By Robyn Marshall
BRISBANE — On March 7, Veronica Brady, the controversial nun from Western Australia, launched her biography of poet Judith Wright, titled South of My Days. The launch, attended by more than 300 women, was held at Loreto College in Cooparoo and was organised by Anne Byrne from "With Women".
Aboriginal opera singer Maroochy Barambah, with her mother, an Aboriginal elder, welcomed the crowd to her tribal land on behalf of the Turrbal clan.
University lecturer Jacki Higgins said Wright was always looking for ways to address the misconceptions about Aboriginal culture and to achieve land rights. Leigh Dale, an English tutor at the University of Queensland, also spoke.
Brady talked clearly, with passion and intelligence, about what she thinks of conservative politics. It was clear where she stood: on the side of the downtrodden, the workers, Aborigines, the poor, the elderly and women.
She said, "We are living in a time of ethical, moral, spiritual and intellectual squalor". There is no debate in this country, no discussion of the issues, just a series of lies and falsehoods.
Brady described Wright's fight to save the Great Barrier Reef in the early '60s, the beginning of the modern environment movement. Together with a small group of friends, Wright founded the Wildlife Preservation Society in Brisbane, which is still going today.
As early as the 1930s, Wright took up the fight to defend Aborigines and their culture. She understood Aborigines' close association with the land; she felt a similar affinity, so beautifully expressed in her poetry.
Wright became close friends with Aboriginal poet Kath Walker (who late adopted her clan name, Oodgeroo Noonuccal), the first Aboriginal poet published in English. They spent many nights talking about life and poetry, and Wright was instrumental in getting Walker's poetry published.
Brady described an interview Wright gave to the ABC's 7.30 Report on her 80th birthday, which was so vitriolic about the Howard government's greed, arrogance, destruction of the environment and attacks on Aborigines that it was never broadcast.
South of My Days