Elder John Jones: Fraser Island - Media Watch Page 2 of 2 _

Transcript
This is a transcript from The World Today. The program is broadcast around Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio.

The World Today - Thursday, 5 February , 2004 12:33:44
Reporter: Ian Townsend

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Yesterday, we heard about a leaked NSW Government report showing that aboriginal people were owed tens of millions of dollars in lost wages.

Well, in Queensland today, one family is continuing a decade-long struggle to claim the earnings of a long dead aboriginal prizefighter.

He was the bantam and featherweight boxing champion of Australia 50 years ago, Elley Bennet, and his family is suing the Queensland Government and the Public Trustee for the 7,000 pounds in prize money they say he never received.

Well, members of Elley Bennett's family were at the Supreme Court in Brisbane this morning to try to fix a trial date.

Ian Townsend reports.

IAN TOWNSEND: Elley Bennett spent nine years fighting his way to the top of his profession. He became the Australian bantamweight and featherweight boxing champion from 1948 to 1954. But under the Aboriginal Protection Act of the time, he didn't actually see all the money he earned. It went into trust accounts from which he could only draw 10 pounds at a time, and when he died aged 57, he was broke.

But the family of Elley Bennett say they've looked through the books and there's 7000 pounds still owed to his estate, and for the past 10 years they've been fighting to get it back.

Elley Bennett's cousin is John Dalungdalee Jones, and he was at the Supreme Court in Brisbane this morning.

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: He was a professional boxer, the Australian bantamweight and featherweight champion of Australia, and of course the second contender for the world title. But in his nine years of professional fighting before 1950, all his money was put into two accounts, a trust account and his personal account, which he couldn't operate and only the protectors could operate.

Now, we asked the Public Trustee over a period of about three years to please investigate this.

IAN TOWNSEND: So 7000 pounds has been missing from his wages?

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Exactly. And that's over 50 years ago. So we're suing them for that...

IAN TOWNSEND: How much would that be?

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Well, 10 per cent of it comes to $19 million.

IAN TOWNSEND: $19 million?

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Yes, it's a bit staggering, but any high school kid can work that out for you.

IAN TOWNSEND: How many beneficiaries would there be for that $19 million, if you if you got it?

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Well, there's six of us all together.

IAN TOWNSEND: How confident are you that can actually get this money?

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Well, when you see the documents – we've only tendered 170 exhibits out of our 1,050 pages and there is not one document there that's... It's irrefutable evidence.

IAN TOWNSEND: Is there any precedent for this?

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Well there's been a… the Government admits that they the money, and they've even settled out of court on a few occasions. There's still about 7,000 outstanding. Oh, here comes Lyall now, Lyall Sempf, we'll walk down and say g'day.

IAN TOWNSEND: And then another member of the Dalungbara tribe, Lyall Sempf, arrived at the court, on horseback.

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: Lyall is a member of our Dalungbara tribe.

LYALL SEMPF: In our tribe my noru or our totem is the horse. It means I've got an affiliation with horses. So I just love horses. He's good for drawing attention to people and the sign.

JOHN DALUNGDALEE JONES: And when you see the sign there you'll see that "Return The Horse To The Fraser Island", also "Return Elley Bennet's Money" because Elley Bennet… his hard earnt money has been in snooker for the last 50 years.

Now, you've asked what would the beneficiary do – well, there's at least six beneficiaries, including myself, and their family and their kids and grandkids, and all the ones I know haven't got a house, I haven't got a house – mind you, I've applied for houses through the Aboriginal things over the years, but it's very difficult to get money off those professional organisations.

So it's interesting that we feel that the evidence that the money was held and still held is irrefutable.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: That was John Dalungdalee Jones, the cousin of Australian aboriginal boxer Elley Bennett. He was speaking to Ian Townsend in Brisbane.

The 67-year-old Aboriginal pensioner from Brisbane is the driving force behind a seven-year-old legal battle, which resumes today, over the failure of the governments to pay two black trackers a reward for capturing Ned Kelly 120 years ago.

Mr Jones is ahead after a succession of court battles that has pitted the diminutive electrician, who has no legal training, against the best barristers the two States can throw at him.

"They are using every legal ploy they can to stop us but so far they haven't succeeded," he said.

Mr Jones is seeking $80 million on behalf of Mr Kurt Noble and Ms May McBride, descendants of Jack Noble and Gary Owens, two Queensland Aboriginal police officers who helped the Victorian police track down the bushranger.

Three of the gang were killed in a shoot-out at the Glenrowan Hotel in June 1880. Kelly was captured and hanged. Noble and Owens were promised, but never received, a reward of £50 each. The $80 million has been calculated on compound interest, plus damages.

Mr Jones goes to court alone, armed with a formidable knowledge of the relevant laws. In judgments, he is listed as counsel and solicitor for the appellants. He spends much of his time in law libraries, and his small home is full of legal documents.

"It is a fundamental injustice that these two men, who risked their lives to help the Victorian police on the promise of a reward, never received their money," he said.

The Victorian and Queensland governments vigorously oppose the action because they fear it could open the gates for a flood of claims over the estates of indigenous people who died without leaving wills.

Mr Jones's claim was thought to be doomed by legal experts, but the Queensland Court of Appeal ruled last April that it "was not useless or futile".

Today, he appears before the Queensland Supreme Court to argue for an order requiring the two States to provide information they have refused to release.

Mr Jones has his fingers in other legal pies, including an action trying to stop Queensland selling a lighthouse to private interests.