Mary Gaudron - Youth

Youth

Gaudron was born in Moree, in northern rural New South Wales, in 1943, the daughter of working class parents Edward and Grace. Gaudron would later speak about the intense racism towards Indigenous Australians which was a part of everyday life in Moree and how it influenced her strong opposition to all forms of discrimination; indeed, Moree was the site of a violent conflict during the Freedom Ride of 1965.

In 1951, H.V. Evatt passed through Moree to campaign for the "no" case in the 1951 referendum, at which the Menzies Liberal government was attempting to alter the Constitution of Australia in order to ban the Australian Communist Party. Evatt was addressing a small crowd from the back of a blue Holden ute, discussing the upcoming referendum and the Constitution, and Gaudron, not knowing what Evatt was referring to, asked "Please sir, what's a Constitution?" to which Evatt explained that it was "the laws by which Parliaments were governed." Gaudron asked whether it was similar to the Ten Commandments, and Evatt replied that "you could call it the Ten Commandments of government." Gaudron then asked for a copy, and Evatt subsequently sent her one in the mail; Gaudron, expecting two stone tablets, was disappointed to receive only a small pamphlet. However, when the school bullies declared the pamphlet useless, Gaudron retorted that it was of great use to lawyers, and that some day she would be one.