Seeking Sydney is a podcast that travels to the landscapes and landmarks of Sydney, adding the people and their stories. I will publish one episode every month for ten months. Episode 8 is now available in your podcast subscription, on the Spineless Wonders website, in Apple podcasts or Spotify or iHeart!

In this episode I spend some more time discussing ideas of migration, identity and racism with three people who have lived them and considered them deeply. The title comes from Bette Mifsud saying:

“I tried to put myself in my parents’ shoes actually thinking, What must it take? What it must have been like for my mum to leave a very large family behind, where you’ve got a village community, where everybody supports everyone, where your grandparents live with you until they die, where the grandparents look after the children when you’re at work. All of those things were gone. Mum didn’t have that.”

I interviewed Bette late in 2024, travelling to her home in the Blue Mountains to interview her in her home, surrounded by the bush. She and her partner Trevor have made their block very productive, with fruit trees and a huge veggie patch, and she sent me away with bags of lemons and limes, just as her parents would:

“my parents being the incredibly generous people that they are – this is a thing you always did in Malta. You gave your neighbours food, so they got to know us by dad giving them lots of fresh fruit and veggies every week.”

Bette describes her life growing up as the child of migrants from Malta, and how it became urgent for her to leave her parents’ home in order to establish her own life. It struck me how similar this story was to Kylie Kwong’s story – which you can read here – with similarities right down to the father crying, for the first time that anyone had ever seen, and how momentous this was.

I also interviewed Lucy Taksa. Her father’s family originated in Ukraine near Kiev, her mother’s family from Poland. After an upsurge of anti-semitism in Poland, they obtained humanitarian migrant assistance to migrate to Australia in 1960.

In July 1945 Arthur Calwell had become the first Minister of the newly-created Department of Immigration. He initiated a massive program of migration on the grounds that it was going to arrest Australia’s falling birth rate, provide labour to rebuild the post-war economy, and inhabit Australia’s furthest corners to stop potential invaders. (Remember Felicity Castagna talking about invasion novels in episode 7?) The preferred migrants were British, but Calwell also looked to the Scandinavian countries and Western Europe, then to the camps holding 1.6 million refugees from the war. In the ten years between 1951 and 1961, 833,000 people migrated, with Southern Europeans slightly outnumbering British (33% to 32%). The vast majority of immigrants settled in the major cities, with 55% of Sydney’s growth between 1947 and 1966 attributed to post-war immigration.

Immigrants might have provided the labour needed to boost Australia’s economy, but they weren’t getting any special treatment. They had to assimilate, somehow, and get on with it.

The third person interviewed in this episode is Jing Han. She came to Australia first in 1988 as an international student, went back to China after finishing her PhD but found that her heart belonged to Sydney. She talks about the culture shock of moving, the good and the bad, and concludes that:

“… there are always cons and pros in every system. So there is no system which has all bad things.”

Jing worked at SBS TV for many years, translating Chinese programs into English and becoming Head of SBS Subtitling. She now works at Western Sydney University as Professor of Translation and director of the Institute for Australian and Asian Arts and Culture.

In 1980 Joe Dolce released his single, ‘Shaddap you face’, tackling the Australian approach to immigrants head-on. He parodied how Australians stereotyped immigrants (in this case, Italians) as well as letting the stereotypes fight right back: ‘ah, shaddap you face!’ I wrote to him about it in 2006, and he wrote back – a generous, fascinating email that he gave me permission to reproduce.

“It was mostly unconscious at the time as I was twenty-five years younger,” he wrote. “I had always been a ‘peace and love’ hippy in the decades before I wrote the song, and when I moved to Australia and saw how marginalised ethnic people were, I guess it must have just sunk in on some level and the song just sort of wrote itself, as a kind of humorous protest declaration. I mean, sometimes making things funny is a great way to disarm pain and frustration. But it also was a great singalong. There were a lot of things that came together to make it work, not just the social aspect. Now however, I sing the song much more politically consciously and have even had it translated into an Aboriginal language which I teach people to sing the Aboriginal words to at concerts. At the Cygnet Folk Festival in Tasmania in January [2007] I am hosting the second ‘Inspired Shaddap You Face Contest’ where other serious festival guests are invited to perform their interpretation of the song. It was a big hit concert at last year’s National Folk Festival (won by a Celtic Bagpipe band!) and so far the acts who are participating are: 1. Los Capitaines – a nasty, black Nick Cave-y ‘Bad Seeds’ version; 2. Will Lane – an experimental classical version – avant-garde contemporary viola virtuoso; 3. One Step Back – Bluegrass; 4. Gorani – male choral tradition from Georgia; 5. Kazakstan Kowgerls – Bulgarian women’s a capella; 6. DUO SWANGO – ‘European Gypsies travel to Latin America’ version; 7. Kavisha Mazzella – traditional Italian.”

Before ‘Shaddap you face’ there was the 1957 book, They’re a Weird Mob, a comedy about Australian attitudes to migrants, and the Australian language. Its author, John O’Grady, published it under the name of ‘Nino Culotta’. It was filmed in 1966, giving me the link to my final interview for Episode 8 – Naomi Parry Duncan telling her favourite Sydney story, about the TV series, Skippy.

They’re a Weird Mob is not only a film about the migrant experience, but it stars Claire Dunne as Kay Kelly. Claire Dunne, OAM, was a foundation director of SBS (where Jing Han worked for many years), and worked there herself as a presenter and producer of radio and television. She strongly opposed attempts in 1986 to close SBS and merge it with the ABC. Her OAM (Order of the Medal of Australia) was awarded for her contributions to multicultural education and broadcasting. She’s even had her portrait painted by Sinead Davies and selected for the Archibald, with the title ‘The Irish immigrant – portrait of Claire Dunne OAM’.

But there’s more. The producers of Skippy – Lee Robinson, Bob Austin and John McCallum – met during the making of They’re a Weird Mob. John McCallum is credited with ‘luring’ producer Michael Powell to Australia to film it. (Remember Felicity Castagna in Episode 7 pointing out that “we didn’t even start publishing books in Australia until the 1950s. Our books were imported from the UK. Even our authors had their books published overseas and brought back.”? Here, in 1966, we have British producer Michael Powell being ‘lured’ to Australia to produce a very Australian film.)

Just to cement the connection between immigration and Skippy, the film’s cast included Ed Devereaux (ie Skippy’s Matt Hammond, head ranger of Waratah National Park) and Tony Bonner (ie Jerry King, handsome helicopter pilot and ranger) plus other actors who would go on to guest-star in Skippy.

You can see all this for yourself. Here’s They’re a Weird Mob. And here’s a collection of information about Skippy, including clips of Skippy dubbed into other languages: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/skippy-bush-kangaroo-celebrating-hit-1960s-tv-show

Acknowledgements

Interviewees for episode 8: my thanks to you all

Bette Mifsud: a first-generation Maltese-Australian visual artist who grew up on family market-gardens in North Western Sydney during the 1960s and 70s, and now lives on Dharug and Gundungurra lands in the Blue Mountains. Her website is at https://www.bette-mifsud.com/#/ and Instagram is https://www.instagram.com/bette.mifsud/  Special thanks to Bette for the use of her family photos and personal photos from https://www.bette-mifsud.com/portraits.html#/

Lucy Taksa, Professor of Management, Deakin University Business School 

Jing Han, a leading intercultural communication expert and director of the Institute for Australian and Asian Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University. Instagram: jinghan2020

Naomi Parry Duncan: Professional historian on Bluesky under @drnaomi 

Thanks also to:

Bronwyn Mehan, Spineless Wonders

Martin Gallagher, Echidna Audio: sound design

Zoe Hercus: publicity

Bettina Kaiser: logo & artwork

Peter Barley: extra voices

References

Statistics and quotes on migration from Collins, J. Migrant Hands in a Distant Land. Pluto Press, 1991 (2^nd ed.) pp 22, 36, 228.

Maria Paolini’s story in Give me strength: Forza e coraggio. Italian Australian Women Speak. Anna Maria Kahan-Guidi and Elizabeth Weiss (eds), Women’s Redress Press, 1990, p67.

Angela Signor’s story in Give me strength: Forza e coraggio. Italian Australian Women Speak. Anna Maria Kahan-Guidi and Elizabeth Weiss (eds), Women’s Redress Press, 1990, p107.

John McCallum is credited with ‘luring’ producer Michael Powell to Australia: from https://www.smh.com.au/national/renaissance-man-of-entertainment-20100204-ng3e.html

Dr Naomi Parry Duncan’s significance statement about Skippy: https://naomiparry.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Skippy-Collection-Significance-Statement.pdf

More about Skippy: https://aso.gov.au/titles/series/skippy/