yes, he mumbled, shame-faced.

I handed over the names and addresses for him to request the return of the death certificate which had been created for me, long withheld by the funeral director I’d contracted and held in their safe behind a wall of defensiveness and avoidance; and the other at Jono’s family’s disposal, already widely distributed to claim that I, Jono’s surviving spouse, did not exist.

At that, the shit-kicker looked as though he’d shit his pants.

Ironically, it was just a week later, after attending Sydney’s first screening of Brokeback Mountain (the story of two men who could barely come out to one another, let alone live as a couple, the way Jono and I had), that I arrived home to a letter inviting me to collect Jono’s death certificate from the Registry, whenever I was ready.

I could have gotten it from the front desk, but I booked an appointment with the shit-kicker and I made him give it to me, right into my hand.

IN HIS OWN HANDS My friend Prue took this shot of me, Jono's death certificate hot off the press.
IN HIS OWN HANDS My friend Prue took this shot of me, with Jono’s death certificate hot off the press.

There, on the same page, was Jono’s name, and mine, a record of the exact number of years we had been together, and the address we shared on the day he died: the truth which had frightened the homophobes in our lives, finally laid bare in paper form more indelible than any gravestone.

I cried a little, and then I went downstairs to apply for another original of the certificate by filling a form and passing it across the desk with the thick glass screen.

The young woman took the form and immediately shook her head, tapped her finger on my name and Jono’s, and said: “You can’t get this, not when you’re the same gender.”

I was not surprised. I said to her, calmly so as not to set off any security screens or draw the attention of the bouncers, that she was incorrect and needed to ask her manager for some training on this issue. The jaw, that had been munching so enthusiastically on chewing gum, went motionless.

I went upstairs and saw the shit-kicker’s distorted face through the glass as I made the same demand of the managers. Not one of them would come out of their office to meet me.

So I went to the top. I wrote to the NSW Attorney-General, and made a formal request for him to ensure all staff in his department were now made aware, ideally through some kind of training, that same-sex couples were able to apply for their deceased spouses’ death certificates without recourse to anyone.

Perhaps, I suggested, some media releases to the same effect would be an idea?

When his reply was tardy, I went to NSW’s best shit-kicker, Independent MP Clover Moore, who hurried the Honorable Mr. Debus along a little.

We never received more than a staffer’s reply. I guess Attorney-Generals hate to be reminded they need to catch up with the law.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

Michael’s story is published as Questionable Deeds.

Reviews, Writers

The desecration of story

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WE'RE WATCHING but we're sick of waiting. Smaug's eye from The Desolation of Smaug.
WE’RE WATCHING but we’re sick of waiting. Smaug’s eye from The Desolation of Smaug.

MASTER storytellers don’t come along very often. You’d think by now we’d have learnt to respect their work.

Mess with the canon of any of these literary icons, and you’ll spark a reaction of such magnitude that it could, in at least one case, cause a war. You see them at the top of the ‘Most Popular Books of All Time’ lists – Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, the various authors of The Bible, Homer, Agatha Christie, and, usually scoring two spots for his seminal fantasy titles – John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973).

Yet all of these writers’ works have been the subject of translations, adaptations, mash-ups, and spurious references in Doctor Who. It seems there is no end to re-imagining plots that have already proven themselves popular with readers.

The latest on our screens is Peter Jackson’s production of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the 1937 children’s fantasy which spawned one of the most beloved literary cycles of the 20th century – The Lord of the Rings (1954-55).

Like countless others, I devoured these works in my childhood, so it was strange when I found myself dragging my feet to see The Desolation of Smaug at the cinema.

But that wonderful shot of Smaug, unfurling his great wings, the hapless Lake Town in his sights far below, was every inch the Tolkien moment I was seeking.

Yet before we could ride the crest of the roller coaster, the credits rolled, and, with news that we’d have to wait until Boxing Day a year hence for the third instalment, I heaved a sigh of annoyance.

This was not storytelling. This was commercially delayed gratification.

Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies will never escape the criticism of taking a simple childrens’ tale and padding it into a three-part prequel to The Lord of the Rings.

We cannot blame Tolkien, of course, but it is worth noting that he created many of his early stories for his children. Imagine what the kids would have thought had Dad told the tale in three episodes, a year between each: they would have lost interest, thought their father a very mean and boring man for withholding, and revolted!

SCRIPT SPOILERS Gandalf and Radgast in search of Sauron.
SCRIPT SPOILERS Gandalf and Radagast in search of Sauron.

About half way through The Desolation of Smaug, with Gandalf off tomb raiding, my sister, not a Tolkien reader, turned to me and asked whether the disembodied shadow of Sauron was actually ‘in’ Smaug the dragon?

It was a good question, considering Gandalf and Radagast were looking for something that Bilbo already seemed to have found.

Tolkien knew how to construct a plot, and he took his time doing it. Not for him the publishing schedule of Harry Potter.

There was a very good reason why Sauron does not appear in The Hobbit: because when Tolkien wrote that childrens’ book, he was unaware how far his mythology would evolve in its sequel.

Tolkien’s collected letters reveal that at the behest of his publishers, the rise of Sauron (known as ‘The Necromancer’ in The Hobbit) was only published in an interesting appendix in The Return of the King.

Writing to a reader of The Lord of the Rings in 1964, Tolkien revealed how he connected the two books with the One Ring.

“The magic ring was the one obvious thing in The Hobbit that could be connected with my mythology. To be the burden of a large story it had to be of supreme importance. I then linked it with the (originally) quite casual reference to the Necromancer [in The Hobbit], end of Chapter. vii and Ch. xix, whose function was hardly more than to provide a reason for Gandalf going away and leaving Bilbo and the Dwarves to fend for themselves, which was necessary for the tale.”

Mythology, which runs through the works of all the writers mentioned, is the archetypal source for all tale-telling. Twist mythological rules, and everything from The Odyssey to Pride and Prejudice is at risk of being deemed, well, boring.

When Jackson and his writing team were coerced by the distributors into three Hobbit films, they needed to pad-out Tolkien’s mythology with endless sequences of Legolas slaying orcs; extensions of famous scenes, such as the dwarves’ escape from the Elven King in barrels down a river; and Gandalf the Grey sniffing his way around graves and towers with Elrond and Galadriel in search of Sauron.

DRAGON VISION Tolkien's own depiction of Bilbo's comversation with Smaug.
DRAGON VISION Tolkien’s own depiction of Bilbo’s comversation with Smaug.

I can accept Legolas, a character who never appeared in The Hobbit, and I can even buy his love interest Tauriel, a totally new creation re-addressing Tolkien’s inherent plot-misogyny, because Jackson and his writers are doing what Shakespeare did with great stories: shaking them around to find stronger, fresher ideas to engage new audiences.

But two master villains – Sauron and Smaug – in the same story is akin to having Moses and Jesus in the same telling of Exodus, or Romeo and Juliet and Mercutio. It’s too crowded to pack a real punch.

ONE RING TWO STORIES Tolkien's One Ring as it appeared in Peter Jackson's films.
ONE RING, TWO STORIES Tolkien’s One Ring as it appeared in Peter Jackson’s films.

Audiences who watch the six-movie Lord of the Rings cycle consecutively will be denied the great tension which Tolkien builds up in The Fellowship of the Ring.

They’ll miss a storyteller’s masterstroke, the linkage of Bilbo’s journey with Frodo’s through the secretion of Middle Earth’s most powerful implement, that plot device of “supreme importance” – in a place no one, not even Gandalf, ever thought to look.

To know the power and significance of the ring above being a handy trick for a hobbit engaged as a burglar, and to know the extent of Bilbo’s real enemy long before he does, is a terrible case of spoilers.

Money people don’t trust writers. They never have, and they probably never will, which is one reason why none of the Lord of the Rings movies ranks anywhere near the top of the Favourite Movies of All Time list, whereas Tolkien’s books rank second only to the stories we rely on to explain our own world’s creation.

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Messing with Middle Earth might not spark a war, but it’s testament to the power of Tolkien’s writing that audiences will pay to see the butchering of his work at the hands of New Line Cinema and Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.

This article appears in Michael’s eBook Creating Waves: Critical takes on culture and politics.

Artists

Meeting Mittigar

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COUNTRY CUSTODIAN A man of the Darug Nation (Photo: David Walsh).
COUNTRY CUSTODIAN A man of the Darug Nation (Photo: Kevin Welsh).

A writer’s encounter with the Darug Nation.

Writing for Blue Mountains Life magazine brought plenty of insights into the region’s finest homes, yet whenever an early property’s history was explored, a constant theme arose – the indigenous heritage of the Hawkesbury and Penrith Valleys.

Ever since the area was earmarked for land grants and agriculture in the colony, European settlers and their descendants encountered the traditional owners of the lands adjacent to Deerubbin, the Darug name for the Hawkesbury River.

There’s also the matter of warfare between the settlers and the Darug, a subject rarely spoken or written of, yet an unavoidable part of the Hawkesbury’s history. This article was published in the Aug-Sep 2011 edition.

Custodians of country

Learning pathways at Muru Mittigar.

Researchers, community members and tourists are able to share a brilliant resource in Muru Mittigar. Meaning ‘pathway to friends’ in the Darug language, this cultural centre, adjacent to the Penrith Lakes, has reached out with a message of reconciliation and learning since its establishment in 1998.

The day I visit, Wayne Krause shows me through the newly renovated shop and the cultural centre itself, where a timeline, a map of Australia’s Aboriginal territories, and interpretive signage illustrate the journey of Australia’s Aboriginal people, with a focus on the place of the Darug Nation.

It becomes clear very quickly that this is not a museum in the European tradition – it comes to life only with the guides, who interpret Muru Mittigar’s displays for visitors.

“‘Art’ is European terminology,” Ngemba man Peter Williams explains, as he interprets a painting on Darug law. “This picture is telling the story in the old way, what you can and can’t do, where you can and can’t go, in relation to Darug Country”.

“The hands done in red are those of men who have done law. The hands in yellow are those of women who have done law. The black and white hands are those men and women who have not yet done law.”

Symbols of islands in the Hawkesbury-Nepean river, of land bridges, of nets for catching animals, of bush turkeys, quolls, possums and other food sources in the region are easier for me to interpret than the concentric circles – “They represent the law itself,” Peter says, also showing me the spirits figures in the work.

Peter and Wayne explain in turns how Darug culture fits into the whole of Australia’s Aboriginal landscape, often ribbing one another on points of learning and territory, yet it’s clear these men, despite being of different nations (Wayne is of the Kalara people of the Wiradjuri language group), are brothers.

“We’re all one,” Wayne says, “but there is a diversity of culture in New South Wales”.

I arrived with a basic understanding about who was a famous Darug warrior, and who was of a neighbouring nation, but both Peter and Wayne are quick to explain how warriors like Pemulwuy (featured in a near life-sized image at Muru Mittigar) are considered brothers of the many Aboriginal nations of Australia’s east coast.

“It’s not about skin colour,” Wayne says, “it’s about spirit. All the mobs have relations with others. Our dreaming coincides. Clan groups and skin groups travel, and you encounter the same stories, and the stories never stop.

“In this country, there are more sites – art sites and camp sites – than anywhere else in NSW. It’s been estimated that there are 27 sites per square kilometre.”

When I ask Wayne if it’s Muru Mittigar’s role to preserve these, he says: “It’s our job to ensure Aboriginal culture is practiced, not preserved. Aboriginal culture is alive. The challenge is now to make sure our Mother, our country, survives.”

“Muru was a necessity,” Peter adds, “to set up a permanent base for teaching. I needed to be taught Darug language, and now we have fluent speakers.”

“One of our dreams is to develop courses for people to learn about culture,” Wayne says, and Peter quickly adds: “It’s a slow process, bringing mobs together, teaching people to be one again. The law has been lost, and respect. The settlement turned everything topsy-turvy. The money system became greater than the law.”

“It’s time to come back, to take away the power struggle that money brings. It’s not ‘mine, mine, mine’, we are all custodians,” Wayne explains.

Looking over a map of Australia’s Aboriginal nations, Wayne and Peter demonstrate something about how Aboriginal interconnection works.

“If you know your clan, family, blood, animals (totems, or ‘meat’), your scarring and your teeth,” Wayne says, “you could travel across this country and the people will know where you fit into the system”.

“It’s not about which clan had which land,” Peter adds. “You can walk and sing your way through country”.

PROUD WARRIOR Peter Williams interprets a portrait of Pemulwuy.
PROUD WARRIOR Peter Williams interprets a portrait of Pemulwuy.

“Which you can’t do by flying across it in a plane,” Wayne is quick to point out.

When it comes time to ask about the wars between settlers and the Darug in the Hawkesbury, both men are clear that conflict was secondary to settlement.

“Many of the settlers were starving, and the indigenous people showed them how to survive, what to eat,” Wayne explains. “The wars happened when the indigenous peoples’ source of food was taken away. When Bennelong went to London, he saw what was coming and he knew there was no way it could be stopped, but by the time he came back, there was full-scale war.”

Looking again at Pemulwuy’s image, Peter explains how the warrior’s family scars are similar to his own: “But if you were at the same camp fire as him, you’d sit still and be respectful otherwise he’d be able to-” and he slaps a fist into himself.

Peter also notes how none of Pemulwuy’s teeth are missing, another symbol Aboriginal people look for to interpret another brother or sister’s place in the community.

I ask Peter and Wayne where they learnt about their country and their law, and they name the three uncles who, twenty years ago, ensured the next generation learned what they needed to.

“Learning breaks down barriers that don’t need to be there,” Wayne says. “It’s not about blame, it’s about teaching others to look after Mother Earth.”

“Muru encourages our people into higher education. Not just the training but employment too, in tourism, hospitality, woodwork and other industries. As an Aboriginal not-for-profit corporation, Muru Mittigar has a high amount of employees.”

“The Darug were pretty-much decimated,” Peter says. “There were diseases we had no resistance to, and we were blended into the community as a whole. We’re never going to know the full story until the law comes back, but people learn culture on many levels. and we teach what we know.”

The effects of the Hawkesbury’s settlement by Europeans is just one part of Muru Mittigar’s story – I leave with my preconceived ideas replaced by a growing understanding of the land that we share, and the feeling that the Darug nation is in very good hands.

© Michael Burge, all rights reserved.