My name is Paddi Creevey. Just recently, I retired from the wonderful position I had and being the Mayor of Mandurah.  

I grew up in a working class family in West End. And I think one of the defining things in my life was being drawn to a religious vocation. From an early age, primary school, I found myself praying to be guided. And that was interesting because my family certainly wasn’t religious. At about 17 and a half, I managed to talk my way into entering the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. In terms of that order, who dealt with disturbed adolescents, I was considered to be very young. But I actually got a chance to talk to the person in charge of the order Australia wide, and impressed on her. That really, having worked at a car yard as a typist, and had about two years of experience out of school, I was well suited to join this order.  

What was it about being a nun that became so important for me? I just sort of felt this was what I was meant to do. And with all the enthusiasm of a young person, I just embraced that wholeheartedly. To enter the order, as was the custom in those days, you had to have a dowry. I had a job as a typist, which I gave most of that money to my parents because I was living at home. So, I had to really find another way of trying to put the money together to get this. So, I got the opportunity, coming from a long line of punters, to be given a job at the what was then called the Tote, now the TAB, and that money, that’s what got me into the convent. So, this was a huge deal, we’re going back to like 1960-61. Going to Melbourne was like going to another planet. And I remember the vivid scene at the train station. Mum in tears. Dad trying not to cry. And me thinking I was on this most incredible adventure. I’ll always remember an uncle I was very fond of coming up to me and said ‘Good luck girl, you got more hide than Ned Kelly.’  

We went to the Abbotsford Convent. At that time the order was what was called a semi enclosed order. So, it had a farm, they made all their own clothes, their own bread. The doctor and the dentist came in, it was postal voting. They ran a commercial laundry, it was the biggest laundry in the in the southern hemisphere, because there were no subsidies or government grants. So, what we relied on was getting money from the laundry to run this huge operation in any one time. 

There could be about 1000 people. It was a very structured life. There was a lot of prayer, a lot of learning and then there was the value that was placed on work because the it was custodial care for these young people who’ve been sent by the courts. And the feeling was in those days that if you could keep them off the streets, teach them to work, because it was full employment around that time, then they would have a better chance in life. It wasn’t discovered till quite later on, that really what made things work was if people were able to establish a relationship.  

I was in my mid 20s and had finished all the initial training and I suffered a major depression. I was working in the Brisbane convent at that stage went to a local doctor, didn’t know it was depression, never heard of depression. He put me on like actil, which I think it’s off the list now and it was certainly not used for someone feeling a bit down. But I was so unsettled I took three months leave, got a job cooking in a local hostel again to support myself because my parents weren’t in a position to do that. It was very isolating time very difficult time but the end of the three months I thought ‘Well, I should go back.’ 

I transferred back to Melbourne, and obviously the depression wasn’t going away. I was sent to see a psychiatrist, and then was given shock treatment for five weeks, three times a week, which was you know, pretty terrible experience at the time, especially from what I know now, it was not really the appropriate treatment.  

One day, I just felt so overwhelmed that I took a lot of the medication, not really wanting, I think, to kill myself just wanted to go to sleep and not have to deal with it anymore. And I was very fortunate that the person, the nun that was in charge who I got on with very well, happened to come to my room, figured out what was going on. By this stage. I was literally feeling no pain, and she insisted that, in fact begged me, crying, if I would go to the hospital and woke up in intensive care, having had the last rites and sort of, well I think they might have bought me back. And I remember being wheeled from intensive care in St Vincent’s Hospital up to their psychiatric ward. You know it was a locked ward, the windows were only open to about six inches. So, there I was, no money, totally dependent on someone coming to see me. And mental illness was not really understood. And so, I could see nuns arriving and going to visit people who had other conditions in the hospital, but only one person came to see me and I felt really isolated because I couldn’t call anybody, I couldn’t talk to anybody apart from the people in the ward.  

The problem I then had is that I refused to take any more medication. And I felt very sane, so I spent the next two weeks trying to convince them that I was sane. Finally, the nun in charge of Australia came to see me and agreed that I’d be sent to Perth, now I think that was the furthest outpost of the empire, and you know, that was all they could think of doing. But that was the best thing that could have happened to me because it was there that my life really turned around.  

So, this was the last throw of the dice in terms of religious life for me, and the sister in charge, Sister O’Brien, closest person to a saint I’ve ever met. She insisted I go and get some training. I thought I can’t do that, no one in my family had ever been to university.  

So, I got into social work through the back door and what was then WAIT. After a little while for three and a half years. And I was studying washing dishes at the Herdsman Hotel, had my Suzuki 9cc scooter with a psychedelic eagle on the helmet. I knew, just in knowing, that much as I love these people, believed in what they’re doing, I knew I had to move on. That was very, very difficult. Was probably the time I was probably the most alone in lots of ways. And it was after I’d graduated as a social worker that I realised something that I hadn’t been aware of really, and that was that my sexual orientation was that I was gay. And I didn’t really know anything about this type of sexuality. You know, it wasn’t a big feature. I hadn’t been in a relationship before I entered. So, this was like being a teenager in your 30s, and to a fairly disastrous relationship by then, I was very fortunate to have two wonderful relationships including the one I’m in now and had a social work career that was just fantastic for me.  

Interestingly, I ended up being in charge of social work services at Royal Perth in ward nine. And certainly, my own experience of depression and psychiatry certainly helped me look at things quite differently. And then when I went to Mandurah, again working in community health, someone said to me, would you consider running for council? Well, I’d only ever paid my rates, sometimes the dog license, been very noisy at one meeting, but knew nothing really about local government. But had a go, and got elected.  

When I became mayor, even though I had a lot of experience in local government, nothing really prepared me for the fact that you have to be a leader. Being a leader came down to really focusing on the relationships, trying to connect with all the parts of our very changing community. I was really fortunate that I’d had the social work background, I suppose the religious background, and tried to do that role based on values. Now I didn’t succeed all the time in that obviously, I’m not a shadow was one of my sayings. I’m certainly very aware of my shortcomings.  

I felt that when I was in the community, people knew that I really did care what happened to them, and to the community, and that feedback was quite sustaining even though in politics, you know, not everybody’s going to be happy with what you do.