Kevin Cook

Kevin Cook (1939-2015) was a Wandandian Man, born in 1939 and grew up in Wollongong. After work in the steel mills, he headed to Sydney to work on the new high-rise city buildings. Cookie became a dogman, the dangerous job riding the loads up the towers. This was a dramatic time in the industry: the Builders Labourers' Federation had shifted to leadership by workers from the job sites, making uncompromising demands for safety and developing green bans to protect residents and the environment.

Cook brought his knowledge of Aboriginal and migrant communities together with these new BLF methods when he became the organiser for Aboriginal BLs on the Redfern Housing Company, and worked with the National Black Theatre in Redfern, before becoming involved in Tranby​ Aboriginal Adult Education Cooperative College in 1975. He believed cooperatives were useful for Aboriginal communities, but went further.

Cook had seen for himself in Wollongong how the education system was failing Aboriginal kids. With Tranby​ support, he spent six months at Coady Cooperative Institute in Canada, meeting activists from Africa and around the world, building international networks. He returned to become General Secretary of Tranby​ and built it into a centre for adult learning and cultural revival. Young Aboriginal men and women travelled from across the country to undertake courses in basic literacy, community studies, business training and preparation for tertiary education.

Cook used his many contacts and his enthusiasm to draw in young activists. One was Brian Doolan, a teacher working in the Wilcannia community who became Tranby's​ first Director of Studies. There were Indigenous educators like Terry Widders​ and Lynette Riley, unionists and academics. At first it was mostly unpaid until, after lots of submission writing, support flowed from the new Federal Aboriginal Education structures.

Cook was taking an active role in NSW political life, becoming involved in the Labor Party's Aboriginal Affairs Policy Committee, with Bob Bellear​, Rod Pickette​ and Meredith Burgmann. At the same time, Kevin was building his Trade Union networks, setting up the Trade Union Committee on Aboriginal Rights (TUCAR) at Tranby​ to strengthen communication between unions and Indigenous organisations.

But Cook's priority was education in the community. Despite struggling with funding, Tranby​ started courses in communities – with many in the bush. The funding mainstays were unions like the MUA, individual donations and the backing of the Australian Council of Churches. Linked with the courses running at the college and those in communities, he built links with campaigners on issues such as Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Stolen Generations.

At the same time, Kevin developed Tranby​ as a base for bush people involved in the struggle for Land Rights in NSW. From 1979 to 1983, Kevin was chair of the first NSW Aboriginal Land Council, a community organisation which led campaigning for land rights. He travelled from one end of the state to another, getting to know and listen to communities and to bring their concerns to centre stage. The final NSW Bill in 1983 was a frustrating mix which recognised some rights but took away others. After much consultation, Cook decided to work with the new Land Rights Act as Chairperson of the Interim Land Council, set up to organise the policy's structures. He insisted that community voices should be heard, and encouraged many different strategies to achieve land rights – some within the Act like land claims and others outside it altogether, such as heritage protection.

Through this time, Tranby​ offered support for communities struggling with the new policy's demands by running new courses in rural areas to build skills in accounting, legal and management skills. National Land Rights laws were promised in the early 1980s and a unified national Aboriginal response was needed.

Pat Dodson has said of Kevin that he "opened the pathways" by which leaders from all states could feel safe and confident in their new relationships with those from other states. Cook built those national relationships which brought the Federation of Land Councils into being. This network built the foundation for the push into the international arena. In the mid 1980s, Cook and Aboriginal unionists used their ACTU standing to take the arguments for Indigenous rights into the International Labour Organisation, then revising Convention 107 on Indigenous people. As unionists, they demanded the ILO listen to Indigenous people in any vote on Indigenous labour conditions. Their arguments won: the ILO meetings were henceforth opened to hear Indigenous people speak on Convention 107.

His view was that these were issues of social justice.

"We needed to take it out of this narrow focus of 'these are issues for Aboriginal people and Aboriginal people need to be the ones that fight it'. These issues do restrict and oppress indigenous peoples. But we needed to involve a much larger portion of the community to achieve what needed to be achieved, because it was a thing for all of us. It wasn't just a thing for black fellas. It was for all Australians."

In the later 1980s, despite his worsening emphysema, Cook continued to nurture the innovative role of Tranby​ in education, national and international politics. As a national hub, Kevin enabled Tranby​ to be the base for the long march Bicentenary Celebrations in 1988. Over this same time, his support for international movements was extensive, building on the links he had made at Coady Institute, Tranby​ had visits from Hilda Lini​ and Barak Sope​ from Vanuatu; Herbert Chitepo​, the Zimbabwean leader; Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela's ANC comrade; and from Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

"Our ASIO Files launch"

In 2010, Humphrey McQueen called for the burning of the thousands of ASIO files compiled on political activists in Australia.

For historians reliant on these sometimes dubious sources, it was a controversial thought.

Taking a different approach to the vexed issue of ASIO surveillance, Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files, highlights the sometimes absurd preoccupations of the Australian intelligence services.

The book, which is edited by Meredith Burgmann, takes the novel approach of having those subject to surveillance discuss their files.

Chapters in the book are written by Phillip Adams, Verity Burgmann, Rowan Cahill, Peter Cundall, Gary Foley, Michael Kirby, Jean McLean, David Stratton, Anne Summers and others.

The book was launched by Anthony Albanese at Madame Brussels on 11 June 2012.

Other contributors included Joan Bielski, Dennis Altman, Jack Waterford, Frank Hardy, Alan Hardy, Lex Watson, Wendy Bacon, Jim Bacon, Mark Aarons, Kevin Cook, Colin Cooper, Clive Evatt, Frances Letters, Peter Murphy, Tony Reeves, Tim Anderson, Penny Lockwood.

"Making Change Happen"

"Making Change Happen" is a collection of 45 interviews by Kevin Cook with black and white campaigners about how people get ideas and make them happen. Kevin Cook, nicknamed “Cookie”, couldn’t be there due to his state of health.

A ceremony orchestrated by Barbara Flick, an Aboriginal campaigner, paid tribute to Cookie’s life.

Several people delivered speeches. Among them, Linda Burney, Deputy Leader of the NSW Opposition and Indigenous Activist, and Paddy Crumlin, National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and President, International Transport Workers Federation.

At the end of the ceremony, Heather Goodall was very moved and concluded her speech by saying: “Cookie is the hero of my children, the hero of our children, the hero of the future.”

SEARCH Foundation

Those who lodged proxies to the SEARCH Foundation 2014 AGM included Kevin Cook .

SEARCH 2012 AGM

Proxies to the SEARCH Foundation AGM November 24, 2012.

Proxies: The list of valid proxies received at the SEARCH office by 11am Eastern Summer Time on November 22, 2012 was read out:

Geoff Evans, Lindsay Hawkins, Paula Rix, Sally McManus, Monica Dos Santos, Shay Deguara, Robyn Ravlich, Mark Aarons, Brian Dunnett, Marie Johnston, Brian Manning, Robin Booth, Pip Duncan, Daria Healy-Aarons, Sian Kennedy, Ben Bartlett, Eileen Palmada, Jack Mundey, Enid McIlraith, Sonny Myles, Jorge Zepeda, Leila Barreto, Lee Rhiannon, Vincent Ashton, John Koch, Jacqueline Widin, Margie Yen, Joe Palmada, Audrey McCarthy, Max McDonald, Carmen Blanco, Barry Cooper, Nola Cooper, Peter Johnstone, David Bell, George Venturini, Gillian Workman, Jack Tarlington, Janice Workman, Peg Hewett, Anna Russell, Kevin Cook, George Harrison, Richard Archer, Kathy Gollan, Charles Bowers, Margaret Millar, Barbara Fitzgerald, Caitlin Perry.

2.1 That the proxies as presented be accepted.

Moved: Seconded: John Brunskill, Sonia Laverty

SEARCH Foundation 2009 AGM

Proxies: The list of valid proxies received at the SEARCH office by 11am Eastern Summer Time on November 27, 2009 was read out:

Leonie Ebert, Pat Healy, Carmel Shute, Grahame McCulloch, Mark Aarons, Robyn Ravlich, John Varley, Martha Ansara, Gillian Workman, John Kaye, Lee Rhiannon, Carmen Blanco, Ray Harrison, Joe Palmada, Margaret Kirkby, Paula Rix, Kevin Cook, Janice Workman, George Zangalis, Russ Hermann, Chris Ray, Tristan Ewins, Brendan O'Kane, Pat Toms, Rod Noble, Peg Hewett, Cathy Crawley, Maurie Mulheron, Dave Ferguson, Judy Ferguson.

NOW WE THE PEOPLE

In July 2001, endorsers of the SEARCH Foundation's NOW WE THE PEOPLE conference in Sydney included Kevin Cook.

TUCAR

Judy Chester, Kevin Cook, Kevin Tory.

The Trade Union Committee on Aboriginal Rights (TUCAR) was formally set up in a 1977 meeting attended by Tranby staff Kevin Cook and Rev. Alf Clint, along with South Coast Elders Jacko Campbell and Gubboo Ted Thomas, Marcia Langton from the Black Defence Group and supportive unionists Rod Pickette, Sergio Zorino, Meredith Burgmann, Hannah Middleton, and others. Along with the Maritime unions and the Building Unions, the new organisation gained rapid support from the Missos (the Miscellaneous Workers Union) and the unions in Education, Banking and Health. These and other unions affiliated with TUCAR to back Aboriginal campaigns and to get better conditions for Aboriginal workers.

The TUCAR committee met regularly first in the NSW Trades Hall and then later at the NSW Teachers Federation building in Surry Hills. With funding from unions and from employment grants, TUCAR was able to employ a full-time coordinator, with Lee Silva and others before Kevin Tory took up this role in 1987. TUCAR was also able to employ several Aboriginal employees, a number of whom were Tranby staff or graduates like Margaret Friel and Veronica Collett.

Australia/Soth Africa

Kevin Cook with Kahmo Kets and Alf Bamblett.

Left unionist

Kevin Cook was one of the leaders of the NSW BLF, along with Joe Owens, Jack Mundey and Bobby Pringle, at a time when it was at the cutting edge of innovation in trade union organising and led many of the great social struggles of the 1970s and 80s that have shaped Australian society and the left since that time - the urban environmental movement, trade union democracy and workers control, support for the culture of the working class, the peace movement, the anti-uranium mining movement, woman in non-traditional work and a host of other progressive and radical initiatives.

Kevin Cook had a long association with the MUA and its leaders in the WWF and the SUA, particularly through the Reverend Alf Clint going back to Elliot V. Elliot, Pat Geraghty and Jim Healy. A number of MUA leaders have served as Directors on the Tranby College Board, including Taffy Sweetenson, Laurie Steen, Paddy Crumlin and Robert Coombes.

Cookie had a close personal relationship with many MUA officials, officers and members, and he loved the MUA, just as we loved him.

Cookies life story and his relationship with all the people, movements and causes he was associated with is contained in the book that Cookie and Heather Goodall wrote called “Making Change Happen ”, published in 2013. The book contains interviews with MUA leaders and its production and launch was supported by the union. The book is essentially a manual for organising and networking for which there was no better participant and advocate than Cookie.

It is not possible to speak about Cookie without mention of his Soul Mate and life's partner, Judy Chester and their Children, they complemented each other in every way, Judy, like Cookie, was a tireless worker around issues of Social Justice. Cookie was a lifelong member and friend of the Unions, his basic tenant was working class from which he never strayed, he lived his life in accordance with this tenancy, he was always accessible to everyone, possibly to a fault from an outsiders view, but at the end of each day he gave clarity to the chaos.

Paddy Crumlin from the Maritime Union of Australia, when notified of Cookie's passing responded, 'Oh no! Beautiful man and lifelong Comrade', Kevin Tory, Cookies forever Comrade, called up to make sure we had received the sad news said, 'I have to hang up now I am shattered'. And so it was with Dr. Paul Torzillo, Geoff Clark, John Ah Kit, Pat O'Shane, Mike O'Shane and from all of those who knew him and with whom we have spoken, diverse responses, every one endorsing the character of and love for our Comrade, Kevin Cook.

From his small office in Tranby, Cookie worked with the organizing committee under the National Coalition of Aboriginal Organisations to organize the 1988 march, the biggest gathering of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander People at any time in Australian history, then marching from Redfern Park to Hyde Park we were met by thousands of supporters at Belmore Park, Trade Unionists, Political Activists, Migrant Groups, Conservationists and all manner of supporters who joined in and finished off in Hyde park, a day we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Cookie organized representation from us to attend 10 years of the United Nations Working Group in Geneva developing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He organized our participation at the World Council of Indigenous Peoples while ever it remained relevant. Our inclusion in the ACTU delegation in attendance at the International Labor Organisations two-year revision process of Convention 107. Ensured Indigenous People welcomed Nelson Mandela to Australia, linked ourselves into the Kanaky struggle, developed relationships across the Pacific Rim, welcomed and hosted South African Trade Union Delegations before the barriers of 'apartheid' were pulled down.

Sent delegations from the World Council of Churches to visit some of the most impoverished communities in Australia to bring attention to the plight of Aboriginal people in Australia back in the -70s, there is a whole lot more that Cookie done which I am sure will be mentioned by other commentators in the coming days. Tranby was the cross roads for all the political activists traveling to Canberra or Sydney for street marches, demonstrations, overseas delegations or all manner of things during the -70s, -80s and -90s.

Visiting Tranby you would never know who you were likely to meet there, Bruce McGuinness, Gary Foley, Helen Corbett, Jacki Katona, Chris Kristofferson, Patrick Dodson, John Ah Kit, Geoff Clarke, David Ross, Josie Crawshaw, Mick Miller, Clarrie Grogan, Michael Mansell, Rob Riley, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Joe McGuinness, Warren Mundine, the list just goes on and on, everyone from everywhere would drop into Tranby to see Cookie, this was the meeting place, this was where the struggle was given focus, where the peripheral material was stripped away and the focus was on the nuts and bolts, this was the measure of the man, small in statue a giant in the struggle.

Bush Camp

Two splits in the Communist Party of Australia, in 1963 and again in 1971, saw it become a leaner organisation with a more accommodating attitude to other groups among the new left. Minto Bush Camp was important to this opening of the party, hosting seminars on gay rights, feminism, radical lesbian separatism, the anti-war movement and the campaign for Aboriginal autonomy. Indeed, members of the Communist Party of Australia were already seasoned campaigners for Aboriginal equality. Key events like the planning of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy took place, in part, at Minto. Kevin Cook was frequently at Minto, as a communist and Builders Labourers Federation member, and more and more often as an Aboriginal activist. As the 1970s eased into place the camp hosted barbeques and wine bottlings, usually as an incentive for the inevitable working bees that had built the place and kept it running.

Anti-Bicentenary March

The Anti-Bicentenary March in 1988 [which] was organized by the Freedom Justice Hope Committee with Judy Chester, Kevin Cook, Reverend Charlie Harris, Linda Burney, Chris Kirkbright and Karen Flick on the board along with many others. Everyone came together protesting against the Bicentenary and 200 years of colonisation.

The poster for the event was based on design from long time CPA supporter Chips Mackinolty.

"STATEMENT REGARDING ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS"

In April 1986 several hundred attendees of The Broad Left Conference in Melbourne signed an add in the National Times "STATEMENT REGARDING ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS".

Signatories included Kevin Cook.

The Broad Left Conference

The Communist Party of Australia, Association for Communist Unity and others organized The Broad Left Conference, which was held 1986 28th-31st March, at the NEW SOUTH WALES INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Broadway, Sydney.

Kevin Cook was among the list of sponsors.

New Caledonia connection

Anti-Bases Campaign

Max Gillies, Steve Sewell, Dr. Heather Goodall, Eric Bogle, Glenn Batchelor, Jennie George, Kevin Cook, Richard Walsham, Shorty O'Neill, Richard Bolt, Meredith Burgmann, Lynne Lee, Barbara Flick, Jim Falk, Peter Garrett, Nick Bolkus, George Georges, Bob Brown, Norm Sanders, Jo Vallentine.