By Luke Voogt
Growing up in poverty was no barrier to making a difference for Drysdale lawyer Robyn Davis.
“We had nothing,” said Ms Davis, one of 28 finalists in Geelong council’s Women in Community Life Awards – to be announced tonight.
“My mother was 18 when I was born and dad was 20, and I had a two-year-old brother.
“But it doesn’t matter how you’re brought into the world or grow up – you can do it if you want to do it.”
Through hard work Ms Davis passed the bar and built a “solid” life representing women in family and magistrates courts.
In the late 1990s, she moved from “middle-class inner Melbourne” to “the sticks” on the outskirts of Darwin to work for the North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service.
“The contract was for one year but we ended up staying in the Northern Territory for 11,” she said.
“Working at that organisation profoundly changed my views on a lot of things. I really came to understand the issues that confront First Nations People while working beside them and representing them.”
Ms Davis would often fly out in “a little plane” to the Tiwi Islands and across Arnhem Land “doing the bush court circuit” in remote communities as “hot as Hades”.
She remembered drinking bush tea and offers of wallaby tail and gut in the Tiwi Islands, or watching children swim in a creek – away from the local crocodiles.
“It was incredible to be welcomed into their lives at times that were quite distressing for them.”
While most judges were excellent, “very occasionally” she walked out of court thinking “there was no reason for that decision” except “on the basis of race”, she said.
Ms Davis had “nothing but respect” for the compassionate and dedicated Indigenous women she worked under in the service.
A few years later she began representing women from non-English speaking backgrounds, mostly Indonesian, experiencing domestic violence.
“At one stage I think I had the largest family law practice in Darwin,” she said.
Along with custody battles, many of these women faced migration issues too.
“The blokes that would bash them would say, ‘if you leave me you won’t get a visa’,” Ms Davis said.
She moved to Drysdale more than a decade ago, working at Geelong’s Sexual Assault and Family Violence Centre and volunteering countless hours for Barwon Community Legal Service.
She now works for the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy helping to compensate victims of historical childhood sexual abuse.
The sisters “have never said, ’that’s too much or that’s not true’” in response to a claim, Ms Davis said.
“Otherwise I wouldn’t work there. It’s correcting the wrongs of the past.”
She was proud to be nominated for the awards ahead of International Women’s Day next Monday.
“If my story can help anybody then that’s a good thing,” she said.
To watch the live streamed event: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/international-womens-day-2021-women-in-community-life-awards-tickets-138716632181
