Joanne's Story

Joanne has a reputation throughout the country as a campaigner for justice. She was proudly a regional journalist for over forty years and amongst her extensive advocacy for Hunter and Central Coast residents she has been especially lauded for her groundbreaking investigation into institutional child sex abuse, which was pivotal to the establishment of a Royal Commission on the issue, and her reporting on the regulatory failures of manufacturers of pelvic mesh implants, which led to greater awareness of the human cost of these trials and opened the pathway to compensation and recognition for victims. Her work in these cases was recognised with a Gold Walkley Award and a Walkley Award for Public Service Journalism, respectively. Joanne has also been recognised with other accolades; notably she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2022 and received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Newcastle, in 2015.

Reflecting on the pathway that led her to this impressive career, Joanne says, “I always knew I would do a degree … it was always something I held in very high regard”, but being the oldest of eleven children meant money was always tight and she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to study. What she did know was that she wanted her independence, and earning money was the way to achieve that. By the time she finished her HSC at 17 years old, Joanne had already been working for a few years at a local newsagency near where she lived on the Central Coast. The following year, on a visit to Sydney with girlfriends who were enrolling to train as nurses, herself “just to buy jeans”, on the spur of the moment, she also signed up to become a nurse. She notes, “I liked nursing … but I wasn’t thinking of a future in it”. She turned from nursing to insurance and then to a cadetship at her local newspaper, which grew into more senior positions as time went on. After working as a journalist for her local newspaper for a significant period, and as her children got older, the desire for study – and potentially a career change – grew stronger.

Open Foundation presented the opportunity to keep working and study at the same time whilst also ensuring that she had the skills to be successful in an undergraduate degree: “There was no way in the world I would have started a degree without doing Open Foundation.”

After completing Open Foundation at Ourimbah campus in 1996, Joanne decided to enrol in a Bachelor of Arts, and, rather than a new career path, she moved to the Newcastle Herald under whose banner she filed some of her most high profile and high impact pieces. For Joanne, there is a direct connection between her degree and the work she would achieve:

I relied on the skills that I learnt doing an arts degree, concentrating on history and English, when I began writing about child sexual abuse within institutions … The degree gave me the skills and the confidence to challenge the powerful NSW Government and politicians across the country – to achieve a Royal Commission.

Looking back on the contribution that Open Foundation made to her life course, Joanne comments that “it was my gift to myself”. In turn, Joanne’s advocacy throughout her career has been, in some way, a gift to others who had no voice.

Story by Emma Hamilton

Photos by Media and Communications student, Billy Callaghan 

For more information visit Hunter Living Histories