Michael Reynolds and the art of truth listening

This is the Deadly Physios, an Australian Physiot Therapy Association production. Our vision has shown the listeners of war and that the following episode may contain the names and voices of people who are deceased. We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the many lands across Australia and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. We recognise their enduring connection to the lands and waterways of this country and they know for protecting and maintaining this country for us and future generations. In this series, our host Cameron Edwards interviews Deadly Physios from around Australia and by Deadly we mean something that is awesome or fantastic, so join us as we have a yarn and enjoy some Deadly stories. Yama, or hello in Camilla Roy and welcome back to the Deadly Physios. We've got a really exciting podcast planned for you today because we have Michael Reynolds on the line. Michael, how are you going today? Good thanks, Cam. Great to be on. I am so excited to interview you. You have been such an advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. You have been an inspiration to me and a mentor of sorts as well and so I'm excited to hear more of your story today and to share that with the wider audience. To start with, I wanted to do a bit of an acknowledgement of country and acknowledge the country that I'm on, Derek Land and to pay my respects to their elders past and present. And I was wondering if you could do the same and tell us a little bit about the land that you're on. Yeah, hi, what are me, which is Hello and Doug. And also, what the telematical people would have spoken of are the Gringoian nations here in the northern part of Sydney. Acknowledge them, acknowledge my mob, a radry mob and my elders past present. And I'm so thankful that there's so many other young physios like yourself, really taking the message of Aboriginal issues to the nation and to the wider physio audience. Well I think it was Einstein who said that any success of his was because of the giants shoulders that he stood on. And I certainly feel like today we're interviewing one of those giants. To start with, I want to ask what makes you a deadly physio? A deadly physio. I'd never really call myself a deadly physio. I'm not really talking myself up too much. The question would be more like what makes any of us deadly as First Nations physios. And you sort of touched on it before that we're only as strong as the people around us, our family, our friends, the people that have come before us, our elders. And I think we've got something pretty special as Aboriginal physios because we can draw on that sort of 65,000 year history of being on our lands. And for me, that provides a lot of strength for me in whatever I do and it keeps me humble. And if that makes me deadly, well, yeah, so be it. Sorry to put that one on you, but it's the name of our podcast. And that's why you were invited on because you definitely have a lot to add to the profession and also like I said, our role model. To begin with, I would like to talk about your story. I want to know, how did you end up working as a physio and why physio and a little bit of your growing up story as well? Talk to us about that. Well, in terms of physio, I was always good at science at school. I remember being a kid and then hearing about people working out knots in muscles and thought how do muscles get into knots. I didn't really understand anything, but I thought it was pretty amazing that you could do something to fix it. And as I learned more about science and then I generally got on well with people, I thought physio was probably a good avenue to go down. Now, I know that physio's gone beyond just, you know, it's not just removing knots out of people's muscles and I know it's in compasses so much more than that. But that was probably what got me into it in the first place. I didn't really have a lot of interaction with physios. I think a lot of people get into physio because they've had really positive interaction as they've been growing up. And so there's something I really want to do. But for me, and I think for a lot of other Aboriginal people that I've spoken to anyway that hasn't been the case, it's been something else that brought them into it. For me, it was that love of science and people and some great support through Yurangurang at Sydney University. A wonderful program there supporting young indigenous high school students transitioning into the health sciences. They do a wonderful job there. I grew up in Eastwood in New South Wales, just in the suburbs of Sydney. My mum's stolen generations. She's originally from around Wellington sort of double away, so sort of a northern maradry for people that know. Maradry is quite a large group and they are across the mountains and she was taken from her family when she was quite young and bounced around different foster homes and then she ended up in one foster home in Reesby and she was backdoor neighbours with my father. She was there from when she was about seven or eight I think in that family or in that home and she lived there not around culture or without her identity with her no real communication with other family members at that stage, which was the way it was and then her and her brothers and sisters slowly reconnected over the years as they were able to. From there they moved through Bleefeet to Homebush and then out to Eastwood where I grew up. Not a very big Aboriginal population there so I sort of felt in terms of that part of my identity I felt quite isolated. So I suppose part of my journey particularly over the last ten years or so has been sort of reconnecting a little bit more with my culture and seeing how I can give back but in giving back I'm giving a lot to myself as well at the same time so I've really enjoyed my journey with my work through the APA and universities and other organisations to help with the whole reconciliation closing the gap cause. We really are in a position to give back and I love that you've just mentioned that powerful theme that as we give back we also build ourselves up as well. You mentioned the stolen generations and you know what I wasn't even thinking about going down that route for this episode but I would like our listeners just to be aware you can't see Michael at the moment and Michael I don't want to put you on the spot but can you give us an age bracket that you are in between and then also your mum's age bracket just in a decade you don't have to say the actual ages but people think that it's a long time ago. That's alright so I'm in my 40s and my mum's in the late 60s and she was born as many people are born in a time when Aboriginal people weren't counted in this country as citizens that was 1967 referendum which passed with about 90.67% the Aboriginal people should be counted in the centres for the first time. So she was born at a time when we weren't seen as important enough to be counted. It was coming out of an era of really hurtful policy for so many first nations people. Whatever was left of our beautiful culture it was just got I don't know for me anyway being through that stolen generations was really just ripped from our family and I know that a lot of families you know remember there's 250 different language groups about 600 different dialects all the way across the nation so it listens need to recognise that my story isn't necessarily the story of everyone everyone has different links with culture and different links with family and the whole effects of colonisation has affected individuals and families in lots of different ways but certainly for me the stolen generations is incredibly important to me because for me personally that's that gap in identity that I have it's the gap that my mother has and my uncles and my cousins and their kids still have with their culture. Yes it's a gap to sort of make our kids lives better than it was for us and for our parents I suppose and to remember that but it's also to in making it better is also to help that reconnection with your own identity and culture and I think people feel that tug in lots of different ways people go on ancestry.com you know people might look at a particular Italian heritage or a Greek heritage and things like that but for the stolen generations really happened in a very I don't know it was widespread wasn't it can like it was right throughout the country we have this very common theme of this stolen generations it was government policy to take kids away from their families which just caused a huge amount of hurt and that's only happened over a very short period of time we've survived but there's still a lot of hurt out there and there's still a lot of healing that needs to be done both between non-indigenous and indigenous people but just for indigenous people themselves to reconnect with country reconnect with family reconnect to their stories. I think that really is the theme of these podcasts to just connect policy and history and things that people may have heard over their lifespan whether or not that's through education at school or through personal journeys and research but then to I know they can't see your face but put a name to this and to kind of put context to it and I think that's what you've just done you've explained that we're not all homogenous not all aboriginal share the same history or the same understanding of identity due to these policies due to this trauma and that leads me to a question about trust I've asked about these trust issues within aboriginal mobs towards potentially government potentially authorities potentially health professionals and I know that some of our audience may have tried to begin mending the gap which we can talk about what that gap is a little bit later but what I wanted to zoom in on right now is about trust why is that so important and why has that been fractured can you talk a little bit more about how we can rebuild that in our practices there's a lot to unpack there can but trust is a really important issue and I suppose in the first instance with anyone trust needs to be earned particularly I think between or between anyone really trust needs to be earned it shouldn't just be expected just because you're a physio and you're giving a service it doesn't mean that someone should necessarily just trust that what you say is going to be good you have to make sure that you have gone to some effort to understand the person in front of you understand what their goals are understand what their background is and work with them to achieve a common goal part of that requires a bit of a check of yourself because if we don't know what we don't know then we end up making fools of ourselves it's an extremely complex question I think that lack of trust is going to be different in different situations there's certainly a product of history so historically how Aboriginal people have been treated with some people certainly let's say with my mum being taken away from a family well do you think she's going to be overly or not overly protected do you think she's going to be extra protective with her children and she's going to be a little bit more distrustful of authority she's not going to just have a rapport with anyone she needs to know that the person they're dealing with is going to be working with her Aboriginal people for now and for 200 plus years have had people tell them what to do whether it's through government policy or whether it's just through look we know what's best for you or do this or why can't you just help yourself I told you what to do just go do it never before really an Australia's history have Aboriginal people had a good voice in terms of determining how they can I suppose help themselves or achieve whatever they want to achieve that hasn't happened and so when we're not part of that decision-making process we don't trust the decision that's being produced so we look at all this close the gap stuff that's been going on from government and we look at even from a government level look at the ministers for Indigenous affairs that's only with the last government that we've actually had an Indigenous or an Aboriginal person as a Minister for Aboriginal Affairs which is quite scary when you think about we talk about Australia being this amazing democratic progressive country except we can't even look after our first peoples properly we can't even have a proper voice for our first peoples we don't have a treaty with our first peoples every other country has why can't we have it why can't we have it and if we don't have a treaty well why can't we have some agreement with our first peoples collectively about how we need to move forwards that's what the Uluru statement was that's what Macarada was about and is about that's how all these and it's not just Uluru it's been all these other statements and representations to governments at a state level and a federal level that's existed since day dot of colonisation and it still hasn't happened so if people if they're not being listened to at that level at a governmental level or they're not listened to at an industry level then Aboriginal people feel as though they're not being listened to so they're not going to trust those organisations or those people or governments that tell them what to do because it needs to be a collaborative effort we know as physios we get the best out of people when we have good patient centred goals so why can't we have good Australian centred goals without first peoples I don't understand why that's the case and I know that they're working towards that but it just needs to be better yeah I agree with you 100% and I know that is a really tough question and in fact you've covered a couple of topics that we're going to go in and out of and explore a little bit more with that question about trust there's another word that has been popping up in recent debates or recent protests or even within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander space and that is the idea of truth telling and I'm wondering what does that mean to you truth telling means that as a 10-year-old kid as I was growing up I'm not told that Australia was discovered in 1788 or 1770 or whatever it was I'm told not just about Captain Cook and Governor McQuarry and Governor Philip John Batman if you from Melbourne whatever I'm not just told about those people I'm told about the amazing Aboriginal leaders that have come through and made that element of the country great Aboriginal culture has survived in the last 200 years it hasn't been annihilated we've gone from 100% of these lands populations to around 3% except there's some very important people all the way around the country that have continued to light the flame of Indigenous culture and do their best to make sure that this is part of the Australian narrative Charles Perkins and sporting greats and things as well who have contributed to the national debate Adam Goods Australia into the year there's a whole bunch of truths they've been telling the country for years Australia is a country for years but people don't listen there's a lot of truth telling I'd probably rephrase that and say what does truth listening mean there's people that have been telling a lot of truths but no one seems to listen to them and I I don't know I don't understand why people don't want to listen I do a little bit because we're talked about I remember being told about dream time stories I remember talking about Boomerangs and Digis and you'd hear about how good these Aboriginal athletes say look a Kathy Freeman win the 400 meters you look at all these things and we try to celebrate our great Australians and it's even greater affair of our First Nations people but that's only part of the truth I think we need to be listening to hard truths that have happened in this country we need to understand the struggles and successes of Australia we need to be really open about it we need to be looking at what happened on missions we need to be having a look at what happened in different parts of the stolen generations I think if you walked down the street and you asked your average Australian whatever that's supposed to be the average Australian about what the stolen generations are I think you'd struggle to get more than about a paragraph out this is a really important part of Australian history and it's shaped a really important part of who we are like it or not and we need to understand those truths those hard truths before we can start to move forward you can't pretend it didn't happen you can't sweep that from history we need to have a really open transparent look and understand what those stories are and those stories need to be told by First Nations people because we need to understand that perspective so we can understand who we are as a nation it's not necessarily us but what made us as a nation only then can we start to tell truths and listen to truths and learn from those truths well I think Michael you've just started a new movement the truth listening there it is I'll back you on that one I think that is such a powerful statement because like you said there have been people telling the truth for so long and it really is time to listen and it just joked my memory to even thinking about the treatment of our chronic pain patients in more of a physiotherapy context and thinking about how we know that listening can be so powerful in their healing in their treatment because often for so long they haven't had anyone to listen to their story and so it can be such a powerful breakthrough in building that rapport and I think you know when we understand the context as you've mentioned of our First Nations people and we listen to our patients and understand their situation their current context then I think we move forward this really is quite key and I want you to talk a little bit to being culturally sensitive as a physio why that's important and how does it look practically I think cultural sensitivity is something that people think well I'm not racist you know but then was it something like 43% of Australians still see Australia as being a racist country so for me I think there's a lot of Australians out there that still think that we treat people from different backgrounds in different ways so we're prejudicing people based on their race and if that's the case then we need to think well why is that happening there's been a lot of controversy at the moment around the Colingwood Football Club and really comes from I suppose maybe a lack of early acknowledgement about systemic racism that was happening at the club certainly applaud any club or organisation that has a look at themselves in their processes as to how they're behaving in this way but I think we need to recognise that we're a product of our parents we're a product in the places we work and go to and sometimes it's hard to know if something's racist or not and if you don't like that term prejudicing someone based on their background or who you think they are and this isn't something that's unique to First Nations peoples in this country there's a lot of culturally and linguistically diverse people in this nation who are prejudiced against quite strongly and I think it's important to combat that by listening to their stories so listening to migrant stories listening to different people's backgrounds but I think certainly for First Nations people we've looked after our lands and the stories have been here for really for Aboriginal people it's time immemorial and I think First Nations peoples for Australians should hold a very special place in all of our hearts absolutely I agree I think the grace that has been afforded for so long to the wider Australian community has just been quite remarkable I think like you said there has just been an ongoing fight for survival and to maintain relationships with to walk alongside people who have caused trauma in the past I think is quite profound you've mentioned truth listening you've mentioned confronting racism and so we've got a little bit of a segment here that I want to go into I'm sure you've seen the you can't ask that segment on the ABC and to confront some of those racist thoughts or racist claims that people might make I've compiled a couple of questions that I think we hear quite often or that maybe the common public or our audience don't understand the reasons for and so we've created this space to be able to speak to these questions openly and honestly and so my one for you Michael is why do people get offended when I ask them how aboriginal they are well I know you don't ask them that can but essentially being aboriginal you need to identify as being aboriginal and you need to have some aboriginal family or blood okay that's what you need to have and then your aboriginal doesn't matter your skin color doesn't matter anything you're just aboriginal and you're accepted as one there's a lot of history there and it kind of comes back to some truth telling and truth listing about once upon a time there was people that might have been all over myself I had an aboriginal mother and a father was of English or British descent I would have been counted as a half-cast and so I might have been taken away from my family to take away from my aboriginal upbringing and then being put into some other family or maybe put to work as a servant or if I was a woman maybe a maid and a landowner's house or something and that's how I would live out my life and so it can be incredibly hurtful to use some of those terms and also how aboriginal it's kind of asking I don't have this quite right because I'm a heterosexual male but I wonder if it's the same as asking maybe a gay person how gay you are it's either you are or you aren't I don't understand how it can be or however you identify sexually it's just who you are and so being aboriginal is an identity for me being a rarajraman is part of my identity I'm not half a rarajraman I'm not a quarter that's who I am and to have someone ask me how aboriginal I am would be well are you only what a half a man am I only half an aboriginal man or I'm only sort of half Australian that's how I get offended and so I'll just say well and I might get a bit technical on them and I might talk about some of my family background and things and I'll just politely inform them not to ask that question another person again because it can be quite deeply deeply offending and for me it's very much a sense of identity and who you are within just because you have some aboriginal ancestry if you don't identify as being aboriginal then you can't really call yourself that you can say you've got some aboriginal ancestry there or maybe it was a great great great great grandmother or whatever that you knew to be through maybe ancestry.com or you've looked through your family tree that they are aboriginal that doesn't make you aboriginal it means you've got certainly some history there that you can be incredibly proud of but to identify as aboriginal it needs to be part of you needs to be part of your identity and needs to be recognised as such by your mob. Absolutely I think you've spoken quite to the point on identity and I want to talk a little bit more about your identity towards the end of the show for now I want to move to these two terms you've mentioned earlier reconciliation and closing the gap what do they mean? Yeah they've been used and abused quite a lot but reconciliation is really just a coming together of ideas to mend or to heal a past it's a healing word really reconciliation it's to understand each other's side come to some sort of agreement on how you can move forwards and move forwards that's what reconciliation is to me it's to reconcile the inequities that have been present and continued to be present with indigenous and non indigenous Australians and closing the gap they go hand in hand because the gap I see is certainly looking at correcting that gap in life expectancy infant mortality and incarceration rates mental health you've suicide the list goes on but I think it also speaks to maybe some of the themes that we've been talking about today Cam is that big gap between a knowledge of indigenous people or indigenous Australia or First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australia and I think that gap is still very very broad there's a lot of things that need to happen for our First Nations people but I think collectively as a whole we need to close that knowledge gap we need to close that truth gap so you've mentioned the gap there in your view is a knowledge gap and I really like that what I'm wondering then is how can non-Indigenous people help to close that knowledge gap do you have any strategies or resources that you would point our listeners to that that they can do something practically because I know if anyone is listening to this and there is a journey that has begun and so I'm wondering what can people do to progress in that journey in your view there's lots of resources in different places I know reconciliation Australia has been very active in this has kind of helped a whole bunch of organisations do reconciliation action plan day release reports every year but I think I really like if you're not already doing it then to acknowledge country when you come together to acknowledge country in a way which isn't tokenistic which isn't just we'd like to acknowledge First Nations people of this area and all those past, present and future it shouldn't be so formulaic should come with a story it should come with an understanding and something from the heart I think and sometimes that requires going a little bit deeper sometimes it goes into understanding a little bit more about the people of the lands in which you live and work for me so you know I live on telematical land or the lands of those Gringoire peoples I like to know a little bit about the Arab lands when I go out to Western Sydney I like try to learn a little bit more about the Rurundry lands when I go to Melbourne or Nuna Wall in Canberra or the Ghana people in Adelaide I like to learn about cultures and I like to acknowledge those people and feel incredibly thankful when welcomed by those people on to lands because I know that not only might warmly welcome there into what I see is their home but I'm also um no they're looking you know they're duty to sort of help look after us for a run there. Ignoring kind of country I think is good and just having that little self-reflection on what makes you who you are you know look at your own identity but then if you're working with indigenous people and if you're a physio in Australia you probably have looked after some indigenous people think about a little bit more about how maybe you could celebrate those cultures of your local area and I think if we start to do that we can grow as Australians as indigenous and non-indigenous Australians we can grow I think it helps to shape our own identities and our national identity but it also helps start to close that gap with our indigenous patients and with other patients you know or are they culturally or linguistically diverse patients if we start to acknowledge their contribution in our work practices in our questioning and in our sensitivities it's not a tick-bock answer as it can it's sometimes a hard thing to talk about but it does require that little bit of reflection and acknowledgement and I suppose search for the truth and then listen to that truth when it's being said it's been some wonderful conversations around Australia day or day of morning or day of invasion however you want to describe it but those conversations that have come out of that have been incredibly important and people should be listening to that and I think things like that also then help to inform their practice as clinicians moving forward as well. On that I think you've really nailed it on the head there is something that we are taught as physios is reflexivity this introspection and I think that is the hallmark of a good therapist someone who can come away from an experience with a patient and it might not be the most positive experience but your ability to learn from that experience and move forward and talk that one under your belt and say I'm not going to do that again and so that reflexivity even in general life it doesn't have to be with a patient it doesn't have to be in the clinic it can be on the streets it can be your interaction even with the news it might not be someone in front of you but I know recently I've had these conversations about Australia day and people have asked my opinion and I've thought well why aren't we changing it I mean it's a relatively new date that's been given and when you talk a little bit about the history of the day of mourning and how it precedes the current date of Australia day people are just unaware and I think most people when they become aware think oh okay that's fair enough for wanting to change the date then and the conversation just becomes so much more amicable because there's that realization that it really does mean pain and it's not that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are trying to tear apart modern Australia or you know there's all of this really inflammatory language around the topic but like you said maybe sometimes people just need to take a step back reflect on the way that they're thinking towards the subject and learn a little bit about the history of the subject before they come to the table you are an incredible man with an incredible story I want to know the current Michael and where you're at at the moment and a little bit about your role in the APA because I think it's a very special spot and you've got some great ambitions that I would like to hear about and I'm sure our audience would love to hear as well sure so I'm a titled sports physio I work in a private practice in Sydney I love working with football so that's soccer for me and our football mob sorry it's football for us but for anyone outside of football world football it's soccer so I quite enjoy that I still play it and I love physioing for it I do some teaching around a few subjects including ones around indigenous health at the Australian Catholic University North Sydney which I quite enjoy and with the APA I suppose my first foray into the APA was through the New South Wales Sports Physio Group and I didn't really understand quite what the APA did before that but I got a lot out of that experience Cameron Elliott was the chair there at the time and really nice guy that I think now works in aged care but he started to work and run courses and develop content was actually chair that for a couple of years I moved across to the South Wales Branch Council and saw the wide breadth of physio outside of my little sports silo then the APA through great work of Marilyn Morgan Ray Gates and others it really pushed forwards the idea of reconciliation and reconciliation action plans as well it's been great leadership from previous presidents including Melissa Lockey and Marcus Stryps who really embraced this idea of reconciliation and closing the gap and making sure that first nations people had a voice in the APA and that's how I got more involved with this committee at the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Health Committee and that was under Marilyn Morgan's leadership then there was great leaves there to launch our first wrap and bring more people into the fall just like yourself Cam and I've been very privileged to be able to see that grow and very privileged to be able to chair that committee for the last few years moving forwards reconciliation and the work the APA does and the health sector and Australia as a whole is it's an ongoing process it's something that will go beyond my lifetime so I'm just another little cog in the wheel of trying to make positive change for all of us and for me the APA has been that vehicle for the time being I'm very thankful for the people that work at the APA the people that make podcasts like this possible and people that put their hand up to host them just like you Cam that really means a lot to me and it means a lot because I know that our stories and our voice will continue to be heard Now I'm not suggesting at all that you're looking tired but I have watched you running with that baton and I am so impressed as I said and have been inspired to put up my hands for a lot of things because I've seen how much you have taken on for yourself and how hard you push to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and advocate for physiotherapy in general. Coming to the end of this episode I've got a couple of quick fire-ish questions which I want our listeners to appreciate. I've got to ask these because they're going to be personal to you but they also will be part of that journey, part of that learning for our listeners and who knows someone might come out with something that they love from it and so to begin with I want to ask what is your favourite Indigenous word? What's your favourite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander word? And why? It's a baradu word and it's yinja-mara and yinja-mara means respect. Respect probably yes in the way that maybe we'd think about it in common spoke in English language but a deep respect for yourself, your identity, your story, the land, everything that encompasses your family, your heritage, your culture. Yinja-mara is a very powerful word and a very deep word which I don't know just really resonates with me so it's yinja-mara. What a word, respect. The respect I have for you. What's one word that sums up this reconciliation or closing the gap idea and what it looks like for you? One word that sums up the reconciliation, closing the gap idea. Let's say listening. Listening, I think that has definitely been the theme of this podcast. Saying listening, this is an interesting segue into my next question, what is your favourite band and song of choice that you would listen to from any of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists? Yeah, it's interesting, you're a nice segue there, okay? Look, there's so much great talent coming forth. There's a lot of great young Indigenous hip-hop talent. I'm just not into that so much. So I wanted to nominate another song which means a lot to my mother as well and I think here's a wonderful voice, good on all, we're full, a beautiful song. It was from a beautiful man with a beautiful voice and it's actually meant a lot in my mother's healing from reconnecting with her culture after coming from that stolen generation's background. Well Michael, I can tell you that not all of our listeners will like hip-hop R&B either so it's nice to hear but there is a variety out there that people who are interested with a different taste can also enjoy and learn to respect as they listen to them. Michael, it's been such a privilege having you on The Deadly Physios Show and I want to thank you for your time, thank you for your influence, thank you for your advocacy and the education you've provided with us today. Thanks for listening to The Deadly Physios and Australian Physio Therapy Association production. To learn more about this episode's guest and The Deadly Physio series, head to our website at Australian.physio/The Deadly Physios and if you like this episode please subscribe and leave a review.