Sharpies in Parliament
On Tuesday 27 November 2001, The Honourable Amanda Fazio spoke in the NSW Legislative Council about the Sharpies exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The full Hansard transcription is available – all 62 pages of political talk. Below is an extract:
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITIONS
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO [6.35 p.m.]: On 29 November three very interesting photographic exhibitions will be opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art [MCA]. One of these exhibitions, the one of greatest interest to me, is by Peter Robinson. It is called “Sharpies”. It is a photographic record of Peter Robinson’s involvement with sharpie gangs in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. The photos he is providing for this exhibition are literally taken out of his own photo album and those of his friends. I find it very interesting that very little of the sharpie phenomenon has been documented. The film Romper Stomper, which was set in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, was based more on skinheads with racial biases than on Australian sharpies. About three years ago a lengthy article appeared in Ralph magazine which again had a focus on sharpies in Melbourne.
The phenomenon of sharpie gangs was not restricted to Melbourne. There were many sharpie gangs in Sydney and these were usually based on groupings of suburbs. Sharpie gangs were based in Burwood, Cabramatta, Liverpool and other inner suburbs. They had their own nightclub in Elizabeth Street at Central called John Henry’s. Often the sharpies from John Henry’s would cross Belmore Park at night and raid other clubs, notably one that existed in Campbell Street. These gangs were mostly active in the late 1960s, and a highly stylised subculture developed around them. They did not discriminate against people on racial grounds. You were more at risk of being attacked by a sharpie gang if you were a male with long hair or if you were a surfie. I know they attacked males with long hair, because my brother and some of his friends got a hiding from them in the Devonshire Street tunnel one Saturday night, ending up in hospital for quite a few days. The response at that time was simply “you should keep away from sharpies if you have long hair”.
Sharpies dressed in a very selective manner, wearing Fred Perry-style shirts, high-waisted jeans or slacks with large plackets at the front, the more buttons the better, often with braces, and loafer or moccasin shoes. Their hair was short and often had some longer tufts at the back, and the use of aftershave, especially Faberge Brut, was often excessive. Their drugs of choice were alcohol and speed, and their means of transport were often stolen cars. Having grown up in Cabramatta during these times, I was well aware of the local and neighbouring sharpie gangs, and many girls I attended school with went out with sharpies.
The Hon. John Ryan: Were you a sharpie chick?
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO: In response to the Hon. John Ryan, I was never a sharpie chick because I always had long hair. I was definitely not in the inner circle. When I read the article in Ralph magazine are few years ago I recognised one of my close friends in one of the photographs; I rang her up to let her know about her brush with fame, although it was coming about 30 years late. Another of my school friends married her sharpie boyfriend who, through a strange choice of careers, ended up as an army chaplain.
The Hon. John Ryan: Some of them ended up as members of Parliament.
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO: If the Hon. John Ryan is confessing to having been a sharpie, shame on him.
The Hon. Michael Egan: What was he?
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO: A sharpie.
The Hon. Michael Egan: What’s that?
The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO: I will show the Treasurer a copy of my speech. The writing of a book about sharpies was mooted in the article in Ralph. I hope that such a book eventuates because I believe it is important that our social history be truly representative of what has happened in Australia. We do not simply want to know about the sanitised history of our society. There is a big market for publications that accurately document a full range of social phenomena. Only a couple of months ago the Hon. Don Harwin referred in this Chamber to the riveting book Razor by Larry Writer. We can look back now at this not so savoury chapter in Sydney’s history and find it to be very interesting. It is every bit as interesting as the prohibition era in America, but average Australians would probably no less about the razor gangs and sly grog shops of Sydney than they would know about Al Capone and Eliot Ness.
Let us redress this imbalance and take an active interest in all aspects of Australian social history. We could do with a decent book on bodgies and widgies rather than this aspect of Australian youth culture being dismissed as never having happened. We need these different youth cultures to be documented before the chance to accurately detail them is lost. So, too, do I hope that we accurately recognise the social phenomenon of sharpies. There are plenty of opportunities to do this now, before memories and photographs fade. I would be remiss to neglect the photos taken by Carroll Jerrom of sharpies in Melbourne. I rate these as among the strongest photographs of their kind to have been taken in Australia. I urge all honourable members to visit this exhibition at the MCA and to recognise that it is useful to understand the youth cultures of the past in order to fully appreciate the youth culture of today. I commend the exhibition to the few honourable members left in the Chamber this evening.
