STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 15 AUG 2005

J S BATTYE LIBRARY OF WEST AUSTRALIAN HISTORY Oral History Collection ~ W.A.

&

THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT PARLIAMENTARY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Transcript of an interview with

WILLIAM ROBERT WITHERS b. 1931

Access Research: Open Publication: Written permission of author required

Reference number OH3430 Date of Interview 28 October 2004 Interviewer Ron Chapman Duration 4 x 60 minute cassette tapes Copyright Parliament of Western Australia & Library Board of Western Australia

T he Library Board of w A

1111111 ~311 ~1111111111~111~'~ 1102235830~1"111111~1111~1111~111 1rn1~ 111111 Introduction

This is an interview with William Robert Withers for the Parliamentary Oral History Collection and the J.S. Battye Library of West Australian History.

Bill Withers was born in Sydney on 8 August 1931 , and educated at Kogarah Primary School and Sydney Technical High School. In 1948 he joined the Royal Australian Air Force as an engineering apprentice. He subsequently obtained qualifications in air navigation, and during the early 1950s served in the Pacific and Malaya. In 1957 he accepted an appointment as a commissioned officer with the Aircraft Research and Development Unit for CSIRO, and in November that year navigated the first light aircraft delivery crossing of the Pacific.

Although he enjoyed his work with the CSIRO, Bill became eager for new challenges, and in late 1963 he and his wife Judith decided to move to Kununurra, Western Australia, after entering into a business partnership prompted by the expanding Ord River Irrigation Scheme. Between 1964 and 1971 Bill established several businesses in Kununurra, including a general store, service station, jewellers, and a newsagency. During this period he also became increasingly involved in community affairs, and from 1965 to 1971 served as Deputy Shire President for the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley. Bill was elected President of the newly established Kununurra Chamber of Commerce, became a Consultative Councillor for the Kimberley, and the inaugural Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Committee for Tourism. In 1969 he was appointed to the Reserves Advisory Council as representative for the north of Western Australia.

In September 1970 Bill decided to accept 1endorsement as the Liberal Party candidate for North Province after joining the Party only four days earlier. In May 1971 he became MLC for the seat on the resignation of Frank Wise. His maiden speech emphasised the specific problems and challenges faced by people living in remote areas of the State.

Bill Withers' parliamentary career provides an insight into the logistical difficulties and frustrations faced by a conscientious politician who is striving to provide an adequate level of represe-ntation for an electorate that is physically distanced from the seat of government. The 1981 Electoral Act Amendment Bill , which increased the size of the Kimberley electorate, convinced Bill that he could no longer repre:sent his electorate effectively, and this prompted his resignation from Parliament. During the interview, Bill provides observations on the political motivations surrounding the boundary change, and his relations with key figures.

The interview was recorded by Ron Chapman on 28 October 2004 on 4 x 60 minute cassette tapes. NOTE TO READER

Readers of this oral history memoir should bear in mind that it is a verbatim transcript of the spoken word and reflects the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. The Parliament of Western Australia and the Battye Library are not res[ponsible for the factual accuracy of the memoir, nor for the views therein; these are for the reader to judge.

Bold type face indicates a difference between transcript and tape as a result of corrections made to the transcript only, usually at the request of the person interviewed.

[ ) are used for insertions, not in the original tape.

FULL CAPITALS in the text indicate a word or words emphasised by the person interviewed. Table of Contents Withers Page No

Tape One Side A Early years in Sydney, Education , Air Force 1953 Western 1 Australia Joining the Air Force at 13. Skills and Training. Artistic skills, 2 Monetary training, CSIRO CSIRO- Radio Physics 1957-1964 3 Appointment as Research officer - RG Casey - Cloud Seed inq 4 Highlights of career in CSIRO - 5 Research into clouds, thunder liqhtninq and impact on aircraft Navigation of first flight of light aircraft across the Pacific. 6 Development of billiard ball theorv. Rio Tinto 1957 Leaving CSIRO - invention of Distance Measurinq Equipment 7 Move to Kununurra 1964 8 Tape One Side B First impressions of Kununurra - People - Business ventures 10 Difficulties and frustrations of business ventures 11 Interdepartmental Committee for Kununurra Conflicting building requirements of ICK and Wyndham -East 12 Kimberley. Unfaiir costs- qovernment charoes Involvement in community activities- Chamber of Commerce Local 13 Government Difficulties with promotion of Tourism in Distirict - Alan Ridge 14 Wyndham East Kimberley Shire Council Bill Grandison - Shire President. Aboriginal Housing - Formation 15 of Kimberley buildinq society. Kununurra - Community Spirit. Mick Kimpton, Oliver Bros.Revell 16 Brothers Lameraux -1966-68 Tape Two Side A Entry into Politics - Motivation- Frank W ise, Ian Oliver Jack 18 Rhatigan retiring from Labour Party. Sir Charles Court and Alan Ridge Alan RidQe and aQreement to Join Liberal Partv for North Province 19 Communication in the electorate 21 Move to Perth - absence of parliamentarv clerical support - 22 Maiden Speech 1971 - main issues- Education, electricity costs, 23 inequalities for Aboriqines etc Tape Two Side B Difficulties in remote electorate- costs of airfares - personal costs 25 time and money Perth Technical School - enrol for Art. Familv support 27 Scholarship to study remote area development overseas 1975 28 Pakistan sugar mills - hardboard . Pakistan - cotton research USSR - cotton developments and remote area allowances China - Visit and suggestions on Tourism Brochure 30 1977 Move to Perth - practical demonstrations 32 Packsaddle Plains - Tropical Farm -Ord River 33 Tape Three Side A Objectives for Tropical Farm Ord River. Mangoes. Build houses 34 cheaper than qovernment. Orqanic survival unit.

1 Table of Contents Withers Page No

Sale of Farm in 2002. Air schedule factors. Resignation from 35 Parliamentary branch of Liberal Party Changes to Electoral boundaries. Platform 7 of Labour Party. 36 Liberal Party expulsion. Sir Charles Court Bill Hassell and boundary chanqes. 37 Resiqnation 1982 Reflections on career - highlights. Airfare funding electricity 40 charges. Unrealistic insurance charges. Garden island. Aboriginal Police Aid scheme. Housing desiQn for tropics etc Tape Three Side B Career frustrations: condemnation of:- Aboriginal issues - 42 apartheid separate leQislation. Crown land Qrants. Pavroll Tax Parliamentary Colleagues. Peter Jones - Bill Hassell - Ray 43 O'Connor. Andrew Mensaros

Opirnions on Peter Dowding and Ernie Bridge. Water from the Ord 44 River. Dick Old and Coalition Parl.iamentary democracy in Western Australia 45 Life after parliament 46 Kimberley changes - community facilities. Ongoing issues for 47 Aboriginal people. Metropolitan needs for water. Inequitable tax system. Bureaucracy and chanqe. Obtaininq title of 'Honourable' 49 Tape Four Side A Electorate after resignation. Future needs for Pilbara and 50 Kimberley area. Potential of these regions to develop and maintain huge populations and industry. Current expansion patt1erns reviewed Apartheid policies of Western Australian qovernment 51

Attachment I Handy Hints from an Old Man to a Young Person

2 My name is Ron Chapman. I am a post-graduate research student at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. Today is Thursday, 28 October 2004 and I am carrying out an oral history interview with Bill Withers at his home at 40 Canning Highway, Victoria Park, Perth. This interview will comprise part of an oral history project that seeks to record the recollections of former members of Western Australia's Parliament.

RC First of all, Bill, I would like to thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview.

WITHERS It is my pleasure, Ron.

RC Thanks Bill. I'd just like to start by asking if you could tell us something about where you were born, your date of birth and your family history and ties to Western Australia.

WITHERS Firstly, I was born on 8 August 1931 in Sydney. I went to school at Sydney Technical High School; that's the high school. I went to Kogarah Primary Boys School. My ties to Western Australia didn't start until 1953, towards the end of 1952 actually. I came over here to the Air Force. I met my wife who was a nurse training over here, so that was our first contact with Western Australia. We went away and came back much later in 1964.

RC Okay, fine. Could you just provide me with some details about your family political background to start the interview?

WITHERS I wasn't interested in politics at all; it's just that I was asked by both major parties to join them. By that time I was up in Kununurra and I'd had quite an eclectic career. I joined the Liberal Party and became a politician.

RC We'll be coming on to that later. Going back to your family background, your education, where were you educated, Bill?

WITHERS Firstly, at Kogarah Primary School but then at Sydney Technical High School. My family background was rather strange in some respects in that my father was initially a butcher and then a proprietor of a guesthouse and a fisherman and then he became a professional gambler.

RC Really? It sounds interesting. Do you want to comment further on that?

WITHERS Not really, except that I think that anybody who really goes out and bets on horses and dogs has got to be soft in the head!

RC At this early stage in your life, Bill, your childhood, reflecting back, what do you see as your influences from that time on your future career?

WITHERS I think the major thing that I learned as a boy was survival - that is, survival in the bush, survival on the street - and just how to enjoy life. They were the major things taught to me by my parents. TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 2

RC When you left school, Bill, what did you see as yom future ambitions at that time?

WITHERS Initially, it was wartime, you remember. I had joined the Air Training Corps at the age of 13, because in the Royal Australian Air Force Air Training Corps you had to be normally 16 to join an ATC flight, but in my case, going to Sydney Technical High School which had number one flight of the ATC, you could join at 14, but then the school brought in a rule that allowed you to join in the year that you turned 14. My birthday being in August allowed me to join at 13. I joined the ATC during wartime at the age of 13 and I passed the test for air crew. That was part of my desired boyhood dream to serve my country in the Air Force.

RC You've probably answered our first question there, Bill, which was why you decided to join the RAAF. Do you just want to elaborate on that?

WITHERS It is just that, as I said, I believed it suited the career path visualised as a boy. I also believed it would provide further education for future goals.

RC So you thought it would provide good grounding for your future.

WITHERS Yes. I was uncertain as to what I wanted to be, other than to be somebody that was influenced by wartime propaganda; that is, to be a fighter pilot shooting down the enemy.

RC I just want to ask you what influenced your decision to join the RAAF. What were the influences on that?

WITHERS The fact that I had passed the test for air crew and the desire to serve my country etc. When the Air Force introduced the first apprenticeship course, that was at the end of 1947, I did the entrance exams with them and then commenced duty at RAAF base at Wagga Wagga. That was the start of my Air Force career.

RC Okay. What do you think your service in the RAAF taught you? We just spoke about your duties at Wagga Wagga. What did they comprise? What did it teach you?

WITHERS We had to learn , of course, the discipline of servicemen and, of course, we had to be technical students for the three-year trade course. But it provided a broad but very high-quality academic course· and trade training as an air frame fitter with allied trades.

RC What particular skills and attributes do you think your service in the RAAF taught you for your future career, just reflecting1back?

WITHERS Sure. It taught a disciplined regime of study and the skilled use of machine tools, hand tools, instruments and materials across many trades. This included training in the working of metal, plastic, timber, glass, fabric, TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 3 composite rubber, spray painting. At that time our weekly wage was only three shillings per week, or in today's decimal currency that is under five cents per day, so we were unable to invite a girl to a picture theatre unless we found another source of income. Sometimes on Sundays after church parade we'd work in a wrecking yard and my major income was from painting landscapes or insignias and scrolls on kit bags. Between 1946 and 1949, one of the male civilian fashions was hand-painted neckties, so I painted clipper ships in full sail, bare-breasted hula girls, Scottish drum majors marching off the tie in an ordered tartan or the heads of panting dogs. I found the Australian and Scot terriers were the favourites. Besides the excellent trade training, the reason I mentioned these extracurricular activities, the Air Force apprenticeship scheme inadvertently taught us skills in monetary survival, and later in life I expanded and commercialised on these skills.

RC So what you are saying is that these skills really stood you in good stead for later life. Just a question on that, what influence do you see your service in the RAAF having on your future career path?

WITHERS Well, Ron, it influenced me more than I'd ever dreamed as a boy. The trade training overlapped with some of the skills required in the jewellery trade, so in later years, I was able to do trade extension courses to become a jeweller. Prior to the jewellery phase, the RAAF training made it easier for me to become an air crew trainee, which initially I wanted to be, and to qualify as a navigator. Those combined skills were later extended in the aircraft research and development unit where I was employed as a specialist with the radio physics division of CSIRO. Some of the research and project management skills I learnt in CSIRO allowed me effectively to access research systems that aided my entry to commerce and later into politics. The painting skills (self­ taught by necessity) allowed me to do some formal art training and to later become an art dealer. One of my paintings is in the Parliament House collection. It beat me into Parliament by three years.

RC Just out of interest, Bill, what is the painting?

WITHERS The painting depicts the Kimberley. It is a painting of a boab tree with the quartzite hills or Sleeping Buddah in the background with a foreground of pandanus to indicate the presence of water. I have painted in some indistinct cattle aind I painted them deliberately indistinct so the further that you get away from the painting, the more they become apparent as a herd of cattle. I did this to symbolise the introduction of a man-introduced industry which is only in its embryo stage and therefore not quite distinct yet but will become more and more positive later on.

RC Unless there's anything you wanted to recollect about your RAAF service, I propose to move on to now your employment with CSIRO from 1957 to 1964. I hope that's okay. If that's okay, I'd just like to ask what were the circumstances surrounding your transfer to the radio physics division of CSIRO.

WITHERS Fine; it did start off in the Air Force. I was a commissioned officer with the aircraft research and development unit, who was working for CSIRO in TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 4 a special detachment at RAAF base Richmond, New South Wales. CSIRO had found that research by their scientists was being limited by the flying and travel time that necessitated the collection of information. They also found that the scientists' limited knowledge of the capacities and limitations of aircraft and crew was also a problem. The principal research officer of the division required an experienced navigator with technical skills and the ability to plan the logistics for basing an aircraft and crew at various locations and to manage the cloud physics projects. When offered, I agreed to accept the post conditional to a reasonable salary package, and the RAAIF agreeing to me flying in RAAF aircraft as a civilian whilst being an officer on active reserve. That was a rather unusual situation. But the CSIRO minister, the Right Honourable Richard G. Casey, MP, (later became Lord Casey) made all the necessary arrangements and I became my commanding officer's boss overnight, which caused a bit of fun, but luckily we were friends so it didn't cause any problems on the job or in the officers' mess.

RC You just mentioned it was an unusual situation. How do you see it as being an unusual situation?

WITHERS They were replacing scientists with an Air Force officer who didn't have a degree.

RC Was there any resentment from any quarters about this practice, you didn't have a degree or what? Did you just find that you were assimilated into the organisation?

WITHERS We did become assimilated. It was quite interesting really, because the responsibilities on the job were to accept the criteria and directives from the principai research officer to conduct projects at selected locations and then establish the base with equipment, personnel, aircraft, fuelling services, ground transport, accommodation, etc. Once established we could commence flying, and then collect and collate the information for the project's research team, who were back in the laboratory at Sydney University. It was also my responsibility to establish good public relations with local residents and to ensure that any press or media releases and interviews were accurate and passed on to the principal research officer.

You ask how did I fit into the CSIRO organisational structure. Prior to the appointment of another specialist and me, there was no CSIRO position for a person with the qualifications that were required by the principal research officer and the clhief of the division. Unless a CSIRO employee had a degree from a recognised university, their highest level of employment was in the category of a technical officer. I had the technical qualifications for a technical officer, but the corresponding salary wasn't sufficient to entice me to join the CSIRO team. The salary I required was higher than that paid to senior research officers, and after some negotiation it was agreed by the division chief and the technical secretary that my required salary would be met by a pre­ calculated overtime factor with a created job title of senior cloud seeding officer. Because of the specialised requirements for the projects and the unusual hours and challenging conditions faced by the c.rews in the field, they usually had TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 5 amicable relations with the research and administrative staff despite the remuneration imbalance caused by the crews' higher salary. In fact, it was a very healthy organisation; I loved it.

RC You enjoyed yourr work there?

WITHERS I certainly did.

RC Just reflecting on that, Bill, what do you think were the highlights of your work with the CSIRO?

WITHERS Ron, I found the appointment to be very challenging but also very satisfying with many highlights. The chief of the division and the principal research officer adopted some of my ideas as policy and one was an administrative suggestion that was adopted as a regulation by the Public Service Board and was passed through federal Parliament. Those items were some of the highlights in my CSIRO career; however, the greatest highlight was not one of my achievements at all. It was found in the magnificent men and women in the radio physics team. Many of those scientists went out of their way to interpret the most complex science and to put it into layman's language so that I could understand it at a level that would have been normally above my capacity to unde1rstand. For me to be introduced to academic thinking in this way was a highlight for which I will be ever grateful.

RC Reflecting on your CSIRO career, Bill, what do you consider to have been your most satisfying achievement?

WITHERS Of course, the most satisfying achievement was to establish practices that kept us alive within harsh flying conditions, because in a lot of cases we were flying when everybody else was grounded. The most famous one was to establish a system that could allow us to detect a cumulonimbus cloud emitting lightning and to calculate its position, direction and speed of movement, although we in the aircraft were flying blind on instruments and without radar. I will explain that. You would wonder why it took until the 1950s for somebody to discover this system. I wondered about it myself and then realised that, of course, flying up til then crews, whether it be in wartime or peace, were flying from point A to point B and they were passing through the weather. But our job was running backwards and forwards on a consistent track - that is, allowing for wind speed and cloud movement - and the weather was passing through us.

So this meant I had to devise a scheme to prevent the cumulonimbus clouds passing through us where bolts of lightning would tear us apart. So we developed this system. It is very simple; I will explain it briefly. You detuned the radio compass or the non-directional beacon. When it was detuned, of course, the moment there was any thunderstorm in the area, the strongest radio transmission from that thunder would attract the needle, so you'd be able to get a bearing on the particular thundercloud. By doing this at the top of your track, midway through the track and at the bottom of your track, you could get a fix on the cloud, and if you kept taking fixes on that cloud, you could get its TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 6 approximate speed and direction and so you'd stay away from it and that helped keep us alive. Another satisfying achievement was to be loaned to the Rex Aviation Pty Ltd to navigate the first light aircraft delivery flight across the Pacific in 1957. That historic flight is reported in a book, The Sky is My Canvas by Miles King. The aircraft was VH-REL, a Cessna 310B, which was purchased by CSIRO.

Another career highlight was the development of my billiard ball theory. This allowed me to calculate by rule of thumb the directional digressions of seeded cumulus clouds away from the wind velocity which was caused by the rotational and ground effects. I found that if you had a low-base cumulus cloud coming into a hilly mountain region, the ground effect would actually affect the direction of the cloud because the cloud is spinning; cumulus cloud is actually a small low pressure cell and with that rotational movement affecting other clouds, too, incidentally, depending on their size and coming off the hill, which acts like a cushion of a billiard table. By playing billiards with the clouds or the cloud shadows, you could estimate where the cloud was going to go, so by seeding clouds using this method, which was a bit of a diversion from the standard method, we were able to get these clouds into small target areas. I must say that one of the contracts I did for Conzinc Rio Tinto Pty Ltd at Mary Kathleen in 1958 produced some really spectacular results using this system.

RC Thanks for that, Bill. On the other side of the coin, what do you consider to have been some of the negative aspects, if there were any in fact, of your time with CSIRO?

WITHERS As I said, I really enjoyed the job. The most negative aspect, though, from a personal domestic point of view was my absence from home during the conducting of distant projects. I think everybody could understand that without me describing further. From a research point of view, I found that the arguments between statisticians were frustrating. The arguments were about any change to the natural rainfall resulting from readings in the interchanging tar1get and control areas. It became even more infuriating when the academic arguments were driven by politics, and particularly in the Snowy Mountain scheme project. In that case, an average increase of 18 per cent over three years in the target areas was considered by some statisticians as not statistically si·gnificant. Yes, I wasn't very impressed by that, Ron.

RC What political views did you hold at this stage of your life, Bill? Would you like to comment on that, Bill?

WITHERS At this stage of my life I was apolitical in the true sense. believed, as a commissioned officer with a security clearance, that I should not become involved in politics, and this belief was so strong that I never registered as a state or federal voter whilst I was in the RAAF and CSIRO. I registered to vote for the first time in late 1964 at the age of 33.

RC Just reflecting on your experience in the CSIRO, how important was that experience you gained at the CSIRO on your future career path? TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 7

WITHERS The experience I gained in CSIRO had a tremendous influence on many segments throughout my eclectic career path. It gave me some practical insights into research and project management, logistical preparation, personnel management, public relations, lateral thinking, academic thinking, costing, bureaucracy and politics.

RC So it provided a good grounding for your future political career, you might say.

WITHERS Yes, it certainly was, yes.

RC Why did you decide to leave the CSIRO, Bill?

WITHERS It's a strange one this. I decided to leave the CSIRO after I studied my position in 1963. I found there I was at the age of 32, I loved my job, I had a sleek, twin-engine aircraft with a contract pilot for the projects to which I was directed, I had a commonwealth car, a home office and a laboratory office, I was being well paid and I had a colourful status in my workplace and community. I was on top of the tree, but I'd no more challenging horizons. My wife, Judy, agreed with my proposal for new horizons; she could understand it. We planned to purchase an aircraft and fly out fine jewellery into country jewellers in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and we agreed that we should give CSIRO plenty of time to replace me. At that stage we had expanded. CSIRO had three other cloud seeding officers with three aircraft in our fleet, plus another one on charter, plus the RAAF aircraft at aircraft research and development unit detachment B at Richmond. By that time in 1963 we had an operations chief to oversee the aircraft and crews. He was the ex-senior captain of TEAL airlines, the New Zealand airlines, so he was also a stand-by pilot and stand-by cloud seeding offiicer. I then discussed my commercial plan with my CSIRO colleagues but before the plan could be put into effect, we decided to become part of the first wave of the new settlers in Western Australia's Ord River irrigation scheme, and that began a whole new career.

RC Yes, I can imag1ine about that. Just before we move onto that next stage of your life, Bill, are there any further reflections you'd like to make on CSIRO or any time previous to that?

WITHERS The only reflections I have on CSIRO, except for the statistical arguments that were outside the division, were magnificent memor:ies. I've already said that they were magnificent men and women, but they were also dedicated people. I've never seen such dedication before or since. You could go into the laboratory on a Sunday or a public holiday and the cars outside the laboratory were there. They'd get an idea and they'd want to follow it up. We're talking about salaried people, not people on wages drawing overtime; these were salaried people who really had a commitment. Of course, they came up with some absolutely magnificent inventions. One of them was the DME, the distance measuring equipment. That was an invention of our division. In fact,. I used the prototype, which was with valves; we didn't have transistors in those days. It was a massive thing. You used it in the old Avro TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 8

Anson. That was one of our inventions. It was later used by all airlines in the world. They were just magnificent peop1le.

RC Thanks for that, Bill. If I could move on now to your move to Kununurra in 1964. Why did you decide to move to Kununurra from Sydney and why did you actually choose Kununurra?

WITHERS Late in 1963, I mentioned that we were ready to buy an aircraft but the secretary of our bowling club in Berowra north of Sydney asked me for a reference to support his application for a cotton farm. The cotton farm was on the new Ord River irrigation scheme in Western Australia and it was centred on the embryo town of Kununurra. I asked him why he wanted the reference, he told me, I questioned him further and by midnight that night we were business partners. We didn't get the farming land, but we purchased two commercial sites in the proposed Kununurra retail area.

RC Just flowing on from that, what observations can you make of the difficulties that you first encountered moving from a densely populated urban area into a remote community, because it was quite a change for you, wasn't it?

WITHERS It certainly was. Some of my observations are recorded in my book, Frontier Dreaming, which is a liglht-hearted look at the birth of a Kimberley frontier town. Our partnership, which was two married couples with our families, researched the venture before leaving Sydney and we prepared a convoy with a double-decker Leyland bus, a Landrover towing a caravan, a Holden station wagon with a boat on the roof towing a trailer, plus a three-tonne Ford truck. The upper deck of the bus was my family's living quarters and the caravan was our partner's living quarters. We carried vegetable seeds and stores for six months, plus bantam chickens for our egg supply and our route through western Queensland and the Northern Territory (this is early in 1964; March of 1964) sometimes required us to construct our own crossings of flooded creeks and rivers and to find our own track through the bush when the roads were eroded and impassable.

Our trek to Kununurra took five weeks and three days. That particular trek captured the imagination of many people thmughout the nation, mainly through the national press and the media reports. One such report was a five-day pictorial in March of 1964. It was an edition of the Australian Women's Weekly, and similar reports continued with pictorials in various publications for 12 months or more. One pictorial was in The Age newspaper dated 3 February 1965. But every decade or so we see a human interest update on that trek. I made a comment in my book about participation in the building of a frontier town. In that I said, and I quote this. Ron, (I hope a quote from a book is permissible) -

The construction workers using the wet canteen were a rough, tough breed of men who lacked the heart salve of a woman's caress. They drank and then fought for the love of fighting. Some of the fights seen in the wet canteen made the screen epics of Johin Wayne look like kindergarten ballet classes. TAPE ONE SIDE A WITHERS 9

By gee, I mean that. I've never seen fights like it in my life. Anyway, I believe from those comments you might see some of the difficulties experienced by urban people moving into a remote embryo community in the Kimberley early in 1964.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE A TAPE ONE SIDE B WITHERS 10

RC Just continuing on, Bill, from where we left off. I'd just like to ask what were you r first impressions of Kununurra when you arrived there.

WITHERS My first impression was that of a bustling frontier town, with a little tent city and everything that you could imagine a bustling frontier town would be. That was the first impression, but that impression was followed up with an impression of the wonderful people who there are in this world. In fact, the story I'm about to tell you, Ron, is about two people who donated their week's supply of fresh vegetables to a cause to welcome Judy and I and our partners and family to Kununurra. We weren't known to them but they threw open their house and put 0111 a barbecue and used their week's supply of salad vegetables to make us feel welcome. In fact, he was the man that I was talking to on the phone just before this interview began. We became lifelong friends of course. That was our impression - a bustling town with bloody wonderful people.

RC Could you describe the various business ventures you started off in the early years in Kununurra, and why did you decide to pick those particular areas that you went into in business?

WITHERS If you don't mind, Ron, I'll answer the last part of the question before I proceed with the listing of the many business ventures, because we chose those particular areas of business that had need for service. The community had a small unstable population with incredibly high living costs, so we needed income from diverse sources to survive. The businesses that Judy and I commenced and managed as proprietors, with or without partners, are listed in the chronological order of development. They were, and I have written these down, Withers and Young General Store; Wand Y Garbage Contractors; Wand Y Carting Contractors; BP Ord River Service Station; Messmate Motors, which was a Ford dealership, panel shop and used car yard; MMM Hire Cars; Ord River Gemstones and Souvenirs, which was souvenir and jewellery manufacturing; Ojaaru Gems, which was retail jewellery, souvenirs, giftware and fine art; Brenda's Beauty Salon; Ord River Newsagency; Cinderella's Shoes; Ord River Diamonds Pty Ltd, that's fine jewellery manufacturer; Kafupi Mining, which was mining~prospecting . 1 might add, incidentally, that Djaaru Gems later became Nina's Jewellery in the 1980s, and I hope that we'll refer to that later on. I think 1 got most of them.

RC Just commenting on that list, Bill, it seems quite an eclectic mixture of business there. Why was that and did you encounter any difficulties in setting these ventures up in Kununurra?

WITHERS I .mention one of these in the book. There was always difficulty in starting a business, but how we became garbage contractors and carting contractors as part of Withers and Young General Store, we only had the one three-tonne truck that I mentioned that we drove over from the east - the old Ford. We found that the government had called tenders for a personnel carrier to take people to and from the area in the early hours of the morning and late afternoon, which required seating to carry X number (I forget the number) of workers. We figured if we cou ld put seats down the side and bolt them just with wing nuts, this would suffice, and it did. So we got that contract. We also TAPE ONE SIDE 8 WITHERS 11 found that they were calling for garbage contractors. We figured that if we took the seats out of the truck after the morning run and put in a slip bin into the back of the truck then we could become garbage contractors, which we did; we got that contract as well. We didn't have any health inspectors because on the days that we weren't using it as garbage contractors, we'd use it for carting goods from Wyndham from the wharf 100 kilometres distance. One of the things that we brought back with us was the town's bread supply, but as I said we didn't have health inspectors and nobody died of galloping salmonella or anything like that and we survived. It was wonderful. [chuckles]

RC Looking back on those different business ventures that you had there, Bill, what do you consider the most satisfying aspects of those ventures?

WITHERS Once again it comes back to survival, I suppose. The most satisfying aspect was the fact that they did allow us to survive, and also the lack of experienced competition gave us time to learn how to provide satisfactory or even superior services and goods but then that's a bit hard to do in a city or a developed area. A person who has no experience at all would certainly go under because of the people around him with experience. We didn't have that competition up there, so it gave us time to learn. Some of our ventures, of course, were disasters, but they provided good lessons about which we can laugh today. Some of the businesses remain but they now have different proprietors and different business names. One has continued as our core business; that is, Rivenlea Investments Pty Ltd and that's trading as Nina's Jewellery Kununurra and Nina's Jewellery in Dunsborough. Can I make a comment here about one off the amusing things in a business that didn't go too well? Of course, we opened up a shoe shop and we were flooded with customers who wanted shoes and sandals suitable for the tropics. We had good Italian-brand sandals etc and we sold these very rapidly but within an hour or so (no, it was a couple of hours) our first customer came back in tears because her sandals had fallen apart. What had happened, they were very a good quality shoe, but the adhesives just couldn't take the heat in the tropics with the extreme temperatures of the ground and they just disintegrated; the adhesive gave way. We can laugh at that now, but it wasn't too funny at the time. [chuckles)

RC You must have encountered some difficulties during setting up these businesses, I would assume. Could you just reflect on some of the difficulties and frustrations you encountered?

WITHERS I certainly can. The greatest difficulties and frustrations were created by the bureaucracy in Perth, 3 300 kilometres to the south. The State Government had created a bureaucratic committee which was named, and this is indelibly scored into my head, the Interdepartmental Committee for Kununurra. The committee was comprised of Perth-based public servants, plus the public works district engineer who resided in Kununurra. The committee was unconstitutional, but of course we didn't realise this. We didn't know that a government would do something that was totally unconstitutional, flaming pirates that they were. The committee had decided it had superiority over the Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire Council and in an enormous bluff, the TAPE ONE SIDE B WITHERS 12 bureaucratic committee established building specifications that had to be met by the settlers before plans were approved for Kununurra. The Wyndham-East Kimberley, as the formal building authority, correctly demanded that all plans had to be submitted to cou ncil for approval. Unfortunately, the building requirements for the two building authorities (and I put the building authorities in inverted commas, because one, as I said , was unconstitutional but we didn't know it) conflicted. Some specifications were even diametrically opposed to each other. For instance, one required cement floor pads; the other required timber flooring up on stumps. One required cantilever awnings on the shops; the other required bullnose verandas with supporting pillars. So the settlers were caught in the middle with neither authority allowing the plans to be passed unless they satisfied both authorities. Our first shop started off with a reasonable design but it finished up like a battleship trying to get airborne. It looked terrible. We were trying to meet these queer specifications. Some of the people built shops with the bullnose awnings and posts to satisfy the Perth bureaucrats but they set the building back away from the footpath area to satisfy the shire.

The shire council stated correctly that the old fashioned system of bullnose awnings and veranda posts looked attractive (they looked attractive on plans and architect sketches) but such awnings and posts were useful in the horse and buggy era when they also had hitching rails. Wyndham still had such buildings, but since the invention of the horseless carriage, the veranda posts were bent and dented by the parking of cars, and those posts may still be seen in Wyndham, whilst in Kununurra some of the old buildings are misaligned with the newer buildings as a result of that fearful damned committee. Whilst I was deputy shire president, my first political act was to do a deal with the Minister for Industrial Development and the North West, Hon Charles Court, MLA (later to become Sir Charles) to disband the Interdepartmental Liaison Committee for Kununurra. The council was then able to revert to being the building authority for Kununurra and Wyndham. Whilst they were operating, the fearful committee also caused confusion by approving of plans and then changing their minds after construction commenced. I had one personal experience of this where my return suggestion to the committee's officer had the same possibility of execution as their directive to me. They weren't very happy, but they had to comply with what I demanded. This time I'd had enough and it was going to cost them a lot of money to change it. Another difficulty created by gov1ernment was the delayed payment of accounts to the new businesses; delays of four months were common. But the assurances of government officers that the debt was "assured money" did not imprnve relations with the creditors. The Public Works Department was the authority for the utilities such as power and water, and new business proprietors were incredulous that this authority thought it was normal to be in debt to the business for thousands of dollars whilst threatening to cut off power and water for the sake of $100; that is, if the business proprietor was only a month overdue. Some of the reactions to this injustice may have been seen in Hollywood westerns but not in modern Perth, and I must say I was involved in some of those fracas too; they were ternible situations. The unfair costs which were imposed by government were infuriating. The higher taxation delivered the same level as our Perth counterparts and was exacerbated by government charges that were up to 350 TAPE ONE SIDE B WITHERS 13 per cent higher than the corresponding charge to Perth residents. One classic piece of piracy existed for many years until I was able to correct it as a member of Parliament. That was, in short, people in Kununurra were paying seven times, and sometimes seven and a half times. more than their Perth counterparts for maintaining the Perth metropolitan fire brigade, whilst Kununurra didn't even have a fire brigade. Banks also considered the Ord River district to be too risky, so they wouldn't offer building finance. The government had, unintentionally, designed the scheme ~or failure, and I cover this in my book Frontier Dreaming. The bureaucrats ignored local advice to correct their errors because they believed the city expert knew best despite their ignorance.

The government advertised for development and created a bureaucratic web to hinder or stop development. Highway No 1 from Perth to Kununurra was still sand and gravel for over 2 000 kilometres. Communication systems were primitive and only a short-wave radio reception was available, and sometimes it wasn't available. Aboriginal policies were, and I might say they still are, generated by activists and distant bureaucrats. Remote area education was in an unacceptable mess. The education minister of the day made a memorable comment about our tropical 50 degree Celsius classroom temperatures. He said in 1965, "We will not put air conditioning in the classrooms because the noise will disrupt the students." We in the new community converted these frustrations into positive action and used some harsh actions of our own to change the flawed control from the south. You may wonder how this was done. I personally applied to the United Nations to declare a state of poverty in the Kimberley in education and also with roads and transport; that caused a bit of a ruckus I can tell you.

RC I was just going to ask what was the response to that?

WITHERS The Premier of the day, Sir David Brand, saw me personally after I did that, and I pointed out to him what we'd offered the minister. We'd offered to build him a school and to fund it part of the way if they would provide the teachers, and he knocked it back. When I was talking to Sir David (this is before I went into politics, incidentally) his comment was, "He could not understand why the minister had not backed that proposal."

RC Just going on from that, Bill, you soon became involved in community activities, such as the Chamber of Commerce and local councillor for the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley. What motivated you to do that?

WITHERS It was my belief, Ron. I believed communication and interaction with Perth-based businesses and the Wyndham-based shire council would improve Kununurra's status and credit standing with Perth suppliers and banks. As I said, banks wouldn't even lend for housing. I was motivated to nominate for council by the many unjust decisions from Perth that were affecting the new Kununurra community through local government. The difficulties created were mentioned in the previous answer I gave about the Interdepartmental Liaison Committee for Kununurra. I believed my presence to develop a chamber of commerce and tourist committee, as well as being on the shire council, would TAPE ONE SIDE B WITHERS 14 assist the council to effect change, and my !belief proved to be correct. By that time I was commissioned as a justice of the peace and as an honorary magistrate in the Children's Court.

RC What did your business and community activities teach you about the particular prolblems facing the area?

WITHERS In 1964 and early 1965 I learned that politicians had a low opinion of the Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire Council, and I believed they had just cause. With the help of the other Kununurra councillor and some forward­ thinking Wyndham councillors, by late 1965 we were able to change the poor image. Despite this change, the State's tourist development authority refused to recognise the Ord River district as a tourist destination, and it refused to participate in the printing of tourist brochures and maps, even though our new tourist development committee, of which I was chairman, offered to fund the maps and brochures. Fortunately, our improved shire council image was further enhanced by a young and energetiic Alan Ridge, who was elected to State Parliament in 1968. His knowledge of local government in the Kimberley also assisted us to further improve our image and conditions. The changed image encouraged visits from other state ministers, and in 1969 we saw a formal visit by all state MPs and a parliamentary tour. Unfortunately, the nearest high school in the State was nearly 3 000 kilometres distant in Geraldton. Of course, there always were the despicable, unfair and inflationary taxes. They still exist today, with emphasis on the imbalance in remote areas; they are the State's payroll tax and the Australian Tax Office's tax on district allowances.

I'd like to make a comment. Have we got time for a quick little anecdote to explain why the ministers didn't have a high opinion of the Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire Council? When I first went onto the council, I found that the councillors were under the impression that the three per cents allowed for entertainment meant that the three per cents were to be spent on the councillors' entertainment. We were able to correct that fairly quickly. When we started to get politicians taking notice of us, the Premier decided to send up a gentleman with a knighthood. I won't mention his name, but he was to stay on the Stateships for the day on his way to Darwin. The Premier asked could we look after him, so we decided at a council meeting to have a civic reception. We weren't quite sure what a civic reception was, but we decided to have one anyway. So we told the shire clerk to organise something. The shire derk had never been formalised by examination as a shire clerk and he was quite a nice old bloke but inadequate in some areas, as you'll hear. He said yes, that everything had been arranged. The guests turned up. One of the councillors and I had to sweep the floor before the guests came because there were cigarette packets on the floor. We all stood round looking at each other, wondering when the goodies were going to turn up, so I went up to the shire clerk and I said, "George, where are the goodies?" "Oh, yes," says George and disappears round to the side veranda and goes to the one refrigerator they had in the place that was for the staff. He came back balancing a couple of bottles of beer and a plate with a lump of cheese on it and a jar of pickled onions. He put these down in front of our guests and whipped the top off a bottle of beer TAPE ONE SIDE 8 WITHERS 15 and says, "Here, get this into you." That was our first civic reception. That gives you some idea of why we weren't held in high regard by the southern politicians.

RC Absolutely. You outlined before some of the difficulties you encountered in Kununurra with bureaucracy, if you like, as well as in Perth. What possible solutions did you see at the time to these problems?

WITHERS The solutions weren't all mine of course; they were proposed by many people. They were combined visions, of which I was part, that we would attempt to bring into being our communication with the Perth combined Chambers of Commerce for a visit from 25 of their members in a chartered aircraft to Kununurra. This improved our trading relations. Sir Charles Court, who was then the state Minister for Industrial Development and North West, recognised the problem we were having with the tourist development authority in Perth. He contracted a visit from the Northern Territory's tourist authority to address the Kununurra Chamber of Commerce and this resulted in our chamber establishing a tourist development committee under my chairmanship. We then funded and printed our own tourist maps and publicly challenged the tourist development authority to change its public statements about the Ord River, and they did very smartly because what we said about them publicly was all true and they didn't like it, so they had to change.

In 1965 the newly elected shire president, Councillor Bill Grandison, was one of the forward-thinking councillors who'd been part of the previously mentioned change. Bill Grandison was a competent and practical shire president. He chaired the council meetings without any inter-town imbalance, which was marvellous. That is difficult for anybody to do. When I was elected as the deputy shire president, he suggested he would host all of the Wyndham visits of dignitaries to the shire and I should host such visits to Kununurra. A personal approach to a senior cabinet minister brokered a deal (this is when I was deputy shire president) that eradicated the Perth-based bureaucratic Interdepartmental Liaison Committee for Kununurra. It caused most of our development problems, and I have mentioned this before. The Wyndham~East Kimberley Shire Council was then able to revert to its rightful place as the building authority, and I've mentioned that as well. But the shire was also able to improve government thinking about Aboriginal reserves and the housing on those reserves. I'd like to make a comment there. It was absolutely incredible. Somebody in the south who'd designed this Aboriginal housing had decided that poor people needed to be kept warm during the day (this is in the tropics) and they also needed to cook with fuel stov,es, so they thought they'd solve the problem with one fell swoop and they put fuel stoves for cooking and heating in the centre of this large room, which was their house. These people were meant to bake and fry. It was absolutely incredible. Anyway that was southern thinking. About this time I had a visit from the Minister for Housing and his staff, and this r,esulted in my visit to Perth to arrange the formation of a Kimberley building society. After the building society was incorporated, the banks changed their attitude to home loans in Kununurra, so that was a good move. I might add, too, that the first secretary of this building society was the other half of the partnership of a lady and gentleman who looked after Judy and TAPE ONE SIDE B WITHERS 16

I and our partners when we first came to Kununurra; the one I spoke to on the phone before this interview. With the assistance of the shire councillors in Wyndham, the Kununurra councillors were able to plan a civic centre, library, post office, infant health centre and shire office, and we organised it so that it was funded through the respective rentals. Of course, that was a big help to us but other problems required political solutions.

RC Thanks for that, Bill. Before we go on to speak about the start of your political career, are there any further reflections you'd like to make on Kununurra before you decided to enter politics?

WITHERS Other than to say that it's probably one of the really busy periods of my life that saw people at their best when they were under pressure. It came together as a community. They were a mob of.. . I use the term "mob"; pardon me that's an expression that's often used in the north to refer to a group of people. They were a group of people that were extreme individualists. It's pretty hard to make a community out of a group of extreme individualists, but these people did it. Of course, we had no entertainment, other than our little open-air picture theatre. As I said, everybody didn't have a radio because you needed good quality short-wave radio to even get radio reception. There was no TV, no theatres or visiting players at that stage of the game; there were later on. Because of this, people had to create their own entertainment and the nights that we had singing and that sort of thing and dancing and putting on plays in the open air, those memories are marvellous.

RC Just flowing on from what you've just said, Bill, a question just comes to mind. Who do you consider, besides yourself, to have been the key players in organising this Kununurra community in the late '60s, early '70s, about the time you were involved?

WITHERS There were many. As I said , they were extreme individualists. There are big names that jump to the fore. People like Mick Kimpton, the Oliver brothers, the Revell brothers and Lamereaux. Look, I'd be very wrong to keep going with the list because there were so many and that if I pretended I was trying to remember everyone, I'd forget somebody and be in real trouble. If you could go back to the days of '64, '65, '66, '67 and '68, there was a whole team of people working on all different things. Most of us became friends for life. For instance, one in particular in 1968 was my bank manager, who put his job on the line to release securities of mine that the bank would have said no to, to allow me to go into a loan situation and I just needed the release of securities for six weeks. He believed in what I was doing and put his job on the line for me. We're friends for life. We still play golf every Monday together down here. These sort of things were happening across the board. They were things that the city people with the city regulations just couldn't understand, but without his help we would not have Rivenlea Investments and our two jewellery shops today if it hadn't been for him and his very sensible action.

RC Unl,ess there is anything further, we'll move on to the start of your political career. Some of the experie.nces you've just recounted about your business activities in Kununurra, how do you think they assisted you in your TAPE ONE SIDE B WITHERS 17 political career as it developed, on reflection? What particular traits, in other words, in your business activities there helped you in the future?

WITHERS It'd take me hours to tell you the lot, but let's say that I. ..

RC [unclear]

WITHERS Okay. I'll give you a very brief one which I've told others particularly in politics, although my fellow politicians didn't like this. I worked as a greaser for an Aboriginal grader driver. That was my first job in Kununurra. My second job was to be the town garbo and then I became a used car dealer, but I went right down to the gutter when I became a politician. [laughter]

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE B TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 18

This is Ron Chapman interviewing Bill Withers for the Parliamentary History 1 projrect tape two, on the 28 h of October 2004.

RC Okay, Bill, just continuing on, I'd like to talk now about your entry into politics. What motivated you to first enter into politics?

WITHERS Ron, I mentioned earlier that I was apolitical, and my early contact with politicians, with the exception of the Rt Hon Richard Casey, MP, had not eng,endered my respect for the body politic. In 1966 I was approached by Hon Frank Wise, MLC, who was then the member for North Province, representing the Pilbara and Kimberley in the Legislative Council of WA. Now Frank was a past Western Australian Premier, and he was a likable old bloke. He visited me several times over the next 18 months and we discussed northern development. Now, I'll explain why he did this. An ex-New South Wales farmer knew of the paper I'd written in 1962. I mentioned the Oliver brothers earlier; this was Ian Oliver. He knew of this paper I'd written that had changed the Public Service Board's policies. This was when I was in the CSIRO in New South Wales. At his request I'd written a similar paper based on northern living costs and development issues.

That paper was published as a reference paper by the state's Department of the North West, and Frank Wise had questioned me about the paper and other issues. He then invited me to join the Australian Labor Party. He told me that the memberfor Kimberley, Jack Rhatigan, MP. in 1966 was planning to retire in 1971 and that the ALP was planning a replacement. He told me that the party thought I should be that man. I refused on the grounds that a political life was not appealing, but I did promise to read a package of material that he wanted me to study. The package arrived. It was a small suitcase full of papers that took me three months to read. In the meantime, Jack Rhatigan, MP visited me and repeated the invitation put by Frank Wise. I then advised the two MPs that I could never be an ALP candidate or a member of the ALP because of the ALP pledge that I believed to be non-democratic. Of course, I had read this. This was in the suitcase full of papers that I had read. The ALP pledge required a candidate to pledge that he or she, as a member of Parliament, would only vote on any issue as directed by a properly constituted ALP Caucus.

Shortly after that I was approached by Hon Charles Court, MLA to chair a public meeting for the introduction of the Liberal Parity's candidate for the Kimberley, Alan Ridge. Alan was then the shire clerk in Derby. I agreed to the request, and I was impressed by Alan's knowledge of the Kimberley and also his sincerity. Alan won the election in 1968, and he was reported in a news item as berating the Minister for Education for his attitude to education in the Kimberley. That, incidentally, was the same minister who made the comment about not airconditioning classrooms. I remember the comments to my wife Judy. I was in the kitchen at the time and I said, "Thank God for an honest politician." I immediately went to the post office and sent Alan Ridge a telegram of agreement and congratulations. When Alan next vi.sited the Kimberley, he advised me that he needed help in Parliament, and he asked if I could find a person who'd be interested in seeking endorsement for the North Province seat that was about to be vacat1ed by Hon Frank Wise, MLC. By TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 19

August 1970 I advised Alan Ridge, MLA that I was unable to find a suitable candidate that was willing to seek endorsement. I also said that I was handing over the administration of our business to Jludy so that I could concentrate on prospecting combined with landscape painting. I could do this if he was desperate; I woulld have a go. Alan confirmed that it was the outcome for which he'd been hoping, so I then stated I'd be prepared to join the Liberal Party.

RC Just to clarify this time, what was the representation at that time in the seats up there - there was the North Province seat? Can you just elaborate on what the [inaudible] ...

WITHERS Okay. There are two seats for North Province. Prior to Alan Ridge's entry they were all held by the ALP. There was the member for Kimberley, there was the member for Pi Ibara, and the two North Province seats were all ALP. Alan was the first Liberal candidate that won a Kimberley seat for the Liberal Party. That was the situation. It was considered a blue ribbon Labor area.

RC Can you just tell me what were the circumstances surrounding your endorsement as a Liberal candidate for North Province?

WITHERS Sure. It was a bit strange. Alan Ridge met me in Perth on a Thursday and we went to the Liberal Party headquarters in Perth. I simultaneously joined the party and applied for the North Province endorsement. The secretary told me that I would know about the success of my application in around about six weeks. That did not suit me at all. I informed the secretary that I wanted an answer by the next Monday, because I wanted to announce it at the combined Pilbara and Kimberley consultative council conference in Port Hedland on the Tuesday. Of course, I was a representative to that particular meeting and I wanted to announce it if I received the endorsement. Well, the secretary was rather patient in explaining that the party had to check my bona fides and then call on me to be interviewed by the state council representatives and that this took time. I was having none of this, so I advised the secretary to check my bona tides by using the telephone, and to tell the state council members that l'·d be available for the interview at any time during the weekend. I said that I would ring headquarters to determine my fate at 10.00 am on the Monday. I must say that I distinctly remember a countenance of disbelief on the secretary when I left his office. I met with the state council he called the meeting. There were some stunned council members who'd been called in from all over the place.

I met with the state council executive on the Sunday and answered all of their questions. The answer to one question in particular caused some rather strange facial expressions. The question was, "How long have you been in the Liberal Party?" "Since Thursday," I replied. When I told the secretary I would telephone headquarters at 10.00 am on Monday, I had forgotten that I had a social engagement with Mrs Wise and Hon Frank Wise, MLC at their home for morning tea. As soon as I arrived at the Wise's Cottesloe residence, I informed them of my intention to seek liberal endorsement for the seat that Frank was vacating. Frank and Mrs Wise both laughed, and Frank said, "That does not TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 20 surprise me. Use my phone to see how you fared." I called headquairters and the secretary said, "You can start working. You have the endorsement. Where are you now?" My reply was met, for some reason, with a pregnant silence, because I said, "I am in the home of Frank and Mrs Wise getting a few pointers." At that stage I think the Liberal Party would have re-endorsed a chimpanzee, if one had been available to contest the blue ribbon ALP seat of the North Province.

RC Thanks for that, Bill. I am just interested in why you chose the Liberal Party. Why did you decide to join the Liberal Party as opposed to the ALP?

WITHERS I joined the Liberal Party because it did not have the restriction I found in the ALP pledge. I also found my spirit of free enterprise and policies for remote area development were more compatible with the Liberal Party.

RC How did you think you could make a difference?

WITHERS I thought that Alan Ridge and I could support each other in the party room to good effect. I was naive enough to think that good research followed by good, logical presentation would convince members in the Chamber. I found that that was not always so. That was later on. I believed that the Kimberley and Pilbara would move from strength to strength, making even greater wealth for the nation.

RC How did you feel when you were first elected to Parliament?

WITHERS At first I had self-doubts. I think anybody would. I asked myself, "Am I up to the task of political cut and thrust?" Then again, my ego gave me an affirmative answer and my true feelings kicked in. I had to face it; I was big­ headed.

RC How did you see your role as a member of Parliament?

WITHERS I actually put into practice what I saw as my role; that is, to travel throughout the towns and communities of the Pilbara and Kimberley conducting advertised public meetings with individuals and community representatives. This was done to solve political challenges and to take the people's views back to government. My itinerary was published in local papers, with a telephone number and address for every day of the month. I saw sittings of the Legislative Council as a forum to discuss Bills and to present views on behalf of the Pilbara and Kimberley people and to debate government and private members' Bills in the northern interests. I rapidly lost my big head, which gave way to a more humble head that was allowing a little space for cynicism. I saw the party room as a place where electorate views were presented within current policy and where policies were debated. The space in my humble head for cynicism expanded.

RC At that time how did you best feel that you could represent your electorate? TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 21

WITHERS Whilst campaigning throughout the Pilbara and Kimberley, I met with Liberal Party branches that were few in number. I realised that the traditional way of working in an electorate was not going to be suitable in many towns and communities. I will explain the traditional way. It was to meet with party members and to seek their views and requests to meet with other individuals or organisations and take their recommendations to do so. In 1971 I established a system, with the agreement of all shire councils of the Pilbara and Kimberley, to allow any member of Parliament, regardless of party, to advertise a public or private meeting in the shire hall or council room to discuss local issues. All the shires and the Aboriginal communities agreed to display notices of such meetings and to list appointment times. They would even take the bookings for me in this case or for any other member who wanted to do it. This system resulted in meetings with trade unions and every association in the north. It also resulted in meetings with elders of Aboriginal communities. One community at Forest River (that is Oombulgurri) appreciated the meeting so much that they would announce my arrival with the community bell and allow the whole community to meet so that the women and children could also express their views. The views and ideas were passed on to departments and the Government. Challenges were confronted with the source of the problem and corrected where possible, and the system worked well - very well in fact.

RC Just a question flowing on from what you have just said about the system you introduced, Bill. It seems to me that one of the advantages is that it was a system with grassroots representation. Have you any comments on that? Do you feel that was one of the main advantages?

WITHERS That is exactly what it was. It was a grassroots system. My view was that if you were elected by the people to be their representative, that is the way it should be. If your party has policies, you stay within those policies, but if you find the policies are conflicting with the people who you are representing, then it is up to you to try to change those policies. Incidentally it worked; I was successful in some areas.

RC What feedback did you get on this system, Bill? I am talking about from the Parliament itself. When you introduced the system, was there any resistance from Parliament to what you were doing?

WITHERS I was called a fool by just about everybody who heard of what I was doing. They said that I was a fool, that I was creating work for myself that I would not be able to cope with. I pointed out to them that I didn't believe this to be the case; in fact, I thought it would work the other way. I said, "If you go out and you solve the problems, the problems get less and less." I said, "The people understand what you are doing" and I said, "You find that you've got less paperwork." At the time I had so much paperwork it was incredible. I said, "People appreciate what you are doing and they understand what government is about because they have now got an input into it." I proved to be correct. Alan Ridge became a minister, of course. He could not adopt such a system, but the incoming member for Pilbara adopted the same policy. He did exactly the same. TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 22

RC I would just like to talk about the logistics of your parliamentary representation. Why did you feel that you had to move to Perth to represent your electorate?

WITHERS I had to move to Perth because members of Parliament had no secretarial or research staff. Backbench MPs had to do all the research and arrange their own administration and communications. Now, that sounds fair enough until you know the conditions. As a business person, I believed the parliamentary services and conditions were primitive. Compared with today's conditions the 1971 conditions were unbelievable. In 1971 each MP was allocated a shared office with a student-sized desk and a telephone. There was no filing cabinet. A cardboard concertina file, used in some kitchens for recipes, was place in the desk draw for use as the MP's filing system. There were three typists to service 47 MPs. The typists were not available to take shorthand notes. There was only one single-sheet photocopier in the whole of Parliament House. The copier was to service the House staff and the MPs. The MPs were not permitted to use the locked photocopier; it was only to be used by a House attendant, if one was available. Telephone messages could not be taken by the parliamentary switchboard girl. With that primitive situation, plus the fact that my Kununurra residence was 2 300 kilometres by road to the south west edge of the electorate, it became necessary to move to Perth.

Just to explain how stupid this system was I will give you a little anecdote about a filing cabinet. When I won the election in February 1971 , I could not take up the seat until 22 May 1971, so I used that time to prepare a file on every town and community in the electorate and a file on every government department and quango, so that I would know whom to phone when a problem occurred (the name of the director or under secretary etc etc). I arrived in Perth with two large suitcases full of files ready to put into the filing cabinet. I must admit that my ego took charge for a little while here when the Clerk of the Parliaments met me at the door and took me to my office, which had a crested carpet, a chandelier, velvet drape curtains and on the door ''The Honourable William R. Withers, JP, MLC". I thought, "This is me." When I walked into this beautiful office, which I had to share with another MP but he was not there (a wonderful old bloke, who is dead now, George Berry, who was the member for Lower North Province) I sat down at the desk to familiarise myself with it and realised it was a student desk and really would not allow any research whatsoever on the desk. I saw an internal phone book, but I saw that there was no filing cabinet in the room, so I rang the Clerk of the Parliaments. I said, "It is Bill Withers here. You have just introduced me to the place. I would just liike to say that I have no filing cabinet in my room ." He said, "Yes, you've got a filing cabinet in your room." I said, "No, I haven't." He said, "Yes, you have." I said, "Somebody must have thumped it because it is not here now." He said, "You've got a desk there, haven't you?" I said, "Yes, a little student desk." He said, "There is a shallow draw and a deep draw." I said, "Yes." He said, "Did you look in the deep draw?" I said, "Yes. There is a little cardboard concertina file." He said, "That is your filing cabinet [laughs]." I said, "Look, I have got 36 communities and towns in my electorate and I have a file on every government department and quango. I need a four-drraw filing cabinet." He said, "I am sorry. You can't have one." I said, "Well, I am going to have one. Please buy TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 23 one in for me." He said, "We can't do that." I said, "Why not?" He said, "We don't have the authority." I said, "You have now. You've got the authority from a member of Parliament. I'm the member of Parliament. I take the responsibility if you order me a filing cabinet." He said, "I can't. I am sorry. Can I get back to you?" I said, "Yes, certainly."

God knows, even the minister must have run to get to my office. I had the Deputy Premier of the State, who was also the new ALP Minister for Works, come into my office and say, "You're upsetting the system by demanding a filing cabinet." I said, "Yes, that's right." He said, "You're not going to get a filing cabinet. Your Government left the Treasury in such a state that we couldn't possibly buy you a filing cabinet." I won't mention his name. He is dead now, or "passed on" is the correct term. I said, "You don't know anything about me and I don't know anything about you, but I'm a gambling man in one sense. I am willing to bet that within 48 hours you are going to be pleased to buy me a filing cabinet." He laughed and walked out of my office. I think his laugh very quickly changed, incidentally. What I did was this: I went down town and I bought, I think it was, 1 000 plastic cover sheets that took A4 . .. they weren't A4 then, they were quarto and foolscap pages. I must admit II cheated a bit. I split it up to make it look as though I had more files than I actually did, but I then carpeted the floor with these files and then put the files down either side of the carpet down the length of the Parliament House corridor. 'When all the attendants asked me what I was doing, I said, "I am establishing my filing cabinet." I then rang up the Clerk of the Parliaments and said, "Would you please instruct your staff that when they are bringing visitors into Parliament House, no-one is to step on my filing system." Within 48 hours I had my filing cabinet. I then found, when I looked at the state of the House, that other things needed to be done, but that might come out later. We'll see.

RC Thanks Biill. In your maiden speech to the Legislative Council in July 1971, you highlighted several specific probllems facing your remote electorate. What were the major challenges and how well do you think your speech was received?

WITHERS The specific problems, or the major challenges, as you say, the ones I raised (I lnave listed these because I knew you were going to ask this question) are as follows. One, the lack of schools and facilities caused parents to face costs of up to 400 per cent more than the maximum taxation deduction. Two, the exorbitant cost of electricity was up to 350 per cent more than in the metropolitan area. These costs prevented the use of airconditioners ~ n private homes that had internal temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius on pre and post monsoon days. Three, the high cost of living forced northern residents to pay over double the income tax of their city counterparts to live at the same standard. Four, there was a lack of understanding for the training of Aborigines who had drifted into towns from outlying stations. Five, there were government policies of discrimination based on race, where one person with a higher income than another could be given a bigger and better government house with greater subsidies than the person of another race who had a lower income. I reaffirmed that this was dependant on the race of the examples quoted. Six, there were more travel concessions and fares given to school children of one TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 24 race over children of another race regardless of their parents' income. Seven, there was a loss of trade for Western Australian suppliers because of the poor, unsealed roads to the north of the State that discouraged road transport. There was no rail transport. Eight, there were unrealistic government policies in respect of local government contracting in the north. Nine, the Great Northern Highway was primitive and many rivers and creeks had inadequate bridges. Sometimes the bridges did not even exist. This poor system caused some towns in the Kimberley and Pilbara to be isolated during the monsoon periods. The situation existed whilst Australia was allocating massive grants for building roads in the Philippines. Ten, there was a lack of understanding of Australian times zones; for example, Kununurra was only 30 kilometres from a one and a half hour time change with a sun time that was one hour 15 minutes ahead of Perth time.

The speech was received very well in the north, but the Aboriginal issues were not received well by Aboriginal activists in the city, nor the politicians who supported apartheid policies of separate development for Aborigines. Those people could not appreciate that the request for racial equality arose from the requests of Aboriginal elders, who had more commonsense and political sense in their callused toes than the city activists and politicians. The elders could see that the government sponsored inequities based on race were apartheid policies that wou ld cause problems in the future. They wanted equality across the board, and I agreed with them. Immediately after my speech was reported in the Press, I was asked to debate the issue with Aboriginal activists on the ABC TV program This Day Tonight and also at the forum of the University of WA. The first debate on TV caused an activist, who later became the federal minister's private secretary, to try to change the subject of the debate because he found the apartheid could not be refuted. At the university a different activist admitted that he had not read my speech and he was debating what he had been told erroneously by another political activist. Since that time the apartheid policies, influence by "Nugget" Coombs and federal and state statues, have been strengthened further until today, over 33 years later, we have church leaders and the judiciary supporting the apartheid statutes and policies of separate development. The Aboriginal elders who wanted equality have now passed on. Their old parliamentary mouthpiece no longer bothers to try to educate the legislators, the judiciary or the church leaders. Those venerable people cannot understand that the meaning of the Afrikaans word "apartheid" translates to separate development in respect of race. I think that answers the question, Ron.

RC It is an extremely full answer. Thank you very much. I would like to pick up on what you have been saying about communication, or lack of it, between Aboriginal people at the time and the Government. I was quite interested in what you were saying there. From what you are saying it seems there was certainly a lack of communication there about what was required. Would you want to make further comments on that?

WITHERS I can explain the genesis of it. Of course, the genesis began in the days when the Aboriginal people had different policies applied to them, some of which you could say were genocide policies. That is evident in the TAPE TWO SIDE A WITHERS 25

House. I read some of those early speeches to the House. They didn't like it, but that's a fact of life. Our early politicians saw many ways to overcome the problem. Of course, they were views expressed by city people. Those policies and views continued through out native welfare department, through our establishment of reserves, with the housing that I have already told you about (these ridiculous policies in the Kimberley of having a heated single room). It was just absolutely crazy. Of course, they have gone on and on. Then you have got people like "Nugget" Coombs, who was rightly saying that the right thing was not done by the Aborigines, but what he has done, created these apartheid policies (with good intent, I might add). The churches, the judiciary and the politicians who have developed these apartheid policies, thinking they are favouring Aborigines, have done it with good intent, not realising the problems they are going to cause into the future. Of course, that has put many of the Aborigines in a permanent mendicancy situation.

The early elders whom I represented asked me specifically (this was one of the many things they asked me) to change the policy that gave Aboriginal children more airfares to the north than white children who were going to school, because the Aborigines could see that this would cause the white people to turn against them. They said they wanted equality not special treatment, which they saw as apartheid. Their words were not accepted by the minister or Parliament or the city MPs, or the activists for that matter. What happened was when the Government started putting advisers into the communities, you had a lot of advisers who went in there with good intentions, but you also had advisers going in there as political animals as well. It was hard to differentiate between the two sometimes. They were interested in getting their own agendas or ideas across rather than those of the elders; in fact, in a lot of cases they would endeavour to try to change the elders to a particular agenda they had.

RC Just quickly going on from that, Bill, what success do you think you had in representing the wishes of Aboriginal people from your area at the time?

WITHERS I would say that I have been unsuccessful. I can't say totally unsuccessful, because I was able to help the odd individual Aboriginal person, but in the broad policy I have been unable to represent the desires of tlhe elders that were there when I first went into Parliament. Of course, they are dead now.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE A TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 26

RC Bill, I wonder if you could just explain to me what difficulties you encountered in representing a remote electorate?

WITHERS Ron, I think the major problems were in the air schedule time cost factors. I will explain that in a minute. The North Province was approximately one-third of the geographic size of Western Australia. It had 36 communities and towns that needed to be visited and understood. Because of the isolation and different climates within the electorate, the people had different needs and different challenges. In trying to meet those needs with the prudent use of time I was using the aircraft as a second office for the reading and answering of mail. Some periods saw me averaging 5 000 to 6 000 kilometres of travel each week. Arranging air travel to meet the commitments was not easy. The scheduled airline fares were paid by the State Government, but the overall costs for representation were way over the existing parliamentary salary and allowances. In my 11 years of parliamentary service my wife and I paid out $36 000 over and above my parliamentary salary and allowances. That amount was checked and found to be correct by the Australian Taxation Office and the parliamentary Salaries and Allowances Tribunal.

I've said air schedule time cost factors were the major problem. I will probably mention these a few times because they were challenges that affected my life. Air schedules, I think that is fairly self-explanatory. When you're travelling over a large area with only a few air routes, you have to be prudent with the way you use those air routes, and, of course, that leads to the next thing - time. Sometimes if you go to a place in the Kimberley, to get back to another place, say, in the Pilbara, you first mijght have to go to Perth and then go back again. This means you have got a time management factor on your hands as well. On top of that is your cost factor. I said that the airline fares were paid for by the Government, but if you had to use an air charter, that had to come out of the allowances that you had. As I have already explained, they were not sufficient to meet the costs I was incurring. That's fair enough. I understood that, and that's why I met those costs with my own input of funds because I though that what I was doing was important. There weire cost factors, of course, in having to come back to Perth or go to another town for that matter. You might have to stay overnight to get to your next air schedule, which means you have got to pay for another hotel room etc. It was a challenging pace. I will explain later on how it affected my life.

RC That is interesting. Can you explain to me how you organised your time over the years when representing your electorate?

WITHERS Sure. The parliamentary sittings were scheduled, so I arranged my electorate itineraries around the sittings. I used the Parliamentairy Library for research on sitting days. One innovation still raises a laugh within my family. I found that I did not have time to read the mass of second-class mail that was received by MPs (they do receive a lot of it), so I built a small library in the sole toilet of our Perth home. Every week I would change the second-class mail in the toilet. Our teenage family members were requested to read the mail and to highlight anything they thought I should know about the North Province, and they could draw it to my attention. One day my eldest daughter was telling TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 27 our youngest son to hurry up because she needed to use the toilet. A very slow "Okay, Wendy" was followed by a query, "Gee, do you know how many sausage skins we import from .America?" Anyway, the system did work and the kids were great.

Time with the family was sacrificed through the electorate, but we still managed to remain a strong family unit. I found that a 100 per cent diet of politics was not healthy, so I enrolled, incognito, at the Perth Technical College so that I could get a fresh outlook from art students and refresh my art skills. The director saw me. He knew of my paintings in the Parliament House collection, the National Bank collection and other collections, so I was upgraded to the final year class. Judy knew of my secret but my family was not informed. We still smile about the night that my daughter and friends walked towards a group of art students sketching a streetscene - streetscape. I am getting tongue-tied here; we didn't have any wine with lunch either. Anyway, I was out sketching in the street doing street scenes in the city with these other art students. Wendy was walking along and she recognised me. She saw her father sketching in soiled art gear and she screamed "Dad" with such commitment that she turned the heads of pedestrians within a radius of 100 metres. That is how the whole family found out that I was a part-time art student incognito.

I also tried to get experience with people in the electorate who had a specific challenge. I lived with a Kimberley tribal group for three days and worked as a deckhand on a prawn trawler for three days out of Sam's Creek in the Pilbara. Another time I took over as chef for a hotel in Broome. On that particular occasion the manager and staff were down with the flu and the chef and his offsider had fled. I put on a Chinese banquet and the guests loved it, but the remaining staff members were washing the pots pans and dishes well into the next day. Also there were a few times I sang as an unpaid entertainer in some northern hotel dining rooms. I was able to use my time to maintain sanity in the world of political insanity.

RC You have already answered this question in the previous ones, Bill, but I wonder if you could just expand on how your parliamentary duties affected your family life.

WITHERS As you say, it has been partially answered earlier, but Judy's input and the end result of our family training should be considered in this particular answer, because Judy had always been accustomed to my erratic comings and goings due to the demands of past vocations in the RAAF and CSIRO. Parliament was more of the same but with a published monthly itinerary and a contact telephone number for every day of the week. Judy was also interested in the diversity of people in all walks of life, from royalty to tribal people, that she had the opportunity to meet. Managing the family jewellery and gift businesses also gave Judy a life outside of politics. I think the parental input must have been sufficient because our two daughters and son are balanced human beings with well-matched spouses and socially balanced children who all enjoy each other's company. I don't think that we could ever ask for better than that. TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 28

RC Thanks Bill. In 1975 you were awarded a scholarship to study remote area development overseas. How valuable was your subsequent world study tour in expanding your knowledge of the particular problems facing remote communities?

WITHERS had written several papers on remote area development that had been publislhed. I mentioned two of them in prevtious answers. It was because of this commitment that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association awarded me the scholarship in 1974. I commenced the study in January 1975 and returned in March to give my report to Parliament on 19 March 1975. I think I was able to learn something of advantage from every country I visited . I'm pleased to say that some of the valuable recommendations were adopted. However, some of the suggestions that were not adopted are as follows. What I have done, knowing that you were going to ask this question, is listed a few things from each country that I believe we should have adopted but were not adopted. In India, the Indian cotton ginners altered the lint take-off from cottonseed every day. This was done to take advantage of the daily London cotton prices balanced against the seed-cake or cattle-feed prices. Our people are in the dark ages compared with this system. What they used to do was do it with computers and stock market reports. It was a wonderful system. Of course, we didn't do anything like that.

In Pakistan Dr Kareshi (this is an important one) of the Crescent Sugar Mills had developed a hardboard and chipboard using the bagasse; that is, the fibre of sugarcane. The products that he produced in the Crescent Sugar Mills are far superior to the chipboard manufactured from our forests. Australia's Colonial Sugar Refinery believed they had done the bagasse research with the product Caneite. Comparing CSR's Caneite with the Crescent Sugar Mills product was like comparing a broken-down Model T Ford with a new Lamborghini. One day on an aircraft I had quite an argument with the director of CSR. He didn't believe me. I told him his product that he thought was all right was bloody terrible. He was unhappy, so he rang Charlie Court. Charlie tried to remonstrate with me. Then he found he was on the other end of the remonstration, and so it went. Unfortunately, we didn't adopt this product. Pakistan was also decades ahead of Australia in cotton research, but our agricultural departments and the department of primary industry ignored Pakistan's expertise, and the Australian offices muddled on in a fog of ignorance, looking for the occasiona~ ray of knowledge from their many mistakes.

The USSR. There are some interesting things in this, Ron. Some I found hard to believe myself when I discovered them. Uzbek ginners (that is the people from Uzbekistan and southern USSR, as it was then) had developed a cotton gin that could gin the machine-harvested cotton varieties that could not be ginned by the British and American machines. The presentation of such information was considered to be against "political correctness during the Cold War", so nothing was done to improve the Australian cotton industry with this knowledge. Strangely, the USSR was the country that recognised the need to give the highest compensation to workers in those remote areas that had decreased facilities and services. The remote area allowances expressed as a TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 29 percentage of wages were the highest in the world. Australia was, and still is, rapacious with its inflationary and taxable allowances in remote areas, in addWon to the immoral payroll tax.

The United Kingdom: the problems of the ever-increasing paper consumption and discussion with the London editor of The Sunday Times newspaper prompted the thought about kenaf. Kenaf is a fibre-producing plant that can be grown in the Kimberley, from which paper may be produced. Paper manufactured from that crop would save a few forests.

Canada: there were many remote area policies that could advantage Australia if they were adopted. One, doctors were required to live and practise in remote areas as part of their training. Two, remote area development loans were realistic. Three, a percentage of royalties from remote area development and mining were allocated to the local government authority from the government that collected the royalty. Four, special government grants were given to decentralised industries. This policy is designed to take the pressure off natural resources and utilities in the urban areas. Five, they developed a policy to encourage remote community development through a "terms and conditions of community development ag1reement".

Alaska: the development of hydroponics to produce salad vegetables in extr,eme climate conditions was developed by a local entrepreneur, Mike Mosessian in Anchorage. The system could be used in remote communities that have extreme climates.

The People's Republic of China: some of tlhe Chinese practices needed to be investigated for our use. Some were: one, simple brick and roof tile production from low-clay soils, suited to remote communities. Two, systems that met a community's requirements which generated income in situations, where in Australia we expend money without a resulting income to achieve the same result. The use of alternative health practices, such as acupuncture, being used as anaesthesia. The Minister for Health requested that I give all the details of operations which I observed in surgery to the AMA. The AMA did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge the correspondence.

Now, I would like to say at this stage, Ron, that the Chinese accepted one of my ideas on tourism. The national Central Committee adopted it as policy and invited me to return and observe the outcome at the end of seven years. I would like to come back to something I mentioned with China, but I will finish off the list first and then come back.

RC I have just a question that I would like to throw in as well. If you would like to finish off the rest, I will come back to that.

WITHERS Okay. The Philippines: the Government had organised a jungle resettlement scheme that had a "social economic development program structure". This program had a simple layout with policies similar to those described for Canada. I believe such programs could have been used in remote Australian communities to encourage self-reliance and survival whilst TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 30 moving community members away from the debilitating reliance on permanent social security payments. That report on the remote area world study tour may be cited in the Western Australian Hansard record of Wednesday, 19 March 1975 in the Legislative Council. You were going to ask a question?

RC You said about the People's Republic of China that they accepted one of your ideas on tourism. I just wondered if you could amplify that and what your idea was.

WITHERS Certainly. When I went into China I had a most unusual meeting with some Chinese officials. Our embassy was horrified by my frankness, but I wanted to be totally honest with them and told them that I would speak frankly and honour them by doing so. They, in turn, wound up giving me a pass to travel through any part of China I wished to go, with unlimited use of my camera, even into military controlled zones, on my word that I would not photograph whilst I was in the controlled zone. They also said, because of my frankness, that they would permit me to go through China without my luggage being checked, even at the border, which they honoured, as far as I know. This was marvellous. This was their praise, incidentally; they kept on repeating this: "because of my frankness." As I said, it horrified our embassy guys, but it couldn't have worked any better as far as I was concerned. They ask.ed me to criticise their system.

I'd only been there a day or so when I realised that they were trying to present a view of China that made them look as if they were a really modern county, which they weren't in early 1975. They had produced their first tourist brochures which showed smiling Chinese women done with make-up and their formal gowns out picking oranges in the fields, which was so false. Also, it had photographs of what they thought was modern China with trolley buses etc. I looked at this and realised that, like most tourist brochures, there is a fair bit of fibbing in the em[phasis of the beauty, but this was overdoing it far too much. I realised, then, why an Italian [photographer had been asked never to return to China. I'd seen his film, which had been excellent. He'd depicted rural China with their mud huts etc. Most of the peop ~ e were livin91 in mud huts in those days. I realis·ed that he'd been banned because the Chinese were embarrassed by their mud huts and here they were trying to present a China that was totally false and in our eyes was ridiculous. So I told them. I said, "Look, you've asked me to criticise. I'm going to make a criticism and I'm going to make a suggestion." I said much what I just told you already about the overemphasis, but I said, "If you changed your tourist brochures to showing the mud huts on the front page of your tourist brochures, and say, 'Come and see the old China before we chanige it to this' and then ·show your modern China, people will understand; but you have also got to understand that what you see as modern China is very old-fashioned to us. Your trolley buses are old­ fashioned. Your buildings are old-fashioned. People would understand you if you did that." They disagreed with me, and everyday from that day on they debated with me. Wherever I went in China they'd get the local o·fficials to debate it with me. At the end of my time in China, which I think was nine days or something, they put on a good dinner for me. I knew that I had done well when I had bird's nest soup, hundred-year eggs and that sort of thing. They TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 31 then told me that my idea had gone to the Central Committee after the debates I'd had and that the Central Committee had agreed with me and they'd adopted it as policy. They invited me to come back at the end of seven years, at their expense, so that I might see the result of my suggestion to them. Here I am, in a foreign country with a billion people in it, and they are taking notice of my ideas, and yet our own stupid, bloody country and politicians could not even take my word from the Aborigines who needed to have their policies adjusted so much. It was a bizarre situation.

RC Did you actually go back to China after the seven years?

WITHERS No, I didn't. I went back to Taiwan because I wanted to compare the two. I went back to Taiwan and had a look. The reason I didn't go back to China is because, one, I could not take advantage of their invitation for them to pay my way, and if I had gone back and told them that I wanted to see it, I would be treated as a guest, and I didn't want to do that. I was happy with the fact they'd adopted it.

There's one thing that I'd like to mention about China. I said that they spent money in a different way to us. They would spend money in a way that would generate money to do the same job on which we spent money and received no return. I'd just like to quickly explain that. Have we got time to do that? Okay. Take, for instance, a farming field and [say] that farming field had an irrigation channel around the edge of the field. Whereas we would spend money stabilising the channels, either with cement or some other additive, and then try to grow windbreaks on the field itself, what the Chinese did was rather interesting. They grew a deciduous tree, like some form of poplar tree, that had a very intense and fine root system. They grew this along the edge of the banks in triangulations of growth at different times. Over three lots of triangulations they'd have, say, six years of spacing in growth. The root system stabilised the pathways and the edges of the canals. The trees, being deciduous, during the seasons of wind, and being a poplar-type tree, would still shield the crops from the wind. When they had no leaves (that was in the cold period) they would let the sunlight through, but in the hot period when they needed a bit of shade they provided shade. Now, we spend money doing all the stabilisation with footpaths or what have you, and here they were using something from which they could make money. The trees themselves that were doing the stabilisation were then converted. The first bits, the leaves, were used for mulching on the crops - this was for organic gardening. The fine twigs were used in bundles to bind the roofs together before they put their concave mud rnes on to them. Then the larger branches were used for firewood, and the trunks were used for furniture making or went off to the paper mills to make pulp. They were making a lot of money oUtt of a system whereby we make nothing.

RC [inaudible]

WITHERS That covers, I think, the things that weren't done. TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 32

RC Just looking back on the tour there, in what ways could you relate the problems facing the countries you visited to those in your own electorate?

WITHERS What I did was I was fairly specific here, Ron. Because of the compressed time that I had to do the study, I only concentrated on those issues that I could see that could benefit my electorate. I didn't look at the others.

RC What impact did the study tour have on the approach to representing your electorate?

WITHERS In the representation of my electorate I thought it had a great impact, because I saw that our government was adopting corrective measures too slowly or not at all. Because of that observation, I developed the belief that the government, industry and the people might heed the results of practical demonstrations in a remote area, rather than studying reported outcomes from afar. That belief led me to personal demonstrations.

RC Just goingr back to a qL1estion I asked you before, what I was getting at there was that in all the different countries you visited several of the problems that you saw they had, which you spoke to them about. Did some of them resonant with you about some of the problems in the Kimberley?

WITHERS Oh, yes, sure, certainly. The reason I got treated so well overseas by all the countries I visited is; because they all had remote area development problems. This is the first time somebody that they had met was doing a study on a worldwide basis. I told every country that I would share the information with them. I said to each country, "Don't give me any of your secrets, because anything that you give me I wish to share with other countries", and I did that. It was quite interesting. They actually asked me to speak to Japanese scientists in the Philippines who were working on the remote area development projects there in the jungle resettlement projects.

RC Okay Bill. In 1977 you decided to move from Perth to live in your electorate. How did you arrive at this decision?

WITHERS Continuing from the previous answer, I looked at ways I could personally demonstrate decentralised development in a remote area and correct some of the existing anomalies. With my family's agreement I planned a demonstration in, one, home building to reduce the building costs (which cost 220 per cent more in Kunununra than in Perth for welfare housing of similar size andl design built from similar materials) and, two, to demonstrate a cyclic industry to produce food without the use of chemical fertilisers, sprays, preservatives or artificial colouring, and to use the waste of one segment to produce a salab ~ e product in the next segment within a closed cycle. By this time, Brian Sodeman had won the Pilbara seat for the Liberals, so his industrious representation reduced my workload considerably in the Pilbara. Unfortunately, Alan Ridge had lost the Kimberley seat to Ernie Bridge of the ALP at the polls earlier that year. Things had improved at Parliament House with shared parliamentary secretaries and updated research and administration facilities. Those improved facilities indicated that I could return to live in TAPE TWO SIDE B WITHERS 33

Kununurra and effectively represent the electorate. I must say that at a later date that belief and indication proved to be incorrect. I'll probably get on to that later.

When the plan was researched and found to be theoretically viable, we applied for a crown lease at Packsaddle Plains (that's near Kununurra) and we returned to live in the electorate to put the demonstration project into operation.

RC I'm just going to move on, to skip one question and go on to the next, because it refers to your demonstration project. You decided to establish a tropical farm on the Ord River. Why did you decide to do this?

WITHERS The decision to build and to establish the farm occurred before I awoke to the representation problems that I described in the previous answer. The names that I mention are registered trade names, incidentally. Tropical Farm, Ord River was part of W.R. and J.M. Withers Cyclic Industry, described in my remote area development project. Our home building demonstration on the farm was highly successful. The farm produced organic mangoes and limes for marketing, plus, for personal domestic use, organic vegetables, chickens and eggs in the organic survival unit. The first and second-grade fruits from the farm went to the markets. The third-grade and reject fruit went into the second stage of the cycle. The second stage was a factory that produced frozen confections and fruit juices under the trade name Troppo Bar. The residue and waste protein from the factory went into the third segment of the cycle. The third stage was a worm farm in a quarry that used earth worms to produce potting mix and fertiliser under the trade name Worm-A-Culture. Some of the potting mix was bagged and sold at the local market, but the balance we used to complete the cycle by spreading the fertiliser of humus and worm castings around the mango and lime trees.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE B TAPE THREE SIDE A WITHERS 34

[No introductory remarks] Ron Chapman interviewing Bill Withers for the Parliamentary History project tape three, on the 28th of October 2004.

RC Okay, Bill, just continuing talking about the tropical farm that you established in Kununurra, what were your objectives in establishing this farm and what did you hope to demonstrate?

WITHERS First of all, I did my research before I decided to do a demonstration. I looked at what could be possibly grown in the area that I would like to grow and at the same time have a ready market. I found in my research that possibly the best place in the world to grow mangoes was on the Ord River. That's not just in Australia; even that includes some of the big mango-growing areas of the world. That was one thing, but we were having trouble with the building because of building costs. Building costs were 220 per cent on, as I previously said. If I could do a demonstration to show that you could build a better house and much cheaper than the government was doing. It would be a demonstration to the people that would allow them to se·ttle in the north. If they could use these demonstration methods in farming, they'd be healthier and have an income. So that's what we set about to do. Incidentally, the housing project was so successful that to build a 22 square home in brick and stone using indigenous stone, I found that I built it for $37 000. It was immediately valued by the war service home people at $136 000, so my time and my plan and ideas were actually worth $99 000 off the price of a home.

RC Oh, right.

WITHERS And it was far superior to anything else the government was building.

RC That just brings me on to the next question about the farm. Was the farm successful?

WITHERS Yes, it was successful. It was only a demonstration ...

RC [inaudible]

WITHERS Yes. We receiv,ed higher than average prices for our mangoes. In 1986 our agent advised us that we'd just received the record price for our first-grade fruit, and our organic survival unit mark 2, which we developed on the farm, has been demonstrated seven times on Gardening Australia with seven repeats. The unit was tested by an international training group, Lab's Alive, and sent into developing countries under the auspices of UNESCO. It was pleasing for us to receive photographs of Ugandan children selling their first produce from the organic survival unit. Now, I'd like to also add that I was invited to present a paper at the sixth international permaculture conference in 1996. A copy of that paper, which describes our demonstration project and the organic survival unit, may be found on the web site (I'll repeat it twice) http://rosneath.eom.au/ipc6/ch02/withers. I will repeat that once more: http ://ros neath.com. au/ipc6/ch02Jwithers. TAPE THREE SIDE A WITHERS 35

RC And just finally on the farm, what lessons did you learn from this venture, Bill?

WITHERS The venture was a demonstration project, so our expectations were about the success of the demonstration. Lessons were more or less affirmations about what we had learnt about the wonder of nature if the natural systems were not poisoned with chemicals. The incredible stupidity of bureaucracy continued to be affirmed. We sold the farm in 2002 because we were too old to manage it without help. It ended the 25-year-old successful demonstration. In 2003, we received a call from the West Australian Department of Agriculture. The officer advised me that they were looking at funding some organic trials with mangoes in Kununurra. He had been told I might know something about such a system and asked me if that was true. It is unbelievable, isn't it? [chuckles]

RC Okay. About the demonstration farm, that's fine. Just a question on your move back to Kununurra from Perth. What difficulties did you encounter when trying to represent such a large area? This is after you moved back from Perth.

WITHERS Sure, Ron. Yes, some of the difficulties have been previously mentioned but a new dimension became apparent with the residential base in the Kimberley. The problem was still in the air schedule time cost factors that I described, but the factors were now blown out to an impossible equation. I found it hard to believe that I had not taken this into account when I planned to reside in the electorate. All of the air schedules were calculated for travel to and from Perth, 1T1ot from routes between Kimberley and Pilbara towns. A visit to Mt Newman from Kununurra and return might take up to four days, with corresponding costs for hotel accommodation and meals. From Perth for the same visit to Mt Newman to do the same thing would only require one day without the need for accommodation. These factors multiplied in varying degrees throughout the electorate, so it became quite impossible to I ive in the electorate and represent.

RC Okay, I propose now, Bill, to move on to cover the side of your career leading up to your resignation from Parliament, unless you have anything further you wish to say prior to that.

WITHERS No, Ron, I don't think so. A politician can talk all day, you know, but no, I will say no.

RC First of all, Bill, I wonder if you could expllain the circumstances surrounding your decision to resign from the parliamentary branch of the Liberal Party in May 1981 .

WITHERS Well, I didn't actually resign from the Liberal! Party; I resigned from the parliamentary branch of the Liberal Party because a minister, with other members, had organised a boundary change to the Pilbara and Kimberley electorates. In so doing, they had inadvertently adopted platform 7 of the ALP and applied it singularly to the Kimberley. Platform 7 was the principle of the TAPE THREE SI DE A WITHERS 36 one man, one vote of equal value. I advised the party, or the parliamentary party room, that by doing this they would never again be able to debate against platform 7 of the ALP. I wished to maintain my Liberal Party beliefs, so I resigned from the parliamentary branch of the Liberal Party when they refused to correct their error. Other reasons will clarify the situation as this interview progresses. The Liberal Party then kicked me out of the party. Now, I didn't resign from the Liberal Party, they kicked me out and advised me that my membership (and get this; I think this is hilarious) and donation moneys had been retained as "a donation without membership".

RC How did you see your relationship with the Premier, Sir Charles Court, up to this time, Bill? Was it a changing relationship?

WITHERS Well, I'd say our relationship was changing the whole time we knew each other, because we had quite a few heated debates over the years, but they were only ever about policy matters. I respected him as a leader but I found that he did not understand why I had committed myself and my family to a demonstration of a remote area development using "strange techniques". Sir Charles also refused to believe my contention that the boundary changes had adopted platform 7 of the ALP and applied it singularly to the Kimberley. I pointed out that if the number of electors in the State were divided by the number of electorates at that time, the resulting number was the number of electors in the new Kimberley electorate, as was to be proved. Sir Charles asked me to remain in Parliament because he thought that I would lose my superannuation entitlements if I resigned. History proved him to be correct, despite legal counsel stating that the superannuation entitlements should have been granted to me on both moral and legal grounds. I later found that Sir Charles and other MPs had no understanding of the air schedule time cost factors that affected northern representation from a Kununurra base. The sad aspect of this was the fact that they thought they understood.

RC Okay, just to clarify, Bill, could you explain how would the proposed Electoral Act Amendment Bill have affected your electorate?

WITHERS Well, the proposed Bill, when passed by Parliament and promulgated as an Act, would not affect the North Province but it drastically affected the Kimberley electorate. Prior to the proposed boundary change I had advised my party that my residency in Kununurra prevented effective representation of the North Province and that I would have to abandon the demonstration project and return to Perth or resign. I was asked by a senior minister, Hon Ray O'Connor, MLA, to research the representation of the Kimberley electorate from a Kununurra residency because the party would like me to contest the Kimberley seat. After the research I advised the minister that I could contest the seat and I would apply for endorsement at the appropriate time. Over the next few months my Pilbara colleague, Brian Sodeman, asked me several times if I was serious about seeking endorsement for the Kimberley. Each time I would confirm my intention and pointed out that I had purchased a Toyota Landcruiser to assist representation into Kimberley communities. Brian would ask if the minister, Bill Hassell, had yet spoken wmth me. In each case I rep'lied in the negative. Brian apologised for not being able to tell me what was TAPE THREE SIDE A WITHERS 37 afoot because he was committed to secrecy until Bill Hassell spoke with me. Bill Hassell finaUy telephoned me when I was trapped in Kununurra during an airline strike. He informed me that he was about to introduce an Electoral Act Amendment Bill in the Legislative Assembly in the next 30 minutes. The Bill included a boundary change with the town of Newman in the new Kimberley electorate. He also said that the boundaries had not yet been drawn. I told him that it would put the new Kimberley electorate in the same position as the North Province with regard to the air schedule time cost factors if Newman was in that new electorate. The proposed Kimberley electorate could not be effectively represented from a residential base in Kununurra under the proposed Bill. Now, the minister said it had been approved in the party room and it would now be debated in the House, and I was stuck with it.

RC I would just like to ask you, Bill, why did you consider that the proposed boundary changes constituted "the worst gerrymander carried out in the history of the western world"?

WITHERS Okay, I quoted that in, I think, my final debate. Is it in Hansard? I am not quite sure if it was my final debate, but anyway I know I said it. The confidential meetings concerning boundary changes between the minister, the member for Pilbara and other parties whilst excluding me qualified the changes as a gerrymander in my mind. The enormity of the change involved moving the Kimberley boundary down to the Murchiso111-Eyre boundary, a further distance of 500 kilometres. The majority of electorates in WA would fit into that increased area alone. The gerrymander was unlike anything else that could be found by research, hence my contention in the Legislative Council. The stupidity of the boundary change was corrected and upheld by later Liberal coalition and ALP Governments, but at the time it ended my plans for effective representation of the Kimberley.

RC Thanks Bill. How would the proposed changes have affected your capacity to represent your electorate?

WITHERS As I said earlier, it would not affect the North Province but it did affect the Kimberley. I've already explained the situation in the North Province - representation from a residential base in Kununurra. The same situation would have app rn ed for the new Kimberley electorate, plus preventing me from seeking the endorsements that had been asked of me.

RC The Opposition asserted that the object of the boundary's rea1ignment was to "prop up the position of the member for Pilbara, Brian Sodeman". What do you think of that assertion?

WITHERS Well, I believe the assertion was correct. The boundary line was so far inappropriate for the electorate boundary guidelines that the assertion became the only possible reason for the change. I believe it was a good demonstration of Lord Acton's quotation, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". TAPE THREE SIDE A WITHERS 38

RC Could you tell me how your stance over the boundary realignment affected your relationship with your Liberal Party colleagues and Premier Court?

WITHERS Well, for sure, yes, the relationship became strained and in some cases emotional, particularly when I found the party could not be persuaded to change. The party room could not accept their adoption of platform 7 of the ALP being singularly applied to the new Kimberley electorate, even though it was a simple mathematical sum to determine that it was so. It was then that I resigned from the parliamentary branch of the Liberal Party. At the time of resignation I appreciated that no one person could be blamed for the crass legislation. It was probably a group of number crunchers, who were ignorant.

RC And how did your stance affect your relationship with your electorate? Were they supportive of you?

WITHERS Well, the Kimberley electors and most of the members in the Kimberley Liberal branches were highly supportive. Most of the persons who initiated conversations with me in the Pilbara were also supportive, but many of the Pilbara Liberal branches saw that it could enhance Brian Sodeman's chance of winning the next election so they opposed my stance. Morality didn't come into the decision.

RC Could you also tell me, Bill, why you concluded, I quote again from some correspondence, "That the democratic theory of one person, one vote of equal value made democratic representation impossible"?

WITHERS Well, I have already explained the specific situation with the air schedule time cost factors, but in general the democratic theory could only be applied with fairness if each elector can be serviced equally by their parliamentary representative. This can happen in geographically small areas or in areas that have an even distribution of population. It can't happen in a State like Western Australia. The high urbanisation of Western Australian electors creates an imbalance. Some city electorate offices are within walking distance of the residences of their electors. Their MP can walk to his parliamentary office from his home in the electorate. How can an elector receive comparatively fair service if their parliamentary representative has an electorate that is 300 000 square kilometres in area and from 2 000 to 3 500 kilometres from his parliamentary office? Where does the MP place the electorate office? How does he or she organise the air schedules or the time or the cost to meet with the electors in 30 or more towns and communities? It is my opinion that the democratic theory is a fine theory for urban structures but totally unfair and impractical for remote areas, where the majority of the nation's gross national product is generated.

RC Okay, thanks Bill. Why do you feel that you had to resign from Parliament in May 1982?

WITHERS Well, in 1981 I oould see that I might disadvantage the electorate by remaining in Parliament, because adverse and untrue propaganda was TAPE THREE SI DE A WITHERS 39 already being spread about me. I believed that funding for the Kimberley would be depleted whilst I was the sole non-ALP representative in the Kimberley. I had an indication of this attitude in a small way when I was refused permission to present a state flag to the Australian Army's north corps that was based in Kununurra. The Leader of the Opposition, Brian Burke, MLA, advised me of his pending litigation against the Liberal Government's Electoral Act Amendment Bill. If that litigation went against government then the previous status quo would remain. I believed if that happened, I could nominate for the old Kimberley electorate, which could be represented from a Kununurra residency. The ALP lost the case in court so I completed the work in hand and re,signed in May of 1982.

RC Okay, Bill, I just want to reflect now on your parliamentary career. But before I do that, I want to ask if there's any further comments you want to make on circumstances surrounding your resignation.

WITHERS Well, yes, I suppose I could say that I considered the decision that was made by the parliamentary superannuation trustees was not one that I would have been proud to be part of if I was a member. I found at a later date (I wasn't supposed to have this information) that all of the non-Liberal members voted in agreeance with the proposal that I should be paid the superannuation entitlements, because it only required 10 y1ears service to do so and I had 11 years service. But because I'd resigned it was up to the trustees to accept whether or not I was eligible. Because the reason that I resigned was an altruistic one, you could hardly find a higher moral reason for resigning. Therefore, anybody who said it wasn't was immoral, if you like to take that stance. Now, I don't want to make that statement and say that my past colleagues were immoral in what they did, but if you use logic and use the reductio ad absurdum of logic to determine if they were moral or not, I made a moral decision and because I made a moral decision I was punished for it, so what does that make the people who made the punishment decision? I think that's enough.

RC Okay. Just reflecting on your parliamentary career, Bill, what do you consider to have been your most satisfying achievements?

WITHERS Okay, before I answer that I've just reflected on one of the answers that I just gave on the superannuation entitlements. I'd like to make a personal comment here, Ron. Judy and I, although we may have been disadvantaged by that, we could not be any happier than we are today, so really there's no advantage for me to go over it and kick over that land. What I stated is the truth and what I say is my belief, but as far as I'm concerned, the people who made that decision, I just look at them as tiny little men in their little shells of self pretence.

RC Thanks. Okay, if I could just then go on to reflect on your parliamentary career in general, what do you consider to have been your most satisfying achievements over that career? TAPE THREE SIDE A WITHERS 40

WITHERS Well, Ron, I thank you for giving me the chance to prepare the answer to this question. I'd li:ke to repeat to whoever is listening to this my reply to you. I said that surely this question would be a good cure to stop politicians from talking about themselves, because by the time I finished this I was heartily sick of trying to find out what I'd done. Anyway, in answer to your question, I've said it should be appreciated that some of the changes involved other people, including research by electors, other MPs, ministers and public servants. The following list won't be in chronological order, nor will it contain the statistics before and after each change. One, we equalised the student airfare funding without racial advantage. We equalised unit costs of electricity with the metropolitan area. We equalised unit costs of water with the metropolitan area whilst arranging a special allocation in the lower price range for areas of high evaporation. Four, I chaired the committee to change the unrealistic insurance charges which caused northern residents to pay seven times more than their city counterparts to fund the metropolitan fire brigade. Five , I established the community meeting system of consultation for northern towns and Aboriginal communities. Six, I modified a federal cabinet decision through personal representation to allow Garden Island residents to remain as part of the Navy's surveillanc,e defence system until the Navy developed a better system. The change was announced personally by Prime Minister McMahon. Seven, I assisted Alan Ridge to support the Halls Creek police initiative to establish the Aboriginal police aid scheme. The scheme was formalised by the Minister for Police, Hon Ray O'Connor, MLA.

[Interference on tape for about 10 seconds - inaudible]

I was a member of the parliamentary library committee. Ten, I supported an initiative by the Halls Creek schoolteachers to establish a riding school for cattle station training, using station horses as part of the school curriculum. This was successful. Eleven, I chaired the committee that reversed the government decision to ban automobile window tinting. Twelve, I convinced the Minister for Housing, Hon Peter Jones, MLA, that the government designs were incorrect for the tropics and to allow local contractors to submit designs suited to the regions. Thirteen, I convinced the Minister for Housing to move away from the timber window and door framing into aluminium. Fourteen, I arranged the formation of a Kimberley buil,ding society that caused banks to make home loans available in the Ord region. Fifteen, I convinced the lands department to restructure crown leases to allow earlier transfer to freehold titles so that banks could facilitate loans against the security of Torrens title. Sixteen, I arranged the reversal of a cabinet decision so that the State Library coulld purchase the MIDAS computer retrieval system. Seventeen, I influenced the installation of the radio transmitter at Kununurra.

The federal ALP Minister for Communications wrote: "Due to your persistent representations you may make the press and media announcements of the impending radio transmitter in Kalgoorlie". I might add that the ALP federal member for Kalgoorlie was furious with that particular letter. Eighteen, I convinced the Under Secretary for Lands and minister that the agricultural crown leases needed to be changed to allow residency on and rural sales from the so-called hobby blocks. Nineteen, with the member for Pilbara ~ went to TAPE THREE SI DE A WITHERS 41

Canberra to convince the federal minister to permit airline flights between Port Hedland and Bali. Twenty, I proposed the development of a Kimberley college in Kununurra. As a result of that proposal I was later appointed as the inaugural chairman of the advisory board, Kimberley College of TAFE. Twenty­ one, I arranged pensioner concessions for annual travel to give equality to northern pensioners with their metropolitan counterparts. Twenty-two, we arranged some payroll tax concessions for the high-cost areas in the north. Unfortunately, we couldn't eradicate this immoral tax. Twenty-three, we convinced government to restructure tenders for government contracts and for local government so as to give equity to local businesses. Twenty-four, I persisted with the proposal to allow national parks to be established within town sites. This was successful. Twenty-five, by debate and representation we brought forward the construction projections for the Great Northern Highway. Twenty-six, we advanced the understanding of education needs in the remote areas. This resulted in the building of new schools, the restructuring of classes and changes to the remote area travel allowances for students. Twenty-seven, we changed the policies on the airconditioning of classrooms. Twenty-eight, I convinced the Department of Industrial Development to update the remote area development policies similar to those found in Canada. Twenty-nine, I arranged a gift of tropical cottonseed from Pakistan for experimental planting. Up to that time the Department of Agriculture was experimenting with subtropical varieties. Thirty, I arranged the funding of a tropical horticulturalist for Kununurra. Thirty-one, I convinced the Department of Agriculture through my organisation of operation Ord produce that horticulture would become a major industry in the Ord River scheme. It did. Thirty-two, I convinced my colleagues to reverse the Liberal Party's decision to oppose the greyhound racing Bill in 1972. We then supported the Bill. Thirty-three, I ca.used the parliamentary draftsman to correct the six-year-old mistakes in the banana compensation wording that could have cost the States tens of thousands of dollars without correction. Thirty-four, whilst chairman of the Opposition's two airline investigation committee I personally uncovered the policy of Trans Australia Airlines to pass inaccurate propaganda against Ansett Airlines to the West Australian people. Ansett was servicing the north. Thirty-five, I presided in Pilbara and Kimberley courts as honorary magistrate in the Children's Court and as justice of the peace when visiting towns that needed such services. That is about the lot. I ran out of ideas then.

RC Thanks very much Bill.

END OF TAPE THREE SIDE A TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 42

RC Okay Bill, just continuing on, as opposed to those matters that you found most rewarding throughout your career, what issues have you found the most frustrating and what were your mos.t disappointing moments?

WITHERS Well, Ron, there were many, many events that caused frustrating and disappointing moments in politics, so I'll not bother to list them. I will list those things that I consider to be a disgrace. I hope that's okay with you if I answer in that way.

RC Yes.

WITHERS One of my most frustrating and disappointing moments occurred when I found that the words from Aboriginal elders were not being accepted by federal or State Governments. It appeared that the ministers and public servants preferred to accept the words of non-Aboriginal advisers and city activists. These were the people who received income from Aboriginal Affairs. In other words, I found the government in respect of Aboriginal affairs had policies guided by the Aboriginal industry. As a result, Australia now has apartheid enshrined in its statutes. I said it earlier but I will repeat it again: apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning separate development in respect of race. Any country that has separate legislation for different races of people has created the laws for separate development. This is the case in Australia. Despite their good intent, the legislators, judiciary and the churches support the apartheid laws in our nation. I consider this is a national disgrace.

B: I presented evidence to the Australian Law Reform Commission and government in 1979 and 1980. I showed that all state land Acts allowed crown grants to be given to individuals and tribal groups such as partnerships, companies, associations, incorporated bodies and tribes. The Acts could allocate land to Aboriginal tribal groups under existing laws that were not apartheid laws. Tribal laws could be enacted on such land under existing laws, conditional to them being subservient to the three tiers of government. The subservient law situation already exists in our community. If one assumes that government is a system of rules, then most people live under four tiers of government. The first three tiers are recognised as federal government, state government and local government. Any person who has joined a club, association, incorporated body or taken marriage vows has adopted another set of rules that may be considered as the fourth tier of government. If two club members abrogate club rules, they will initially be punished by the executive of the club. If they continue to abrogate club rules, they will be banned from the club. If they try to break the ban by entering the club, then the club members call in the police, who are the law enforcement officers of the second tier of government. This system could be used in any area allocated as tribal land under existing non-racial state land Acts. Instead of training tribal people to use the non-racial land Acts to obtain tribal land, the federal and State Governments adopted apartheid legislation. This is a national and international disgrace.

C: payroll tax is a tax against employment and it is inflationary. It robs Australian companies of a competitive edge in some areas. Members of TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 43

Parliament usually tell the electorate they will do everything they can to support employment and to control inflation. If they support payroll tax, then they are seen as liars. This is a national and state disgrace.

D: my personal disappointment at the end of my parliamentary service was my inability to show my colleagues that my resignation from the parliamentary branch of the Liberal Party and my later resignation from Parliament was based on altruism and my commitment to the electors. I was frustrated with my finding that they did not understand the altruism, nor did they understand the air schedule time cost factors that limited any effective northern representation from a Kimberley residential base. I consider this ignorance, coupled with the ridiculous gerrymander, was a disgrace. I think that's enough.

RC Yes, thanks very much for that. Anything further on that [inaudible].

WITHERS No, that's enough.

RC That's fine. I'd just like to ask now, Bill, about your relationship with the other prominent figures in the government of the time. For instance, what was your opinion of key figures such as Peter Jones, Bill Hassell, Ray O'Connor and Andrew Mensaros?

WITHERS Well, Ron, there's a mixed bag here! I had no difficulty in intermixing socially with all of my colleagues. If we had policy differences, I accepted that as politically normal. If I found my colleague deliberately mishandled the truth for the sake of subterfuge, and I still spoke to them in a civilised manner, but I lost trust and respect for them. In respect of the specific colleagues you name, I can say that Peter Jones I found to be most helpful, except when he cut the top off my finger at Fitzroy Crossing when he was Minister for Health. He did it accidentally, of course, in the door of a rust bucket of a car we had been loaned, but it cut the finger right off, with the bone showing in each piece of the finger. We managed to sew it back on and I've still got the finger and even retained the nail.

Now, what else can I say about Peter? Yes, sure, Peter was the Minister for Housing who adopted my proposal to change northern housing designs on recommendations from regional contractors. He also approved the policy change from timber to aluminium window framing, so I got along well with Peter and I respected him for that. Now, Bill Hassell. Bill was the minister responsible for the Electoral Act Amendment Bill. Bill Hassell was still telling me on the day that I saw the boundary change map in 1981 , "The boundary has not been decided". I speak to Bill socially but he is in the broad category I described of a person who has been part of a subterfuge that affected my electors. Ray O'Connor was a man who was always most helpful. He had a personality that did not wish to hurt anyone. He assisted financially other members during elections who needed assistance. He was a practical minister that accomplished changes without fuss. He was the minister who asked me to consider endorsement for the Kimberley seat. I believe he was a man who was used and then spat out by the Liberal Party. Andrew Mensaros and his TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 44 departmental officers accepted suggestions regarding some development and planning booklets that I brought back from Canada in 1975. I was disappointed that he did not take up the sugarcane fibreboard proposals from Pakistan, but I later found he was under pressure not to do so from the woodchipping and plywood lobbies. Generally I found Andrew to be a sincere minister who, through personal experience, would be the moderator in a face-to-face debate between a senior departmental officer and a member of Parliament to determine the best policy for the people. I respected him for this.

RC Yes, thanks again Bill. Just talking about the north of the State, how did you get along with Peter Dowding and Ernie Bridge who were members who represented the people of the north?

WITHERS Sure. Once again I'll be frank. My opinions of Peter Dowding and Ernie Bridge were in the category that described the people who had participated in subterfuge. I found Peter Dowding to be highly intelligent and an ambitious person who was more interested in climbing the rungs of power rather than representing personal electorate issues. Ernie Bridge had an engaging personality with ambitions of power, but this was coupled with a desire to be heard as a country western singer. Initially this ploy was successful with Aboriginal voters, but many electors became disillusioned when Ernie didn't follow through the representation on personal issues. Ernie Bridge took up the cry for water to be piped from the Ord River to Perth as if it was a personal initiative. Other people had been saying the same thing well before Ernie, including me. I gave up the proposal in the early 1970s, after I did my homework. If the hyperbole for the Ord to Perth pipeline is put aside whilst the sums are done, a school child can calculate the impractical nature of such a proposal. I think that covers it without me saying any more.

RC Yes, that's fine Bill, thanks. Just on the last point, you were mentioning about Ernie Bridge and the pipeline proposal from the north, I see that has cu rrently been resurrected or they are talking of resurrecting it. Do you have any comment on that?

WITHERS Ernie resurrects it from time to time. No, it is a stupid idea. I referred to it once, and got a headline in a local paper - "The Pipeline, the Pipedream." That is what it amounts to. You do your sums. What has been promised with that water is just incredible. If you have a look at the situation in the Ord, you find the water is not there anyway.

RC Just finally, Bill, on personalities in Parliament, what were your views on the coalition partners led by Dick Old?

WITHERS Well, Ron, I found them to be most helpful. I never found them in any subterfuge that affected me or the North Province. Now, I know this was not the view held by many of my Liberal colleagues. Admittedly they voted with the party room on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, but so did all of my Liberal colleagues. TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 45

RC All right. Just out of interest, who would you have supported to succeed Sir Charles Court?

WITHERS Well, this now becomes a hypothetical question that never even entered my head whilst I was a member of the Parliamentary Liberal Party. Now, at this time, I could not muster sufficient analysis about my colleagues at that time to give a fair answer in 2004. Just a gut feeling, my support probably would have gone to Ray O'Connor.

RC Okay, thanks. On a broader scale, how do you view the application of parliamentary democracy in Western Australia, particularly in relation to remote areas of the State?

WITHERS Well, in respect of the north, it's a farce. On the day that northern people are able to work the same amount of hours as their southern counterparts whilst paying a similar tax that will allow them to live at the same standard of living in a comparable home with comparable services as their southern counterparts, I will revise my statement that democracy is a farce in respect of the north. Having made that comment about democracy, I can't determine a better system of government than the bicameral system of Westminster, conditional of course to the upper House being a genuine House of Review. The fault is in the administration of the system.

RC Just going back to your observations on the application of the parliamentary system to the north, what you are saying then is that the difficulty is with the environment itself, with the location, the isolation.

WITHERS Not really. I mean, yes, that is a fact as it stands at the moment, but if you look at the rest of the world and have a look at some of the areas and large cities that have harsher climates than the north and who have less natural resources, then the Kimberley and the Pilbara, the north itself, should be a place that people would want to rush to. It's unfortunate, though, that we, I think, are used to the Mediterranean climate. We've got a comfort zone that we don't want to break out of. I mean, it's quite pleasant but let's face it, it's not very practical when you look at the limitations of natural resources such as water and power that we're going to be facing in Perth. We're facing them now but most people have realised how serious it is, but I'll probably say more on that later on.

RC I am now going to move on to your life after politics, after you left Parliament. Before I do that, I'd like to give you the opportunity to provide any further observations that you have on your parliamentary career.

WITHERS No, I don't think so. It was an interesting segment of my life. learnt a lot about myself. I learnt a lot about people. I heard and saw things that I would never hear and see in other forms of employment. One of the things that I haven't mentioned is that when in a remote area and you're in a place that has no social security advice, no psychologists, not even a doctor, not even a priest. There are communities like this, of course, up there and there were a lot more than there are now, a lot more than there were in 1971 TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 46 and 1972 when I first went into Parliament. Because you were seen as a problem solver and somebody who was getting things changed to make it easier for people, these people would come to you with their problems. It was a wonderful compliment in a way, because you were put in the same position as a priest or a bank manager. You were given confidences that you normally woulld never receive, even to the point of counselling. All I tried to do in those cases was to accept the tremendous honour these people were placing with me because of their problems, and I'd try to point them in the right direction and get their particular problem solved if it was one of politics or bureaucracy.

RC I would like to talk now, Bill, about after you left Parliament, about your life after politics from 1982. Could you first of all tell me about what you decided to do after you left Parliament?

WITHERS Yes, Ron. My wife and I, Judy, whom you met, we were already committed to the political demonstration project that I've mentioned, so we continued with that and the periodic upgrading of the project and our core jewellery business.

RC Your life in Kununurra after Parliament; how did your parliamentary career affect your life in Kununurra?

WITHERS Well, I've thought about this and the answer is not as straightforward as you might think, because before election to Parliament I had a very large slice of my life allocated to civic duties. We did an assessment before politics that indicated I had spent on average 36 hours per week on duties as deputy shire president, consultative councillor for the committee, member of the Reserves Advisory Board, justice of the peace and honorary magistrate in the Children's Court. After I resigned from Parliament I could no longer allocate time to the court, so I resigned the commissions. I did this so that a town resident could be appointed. The community workload did not seem to decrease because people still continued to visit and telephone me for advice as if I was still a member of Parliament. That still happens, to a much lesser degree, even 22 years after my resignation. My interaction with people didn't change. I discussed this with Sir Charles Court when he came up and stayed with us once in Kununurra and he said, yes, he had the same sort of thing that happened and, as he said, we were very fortunate that this happened. He said a lot of members leave Parliament and that's the end of that. He said that if people are contacting you, it's a good feeling that they still want to remain in contact and appreciate your opinions.

RC Has this continued through the years, your contact with your colleagues in Parliament?

WITHERS Oh, yes. There are some people that you appreciate as human beings and as friends and acquaintances. There are a few of us who have regular luncheons at Parliament House and we intermix with businesspeople and people of the legal profession etc who can virtually keep us in touch with what's going on in the city. We also stay put with what's happening in politics. TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 47

It's only a social thing, but, yes, there are a few of us that remain in contact with each other.

RC Adjusting to life after politics, Bill, did you find any difficulties in adjusting after you left Parliament?

WITHERS No, not at all, Ron.

RC Just reflecting on life in the Kimberley over the years, in what ways do you think life has changed in that area?

WITHERS Well, some of the beneficial changes listed in previous answers have improved l1iving conditions. Retail services and trade services have improved dramatically. Community facilities have also been substantial in their improvements. However, there is an underlying uncertainty in the broad community caused by the apartheid laws and the outcome of the Native Title Act and the Aboriginal Heritage Act. There is community disquiet with the evidence of corruption in the handling of Aboriginal finance that has affected local businesses and the equanimity of Aboriginal communities. Disquiet is accompanied by no apparent change towards a beneficial lifestyle for Aborigines. There are certainly some exceptions, but your broad question is being answered in kind. Crime has increased, and petrol sniffing amongst community youth is causing great concern. I think I've covered the Aboriginal situation reasonably well. As I said, there are some exceptions but generally the conditions have got to be improved considerably. I believe the only way that can be done is by bringing equality to all races, doing away with apartheid legislation and assisting those people who need assistance on the basis of need, not on the basis of race, and also education needs to meet the requirements of a district and region. It's one of the things that worries me about any centralisation of education. It's fine for the academic levels but when it gets down to the basic levels, I don't think we should be centralised.

RC Just summarising those years, Bill, is it fair to say that there have been some achievements and some real positive changes over the years, but there are still some outstanding problems that still remain [unclear]?

WITHERS Yes, certainly. As far as conditions improving, there have been improvements in some and not in others. It depends on what you're viewing and where you're viewing it from. I think the answers to my previous questions sort of indicate the complexity that prevents an affirmative or negative answer to stating the specifics.

RC What problems do you see as still remaining?

WITHERS The greatest problem that remains is that which I brought to the attention of government for the first time in 1972; that is, the lack of fresh water in the Perth metropolitan area and the inability to provide electrical power without polluting the environment. I said then and I say it again: industry and population need to be taken to areas with the natural resources to provide wat,er and electrical power. I gave the west Kimberley as such an example. TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 48

We now see government people in enormously inflated shells of self pretence offering solutions with a desalination plant and water restrictions. One of their solutions for the created problem of power generation is beyond sanity. How sane is it to bury the poisonous carbon dioxide by geosequestration and to pass on the insurmountable problem to future generations, but worse, to continue to produce more carbon dioxide through power generation for a population that will run out of water? The other great problems that remain are (you might be getting sick of this by now, but it's a very important one) apartheid legislation, effective education and employment for those who are currently trained into mendicancy. Health training is required for those in the low socioeconomic groups who lack personal skills. There are also other government-created ills such as payroll tax, land tax, stamp duty and the inequitable taxes that northerners pay over and above their city counterparts. In the future, if any historian reads this or listens to this tape, they may not understand that politicians who told the people that the government would fight against unemployment and inflation and then supported payroll tax was not telling the truth. Payroll tax is a tax on employment and it also forces the cost of goods upwards into inflation. The same historian may also be unaware of the unjust issues in land tax. This month, October 2004, saw a personal friend receive a land tax invoice for $237 000, payable by the 29th of November 2004. The bill is frightening, but the unjust consideration is this: the property has been classified as a heritage property so the owner can't sell it or modify it. I mean, theoretically he can sell it, but who's going to buy it? Is it fair and just that a government can declare such conditions and then apply such a tax? Of course it isn't.

RC Okay. I'd just like to ask a question that flows on from your previous answer. You say that I may be getting sick of this, but I'm not. You were talking about apartheid towards indigenous people.

WITHERS Sure.

RC What is your opinion of the argument that says that why they are treated differently is positive discrimination?

WITHERS I think that is absolute nonsense. It is positive discrimination, but apartheid is positive discrimination. That is what I have said all along. It is apartheid. Okay, why I say it is nonsense is [that it is] an adoption of a policy that hurts the people it's meant to help.

RC Thanks Bill.

WITHERS Okay.

RC What part do you consider you have played in effective change in the northern areas, and in what areas? [In] what particular avenues do you think you have effected change?

WITHERS I previously listed the effective changes in which I've played a role, but beside those listed there were contributions to parliamentary debate TAPE THREE SIDE B WITHERS 49 that changed, supported or opposed the passage of Bills in the Legislative Council. However, those contributions were part of an MP's normal duties that only required minimal research and party-room debate as part of a team. Most of my time was taken in assisting constituents to overcome bureaucracy or inequities in the system that worked against them. The effective changes (they are the ones I listed I am referring to) required intensive research, debate, correspondence and demonstration to convince cabinet ministers, MPs and officers of the need to alter government policy for the benefit of the electorate. In previous answers I mentioned the terrible inequity whereby the Kimberley people had to pay seven times more than their Perth counterparts to support the metropolitan fire brigade when they didn't even have a fire brigade. Now, when I got into Parliament, I mentioned I chaired the committee that was able to effect that change.

What I didn't mention was that it took three years to do that. It took three years by the time I'd convinced the party room that it was necessary for change, and that took quite some debate and personal debate with the minister and his officers. Then, having gone through that, the party agreed to the formation of a committee which I would chair, and then the committee had to meet with the fire brigade unions, the public servants and also a lot of other government officers. We had to go through all of these people, getting their agreement, for them to be able to understand what was done and also to convince the Insurance Council of Australia what was being done, because the collection was being effected through insurance policies. We found that the Insurance Council of Australia had determined that there were areas in the Kimberley that were called cyclone areas which were not in cyclone areas at all. What I am saying is that anything that requires change can take a lot of time to effect the change. In that case, [it took] three years. The listed changes given in a previous answer should indicate the areas in which I played a major role for those effective changes.

Something I haven't mentioned during this interview might be of interest for the record. This is only a little personal thing. It's one of the strange things that can happen in politics, I suppose. When I resigned from Parliament in May of 1982, the Clerk of Parliaments, John Roberts, advised me that I had met the criteria to retain my honorary title. It required my application to the Queen. I declined to make such an application. In 1983 I received a letter from His Excellency the Governor advising me that the Premier, Hon Brian Burke, MLA, had requested him to write to Buckingham Palace about the issU1e of my resignation. His Excellency was pleased to inform me that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had conferred upon me the title "The Honourable". My family and my loyal parliamentary secretary, Mrs Sara Horan, were pleased. That is just an interesting little side story.

END OF TAPE THREE SIDE B TAPE FOUR SIDE A WITHERS 50

This is Ron Chapman interviewing Bill Withers for the Parliamentary History project tape four, on the 28th of October 2004.

RC Bill, we're just reaching the concluding part of this interview. I wou ld just like to ask you a question on further reflection on your resignation from Parliament. Could you explain to me what happened to your electorate after your resignation?

WITHERS Yes, sure. The electorate reverted to an ALP seat and Tom Stephens won that seat. Ernie Bridge, of cou rse, already had the Kimberley seat and Peter Dowding had the other North Province seat. Brian Sodeman also resigned, so that seat went to a Labor member as well. The north became all-Labor territory. I did hear from a lot of people that they were a bit unhappy with some of the representatiion. Unfortunately, the Aboriginal people didn't benefit from either party as far as I am concerned because the same situation exists as I have described it; that is, apartheid legislation, people not getting any true advantages and the whole Aboriginal industry being virtually run by members of the Aboriginal industry. I can't comment on the individual workings of each member. I know that Ernie Bridge didn't win too many friends there for a while. He opted out of the Labor Party and went on with his own affairs. He's still going on with the pipeline. We've already discussed that. Tom Stephens was a nice bloke - when I say was, he became a bit of a political animal. I suppose we could all be accused of that. I'm starting to waffle here because I can't really answer the question sharply because I suppose if you wanted a brief answer, I just don't really know. [Laughs]

RC That's fine, Bill. We just wanted your comments (unclear]

Just a final question that I have for you. How do you visualise the future and potential of the region that you represented?

WITHERS I believe the future of the Pilbara and the Kimberley region will be one of development beyond anything that can be imagined in 2004. The potential already exists in minerals, agriculture and natural resources. but the potential is also greater than anything conceived by government today. Their thinking - when I say their thinking, the members of government and that of the general populace - is hindered by their desire to live in a Mediterranean climate comfort zone. I can't use a crystal ball; however, I can see the lack of planning in government that will, in the future, cause massive migrations of industry and people to regions that can support them. Currently governments across the world are caught in an ancient web of sailing-ship thinking. Thirty years ago I developed the term "sailing-ship thinking" to describe sixteenth-century planning when wooden ships sailed on trading routes. Regularly they would need to find a bay, cove or natural harbour that was protected enough to careen the wooden hulls; that is, to scrape the barnacles et cetera and to inspect them for worm. The protected waters were also the outlets for streams and rivers with potable water. Such streams and rivers usually had arable levy soils on the banks and riverflats suitable for crops. TAPE FOUR SIDE A WITHERS 51

Over time, those protected waters and shores became harbours and supplied ports for the sailing ships. The small settlements grew into towns and colonies with some growing to cities. The colonies grew until colonisation was replaced with responsible government. Unfortunately, most governments, regardless of their country, were not responsible in planning for the future. The governments allowed industry and populations to expand beyond the availability of potable water. In modern times they are begiinning to realise that they have gone beyond the ability to generate non-polluting electricity. Such is the case with Perth and Fremantle. Our politicians and planners have minds locked into sixteenth-century thinking. They expect to allow industry and population growth to continue at 3.5 per cent per annum without knowing the source of potable water or clean power generation to meet the needs of the monster they have allowed to grow. When the politicians and their planners awake to the problem, they'll plan a transfer of industry and the associated population to the regions with the necessary resources. Those regions will need to be close to food bowls with clean abundant power generation and replaceable potable water. Preferably, such regions should have deepwater ports and be also reasonably close to raw materials. One such region that encompasses all of those desirable components is the Kimberley. The Walcott Inlet north east of Derby has the potential to light the whole of Australia with tidal power. The food bowls of the Ord and Fiitzroy valleys and surrounding cattle stations are in areas with an annual rainfall of 800 millimetres per annum. The Ord River valley already has sugar crops and a sugar mill, plus sorghum fields to provide the starch for aluminium production.

There are natural! stands of cypress pines in the Kimberley that indicate that a timber industry could also be developed. Fibre borne from sugarcane fibre could be manufactured instead of the lesser quality chipboard made from timber chips. Paper fibre crops, such as kenaf, would also see the development of paper mills. I once said in the Legislative Council that this region, if properly developed, would make the Ruhr Valley look like a grimy little cottage industry by comparison. All of these developments would be close to potential deepwater ports, oil and gas fields, plus iron ore, salt, bauxite and other minerals. Establishing such areas with recycling industries and environmental protection policies will, at las.t, give future generations a chance of survival. Early in the twenty-first century the northern climate might be considered harsh by southern dwellers. But the north is nowhere near as harsh as a large number of well-known, urbanised areas such as Florida, New York, Houston or Moscow, to name a few. The decreasing availability of water and power in the south will make the north even more attractive.

In the meantime, the apartheid policies of government must be addressed. Persons trained to permanent mendicancy with alcoholism, petrol sniffing and associated crime must be taught to survive in the real world of education, health trade and interaction. Historic cultures should be respected and retained at will, as is the right of every Australian regardless of race. My observation of government inaction and blindness over the past 40 years indicates to me that the required policies for survival and cooperative non-racial interaction will probably take another 40 years to eventuate. I see the potential for TAPE FOUR SIDE A WITHERS 52

development of the north to be great and the future bright, that is, if we've not destroyed ourselves before 2045.

RC Okay, Bill. Thanks very much for that comprehensive answer to the question.

WITHERS (laughs] My pleasure. It was a pleasure to get it in.

RC That was my final question for the interview. Before I close is there anything further you want to comment to me?

WITHERS Not really, Ron. I think it's beaut what you're doing and I wish you well in your own projects. No, I have nothing to add about my thoughts. I am now a complete hedonist. I'm no longer chasing the dreams that I once had for the development of our State. I found that if I continued to do that, I'd become very frustrated and die a lot younger.

RC Okay, Bill. Well, I'd like to conclude as I began by thanking you very much for agreeing to take part in this interview.

WITHERS My pleasure. Thank you, Ron.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE A 53 HANDY HINTS FROM AN OLD MAN TO A YOUNG PERSON

1. Learn to give your love and time to those ljving things that need your help. The living thing might be a plant, animal or another human being. You will be rewarded with something that the French describe as "Joie de vivre" or, in English, "The joy of life". 2. Every morning, scrape your tongue with a special spatula or personal "teaspoon" prior to swallowing, cleaning your tee~ eating or drinking. During the night your body exudes toxins through your tongue and, also, into your urine and faeces. If you swallow the toxins on your tongue, your immune system bas to work harder to protect your system from the toxins. Because our immune systems are continually working to keep us healthy by fending off toxins, germs and viruses, it is silly to make the system work harder that it needs to work. 3. Learn about nutrition. Good nutrition keeps you healthy and happy. Bad nutrition makes you sick and ki11s you. Ask your parents to buy a good reference book. I use NUTRITION ALMANAC by Gayla & John Kirschmann, ISBN 0-07-034922-3. 4. Re-learn to defecate whilst squatting (all children naturally squat to defecate). The invention of the pedestal system was so good, in decreasing the spread of diseases, we didn' t look at its disadvantages. Sitting, to defecate, creates problems because the ano/rectal angle is only near alignment when squatting. This is a complex subject so a booklet by a friend of mine, Wa1 Bowles, can be forwarded to you, if required. 5. Every day, for at least ten minutes, walk, with bare feet, (a wet sand beach is best) Qr.. bug a tree with your shoes removed. Your body and mind is electromagnetic energy designed to be continuously "earthed,,. "Civilized" societies have invented footwear to protect the feet but modern footwear is generally an efficient insulator that prevents your body and mind from being "earthed". A tree is effectively "earthed" by its roots so you can use its system, with your shoes removed, to "earth" you efficiently. 6. At least once, every day, stop and appreciate something of beauty and absorb it into your soul. The beauty might be in a landscape, a tree, plants, animals, art, writing, sunset, moonlight, striped candy, a fish, a toy or an act of another person. What ever it is, stop taking it for granted. Analyse, absorb and remember its beauty at that moment If you do this every day then your life becomes more joyous. 7. Find understanding and humour in the disappointments you will experience in life but do not rationalize defeat. ...try again. 8. As you get older, study the composition of matter (it is energy). Learn to live in our universe that is one big bowl of energy soup*. Learn to use the Universal Energy Force for correcting energy blockages that may cause illness in the body and mind. Learn to live in the "now" because your ego wants to live in the past and the future. Egos, as distinct from rational self-esteem, are fairly useless inventions of the human mind. 9. If possible, try to sleep with your body aligned with Magnetic North/South. When you e older, study the electrical polarization of the human body, the earth' s magnetic field and the principles of an electric motor. After that study you will see the sense in sleeping North/South. 10. Include singing in recreation time. Hamburg University has shown that two hours of singing, increases the body's immune protein. (Chorister/audience blood tests. 2004) 54 11. When you are an adult, develop an interest in body charkras, reike, acupuncture points, shihatzu points, the elusive unification theory (the bringing together of Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and gravity through the adoption of the String theory), vibrational energy and music. I think you will find the different subjects are closely related**. 12. Learn to be selfssufficient and independent in the material world. ln so doing, you will be better equipped to help others and to become a useful part of a social network. 13. If you ever have trouble sleeping, try the following exercise. It purports to exercise the left and right band sides of the brain, to the point of boredom, and you fall asleep.

SLEEP EXERCISE. 1, Relax the body and breathe regularly. 2. Visualise the number "3" and silently count, '"Three, three, three". 3. Visualise the number "2" and silently count, <'Two, two, two" 4. Visualise the number "1" and silently coubt, .:'One, one, one" 5. Visualise the number 100 and, visualize writing the number on a black-board 6. Visualise rubbing out the number 100.,and writing the word, ''DEEPER" on the blackboard 7. Visualise the rubbing-out of the word "DEEPER" 8. Visualise the number 99 and, visualize writing the number on a blackboard. 9. Visualise rubbing out the number 99 and writing the word ''DEEPER" on the blackboard. IO.Visualise the rubbing-out of the word DEEPER and keep repeating the exercise down through the numbers 98,97,96,95 etc. until you fall asleep.

*Whilst I was in a Canadian rocket station at Churcrull (near the Arctic circle) I saw computer read-outs that showed the Earth's magnetic field and the solar flares at the sun's "surface" were oscillating, simultaneously, at the same magnitude.

** In January 1975, at the Sian Revolutionary Hospital in central China, I observed two surgical operations using acupuncture as anaesthetic. One was the removal of a bone growth from the sinus cavity. The other was the removal of a large goiter. fu both cases the patient was conscious and spoke with me during the operations. In both cases the bleeding was almost non existent. The Chinese surgeons didn't know why there was minimal bleeding, using the acupuncture procedure, nor did they know why acupuncture worked as an anaesthetic. At the request of the West Australian Minister for Health, Hon. Norm Baxter MLC. I gave a full report, with photograpruc evidence, to the Australian Medical Association. The AMA did not want to know about it and refused to acknowledge receipt of my letter or report, despite the request from the Minister.

With my compliments. Love well, Bill Withers Email; [email protected] Also refer; http://www.rosneath.eom.au/ipc6/ch02/withers