Meet The Honourable Matt Foley, Queensland Writers Centre Chair 2004-2007 - Q&A with Jemma Pollari
The Honourable Matt Foley was Chair of the Queensland Writers Centre Management Committee from 2004 to 2008. He has had an illustrious career as a barrister, minister and social worker, with achievements spanning the public and private sectors. His work has included serving as Arts Minister and Attorney-General in the Goss and Beattie governments, among other roles. He is credited with making the Queensland Supreme Court more inclusive, particularly by appointing more women to the Bench, and introduced Queensland’s first legislation on de facto property rights for opposite and same sex couples.
Jemma Pollari (J.P.): How did you become involved with Queensland Writers Centre?
Matt Foley (M.F.): My first involvement was from 1995, when I became Attorney General and Arts Minister under the Goss Government. As Arts Minister I was the minister responsible for the funding of arts bodies, including the Writers Centre. I’d had a good relationship with the Centre, and Hilary Beaton was a formidable advocate for it. I announced my resignation in August for the upcoming election, in February 2004. I’d had five terms, and it was time to move on.
[Hilary] asked me: they had a vacancy for chair coming up. Would I be willing to stand? She’d talked around and felt there’d be good support for me if I did. I was in two minds about it, because I was just finishing a political career, and going back to work as a barrister. I’d been away from it for fourteen, going on fifteen years, so I had to put a fair bit of effort into it to re-establish my practice. But, on the other hand, it gave me a great opportunity to be in touch with the arts and the writing world, and Hilary was always very persuasive, so I ended up doing what she said, and that’s how I came to be chair. I enjoyed it very much: it was a great opportunity to do what I could to support the cause of writing.
J.P.: From very early in your time with the Centre, you worked on advancing the Centre into regional parts of Queensland. Was regional Queensland a big focus of your time there?
M.F.: That’s true, and that was important. Not just from the point of view of equity and everyone getting a fair go and accessibility, but also from an aesthetic point of view. A cultural point of view. I subscribe to the theory expressed by the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh: all great art is parochial. One might spend a lifetime learning about one field or one laneway. He distinguishes the parochial from those who look over their shoulder to see what’s fashionable in London or Paris or New York instead of exploring their own particular area.
The regional focus was partly because I had been a Minister in the government for Peter Beattie and previously, Wayne Goss, so I was used to travelling a lot to remote areas, to regional areas. So that’s what we did. When I said I think we should make this push, Queensland Writers Centre was completely supportive of it. We spent a lot of time on the road, driving long distances to try and set it up, making links with various local councils, local libraries, regional universities.
I was also very keen on implementing the Poet in Residence. That was an opportunity to be in touch with the world’s best. And the world’s best could very well have come from within Queensland.
We were very fortunate that we got Jacqueline Turner, an eminent poet from Canada [as the first Poet in Residence]. And we had a big coup: we had Paul Durcan from Ireland. He’s published something like forty books of poetry. It was amazing to be in his presence.
I went with him throughout Queensland. We went to a cattle property outside Rockhampton, and he recited some of his poetry under the stars, in the outback, and I thought: ‘This is what the Writers Centre is about, for all Queenslanders.’ Having not only the opportunity for individual Queensland writers to be nurtured and encouraged, but also, for them to rub shoulders with the best of the best in the world, and realise that all of us have this potential, to a greater or lesser extent, within us. To meet people like Paul Durcan was just amazing.
J.P.: You did a lot of things in your role as Chair. What would you say is the biggest legacy of your work?
M.F.: It was an exciting time, a happy time, and a productive time. Take for example, Simon Cleary: he is a very successful novelist, and in launching the book about the Story Bridge, the historic piece that was done there, he paid particular tribute to the Writers Centre and the nurturing, and encouragement and mentoring that he got through it. That’s what it’s all about: encouraging people who’ve got an inkling to have a go, get a bit of feedback, and keep going.
J.P.: Looking back over your whole career, how do you feel about your time with Queensland Writers Centre?
M.F.: I enjoyed [the Queensland Writers Centre] and it was a good chance for me in the transition of public life back into private life: to make a contribution, and still feel part of the arts community and be inspired by some of the wonderful works that other people were writing and reciting.
Jemma Pollari is a speculative fiction author from the Sunshine Coast and has been a member of Queensland Writers Centre since 2012. In her day job, Jemma is a high-school physics teacher who also runs a side-business as a photographer, web designer and app programmer. Jemma holds a Bachelor of Science Communication (Honours), a Graduate Diploma of Education and a Master of Education. Jemma’s ambition is to continue helping foster a sense of purpose and community to other writers through her role on the Management Committee.
This article first appeared in Issue 277 of WQ magazine: The Short. Become a member of Queensland Writers Centre to receive WQ and get upcoming inspiration-filled issues delivered quarterly to your door or inbox.
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