Steve Renouf opens up on racism, Joh and pearls of wisdom
League legend Steve Renouf has revealed the racism he and his family encountered when he was young, and the valuable lessons he learnt from his family and sporting idols.
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League legend Steve Renouf has opened up about playing with Alfie Langer and Wally Lewis – and growing up amid racial strife in Murgon where his activist father led protests against Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Bjelke-Petersen lived not far away in Kingaroy and was known for his “racist views”, said Renouf, 52.
The gun rugby league centre, who scored four tries in five different games, chooses his words carefully.
He is also backing Queensland’s Path to Treaty and said thousands of stolen generation survivors were still questioning their history and identity.
Renouf, a Gunggari and Gubbi Gubbi man, has emerged as one of the nation’s most eloquent voices in championing Indigenous health and reconciliation.
He is the spokesperson for the Australian Digital Health Agency but has four different roles in the Indigenous community in Australia. He promotes Deadly Choices, helped set up a string of health clinics across Brisbane and came to the rescue promoting Covid vaccinations in remote and sceptical communities while promoting health programs.
“We grew up in Murgon not far from the Bjelke-Petersens when Joh was premier of the state.
“I was only young, and I go by what I hear, but some people considered him racist. I never got to meet the man because I was only a kid, but he upset a lot of people in the community with his racist views.’’
He said Bjelke-Petersen was also well liked because “he got a lot done as well’’.
“We had a highset house in Perkins St in Murgon where a majority of us were born and grew up,” he said.
“I remember one day when there were all these people under our house with big cardboard signs and they were painting.
“Joh was coming to open something at the local primary school and there were going up there to do a little march and a picket.’’
The Renoufs were one of the few black families living in the archly conservative white town with a heavy police presence. Most Aboriginals lived south of the town at Cherbourg reserve, which had become a kind of dumping ground for Aborigines from 23 different tribal groups in the early 1900s. Drinking and social problems were rife.
I visited as a young reporter in the early 70s to write about the emerging champions at the Cherbourg amateur boxing club. But the real story was the abject poverty with ramshackle huts and a lack of beds _ and official indifference. It is where I first discovered apartheid Queensland-style.
Cherbourg was where I also discovered that Queensland, in effect, tolerated slavery. Cherbourg superintendents from 1905 allowed Aboriginal residents to be forcibly hired out for casual labour in the rapidly growing local agricultural economy. The South Burnett was called Joh Country. And there was a sign on the road which said: “Welcome to Joh Country”.
Some media, however, likened Murgon to Soweto, the troubled community on the outskirts of Johannesburg in South Africa at the centre of civil unrest during the brutal apartheid regimen there.
Steve Renouf’s father Charlie fought intolerance and injustice.
“During that period my dad started the first housing project in the South Burnett and set up a legal service.’’
Charlie Renouf left his council job to become the Indigenous community’s full-time Legal Aid officer.
Young Steve Renouf remembers two young lawyers travelling 245km from Brisbane to defend young offenders. His mother Nerida would serve them morning tea before they went to court.
They were Wayne Goss, who would become premier in 1989 and Terry O’Gorman, who would lead the Queensland Civil Liberties Union.
“We had to be on our best behaviour when they visited,” he said. “Dad would help anyone due to face court. He got a lot done.’’
Later, Renouf was told by State Government executives that his father was always forthright in demanding improvements for the community. “Dad sent standards for us,’’ Renouf said.
Like many Aborigines, Renouf suffered racist jibes.
“We were an Indigenous family growing up in a white community. Without a doubt, we all copped it over the years.
“Yes, there was a bit of racism up there. It’s a racist area.’’
His father would say: “What would they know?’’ His mother was equally dismissive, telling her children to “ignore it, and just get on with it’’.
Renouf experienced prejudice again when he joined the Brisbane Broncos.
“It wasn’t easy. You copped it from one side and then another,” he said.
“You cop it from your own mob because you are a blackfella playing footy for a white team. My mates from Cherbourg liked having a crack.”
He learned a valuable lesson: “You cannot be friendly with everyone. I had people on both sides I didn’t see eye to eye with.
“Now it is very different. It is very integrated. Things shift.”
Renouf speaks passionately about the role of sport in bringing people of different cultures together. Rugby league was and remains a guiding force in combating racism.
“And that is in footy and sport across the board,” he said. He praises Wayne Bennett for his positive influence.
Renouf became an activist himself as a member of former premier Anna Bligh’s reconciliation committee.
He was incredulous at some comments he heard at meetings.
“I was in the room and one guy said, ‘I want to make sure there is no racism whatsoever’.
“I was sitting there thinking, we are all smart enough to know that ain’t going to happen.
“People have their beliefs. You can change some people, but to say you are going to get rid of racism altogether is never going to happen, obviously. That’s just the way things are.”
Nevertheless, Queensland’s Indigenous community was inspired and uplifted by the Palaszczuk Government’s recent Path to Treaty blueprint.
An excerpt from the statement reads: “This Path to Treaty is a journey, not for the timid, but for those who are courageous to confront our uncomfortable past, the curious who long to find out and live with the truth, and the optimists who dream of the possibilities of a future where we live comfortably with the past, free of blame and rancour.’’
An independent interim body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and non-Indigenous representatives will develop legislation to establish the First Nations Treaty and set up a “truth telling and healing inquiry”.
“There is so much work going on in the background, which is great,” Renouf said.
“A lot of this revolves around education and letting people know there is a reason for bad things that happened (in the past). You can’t just brush it off.’’
He said the White Australia Policy that created the stolen generation. “They were trying to breed out the colour.”
The official government language that used words like half-caste and quarter-caste was repugnant, Renouf said.
“It’s so inappropriate it is not funny. It is derogatory. How dare you say, ‘you’re quarter-caste’. Wow. But they are the words used by the government back in the day.”
However the whitening Australia program “backfired” with more and more coming forward to acknowledge and embrace their Aboriginal and Torres Strait heritage.
Renouf keeps busy as Australian Digital Health Agency consumer advocate and co-chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reconciliation working group.
In 2002 he launched the Get Active schools program for Queensland Government and helped recruit and train 40 Queensland Academy of Sport athletes from all sporting areas to become involved.
He co-ordinated visits to 150 schools across Queensland with each school getting three visits per year. Steve is a member of the Queensland Organising Committee for the Salvation Army. He is patron of Brisbane Youth Services and the Australian Diabetes Educators’ Association.
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