Sometime after midday we put most of our group on the bus going to Adelaide, the rest of us are going to return to Melbourne. Before that we have some lunch. We sit in the same table with Bill and our talk takes off easily. We discuss the bushfires that damaged Grampians badly last year, we switch to respective government policies and soon we discover ourselves discussing social policies of the Australian government.
Bill is deeply unhappy about these policies. I look into his eyes and that is the moment of recognition. I sit next to him in the bus and we talk all the way to Melbourne.
He tells about his parents who died and whom he could not provide with a decent life last months. He promised his father to let him die at home (cancer), but as the illness got worse and he had to spend more and more time next to father’s bed injecting him morphine, Bill’s working days went 22-23 hours long. Eventually he was physically unable to do his work and care for his father. The only remaining option was a nursing home that turned out to be something of a disaster.
It occurred, that the nursing home was badly understaffed, people weren’t cared properly for, and sometimes people unable to use their hands were left with full plates in front of and nobody feeding them. Bill said that his father did not speak to him for three months, but was able to forgive him just before dying. Bill looked into my eyes and said: ‘But what else could have I done? Nothing, just nothing.’
Then Bill says that he is not just a driver and a tour guide, but he spends all his free time doing all sorts of volunteer work. He says he has been once the volunteer worker of the year of Victoria and once of Australia. He met lately with Victoria’s prime minister and he has a full project set up to establish a new type of nursing homes, ‘community nursing homes’ he calls them. ‘These titles help me to open doors and get to important people!’
Bill’s motto is: ‘In this life, when you see that something is wrong, you can either sit and let it go by, or you can get up and DO something about it!’ Bill says that in his life there are three things: love for Australia and its nature, doing something about things that are not right, and always giving something back to society.
His nursing home project aims at involving in running these homes local communities and relatives of elderly people cared for. He says it is surprising how much more can be done with the same money when people really invest themselves into project. Local communities also understand how important such nursing homes are, ‘for if people have given all their lives, they must have something in return when they are old!’
There’ such a fire and passion in Bill that I feel sheer admiration for him. He’s doing hard job already (considering his health), but it is not nearly enough for him, for he really wants to DO something!
He is highly critical of the central government that has shut down many social programmes, raised interest rates no less than six times, reorganised labour market so that there are less guarantees for workers, and most importantly – does not do anything about the drought and the need for fresh water.
Bill tells me that he just returned from the northern areas, and he is very, very concerned about what is going on there. He says that Australia has water left for only 10 months and all talks about building desalination plants are desperately late. There will be 25 dry months between the water running out (if miracle does not happen and massive rainfall will fill the reservoirs) and the first fresh water being produced in these plants. The situation in northern farmlands is getting desperate. In many areas 6 years of drought have dried the land to the extent that even massive rain wouldn’t help it – it is plain dead, cracked and blown away. Sheep cost maximum 5 dollars per piece and usually they are just given for free as nobody wants them anyway. In some regions the suicide rate among farmers has been as high as 25%. Water shortages are so severe that one man who used it for watering his garden was punished by closing all water for one week!
These figures and facts are stunning! Bill agrees. He shows sheep grazing around us and says that they have been brought there from north. I say that it looks as if the white man is becoming as nomadic as Aboriginals, and Bill finds that parallel fitting. I ask about winter rain that is coming down and in Bill’s mind it will all come to naught in two weeks of 40 C in summer. He says that all green grasslands around us will be brown and dry in summer. The only hope is extraordinarily strong rainfall.
I thank Bill for showing me what is happening behind that nice façade of Australia, and he smiles – he likes that somebody is interested in it. He asks what do I do for living and I tell him that I’m academic. I try to make people think a bit more, try to show them that world is not black and white and all that seems black or white is not necessarily black and white. He likes that. Yes, thinking, the ability to see things for oneself is important.
I wonder about Australia’s social polices and draw a parallel with Scandinavian countries where the strategy of governments has been to create conditions for developing a high-quality and sustainable labour for states’ economies. Investment into social policies has been a part of normal running of state. Yes, he agrees, that sounds like a normal thing to do, but it is not done.
Another project Bill has been working on is drug addicts’ rehabilitation centres. Bill’s own daughter is an addict and he says that he has been unable to help her. ‘Streets are so full of that stuff…They bloody don’t even ask money for every shot…It is just so very different world they live in…’ In Bill’s mind the centre he wants to establish must be run by reformed addicts. ‘No textbook heroes there! They haven’t got a clue what it all means and is!’ Bill says that he can only be on the background, but people who have come through that hell, must have freedom to run things. That is the project he is going to spend the next day – his day off.
What a man!
We also talk about ships, maritime disasters and all things that come to mind. Bill has read a huge amount of books!
When we say farewells at our hotel, he wishes us all the best and hopes he managed to show us the beauty of Australia. I say that he also showed what’s behind the façade and that is a precious gift!
He smiles.
‘We had a good talk, eh, mate?’
‘Yes, we did! You take care of your back, Bill, would you? You have so much to give!’
We look into each other’s eyes, shake hands, and part.
I’m so very grateful to have met this man on the other side of the globe.
Take care, Bill, wherever you are now! I really wish your projects will succeed!
