Room at the Top - Transcript
PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT: Monday, 15 May , 2006
JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: Hello. Tonight's Australian Story is about a
young man I first met a few years ago as part of a youth delegation
that turned up in my office. Heath Ducker has overcome enormous
obstacles and challenges to become a leader and a role model for young
people who've had a troubled past. The obstacle of youth poverty has
steeled his determination to do something to help the underprivileged in
our community. He succeeded and he's even knocking on my door, after my
job and this is his story.
HEATH DUCKER: I was very young when I realised that we were looked upon
as a needy family. You knew that you were from a disadvantaged
background and you knew that you're poor. And it made you feel like an
outsider, like you didn't fit in, like I didn't fit in. Probably it was
unsaid, but there wasn't much of a future for us because everyone knew
our background and the struggles that we had at home. I think there was
something inside of me that said, "I don't want to accept this
situation. I don't want to settle for what people think of me." I knew
that I wanted to get out and above that. It really annoyed me that
people would judge me - even as a young person I remember thinking this -
that people would judge me because of the background I came from, and
limit my ability or potential, based on that. And whenever somebody
tells me I can't do something it puts me on more of a mission to want to
achieve it. If you really want something out of this life, you want to
make a change in yourself, there's absolutely nothing - nothing - that
can stop you from doing that. Admittedly, if I hadn't had the help of
Youth Insearch or other people in my life that have kick-started me to
get out of it a bit, I probably would have ended up in a much worse
place.
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: Youth Insearch is a program that was first
founded to empower young people to take responsibility of their lives.
It allows people to look at the issues that are affecting their lives,
affecting their behaviour and so on. And it relies a great deal on other
young people at the camps to provide support, to provide advice, to
say, "Well, I've been there, I've done that. This is what I did. This is
what you could do." There's been a lot of sadness in Heath's life. He
doesn't show it, outwardly, to anybody. He didn't want you to see inside
him, but you knew that there was sadness there. He would try any method
possible not to show it. To him, being deprived of a father in his life
was a major thing - major.
HEATH DUCKER: Growing up I was the second-eldest of 10 children. I share
a father with my younger brother but all my other brothers and sisters
have a different father. There was one father who stuck around for a
while. He never lived with us. There was no father that ever lived in
the house. He was just around sometimes on the weekends. Grew up in an
old Housing Commission home, really run-down. I remember the windows
being broken and not being fixed for years, especially the one in my
room. I remember going to sleep at night without a blanket, not being
able to find a towel. I remember going home after school many times and
not finding anything in the fridge to eat or in the cupboard. I used to
eat cereal a lot, you know, cereal for breakfast, cereal for dinner.
JUDITH BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: He lived at Oaklands in Sydney, which is
not a suburb where you’d expect to see young children with social
depravation and Heath's house wouldn't have met the social standards of
that street. They were discriminated against because of their clothes,
because their clothes weren't always clean and ironed and they were
second-hand and sometimes the children would go to school and they
hadn't been bathed, they'd be a bit smelly. I don't think we could even
start to imagine the difficulties for Jenny, for Heath's mother. And
there's no question of the love that she has for her children. Despite
the fact that Jenny didn't have the physical skills or abilities to care
for her children's physical needs, she was able to use the resources
within the community to achieve the best that she believed she could for
her children.
HEATH DUCKER: I was very fortunate when I was about nine years of age to
have been assigned an aunty and uncle through the Aunty and Uncles'
program, couples who give you sort of respite care on the weekends and
other times, if it's required. I spent a lot of weekends with Alan and
Cathy, and it was good because I saw the normal workings of a household.
Alan and Cathy would wash their clothes on the weekend and iron them,
and I was provided with meals. So it just gave me a bit of an insight to
what a sort of normal household is like.
ALAN RABY, ‘UNCLE’: We didn't have children, we couldn't have children,
and for us that was a way of having a family. So he was the son we never
had. We used to race up and down the pool, loved the pool. He was very
good in the swimming at school and he got me timing him up and down the
pool at one stage in his school career. And we still enjoy that and we,
later on we played squash, and I'd like to beat him and he'd like to
beat me. I mean, we were a bit competitive.
CATHY RABY, ‘AUNTY’: The day that we met Heath he was nine and we met
him with his mother in a local park. I felt very nervous. Neither of us
had children so we were fairly, you know, "Well, is this child going to
take to us or not?" And then I heard Heath say to his friend, "That's my
aunty and uncle, there." And it was a great moment and it was a great
beginning for us. At nine years old he's pretty inquiring, wants to
learn, and I suppose that's the approach we took, encourage him to do
things, especially around the home. I've got great memories of Alan
getting him to help, and slowly he joined in the activity with Alan, I
suppose just like a father and son would.
ALAN RABY, ‘UNCLE’: He'd join in and meet our friends and their kids,
and I think he enjoyed that. He really enjoyed being part of just a
family network around the pool, barbecue, and that was a normal family
life and he'd probably never had that before.
HEATH DUCKER: I guess I was probably angry with my circumstances, angry
with the situation that I was living in. I used to fight with my little
sisters, I used to fight with my mum a lot. And so most of my happiness
was placed outside of the home and that's where I tried to spend most of
my time.
CATHY RABY, ‘AUNTY’: It started with a younger version of Youth
Insearch, Young Insearch. There was a very charismatic social worker who
encouraged him to go there. And I think initially it was just a way of
meeting other young people, doing various activities, but very soon he
wasn't just a participant, he wanted to be a leader.
HEATH DUCKER: I found a bit of belonging there, other young people who I
related to, and then I went to Youth Insearch. I saw other young people
who had been through what I'd been through and had got on with their
lives and were doing things with their lives. So it was the first time,
really, that made me believe that I could do anything I wanted with my
life if I just chose to do it.
I formed really close friendships and bonds with other young people, and, of course, also met Ron Barr, and as the years went by he became, really, the father figure in my life.
I formed really close friendships and bonds with other young people, and, of course, also met Ron Barr, and as the years went by he became, really, the father figure in my life.
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: He came on the Friday night and on the Sunday
afternoon you could almost feel the rocks had fallen off this kid's
shoulders. And it was at that camp that Heath first realised that he was
being sexually abused. That had a tremendous impact on him.
HEATH DUCKER: Because I'd been sexually abused when I was 12, I had
never spoken about it and I'd kept it to myself, kept it inside. And I
went to Youth Insearch and it was the first time that I realised really
what was going on and what had actually happened to me. I remember the
first time that it happened, and I was walking home from school that
day, and I used to walk home by myself, and I remember walking along the
park, walked up and over this hill and under this bridge. And this car
was waiting and I looked and I thought, "Oh, yeah, I recognise that
car." And I walked up and, you know, it was my friend's father, and he
sort of leaned his head out the window and said, "Oh, hi, Heath. How you
going? I notice you're having a bit of troubles in your friendship with
my son." Because at the time, it wasn't anything major but I was having
sort of little arguments with my mate who was his son. And so I got
into the car and he sort of drove me around the neighbourhood and down
this street which isn't too far from my home, and er, and, and he did it
there. That was the first time it happened. I didn't know what I should
do about it. Like, I really just didn't understand it. I knew something
was wrong but I just didn't understand it. And when I went to Youth
Insearch it just made it clear. I started to understand, and it was the
beginning of the healing process for me.
JUDITH BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: For Heath to have disclosed another trauma
in his life was devastating. And it was devastating also to know that
very few young people achieve a conviction if they decide to take the
offender to court. It was the outcome on the day of court that makes
Heath an outstandingly different young person.
HEATH DUCKER: I didn't feel a great need for him to be punished, but I
did feel the need that society should be protected. And I remember him
sitting in there like this - he was afraid, he was scared, he was, like,
shaking like that. I remember seeing him like that, then looking into
his eyes, which is a good thing to do first because it, you know, took
the power back, and I saw a human being. I saw somebody who was afraid
of what might happen to him. It was that moment I just forgave him. I
forgave him for what he did to me. And anything that I'd ever, ever felt
about the experience - the pain, the guilt, the shame, the sadness - it
just left me at that moment, and it was gone, I didn't have to deal
with it anymore. He only got weekend detention, but it was a couple of
years. I'd made up my mind probably my first or second camp that I
wanted to do something with my life, I wanted to be something and I
wasn't going to let anything stop me from doing that. I realised that
one of the only ways I was going to get there was to study and get a
university education. I couldn't study in the house, so what I decided
to do was to actually climb up onto the roof and I used to do my study
there. Home was such a difficult environment. There was chaos with all
the kids running around, babies crying, arguing and carrying on, no
room. My mum used to always be going through difficulty and my older
brother ran away for four years and we didn't know where he was, we
couldn't find him. And there was all this trauma going on in her life,
and it was depressing and I wanted to get out of it.
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: I, personally, felt really, really sad for him
- probably some of the saddest moments of my life, to actually witness
not only the environment but the effects that the environment had on
him.
CATHY RABY, ‘AUNTY’: When Heath became a little older in his teenage
years and when he was trying to get homework done, he probably spent
more time with us. I wondered whether we should have made the offer to
have him stay more permanently, but at the end of the day I know that
his mother really loved that family and she worked very hard to keep
that family together.
HEATH DUCKER: I guess the first really good experience in my life was
getting my Youth Insearch leadership. Youth Insearch leadership isn't
easy to get, actually. You spend a year training and then you're
assessed twice to see whether you make it and then if you make it
through you're awarded a badge from the governor of New South Wales. It
was an excellent feeling to stand there and be, you know, awarded my
leadership badge, and I was proud of it.
ALAN RABY, ‘UNCLE’: We decided we'd do everything we could to help him
get his HSC. I'd been to high school presentation days with Jenny and
she wanted her son to achieve. And it was actually a conversation with
the high school principal, who said, "Look, in my experience kids from
this kind of background do not get HSC." So that was the motivation, the
spur for me and Cathy to say, "OK, we'll help Heath.". So he came to us
one weekend a month and then in the HSC year he came on the weekdays,
so Monday through to Friday.
HEATH DUCKER: The most time I ever spent at Alan and Cathy's home was
during my HSC year. I mean, that was really vital. I wouldn't have been
able to get into uni if it wasn't for them.
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: Socialising had to be put aside. You ring
Heath when he was studying and the study came first, it came before
Youth Insearch, it came before everything. His study was his first
priority.
HEATH DUCKER: I was invited to speak at conferences, and one of them
being the state's magistrates, I spoke at a conference there, about
youth and crimes and alternatives to the justice system. And I was, on
the basis of this, invited to meet with the Prime Minister. Ron and I
went up there and spoke to the Prime Minister about, you know, youth
affairs. And I remember sitting in the office and thinking, "Well, what a
contrast, you know. I grew up in this poverty and I've been sexually
abused and here I am a few years later, sitting in the office of the
prime minister of the country, discussing youth affairs and youth
issues."
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: In our program there've probably been about a
dozen outstanding people. And he would be one of those most outstanding
young people that I've ever had anything to do with. He's persevered and
persevered where other people probably would have given up. He walked
the Kokoda Trail. The first time he went up there he didn't succeed.
HEATH DUCKER: I’d jog a lot around my local neighbourhood in preparation
for Kokoda. The first time I went to Kokoda was when I was in high
school. Charlie Lynn, who's a member of parliament, New South Wales, got
a group of young people from Youth Insearch and decided to take them
over for a leadership experience. What Kokoda's really about is the
ability for the human spirit to overcome adversity. I think of the
experiences that I've had, the abuse or whatever, and I think, "If I can
do that, if I can overcome those experiences, there's nothing that I
can't overcome. There's no reason why I can't get up this mountain."
Unfortunately, midway I tore a chest muscle, so I was actually evacuated
midway. But that wasn't to worry because, you know, I never like to
leave anything unfinished. I always knew that I'd go back and do it
again, and I've more than proven that by going back as a trek leader.
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: When other people were out socialising, he'd
be in there pursuing his goal, and that's the way it was. He's never
really gone off the track once he, once he decided he was going to get
on to it. However, on many occasions he's needed a bit of an uplift.
HEATH DUCKER: He's always there to give me advice and guidance when I
need it, you know, fatherly advice, and even discipline when I was a
teenager - I didn't like that, but when he saw me get out of line he
would bring me straight back into line.
JUDITH BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: As a young boy he actually said to us once,
"I want to change the outcome for the social depravation that people
experience." And Ron said to him, "Well, there's only one way you're
going to do that, Heath, and that is by being at the top."
HEATH DUCKER: I was extremely proud to graduate from university and walk
along that stage and receive my certificate, because everything in my
life would have provided me for an excuse not to do that.
CATHY RABY, ‘AUNTY’: I'm very proud to have watched that journey.
Friends sometimes say to me, "Where do you think he'll end up?" And I
say, "Well, I can see him going two ways. Number one, doing something
very active in human rights or he'll end up as prime minister."
HEATH DUCKER: If I was prime minister there's a lot I would do. One of
the biggest problems we've got is with the DOCS department. I mean,
they've got an immense job to do, but I think there's organisations out
there that do a really good job and their results are unrecognised. I
think one of the biggest problems in society in terms of helping people
who are in my situation is that they assist the family in its present
state, rather than trying to look at solutions. If you treat someone as
they are that's how they're going to stay, but if you, if you treat
somebody as who you want them to become or how they should become, then
often they can rise to that. If you live in poverty, the money you get
from welfare isn't a lot, and also you've got to be able to manage it.
So I think in some ways Mum wasn't able to apply that money properly.
The more kids that come, the more brothers and sisters we had, the more
difficult it got. They do experience the same struggles that I had and I
feel for them. Hopefully, the fact that I've gone out and I've achieved
and not let anything hold me back will show them that they can do the
same.
JUDITH BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: I see Heath's mother as a little girl lost,
very vulnerable to predators, open to abuse, whose real focus on life
is about being loved and accepted, and I believe that she saw the way of
achieving this was by having babies, by having children.
HEATH DUCKER: Mum is the way she is today because of the experiences she
had when she was young. Growing up she had some negative experiences
and they've carried on through her life. From my mum I think I've
inherited a sense of compassion, a sense of understanding and the
importance of the value of love, I think. Mum asks me sometimes, "Was I a
bad mother? Did I not do well?" I've always said, "No." I've always
believed that she did the best she could and she has nothing, really, to
regret in that way. It's just the way it was, you know. The greatest
difficulty I continue to have is that there's still that challenge every
day to rise over, overcome my background. You have to fight against a
judgement your whole life. No matter what you've achieved, people still
look at you and where you've come from. But, I'll tell you something,
the experiences that I've had in the home that I grew up in made me who I
am, and I'm happy to be who I am today. Despite everything I've been
through and the barriers that I've had, I've been able to secure a job
at Gadens law firm, which is a top-10 law firm in the country. And
that's been my whole purpose of the things that I've done over the
years, is to convince society that these things don't have to be
shackles. And perhaps having this achievement among all the others that
I've done is one of the final steps in shaking those shackles off my own
past.
RON BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: From my point of view I can look back at the
end of the day and say, "Well, I had some small part in the success of
this boy." Because I believe that in years to come - that we are going
to see more of him, we're going to hear more of him, whether it's in
politics, I don't know, but I know that this boy spells success to me.
JUDITH BARR, YOUTH INSEARCH: Heath is one of my heroes, one of my big
heroes, yes. Yeah. Sorry. I'm very proud, yeah, very proud of Heath.
HEATH DUCKER: One of my major goals in my life is to actually get
married and have a family and become a good father, and that will signal
the fact that I've completely broken the cycle.
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