Aged 44. Of Munanjali Aboriginal heritage. Tribal country
is Beaudesert. Spent 15 years as a journalist/broadcaster with the
ABC in Brisbane and in Darwin working as a sports broadcaster in both
radio and television. For 9 years presented Speaking Out, an indigenous
news and current affairs program broadcast on Sunday nights across
Australia on ABC Radio.
His book, My Kind of People, was launched nationally
by University of Queensland Press in 1993. It features twelve famous
and not-so-famous Aboriginal people from around Australia speaking
about their Aboriginal identity and their hopes for the future.
In 1995/96 Wayne presented photographic exhibitions
of images he'd taken of indigenous people over a 15-year period. Depicting
a range of settings and life situations the exhibitions clearly illustrated
how strongly Aboriginal people are connected to country.
"A Gift of Presence is one of the most intriguing
projects I have worked on. In the course of a normal day in my full-time
job as a press photographer, I might cover as many as seven topics,
but this project gave me the opportunity to explore a single concept
that I see as being essential to Australian cultural and political
development. I was able to collaborate with the subjects in a more
meaningful way - asking how they would like to be taken and often
having a lively discussion about our ideas of reconciliation during
the photography - be they shared or widely divergent."
