Graham Dillon

Family and Country

Uncle Graham Dillon was a Kombumerri Elder of the Gold Coast (Young, 2021). His family are descendants of Andrew and Jenny Graham (Griffith University, 2020), and he spoke of Jenny as his grandmother, whose photograph is on a plaque in Overell Park at Southport (Young, 2021).

He liked to tell how his grandparents met on the banks of the Ngarang-Wal, the Nerang River, and how two German market gardeners living on an island helped protect the couple when troopers came for his grandmother (Young, 2021). He married Marilyn in 1954, and they had four children (Young, 2021).

Housing for the community

In 1981 he founded the Gold Coast Aboriginal and Islander Housing Co-op (Young, 2021). Kalwun's own history records that the co-operative was incorporated on 11 March 1981, after "a successful local movement of Aboriginal people on the Gold Coast lobbying for affordable housing" (Kalwun Development Corporation, 2022).

In 1994 Kalwun Development Corporation was incorporated and took over the co-op's work (Kalwun Development Corporation, 2022). Kalwun went on to become one of the Gold Coast's main Aboriginal community organisations, and it began in the housing co-operative he founded (Young, 2021).

Griffith University

Uncle Graham was Elder in Residence at Griffith University (Young, 2021). In 2009 Griffith made him a Doctor of the University, honouring his "distinguished contributions to the community and to the University", particularly as Chairperson of its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Committee (Griffith Archive, n.d.).

In 2011 he was one of four Elders who signed Griffith's Council of Elders document, launched by the Governor-General (Griffith University, 2011). He spoke at the launch of the university's Reconciliation Action Plan in 2012, telling the gathering, "We have to show the rest of the world how it is done" (Griffith University, 2012), and in 2013 he gave the Cultural Welcome at the opening of its new Indigenous student centre (Griffith University, 2013). When Griffith welcomed its first woman Vice Chancellor in 2019, he reminded everyone that "Kombumerri land is matriarchal country and that means the women are in charge" (Griffith University, 2019).

Teaching Kombumerri culture

He supported the Kombumerri Together project from its planning stage in 2018 and was its lead contributor (Griffith University, 2018; Kombumerri Together Project, n.d.). Launched in November 2020, the project gave Gold Coast teachers videos of Uncle Graham, three of his grandchildren and two great-nieces sharing Kombumerri knowledge (Griffith University, 2020).

Remembered

Uncle Graham died in 2021, aged 90 (Young, 2021; ABC Gold Coast, 2021). His grandson Clinton Brewer, speaking for the family, called him "a trailblazer" who "forged a way for our community" (Young, 2021). A park on the corner of Hinkler Drive and Explorers Way at Worongary is named Graham Dillon OAM park; he called it "a step towards reconciliation that relates to all people" (Young, 2021).