I grew up on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in a mostly white, middle-class suburban area. With my big frizzy hair and brown skin, people often asked me where I was from.
“I’m from here,” I’d say.
They’d make a bemused face. “Yeah, but where are you really from?”
My mum is mixed-race Maori/Swiss and my father is mixed-race Samoan/Tongan. I was born in Switzerland, raised in Australia and look like a mixed-race Polynesian. I used to wish for a simple answer – an identity that wasn’t in pieces scattered across the ocean.
Perhaps working in a sheep-shearing shed would make me a “legitimate” Australian, instead of a brown-skinned imposter
When I got a call from my cousin offering me a job with his uncle, a sheep-shearing contractor based near Broken Hill, I jumped at the chance. I was 21, had just finished university and was not sure what to do with my life. Working as a “rousey” (someone employed to do odd jobs) in a remote sheep-shearing shed felt like a way to help bring those pieces together into a shape that looked like belonging. Perhaps it would make me a “legitimate” Australian, instead of a brown-skinned imposter.
The first day on the job, I fainted. I woke up lying in a mountain of freshly shorn wool, the sound of buzzing shears, bleating sheep and pounding rock music filling my ears. The summer heat inside the old corrugated-iron shed was oppressive.
Tiare Tuuhia in front of a sliding chute in a shearing shed. Source: Supplied
I initially hated the work, which involved quickly picking up the freshly shorn fleeces before the shearers returned with another sheep, removing any dirty bits and placing the clean fleeces on the wool classer’s table in a particular way to be categorised on quality. My arms ached from lifting and throwing the fleeces, which often weighed upwards of 6 kilograms, and sweeping the shearing board to keep it clean. Every part of my legs hurt from running up and down the board and squatting to pick up the wool. I had to pick up sheep poo with my bare hands.
I was peed on (by a sheep), yelled at (by the shearers) and slighted (by the wool classer, who blew up at me one day when I couldn’t keep up with the work). A shearer once cut into a cancerous growth on a sheep and I had to clean it up. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever smelt.
The first few weeks were hard. But three things kept me going: the generous pay, being able to work alongside my cousins and the beauty of the outback. I was in awe of it as soon as I saw it. I loved the endless red expanse of desert, harsh but full of life at the same time. It felt ancient and wise. I think I squealed the first time I saw a bounding red kangaroo and emus running across the plain.
Best of all was the night sky. I never knew it could look like that, so full of stars it might burst. In the outback, I felt connected to the earth in a way I never had before; I felt so privileged to be able to experience it, to live and breathe it every day.
I ended up working as a rousey for a year and a half, and during that time I got tougher: I ended up being able to run up and down the board and throw fleeces all day and not be tired. Mentally, I was able to brush things off and not take stuff to heart. I realised I was capable, strong and resilient.
The beauty of the Broken Hill outback. Source: Supplied
I learned how to fish for yabbies, I shot a gun for the first time and went wild pig hunting. I sat around campfires and talked to people I never would have met in a big city. I developed a huge respect for all the hard workers in the shearing industry.
The connection to the land I felt was a tiny insight into what it means to truly belong to this country
Some things didn’t change, though. I didn’t suddenly feel like a “real” Australian. People didn’t stop asking me where I was from. It’s ridiculous to believe that working in the outback will make you a true-blue Aussie, or that, as an immigrant, you somehow need to earn that title.
The connection to the land I felt was a tiny insight into what it means to truly belong to this country, to have roots in this country that go back thousands of years. That honour belongs to indigenous Australians alone.
How lucky I am to walk on their country, to live here as a sojourner in this great sunburnt land, and to call myself with pride an Australian.
Each year ahead of and on January 26, presents a selection of dedicated programming, special events and news highlights with a focus on encouraging greater understanding of Indigenous Australian perspectives. Join the conversation #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe.
Watch the Sunset Ceremony on NITV and SBS on Wednesday January 25 at 7.30pm #AlwaysWasAlwaysWillBe #SunsetCeremony #January26 #NITV.
