Wilosophy

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Super-chuffed to be a guest on Mr. Anderson’s podcast. We talked (a LOT) about radio, God, queer politics, offence, refugees and more.

You can listen to it on omnyapp or iTunes.

Working With Words

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The Wheeler Centre approached me for their “Working With Words” profile and I said “Ok” and now you can bloody read it right here.

What was the first piece of writing you had published?

There was a short story competition for kids held in my hometown of Warrnambool, and the best entries were published together in an actual physical book. I couldn’t believe it. I was only eight and already I was a published author! Like Paul Jennings! I believe my story featured both aliens and wizards, so I guess I’ve always been something of a maverick.

What’s the best part of your job?

As schmaltzy as it sounds, making people laugh. There is genuinely no greater feeling than when your routine is shaking a room and you can see people almost crying with laughter because of the dumb thoughts you’ve come up with and said out loud. Plus the catering on TV shows is usually pretty good.

Piece for The Saturday Paper

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saturdaypaper_article

Here’s a piece a wrote for The Saturday Paper on being wracked with white guilt as I put together a comedy show about refugees.

The first time I visited a detention centre, I was hungover. That has to be up there as one of the most pathetic, privileged, white person things you can do. I had used my freedom to dance the night away and drink a lot of gin and try, unsuccessfully, to kiss boys. Now I was here.

I’d met Nick on a Facebook group that facilitated visits to detention. He met me out the front to chat before we went inside.

“So, Tom, why were you keen to come along and visit today?”

I explained the premise of a show I was writing, and peppered it with a bit of “I’ve-been-meaning-to-do-this-for-a-long-time-anyway”. Nick nodded cautiously.

“Okay,” he said. “Just wanted to check. I saw you on the telly the other night and I said to my friend, who used to be here in detention, ‘That guy wants to come visit and find out more about refugees.’ And he sort of said, ‘Why? So he can just make money out of us?’ ”

I was taken aback. I hadn’t considered this. At all. I’d assumed that I was a good guy doing a good thing. I was helping.

Refugee Facts

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I wrote up some of the most surprising facts that I’ve come across in putting together my comedy show Boundless Plains To Share for The Age and you can read them here.

The issue of what to do with desperate people who arrive on our shores on leaky boats has plagued Australian politics for more than four decades. In January 1969, eight West Papuans – later dubbed “raft men” – fled the Indonesian occupation of West Irian and set out for sanctuary. A month later they landed at Moa Island in the Torres Strait. The group’s leader Alexander Toembay declared: “I hope that Australian people give us political protection and allow us to live in peace.”

We didn’t. We whacked them on a plane to New Guinea and their claims for political asylum were quickly processed and denied. All eight were then returned to West Irian, to the very government they were running from.

At the same time we were dumping border-crossing West Papuan refugees in a poorly resourced camp on a delightful little getaway named Manus Island. There the refugees held little hope of gaining employment or education and they become depressed and unmotivated and called their new home “Devil’s Island”. Good thing we learnt our lesson there, then.