Joan Winch's playing field

Vic Williams

Joan Winch, an outstanding Aboriginal woman, has very high 
achievements despite a very uneven playing field. She has 
achieved a great deal for Aboriginal health and won many well-
deserved honours. She was the speaker at a special function held 
in Perth for Invasion Day (January 26). Her life illustrates the 
tough times that Aboriginal people have had and still have in 
Australia.

She spoke of the playing field when she was a child. Her father 
moved the family to Fremantle so that the children could get some 
education. Her mother was one of the Stolen Generation, taken 
from her mother when she was two. Some Aboriginals said they were 
Maori, Indian or Portuguese to dodge some of the restrictions — 
off the street by 6pm, higher education out of reach, even going 
to school after 14.

She told of being in a race at her father's work picnic when she 
was 11 and winning an EPNS (electro-plated nickel silver) sugar 
basin. When she went to tell her parents she had won she saw the 
runners line up again. So she raced back and won a second time. 
She still has the basin. It was just another example of the 
uneven playing field, you have to win twice. She was not allowed 
to join the basketball team for she only had a home-made uniform.

When the troopships brought Australian soldiers to Fremantle, 
there was no place for the Aboriginal soldiers to go and they had 
to stay on the wharf. Joan crawled under the barbwire and brought 
them back to her house and her mother looked after them. The 
children were excited to hear their stories.

Many of her cousins in the country were not accepted in school 
and never learned to read or write. One of them aged about 20 
came back from the war and was discharged and went back to his 
country town. The authorities took his children away and didn't 
allow him into the town.

The 1936 Royal Commission resulted in even greater control of 
Aboriginal people, including penalties for actions not an offence 
for non-Aboriginals.

Joan found the same discrimination when working as a nurse, but 
because she loved the work she continued. She was finally 
accepted in WAIT School of Nursing when she was 38.

Before the 1967 referendum, they could not buy land or get 
anything on hire purchase. After the Referendum Indigenous 
Australians could buy land and when she was asked why she didn't 
buy land when it was cheap she could have answered: "Where is it 
in English law you have to buy back something that is stolen?"

The playing fields may have become a bit more level but they have 
changed the goal posts.

Joan has outstanding achievements. As a triple certified nurse 
she studied ophthalmology under Fred Hollows. In 1983 she started 
Marr Mooditj College (Good Hand) to help Aboriginals develop 
their self-esteem.

She has a MA in Public Health from James Cook University. In 2002 
Curtin University appointed her Adjunct Professor.

In 1988, she was made Australian National Woman of the Year, won 
the Sahowa award from the World Health Organisation in 1987 and 
the Federal Century Medal in 2003. She is also a member of the 
Parole Board in WA.