- Steve Roach's brand of unionism seemed to be an anachronism, steeped in the history of the bush and the great shearers strike of 1891. But when 1500 wharfies found themselves out of a job Steve Roach found himself back in step.
- Steve Roach leads a small breakaway union called the Shearers and Rural Workers' Union with a membership made up mostly of shearers and miners, disillusioned with the giant A.W.U. He says he makes only a "lousy two hundred dollars a week" from a job that takes up practically every waking moment and keeps him away from home (in Melbourne) at least half the year. While he's on the road in his battered old car, staying in the backrooms of pubs for ten dollars a night, his wife Debbie is earning the money to keep their two young children fed and clothed. Debbie says: "I would say he's probably born 100 years too late - working for something you believe in for nothing is just not something many people do, which is charity work, which is basically what it is to him." If the waterside workers are seen by many as an over protected and privileged elite, the people Steve Roach represents are in the mould of the traditional battler. We follow him as he travels to Cobar in outback New South Wales to organise a convoy of miners who've just lost their job and all their entitlements because of a sudden mine closure. And we also join him on the M.U.A. picket line in Melbourne. Through his story, the threads connecting the past and the present are starkly highlighted. PLUS: Wally's Weddings Wally Richards came into this world marching to the sound of a different drum. A local Maryborough identity, Wally stood at 6ft. 4inches, was illiterate, and due to his physical deformities, spoke with difficulty. Yet, the beat that Wally heard all his life was soft and gentle, and didn't include things like envy, greed or hate. Wally liked to go to weddings. Anyone's wedding, and over 40 years he amassed a collection of nearly 20 000 photographs from the weddings he attended in the Maryborough district. It was only after his death last year, that his extraordinary pictures came to light. But, fortunately, his family, with the help of the entire town of Maryborough, painstakingly catalogued all the photos and recently staged an exhibition.—Australian Story
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