1pm-Papuan Lunch ($10 donation).
2pm-Launch of Jacob and the Cassowary.
2.30-Memorials for Papuan civilians shot in Yahukimo in 2026.
3pm-Dr Joe’s World Famous Auction for WP Rent Collective.
Jacob and the Cassowary is a 600-word fatidic story, with nine glorious paintings, about a West Papuan politician riding a cassowary from the mountains to celebrate the people’s David and Goliath struggle against Indonesia’s colonial occupation. The characters includes a feisty crocodile wanting to protect Jacob, his human kin; a Papuan pastor who blesses the journeymen; Papuan women who fix and feed them after a terrible accident on the Puldama River. Indonesia’s in it of course and so is Australia (in the painting of four horsemen galloping along the mighty Mamberamo River?). Jacob and the Cassowary is a good fun deadly political story, suitable for progressive six-to-twelve year olds and adults interested in our region’s geopolitical affairs.
Author GIPSON SUU is from Nalca village in the highlands. In Melbourne he is studying and working, and also helps in the office, while he’s waiting, and hoping, for Australia to grant him asylum. “I was born into the Mek tribe in Yahukimo where my ancestors have lived for thousands of years. In 2021, when I won a scholarship, I had no plans, not even dreams, of staying in Australia. But by 2024, when I got my Diploma from Brisbane TAFE, my brother Esron Weipsa and three of my friends, Yacob Meklok, Naro Dapla and Tobias Silak, had all been shot, and my mother begged me not to come home. And so, with a heavy heart I flew to Melbourne and asked the office to help me lodge a protection visa”.
Gipson Suu reading Chapter One (1-min video), at https://youtu.be/75Oobp8p5FE
Artist MICHAEL MOLONY uses his paintbrush to illuminate local history and stories. In recent years he’s vitalised the history of Fitzroy with stations of the cross; and the South Melbourne Football Club “to remember the Greek, Italian, Maltese and Croatian mates who welcomed us into their lives and have given so much to Australia.” Of a distinguished Irish heritage, and with a deep love of art and history, Michael teaches at the Academy of Mary Immaculate in Fitzroy, the oldest girls secondary college in Victoria (opened by the Mercy Sisters in 1857!). He exhibits at Strathnairn Arts Homestead Gallery in Canberra, and at Bard’s Apothecary in Melbourne.
AMANDA STONE, who is launching Jacob and the Cassowary, was a Yarra City Councillor for sixteen years, is the Executive Officer of Yarra Drug and Health Forum, and has been the Patron of the West Papua Office in Docklands since 2014. As a councillor Amanda organised a formal welcome for the 43 West Papuan asylum seekers who beached their traditional canoe in Mapoon in Far North Queensland in 2006. She also legislated for the Morning Star flag to be raised every year on 1 December at the Council’s town halls in Richmond, Colllingwood, and Fitzroy. In 2014 she was a keynote speaker at the opening of the West Papua office in Docklands, and in 2020 organised the Hammarkskjöld-West Papua Living Memorial in Quarries Park, Clifton Hill.
Memorials for the heroes and martyrs
1. For the West Papuan civilians shot by the Indonesian military in retaliation for the 12 soldiers killed during the war in Yahukimo in January 2026.
2. For John Martinkus (died, Melbourne, 14 September 2025) a foreign correspondent of great courage, independence and tenacity, his instincts always for the powerless and the oppressed.
Chemical weapons dropped on Papua, The Saturday Paper, 22 December 2018, at https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2018/12/22/exclusive-chemical-weapons-dropped-papua/15453972007326
ABC interview with Mark Davis about his friend and colleague John Martinkus
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/veteran-war-correspondent-john-martinkus-dies/105776156
Dr Joe’s World Famous Auction for the WP Rent Collective
