Nicola Paris

Intro: Hello, my name is Savannah Travia-Dann, and I’m a Nyul Nyul woman from Winawaal Country on the Dampier Peninsular. 

Welcome to a collection of stories shared by Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians in various locations across Walyalup. 

Walyalup is the Noongar name for Fremantle, located on the south-west coast of what is now known as Western Australia. Like the rest of the continent, Walyalup is ancient Country and home to one of the world’s oldest continuing cultures, the Noongar people. 

In this series, you will hear live recordings from people who have shared difficult truths, hidden histories and visions for the future. It was created as part of the First Stories collection and funded by Lotterywest – bringing First Nations truths and lived experiences to new audiences. These stories reflect personal experiences of colonisation, resilience, connection and belonging in Walyalup and across Australia. 

Produced by the Centre for Stories in partnership with the City of Fremantle, these recordings were captured on Noongar Boodja. We pay our deepest respects to Noongar Elders past and present, and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who since the beginning, have been the custodians, carers, knowledge holders and storytellers of this land. 

Before we begin, please be aware that this episode may contain references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories and experiences that belong to the storytellers. It may include themes and language that some listeners may find distressing. 

We acknowledge the ongoing impacts of colonisation and the importance of truth-telling in creating a more honest understanding of our shared history. We also recognise that these stories may be particularly challenging for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners. 

If you’re feeling distressed or triggered while listening, please reach out to 13 YARN on 13 92 76, where you can speak with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Crisis Support Worker.  

In this episode, you will hear from Nicola Paris. Nicola established CounterACT in 2012 and has trained people in civil resistance and grassroots campaign skills. Her story speaks to working together to protect Country and the campaign to protect the Beeliar Wetlands. This is Nicola. 

NP: Hello. Before I start, I just wanted to say thank you to the Centre for Stories and Ron in particular. , It’s been a really beautiful experience and I would really recommend it to anyone who wants to try to do it in future and I’m really grateful. And thank you, Aunty, for the welcome. Because I’ve got a mild brain injury, I’m gonna be mostly reading my story. The preference is speaking from the heart and from memory, but my memory is officially MIA. I don’t think Rueben needs to learn to become a good storyteller because I just watched him do that with no notes. And that’s also why I wear a mask, I can’t afford the cognitive damage that comes with long COVID. And I think shared spaces should be safe for vulnerable people. So I just wanted to represent that today. And I’m grateful for your kindness and understanding, so you can imagine my facial expressions underneath the mask.  

I don’t remember what came first. There was a sickening crack of trees being ripped from the earth and people screaming. A family of tawny frog mouths flew into the air as their home was destroyed. People looked at me like I had answers, but I had nothing. The bulldozers had come in again just hours after hundreds of us had pushed fences down and swarmed onto the bushland to reclaim country. It was January 2016, and I’d flown back home to Boorloo for family Christmas. I thought I would pop in to help out the campaign a little bit while I was back home and kind of stayed. I found myself deep in the pointy end of a long running campaign to protect the Beeliar wetlands from the Roe 8 Highway Extension. I’ve spent most of the last 20 years working with blackfellas, whitefellas, all kinds of fellas, to stand for social, racial justice and to protect country. I train people in advocacy, skills for grassroots activism and protest, sometimes to break the law. One particular kind of law.  

Anyway, the Beeliar campaign was in the final stage using direct action tactics to try to stop the destruction of the precious remnant bushland. Fighting in the summer heat in the hopes that an upcoming election might bring change. We had won earlier that day, but like all movements and all steps towards progress, nothing is permanent. Anyone who has worked to protect country is familiar with a sick feeling of watching and hearing destruction, even on the days that we have small wins. We often have to keep winning the same battle over and over. Some days it feels like two steps forward, three steps back. And that campaign is not fully won yet either. The green spaces and the area along here – The lovely Alison can probably speak to that. There’s probably people in this crowd who have been involved in trying to follow through the promise that was made to protect these places by the government.  

On the morning we took those many steps forward, more than a thousand people gathered on Malvolio Road. It was a historic civil disobedience, one of the largest ever in this state. And while my memory is more than just a little bit patchy these days, I remember it in my bones. It was part chaos and mayhem, part vibrant grassroots organizing. And there was a palpable sense of rising excitement that day. Things just felt possible.  

I remember kids and dogs getting tangled up, Aboriginal flags flying high. Very respectable people wore signs saying, “I am a doctor and I oppose Roe 8. I am an accountant. I am a Lawyer.” I didn’t have one of those signs because I’m not such a respectable profession apparently. 

 A few of those of us that didn’t have those respectable signs were busy scouting, whispering, talking, reconvening, checking back in, looking for opportunities, and noticing that there were less police than usual that day. I remember this drumming in the background, just really consistent beat, picking up rhythm and pace with the building energy. The fence wobbled in a few places. There were a few attempts. And then suddenly the whole thing came down.  

People cheered, some jumped on top of the fence. There was all of this jubilation. The fence had been keeping us out, the community from country. But then no one moved. With few experienced organizers who’d worked at this scale, we were trying to be strategic about arrests. Police were putting punitive bail conditions on people to keep them from, away from protecting country. But some encouragement was needed.  

So first it was a few people. Everyone was rounding up, trying to get people to step forward. Then it was many, then it was almost everyone. I’m pretty sure there’s a few people here today who were there. Actually, maybe put your hands up if you were. Oh, awesome. You can tell me what bits I get wrong about this story.  

So yeah, almost everyone swarmed on in the end. It was members of parliament and artists, friends, neighbors, white fellas, black fellas, people born here and elsewhere. The police fell back to protect the inner compound where two brave women were locked to bulldozers. They had to protect the property. It’s the machines that are important. It was a huge battle that day in the heat and dust.  

The police came in hard. We’d caught them under-prepared and they weren’t happy. They used horses to drive through the crowd, corralling and injuring people along the way. They targeted key organizers for arrest. One Aunty was arrested for no clear reason. The police grabbed her by the elbow to march her off. She took her time, grabbed his hand instead, and casually walked away with him hand in hand. She looked like she’d seen this shit before.  

Something shifted that day. It had been so hot and so hard for weeks. People who’d been running on fumes were elated. Mass actions had been attempted before, but without enough planning. Most people think little planning or organization goes into direct action. They are very wrong. To hold people safely, to work together to do hard things, takes preparation.  

That’s why a friend spent hours talking with an all-women group who planned a smaller action later on about how to safely lock themselves to the trees they wanted to protect. I was talking action organizing and police logistics, and she was making sure that hands wouldn’t swell in the heat, in the lockboxes.  

A senior Noongar woman had stepped up with a small group of other women who planned an action in an area where they were going to lock themselves to the trees they hoped to protect. They were tree hugging in the literal sense, hugging their arms around trees and locking their thumbs together in purpose-made devices.  

A sacred Moodjar tree was at risk. What many of us grew up calling the Christmas tree, whose orange bloom signaled summer coming in on so many trips down south. The tree was likely hundreds of years old. Gail [Beck], who happens to be here with us today, had held off risking arrest because this is the place she wanted to make us stand.  

We’d talked about risk to mob from the cops. One aunty had warned that the cops will come straight for us. Gail wanted me to tell you today the response was important to her. When the other Aunty said that, Gail was told, “We will surround you if they do.”  

They were dropped off at midnight, army-crawling, apparently, extremely badass, and hiding until they were seen, army-crawling to evade police and hiding until they were seen by workers and police as the light came up.  

For cultural reasons, Gail could not lock onto the Moodjar. So another woman stepped up. They were arrested one by one, holding off work for more than six hours that day. Gail was one of the last. She was well hidden, protected by beautiful old banksia. Country looked after her that day.  

When she was finally found, police threatened to topple the tree to get her to release the cuffs. And then she was arrested and locked up for protecting her own country. Then they turned to the Moodjar. Amy refused to release. She was really staunch. She held her ground strong that day. So the police used a chainsaw to sever a limb of the beautiful old tree while she was still locked to it.  

Gail’s banksia tree was destroyed, but the women were not physically harmed that day. And that Moodjar is still standing in a grove of many others.  

Gail was kind enough to visit the area with me this week. Scarred but surrounded by country. As Gail said, it was the greatest joy that we had from people around the world, and particularly so many women. With being on maternal country and so many women involved, she said, “Country will sing to this.”  

The Moodjar is the largest parasitic plant in the world. They send suckers out to form rings around host organisms that they feed from. And they’re so strong, they’ve been known to cut through telephone lines. They can’t live without community. They’re culturally important to Noongar people. That is not my part of the story to tell. But what I can say, like the women who stood up to protect them that day, they are both beautiful and extremely badass.  

More than 200 people were arrested over those hectic few months. Many never had been before. It takes many people doing extraordinary things to change history.  

It’s been the great privilege of my life to support and witness people to do things that scare them. Working and learning with mob across so many Aboriginal nations. I’ve learned we need to, and I need to do better, at listening to people with the most knowledge and the most to lose.  

I’ve learned about grace and humility. I’ve been made welcome. I’ve laughed a lot. Black fellas are funny like no one else. I’ve made lots of tea. ‘Proper strong thanks, bub.’ I’ve messed up and I’ve been growled at. And I’ve learned patience. And then I’ve learned patience again. And I will probably continue to need to learn patience again. And the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. I can’t do the same work I used to.  

My life is smaller and quieter now as I slowly recover from injury. I’m trying to remember these lessons. I listen to the djiti djiti in the tree out the front and hear the Kulbardi singing the dawn in. I hope to learn Noongar properly one day when my memory lets me.  

For now, I just try and call the birds by their given names because I hope that they remember them. I keep the Karak feathers to remind me that it’s worth listening to and protecting country and habitat for the cockatoos and other creatures who had names long before many of us came here.And I smile when I think about the beautiful, badass Moodjar. They bloom where the weather is right, feed off their surroundings. They only survive through being with community. They’re wild and fierce enough to cut through places that they aren’t meant to be. Wires and bureaucracy and phone lines. The Moodjar and all the women who protected them are reminders that some lore is more important than some law. Moodjar nalang kaartdijin koorda. Moodjar, our teaching friend.  

Thank you. 

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Backyard Truth Telling Series. This collection of stories was made possible through the generous support of the City of Fremantle and Lotterywest and was produced by the Centre for Stories. 

To learn more about the City of Fremantle’s commitment to reconciliation, visit fremantle.wa.gov.au. 

If you’d like to hear more stories from the Backyard Truth Telling Series, visit centreforstories.com. 

Centre for Stories is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to uplifting diverse voices, fostering connection and creating spaces where stories can be shared and heard. If you’d like to support this work, please consider making a donation through our website: centreforstories.com. 

This podcast was produced by Savannah Travia-Dann, with storytelling training from Ron Bradfield Jnr and Mariela Espino Zuppa, and sound engineering by Mason Vellios and Cobie Mason. 

Thank you for joining us and thank you for supporting the storytellers who have generously shared their truths, experiences and visions for the future.