Helen Kelly died on 14 October 2016, aged 52, after an 18 month fight against lung cancer. Unusually for a prominent and in-your-face President of New Zealand’s peak union organisation, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi (CTU), her death was marked across New Zealand society, from individual people who had admired her from afar, to the many people who had worked with her, to national and international union leaders, news media, and local and national politicians up to and including the then Prime Minister. Tributes flowed from overseas.

Helen was a remarkable union leader but more than a union leader. At a public level she was willing to challenge the comfortable assumptions of the commentariat and career politicians. She was not just about talk: her actions repeatedly brought support, active participation and results. She was able to express in direct language an alternative vision of what New Zealand could be like if it put the interests of working people at its centre.

If she had not died she would have stood for Parliament in the 2017 election and I have no doubt would eventually have become the most effective and progressive leader of the Labour Party seen in New Zealand for generations. In short, Helen could have been to New Zealand politics what Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn symbolise in the US and UK – but with youth and exceptional organisational and communication skills on her side. Even without a Parliamentary position, she was closest we have had to those game-changers of progressive politics.

Helen was my cousin (her mother Cath, who died on 13 March 2017, aged 91, and my late mother* were sisters), and I worked with Helen during two periods in our lives. That is a declaration of interest. This does not try to be a formal obituary and recounting of her life but an evaluation of what I know of her as a relative, friend, colleague and fellow unionist. It represents no-one’s views but my own. * Murray Horton’s obituary of Ann Rosenberg is in Watchdog 116, December 2007, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/16/09.htm. Ed.

Born Into Activism, Unionism And Politics

Helen was born on 19 September, Women’s Suffrage Day, in 1964, the younger sister of Max. Her parents, Cath and Pat Kelly, lived on Mount Victoria in Wellington (in the house she lived in at the time of her death). It was then a largely working class suburb with large families in the neighbourhood and Cath and Pat’s house was open to them. Helen and Max grew up with a constant flow of children through the house, frequently at meals, and on outings.

Cath and Pat loved children. They took seven-year old Albert White, who became friends with Helen at school, into their home and he is still a part of the family. Much as I loved my other aunts and uncles, Cath and Pat were my favourites. I remember meeting Pat for the first time when he visited Christchurch and the family went for a walk on the Port Hills with him and Cath. He was a great (and funny) storyteller and told us stories of his poverty-stricken childhood in Liverpool, having to help his family make ends meet, standing up to bullies, and regular back-door exits from houses when they couldn’t pay the rent. We fell in love with him.

Cath and Pat were well known figures in political and union circles, initially as members of the Communist Party until an inharmonious parting of the ways in 1970 after which they joined the Labour Party with equal dedication, including becoming part of the active opposition to the Rogernomics takeover of Party policy. Most of Helen’s upbringing was when they were active in the Labour Party and she too became an active (but critical) member.

Throughout her childhood, politics and union activities were part of the wallpaper. I remember visits to the family in my teens and later. Discussion of politics was part of the breakfast and dinner conversation – and the times in between. This wasn’t a frothy commentary on political personalities and polls – it was active politics and organising: what needed to be done, who you should support and why you should (or justify why not). Pat was frequently on the phone, persuading and organising. He talked about what he had said to Norm Kirk in the pub (not very complimentary) and how he was organising cleaners and caretakers, the principles he worked on and the arguments he used in the latest negotiations.

The children took part in pickets and demonstrations. There is a photo of Pat, Helen still a toddler and Max on the back of a flat deck truck about to take part in a union picket. Max remembers them going with Pat around work sites on his rounds as Secretary of the Cleaners and Caretakers Union.  The 1984 murder of Ernie Abbott when he picked up a suitcase bomb in the Wellington Trades Hall, a bomb very likely aimed at Pat as the very prominent and outspoken President of the Wellington Trades Council, shook the family. Ernie was a good mate of Pat’s and Vice-President of the Cleaners and Caretakers Union. Helen told how she and Max as kids used to play in his flat in the Trades Hall where he was caretaker. The perpetrator of this act of terrorism has never been identified.

Meanwhile Cath was active in the Public Service Association (PSA), campaigning for equal pay for women, and for the best part of a decade from the late 1960s was a well-known name leading the Campaign Against Rising Prices (CARP) during a period when inflation rose to as high as 18%.  Later, after the Vietnam War ended, she was the energy behind a group that raised funds for Vietnamese people such as women’s groups and built good relationships with the country.

She was recognised for her work by the Vietnamese government itself, travelled to Vietnam a number of times, and was regularly visited by the Vietnamese Ambassador and other officials.  As well as children, the family frequently welcomed national and international union activists, leaders and international political figures such as opponents of apartheid in South Africa. Organising, arguing, persuading, Parliamentary politics and the active politics of work and life were all an integral part of Helen’s growing up.

Because of the 13-year age difference between us and the fact that I lived in Christchurch I didn’t get to know her well during our childhood, though saw her in action at family gatherings.  Cousins who knew her better speak of her charm, cheerfulness, compassion, energy, creativity, confidence and ability to organise people (not just of her own age) from a primary school age or younger. Her ability to make deep life-long friendships was demonstrated by the number of school friends who visited and helped during the last months of her life. Her willingness to try things – take risks – that anyone else might dismiss (and rope others in alongside her) showed up from an early age. If her ideas went wrong, they’d had fun and learned something along the way.

Helen went to Clyde Quay primary school and then Wellington High. In both places she made her mark both academically and organising her friends. She then trained as a primary school teacher, becoming active in the Students Association. She married her first husband, fellow teacher Chris Wratt, and they had a son, Dylan. She lived for many years with her second husband, Steve Hurring, before marrying him after she knew she had terminal cancer. Dylan sang with a group of friends, “The Wedding Band”, at the big celebration.

Unionist

After her teacher training, Helen worked as a teacher. She was elected a union delegate on her first day in the job. But she often said that teaching was the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her life, having to take responsibility for the future lives of a classroom full of children. She left after two years to become a full-time unionist.

She became a union organiser working half time in the Kindergarten Teachers Association and half in the Early Childhood Workers Union in 1990, which merged that year to form the Combined Early Childhood Union of Aotearoa. She coordinated a joint 1993 general election campaign with the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), the primary teachers’ union. When the union amalgamated with NZEI in 1994, she went too.

She moved to become an organiser with the Association of University Staff (AUS, now part of the Tertiary Education Union) at the Victoria University campus; then in 1998 went back to NZEI as Assistant Secretary, straight into the climax of its long campaign for pay equity with secondary teachers which had begun during her first stint at NZEI. She was the chief negotiator when pay equity was finally written into the primary teachers’ collective employment contract following the long struggle. 

"The pay parity campaign in 1998 went on for so long. There were these negotiations which went night and day, till two in the morning, three in the morning. I think we settled about four o'clock in the morning and ended up at the pie cart at the railway station getting something to eat", she told Nikki MacDonald of Fairfax. 1.. Then in 2001 she represented NZEI in a working group set up by the incoming Labour government to plan the introduction of pay parity for kindergarten teachers with school teachers.

In all roles she impressed people by her creative and effective organising, her ability to draw people into campaigns and ongoing commitment, her intellect and energy.  As our cousin, Ben Patrick, who worked with her as a fellow unionist at times, observed:

“It was plain to me that she could analyse a situation, formulate a response, determine a well thought out path through any industrial, political or legal dispute quickly and instinctively. She was almost always right and she picked the way her opponents would respond brilliantly. She could plan a strategy to perfection”.

In 2002 she was appointed to replace longstanding head of AUS, Rob Crozier. In 2003 and 2004 I was elected National President of the union (standing only after checking she wouldn’t find it an embarrassment).  No, she said, it would be fantastic (a favourite word – the opposite, used with equal frequency, was outrageous). I was only her nominal boss – she had all the ideas and energy while I did lots of writing submissions and chairing meetings. But it was energising working with her.

Not that everything she did had universal support. Her thought processes were ahead of everyone and she took risks that at times had others worried. She used her political connections to the then Labour-led government with great effectiveness, persuading Michael Cullen how fantastic it would be if the university system was a world leader – and had the money to do it.

She hoped the money would draw the Vice-Chancellors into a multi-employer collective agreement to create common pay and conditions across the whole sector and increased collaboration to break down its destructive competition. She didn’t succeed in that. Even though the money got the Vice-Chancellors to listen, they stayed true to form and headed off in their own directions, but were forced to take part in a tripartite group including unions and Government to apportion funding for the salaries of university staff until the group was shut down by National in 2008.

Helen’s final big initiative at AUS was to propose its amalgamation with the union of polytechnics and colleges of education teaching staff, ASTE (Association of Staff in Tertiary Education) and TIASA (Tertiary Institutes Allied Staff Association, which didn’t join in the end). It was a contentious move in AUS (much less so in ASTE) but it was largely her persuasiveness and organising skills that made it happen. She did not put her name forward to head the new Tertiary Education Union (TEU), standing instead to be President of the CTU in October 2007, succeeding the unifying and respected Ross Wilson.

CTU President

It was the dream job for her, one she had made an objective for some time. Pat, who had died in 2004, would have been bursting with pride. Cath was – though frequently worried at the scraps Helen got into. The dynamics of her Presidency were interesting. She didn’t become President of New Zealand’s peak union body to let the union movement continue its slow decline.  She had big plans for it – drafting new legislation combining the best of international practice with her own ideas, development of the leadership of the movement, a new organisation (Together) designed to make unions more accessible, and sharing of administrative resources to cut costs and enable unions to work together better.

As in the public arena, she was not afraid to call out union leaders when she thought they were working against the interests of the movement. It led to confrontations at times, and for a lesser person could have led to moves to push her out. But her background, her grounding in both private sector and State unions, and her reputation meant no-one could doubt her motives. Combined with her huge ability, courage, strength of character, charm and persuasiveness, support for her within the movement grew stronger rather than weaker. 

Helen’s public campaigns are well known: backing film workers trying to get decent working conditions and opposing the “Hobbit” legislation stripping them of employment rights, passed by the Government under urgency at the behest of Peter Jackson and Warner Brothers*. The long and successful campaign to support families whose husbands, fathers, sons and brothers had been killed in the brutal forestry industry and bring about change for better health and safety.

*Warner Brothers won the 2010 Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation Operating In Aotearoa/New Zealand. John Key and his Government won the Accomplice Award; the judges created a Special Quisling Award for Peter Jackson. The Judges’ Report is at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/Roger/Roger2010.pdf. Ed.  

Supporting the Pike River families, calling out Peter Whittall, long before the simpering New Zealand media cottoned on to his dissembling, and trying to hold him to account (sadly, unsuccessfully in the courts, but successfully in the public mind). Using Twitter and Facebook to devastating effect to expose the exploitative conditions that farm workers are being employed under (even Federated Farmers felt under enough pressure to respond). One of the projects she was engaged in close to the end was to berate and embarrass farmers into doing something effective about the terrible toll of quad bike deaths which they all bemoaned but refused to take effective regulatory action to reduce. 

A lot has been written about most of these and I won’t go into detail here other than to emphasise the personal commitment and effort she willingly put into them. She travelled thousands of kilometres to knock on the doors of grieving parents and widows to get the forestry campaign underway, then spent hours, days and weeks with them and their families. She regularly travelled to the West Coast to meet up with Pike River families (and shared cancer experiences with them) and supported them when they came to Wellington. She and her husband Steve put many of them up at their home when they came to Wellington.

Energised By Victories

She occasionally wondered to me how long she could keep up the exhausting pace – rarely having weekends to herself, whether it was supporting families or being called by the media or travelling to Auckland to appear on weekend TV panels or catching up on work she didn’t have time to do during the week. But she genuinely loved the contact with working people like the forestry and Pike River families, was energised by the victories and got more determined at the defeats.

Perhaps less known were the industrial disputes she became involved in: particularly at Ports of Auckland and a succession at meat works, culminating in the still largely unresolved disputes with the union-hating Talley family’s AFFCO chain. She brought new tactics – some with lasting effects – to these campaigns. Their common thread was that it was not enough to stop work or to have a picket at the gate (though they did that, whether locked out or on strike).

She showed that by explaining the reasons for action to the local community, workers could get the community on side and in many cases helping them in the dispute. Ground-breaking relationships were built with iwi leaders. Local body politicians were asked for support and pressured to intervene (especially in the Ports of Auckland case). Local supermarkets provided groceries to families out of work. Social networking and media were used to build support networks.

Other CTU affiliates were mobilised to provide financial support and call their members out to help when needed. It was not always as successful as hoped, but it did show how unions could change public perceptions of waterside workers and meat workers, build an understanding of why they were in dispute, and bring public pressure onto employers.

Helen believed collective action was fundamental for change, but that didn’t mean ignoring other possibilities if they were effective in furthering the cause. Court cases, some outstandingly successful, others not, became part of her modus operandi.  The most stunning were private prosecutions against forestry employers which the Department of Labour and its successor, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) refused to take.

It was her clinical and painstaking investigation of the documentation by those departments and their inspectors that led her to believe that prosecutions should have and could have been taken. As her then Vice-President, now CTU President, Richard Wagstaff, said, her office looked like a TV crime detective police drama with a big board with bits of paper pinned to it and names and photos of people who had died with lines linking them all. Taking a private prosecution was an exceptional step to take with few precedents (the Meat Workers Union had earlier taken one against one of the employers in their industry) and seemed a leap in the dark.

But Helen used her persuasive powers to enlist some exceptionally able lawyers – notably Nigel Hampton QC – to take the cases pro bono, and won. It was salutary to the Government departments and devastatingly exposed the run-down state and the culture of the agencies supposedly responsible for health and safety of New Zealanders at work. We hope that their replacement, WorkSafe, has learned from these experiences.  

One of the most powerful tributes to her and the CTU came from Coroner Wallace Bain in November 2016 in findings on three workers who had died in forestry: David McMurtrie, Charles Finlay and Eramiha Pairama. He also paid tribute to the efforts of Wiremu Edmonds, the father of another worker who had been killed at work in forestry, Robert Epapara.

“The Court notes that the Forestry Industry is now a far safer place to work than it was before these tragic deaths. That fact is a result of a number of factors. The primary driver in highlighting the lack of safety in the Forestry industry and the need for accountability and urgent safety reforms has been the CTU and, in particular, Helen Kelly”.

“Through her actions a number of prosecutions have resulted when it had been decided by MBIE not to prosecute. This needed Court applications to bring private prosecutions out of time which in nearly every case were successful. The prosecutions that resulted brought home accountability to those responsible and resulted in significant publicity about the dangers within the industry and the need for significant safety reforms and more accountability”.

“The Forestry Industry has responded in a very responsible manner with its review and consequent actions. Similarly the Government has responded to the concerns highlighted with ground breaking new safety legislation in the workplace. Similarly Mr Epapara's parents and in particular Wiremu Edmonds, have made it their mission in life to speak out and highlight the concerns with a huge number of speaking engagements around the country. The Court thanks them for their efforts and notes the effect it is having”.

“The Court commends the totality of actions taken. These actions combined with the Inquests highlighting these safety concerns, has had a significant effect and Helen Kelly and the CTU together with the families are to be commended for highlighting the concerns”.2.

International Labour Rights

She also became deeply involved in international labour rights work in the International Labour Organisation (ILO), where she was a member of the governing body and applied the same intellect, persuasion and organising ability, gaining high respect in the international body and international union movement. She spent many weeks in most years on this, travelling repeatedly even as the cancer took hold. At the Wellington public memorial event for Helen, Ged Kearney, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), told the story of planning a trip to Fiji with Helen in order to support Fiji’s union movement against its appalling treatment by the military government.

Helen happened to be in Australia when the Fijian Attorney-General put out a press release warning them not to come. Helen, said Ged, “looked me dead in the eye and said: ‘what do you reckon?’”  When they got to Fiji they were the first off the plane. Helen linked arms with Ged and said “here we go, sister”. “I can say by the end of the four or five hours that we were detained by the Fijian authorities I was so sorry for the Fijian authorities. They had no idea how to handle this strong, determined, but interminably polite, New Zealand warrior", Ged told the large audience.

Towards the end, Helen and Steve travelled to Cuba to see if a medical treatment developed by Cuban doctors and researchers would give her a few more months. On her return from Cuba through the US, though by then very sick (and without her pain-killing cannabis) and finding it harder and harder to move around, she insisted on speaking to an international meeting in Washington. The meeting had been called to advance a campaign to prevent violence against women at work which she had been deeply involved in at the ILO. She got as far as Washington and halfway from where she was staying to the meeting venue before she told the driver to turn back – she was just in too much pain to make it. The flight back to New Zealand was awful for her. 

Helen’s success as President depended heavily on the steady hand of CTU Secretary, Peter Conway*, (who died tragically in June 2015 after he had left the CTU). Both were deep and strategic thinkers and powerful spokespeople, with long experience in the union movement, but they were very different characters. The creative tension served the CTU and union movement well. Peter recognised her brilliance and did everything he could to give her full rein but questions inevitably arose. Would the “Hobbit” campaign be too divisive? Was the CTU turning into the Forestry Union and neglecting important strategic aims? Where was the money coming from? * Obituaries of Peter Conway by both Bill Rosenberg and Murray Horton are in Watchdog 140, December 2015, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/40/11.html. Ed.

It is a tribute to both of them that these issues were resolved, the support of affiliates was maintained, and campaigns succeeded while the CTU’s day-to-day work continued. I should also add that (myself aside) they had an exceptionally able group of people at the CTU to support them. For me at least, Helen, Peter and the exceptional CTU staff helped make my job the best I’ve ever had, despite being one of the most stressful.

Helen’s Thinking And Politics

Sharan Burrow, the top union leader in the world, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, a former President of the ACTU and a close mate and deep admirer of Helen, said at her memorial service: “Injustice deeply offended Helen. She could always conceive of a solution that could be achieved with collective action”. It was an accurate summary. She was incensed at unfairness and injustice in the distribution not only of income and wealth but of health and safety, power and control, welfare and care too.

Injustice against young people particularly offended her (one of Max and Helen’s earliest actions, under Pat’s guidance, was to organise fellow newspaper delivery children for better pay and conditions). She accurately saw the injury and deaths of people at work as a result of the power imbalance in the workplace: “It’s by design” was a frequent saying of hers, and a regular Twitter hashtag.

Helen was a deep believer in collective action as the response to injustice. She resisted personal awards and accolades. There was controversy after her death that she was not eligible for the New Zealander of the Year Award despite an overwhelming number of nominations – but she would not have wanted to accept it anyway, and Steve made that clear to the organisers of the Award.

There were other similar occasions. Helen saw herself as mobilising collective action, and she did so very effectively. Her work with forestry and mining families gave them the courage to take their own actions, speaking out and campaigning. She pointed out that the campaigns she was associated with had many others working hard to achieve success. She was just one of them.

As her analysis of the forestry cases showed, Helen had an exceptional intellect as well as organising skills. She was a devastating debater, with the ability to think at seemingly lightning speed. Even in a conversation with her, it appeared she had anticipated what you had to say and prepared an effective answer before you finished speaking.

As her son, Dylan, told the media (words shortlisted for Quote of the Year 2016): “You can tell that she’s a negotiator. I’ve never won an argument with her in my life”. I attended meetings with Ministers who regularly backed away from any debate with her – no doubt because she always won. Her skills made her great for TV and she was regularly on panels or being interviewed herself.

She also thought strategically about the role of unions. In arguing for change in legislation and for different forms of union organisation she created an image of a “worker in a Four Square Store in Kaitaia” who wouldn’t have a chance to have a collective agreement to protect and advance her working conditions because the legislation and the way unions organised themselves created such difficulties for joining a union and organising her workmates.

Values-Based

One answer was to extend the benefits of collective employment agreements negotiated in an industry to all workers in the industry. Another was to set up a union for workers and their families that was very easy to join (Together was an attempt at that). She looked at large organisations like Greenpeace that had hundreds of thousands of supporters who gave money, received communications and occasionally came out in support of campaigns, but weren’t formal members.

She saw them as based on values rather than membership rules and proposed moving unions more towards that model. She spoke of the “values proposition” that unions offered. The organisation Together, which she created as a low-cost, low-service union that was easy to join, didn’t thrive. It has been turned into a values-based social media campaigning operation, which so far has been very successful in gathering support for a number of campaigns and union initiatives.

She went on to develop the idea of unions as “public institutions”. The point was not that they were formally part of the State, but that they were bodies with a vital role in society (recognised in both international conventions and domestic law). That role was a balancing one, rather like the news media, the judiciary or the Ombudsman. Unions have a public role and duty of balancing power relationships through advocating for change that improves the lives of people, including better and safer working conditions.

The accolades make Helen sound like she was an angel, but she was not. She said to me once that she was a crap manager, and she was right. She was a leader from the front but found managing an organisation’s money, people and other resources profoundly dull. Working with her was a mixture of fun, energy and hair-raising requests. Sometimes the requests worked out brilliantly; sometimes they showed she had hugely underestimated the effort required; sometimes they just didn’t work.

She was a risk-taker – and her confidence in her own judgement grew as most of her punts worked out. As Richard said, she didn’t take herself too seriously so there was frequently lots of laughter with her around – though occasionally she went too far in her digs at people. She liked to be in control, she often forgot to say thank you, she could be very judgemental.

But her positives far outweighed her negatives. She could be incredibly supportive to staff, particularly younger people whose potential she saw. People felt a deep friendship with her and great loyalty. In a tribute, Tina McIvor, who worked on health and safety at the CTU for several years, wrote:3.

“I did some of the slog-work on health and safety and she kept investing in me, encouraging me, and getting me to back into law school. She believed in me (nervous laughter). She believed in lots of working class people. … We could talk reasonably while being straight-up and honest. She was a woman of her word”.

“A letter, or a campaign plan, was always half-written in her head. At the hospice she told me about the next letter to be penned on quadbike safety. We were mates who could get obsessed with our work. We enjoyed being geeky, she gave me stick about the methyl bromide campaign. She was super intelligent and her sense of humour was very special…. She bought my daughter presents from France and she came to my birthday party”.

Helen was a life-long member of the Labour Party, and well known and respected within it, long before she took her CTU role. While she was at times defensive of it and especially of the Clark Labour government when it was in power, she was also very critical of the Party. In many ways her politics were closer to the Greens, with whom she maintained a friendly relationship. She was often exasperated at the slowness of Labour to adopt new policy, its resistance to real change, and weak defence of its patch in public. Not long before she died, Andrew Little visited Helen. He said as he left (as we all do): “Let me know if there is anything I can do”. She shot back: “I’ll write you a list”.

A surprising gap was her understanding of the international trade and investment agreements which were becoming increasingly controversial in the union movement as in society, especially from the 2000s on. She didn’t defend them, but never bothered to understand them properly, not seeing them as a priority. It was really only after the international union movement changed to outright opposition and large crowds were marching in New Zealand’s streets that she expressed more than routine opposition, tweeting support for the huge movement against the TPPA.

Epilogue

Did Helen leave the union movement and the CTU in a better place? In the short term, there are very mixed indicators. Union membership has continued to fall as a proportion of wage and salary earners. Her plans to revitalise unions did not survive in the form she left them as she devoted increasing time to the industrial disputes, health and safety. But they opened up new channels of thinking and action which will eventually bear fruit.

Her greatest contribution might have been to begin a change in the public perception of unions to recognising that they are people and organisations who are important for a healthy society. Their importance rests on their willingness to stand up in defence of people whose rights – and sometimes indeed lives – are under threat, and to argue for better laws and policies. Helen’s fantastic abilities as communicator, organiser, mobiliser, strategist, thinker and friend have made it much more real.

The tragedy is that her enormous potential was cut short much too early. We have lost an outstanding human being, unionist, New Zealander and future Prime Minister.

Helen Kelly’s mother, Cath Kelly, died in March 2017, only a few months after her daughter, and only three days after her 91st birthday. Cath was a CAFCA member continuously from 1980 (when we were CAFCINZ) until her death and, from 1991, was a founder pledger to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income. MH.

Dr George Junus Aditjondro: 1946 – 2016

- Maire Leadbeater

Not only is CAFCA a progressive nationalist organisation, we have also been committed internationalists from the very beginning. We work with individuals and likeminded groups around the world. That is reflected in Watchdog obituaries which, just to give the last decade or so as an example, have included people from Americans to Bougainvilleans.

Maire’s obituary of George reminds us that throughout the 1990s and well into the first decade of this century, CAFCA devoted a lot of attention to Indonesia, very specifically the ill-gotten NZ assets of the kleptocratic and genocidal ruling Suharto family (which was the classic Mafia family on a gigantic scale). It was in the course of that campaign that I met George.

Use the excellent SiteLevel search tool at www.cafca.org.nz; type in key words like “Suharto assets, Lilybank or Aditjondro” and pages of links to Watchdog articles will appear. It was a major topic in Watchdog for many years, it was a major CAFCA campaign, and both the issue and the campaign got considerable media coverage. Ed.

George Aditjondro died on 10 December, 2016, Human Rights Day, four years after having suffered a stroke.  George was a towering figure in radical and progressive politics in Indonesia, and he also played an important role in the New Zealand solidarity and anti-foreign control movements.

George’s career spanned journalism (for the national magazine Tempo), environmental activism and academia. He completed his PhD at Cornell University and taught Development Studies in the early 1990s at Satya Wacana University in Central Java. It is interesting to recall that in 1987 President Suharto presented him with an award for his work on environmental and sustainability issues. However, he soon fell very far from favour.

East Timor

Each time he delved into an environmental crime he uncovered an exploitative company with Suharto links. So, George began tracing out the complex web of corporate businesses and the corrupt wealth accumulation of President Suharto, his family and cronies. He also began championing indigenous rights and supporting the rights of the people of East Timor to self-determination – one of first prominent intellectuals to do so. He was writing articles about the Freeport McMoran mine in West Papua back in 1988, describing the pollution in Aijkwa River as the “longest sewerage in the world”.

In 1994 he was under lengthy police interrogation for comments made in a seminar he gave at the Islamic University of Indonesia. Accused of “insulting a Government body” he faced the prospect of an 18-month jail term.  Fortunately, a temporary fellowship at Murdoch University in West Australia offered an alternative. This was followed by teaching posts at Murdoch and subsequently Newcastle. What was the “insult”?  George said he did not simply scapegoat Suharto for Indonesia’s troubles–he also talked about oligarchy and the need to dismantle it.

But it may have been his jokes that got him into real trouble. He once told an Australian journalist: “In Indonesia making jokes about the military and the President seems to be sacrilege”. His years of involuntary exile ended in 2002, when he was able to take up a position at Santa Darma University in Yogyakarta. His research and writings took him far from the ivory tower. His output of books and articles was prodigious but he was always very much a public figure, joining in the debate no matter what the personal consequences.   

George was one of the first Indonesian journalists to visit East Timor during Indonesia’s occupation, and it was in the role of an East Timor supporter that he first visited New Zealand in early 1998, hosted by the local solidarity network. It was a significant opportunity for New Zealanders to learn that a growing number of Indonesians supported East Timorese rights and to learn about the Indonesian pro-democracy movement.

It was an unexpectedly high profile visit as it coincided with a time when the Suharto regime was in its death throes. Journalists seized on the opportunity to interview an expert in person – a very comprehensive three–page Listener article was one result (Tim Watkin, “Waiting To Exhale”, Listener, 21/2/98).

Lilybank

Tour plans included visiting the remote South Island resort owned by Tommy Suharto. The late Gaye Dyson, a Christchurch activist, escorted George to visit Lilybank, near Tekapo. Knowing of the Managing Director, Gerard Olde-Olthof’s legendary inhospitality to uninvited visitors, it was decided that George would pose as a tourist. Access involved crossing of the braided Macauley River – a challenge to anyone not in a Land Rover.

The pair crossed in water at times as high as their thighs. Then they were ordered to leave in no uncertain terms. George was very surprised about this - his first visit to part of Tommy’s overseas tourism empire - it was, at 2,500 ha, the largest such estate under Tommy’s control and it was the first time he had been kicked out from the front entrance of a Suharto-owned hotel. 

George worked hard during that tour, so hard in fact that, to my chagrin, he expressed his disappointment (told me off) because he had not had time to relax and visit sights familiar to him as a Xena: Warrior Princess fan. But there were some compensations, George was delighted to find that we had some experts here who were already skilled at investigating foreign corporations and tracing their complex ownership structures.  

CAFCA’s Murray Horton and Bill Rosenberg were able to team up with him to explore the tentacles of the Suharto empire in New Zealand. New Zealand Herald journalist Mathew Dearnaley did his own investigations and wrote a number of excellent articles, while Green MP Keith Locke pursued the issue in Parliamentary Questions.

George made subsequent visits to New Zealand – perhaps the most important visit was in April 2000.  Suharto was gone, East Timor had been liberated and there was a good chance that New Zealand, now under a Labour-led government would be willing to support an investigation of Suharto wealth.

Seize Suharto Assets Campaign

In April 2000, to explore this possibility, the then newly formed Indonesia Human Rights Committee teamed up with CAFCA to organise a seminar in Auckland on the theme “Towards Democracy in Indonesia; Seize New Zealand Suharto Assets”. George, as keynote speaker, presented a very comprehensive paper: ‘Chopping The Global Tentacles Of The Suharto Oligarchy: Can Aotearoa Lead The Way?” (Murray Horton was CAFCA’s speaker. Ed.).

It seems hard to believe now, but the “Seize The Suharto Assets” campaign really did make a promising start. Foreign Minister Phil Goff attended the seminar and a month later he said New Zealand would consider an investigation if Indonesia asked for it.  Not long after that, Christchurch activist Aziz Choudry met with the Indonesian Attorney-General, Marzuki Darusman, and presented him with a folio of information on Suharto assets in New Zealand.

Bill Rosenberg’s compilation of the Suharto family’s NZ assets is on the CAFCA Website at http://canterbury.cyberplace.co.nz/community/CAFCA/publications/Miscellaneous/Briefing%20for%20AG%20of%20Indonesia.pdf (it is as of 2001). Aziz Choudry’s report on his meeting, in Indonesia, with that country’s Attorney-General is in Watchdog 95, December 2000, “Seize The Suhartos’ NZ Assets: We Take The Campaign To Jakarta”, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/95/5seize.htm. Ed.    

By this time, Tommy Suharto had mysteriously sold his luxury hunting resort to a Singapore businessman for $1, which raised new questions. There were chalets in Queenstown believed to be owned by one of Suharto’s daughters and many other businesses, including commercial property and fishing interests, believed to be linked to Suharto cronies.

In 2001, Attorney-General Darusman sent a high level two-person team to New Zealand to make their own assessment. George briefed them before their visit. Unfortunately, after this there was change at the top in Indonesia – reform-minded President Wahid lost out to Megawati Sukarnoputri. As far as I know there was no investigation of Suharto wealth in New Zealand.

Radical Political Critic

George’s colleague Ariel Heryanto (currently a Professor at Monash) was a fellow activist academic in the Suharto years and worked alongside George at  Satya Wacana. In an obituary on the University of Melbourne Website http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/george-junus-aditjondro-an-uncompromising-activist/  he recalled:

“The 90s was an exciting time, as irrevocable divisions opened among the top political elite, leading to the inevitable downfall of the New Order in 1998. Our campus was a meeting place for many of the country’s political activists and fugitives. Police and military intelligence agents regularly roamed our corridors...”

“Among his peers, George stood out as a passionate, independent-minded and uncompromising researcher and activist. George impressed many for his ability to speak expansively on many topics with attention to minute empirical details. George’s most celebrated work was on the scale of wealth and global investments of Indonesia’s first family during the New Order”.

“Most educated Indonesians knew that looting and bribery were part of public life then, and the so-called Cendana family was at the peak of the pyramid. But no one knew as many of the details as George. When Time magazine, and its Indonesian equivalent, Tempo, separately published cover stories on the topic in 1999, they owed a considerable debt to George’s work”.

“In 2009, George completed a similar research project examining the distribution of wealth in (President) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s inner circle. The controversial book, ‘Unravelling the Cikeas Octopus’ saw him face accusations of defamation and major book chain Gramedia was initially unwilling to sell it”.

“George was remarkably radical, bold, and confrontational. In his office in Salatiga, he hung a huge East Timorese flag on the wall facing the door to the main foyer of the building. In large diagonal letters across the flag were the words: ‘Indonesia, get out of East Timor’...”

“George will be fondly remembered as one of Indonesia’s most radical political critics, public intellectuals and investigative journalists. His audacity, passion, dedication and uncompromising commitment to political advocacy were second to none among his peers”.

Farewell George, you will always be an inspiration and you will be missed.

Leslie Kenton

- Murray Horton

Leslie Kenton, who died in her sleep at her Governors Bay home in November 2016, aged 75, was a CAFCA member from 2007 until her death. She was living proof that CAFCA really is a very broad church – her Press obituary started with: “Some described her as a one-woman Wall Street of wellbeing and a pioneer and visionary – the high priestess of health and beauty” (“Author Took Health And Beauty Beyond Cosmetics”, 3/12/16, Jack Fletcher, http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/87131646/Life-story-Leslie-Kenton). If there is such a thing as a “typical” CAFCA member, then she was nothing like it.

I tried, and failed, to get someone to write her Watchdog obituary. I’m afraid I can’t do it justice, so this brief tribute will have to do. In her field, she was globally famous (with a Wikipedia page devoted to her). A Google search revealed dozens of articles and profiles in major international papers and magazines. All of them were about her various fields of expertise and the numerous books she wrote; some were lengthy analyses of her tumultuous personal life. Apart from one passing reference in a long Guardian profile to her having been “a consultant to the (UK) Green Party” decades ago, there is no clue as to her politics or specifically why she was a CAFCA member for the final decade of her fascinating life.

It’s worth noting that she was an expatriate American (she’d lived in various other countries for decades) who had lived in Governors Bay since 1998. I mention that for the benefit of people who think that CAFCA is opposed to “foreigners”. And Leslie was obviously perfectly happy to belong to the Campaign Against Foreign Control. Nor was she just a passive member, one whose only connection with us is through receiving Watchdog. I only ever met her once but it was significant.

At the end of my 2014 national speaking tour, I held a series of very small public meetings around Christchurch. Leslie and her son comprised 50% of the audience at one of them. When I found out who she was, I asked why they had travelled so far (the meeting was in a coastal suburb, a long way from Governors Bay). She said: “I wanted to hear you speak, I wanted to put a face to the name”. She renewed her membership just two months before she died. Thanks for your decade of support, Leslie, rest in peace.

Chris Cresswell

- Murray Horton

Chris Cresswell died at the far too young age of only 49. He was found lying next to his mountain bike in a Whanganui park on the last day of 2016 (I don’t know whether he had died as a result of a bike accident or whether he suffered a fatal medical event whilst biking). Chris had been a CAFCA member from 2004-11 – most of which time he was living in Christchurch and working as a doctor in Christchurch Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department. On more than one occasion he included a generous donation with his sub. After he had lived in Whanganui for a while (where he was Acting Head of that hospital’s A&E Department at the time of his death), his membership lapsed and we lost contact.

As with Leslie Kenton (above) I tried, and failed, to get someone to write his Watchdog obituary. As I said about her, I’m afraid I can’t do it justice, so this brief tribute will have to suffice. But unlike Leslie, there was no mystery about why Chris had been a CAFCA member for several years, nor why he remained a political activist up until his death. He was a high profile public figure in Whanganui , with a  regular column in the Wanganui Chronicle, which devoted an editorial to his death (“Paper Salutes A Man Of Principle”, 3/1/17, Anna Wallis, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503423&objectid=11776053).

Political Activist

There’s a wealth of articles about him on the New Zealand Herald site (it owns the Chronicle). “He worked alongside iwi and was prominent in advancing Maori health. He was also politically active and a member of the Green Party. He was a major player in raising awareness of climate change, and publicly opposed and demonstrated against the Trans Pacific Partnership and seabed mining. In September last year (2015) he climbed on top of local (National) MP Chester Borrows' car during a protest against the TPPA and in November (2015) helped organise a local march to encourage awareness of climate change issues” (“Popular Doctor Found Dead After Biking Accident”, 1/1/17, Simon Waters, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11775401).

His funeral at Pakaitore/Moutua Gardens was attended by 1,000 people. “Iwi representative Ken Mair said Dr Cresswell's work in the community was exceptional. ‘In his work as a doctor as well as his courage in standing up and advocating for causes like climate change, he was always humble and respectful’. Green Party Co-Leader Metiria Turei had travelled from Dunedin to honour Dr Cresswell who was a member of the Party and outspoken in his views on climate change and environmental concerns. ‘He was deeply inspirational’, said Ms Turei. ‘I loved the way he always took life by the horns and enjoyed what he did’.

“As a member of Whanganui Peace Action group, Dr Cresswell travelled to Auckland to protest against the visit of an American nuclear warship and an arms conference (in November 2016). ‘He was always respectful in the way he spoke to people in those situations’, said fellow protester Denise Lockett. ‘The police were arming themselves with long batons and Chris said ‘please don't use those, guys - they hurt people' and that was how he was, he always used reason’" (“Sorrow And Joy At Doctor’s Farewell”, 7/1/17, Liz Wylie, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wanganui-chronicle/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503426&objectid=11778389).

Consequences

Chris knew there are consequences to being an outspoken political activist. As mentioned above, he was arrested in September 2015. “Emergency medicine specialist Chris Cresswell was arrested last week after he climbed on top of Whanganui MP Chester Borrows' car and sat on it. Dr Cresswell, who is also the president of the Wanganui branch of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), climbed on to the vehicle in his scrubs and stethoscope during Deputy Prime Minister Bill English's visit on Friday”.

“He told the Chronicle his attire was to emphasise doctors also opposed the TPPA, as it would have a huge impact on the price of medicine. He was given a verbal warning by police but not charged. This week, however, the Whanganui District Health Board (WDHB) wrote to Dr Cresswell expressing concern at his ‘recent views’ as reported in the Chronicle, ASMS Executive Director, Ian Powell, said. The DHB was worried his views could ‘damage the reputation of the Whanganui District Health Board’, he said”.

"’It's outrageous that this health board apparently considers it's unacceptable for doctors to express an opinion on matters affecting patients and their ability to deliver the best possible health care to New Zealanders’, Mr Powell said. ‘Memo to Whanganui DHB: doctors have a right and, in fact, a responsibility to speak out publicly on these matters without you trying to shut down the debate. Pull your head in’" (“DHB Told To ‘Pull Your Head In’ Over Arrested Doctor”, 17/9/15, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11514338).

Just two months before his untimely death he was targeted by persons unknown. “An environmental and political activist who had 220 rotting lambs' tails dumped on his property believes he was specifically targeted. ‘Talking to other environmental activists, there are a couple of others who have had this sort of thing happen to them. I know one who had cow poo dumped on her driveway’”.

“Mr Cresswell said he believed the incident could be related to the local government elections on October 8. He has stated on his public Facebook page who he intends to vote for. ‘There are people I've annoyed with my opinions over the elections’ he said. Mr Cresswell is a member of the Green Party, and has campaigned actively against various issues including the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the proposed iron sand mining in South Taranaki” (“Lambs’ Tails Dumped On Activist’s Property”, 4/10/16, Anne-Marie McDonald, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11722423).

I never met Chris (actually, I’m pleased that I never had to meet him in his professional capacity), so I can’t add any personal insights. But nobody would die wondering what his opinions were on a whole range of subjects. He died far too soon but in that short life he fought any number of good fights, putting into practice his overriding goal to make the world a better place. CAFCA is proud to have counted him as a member.