Watna Mori – The Colonial Legacy and How We Rewrite The Story

Welcome to Episode 54 of Good Will Hunters, with Watna Mori, Papua New Guinean-Australian human rights lawyer.

Watna and I attended the Australia-PNG Emerging Leader’s Dialogue together a few weeks ago. I met Watna at Brisbane Airport and I think about 10 seconds into our conversation we were already laughing – which you’ll certainly hear us do more of in this episode. Watna grew up between Papua New Guinea and Australia.

She studied law, and now works primarily in the area of human rights law. She has also worked in the Manus Island and Nauru Detention Centres representing asylum seekers. Watna also does a whole lot more, which we’ll start to unpack in this episode.

You’ll hear us chat about growing up between Australia and PNG, Australia’s colonial legacy and the impact of offshore detention on that legacy, the need for more locally owned tourism in PNG, the future of Australian aid to PNG, and more.

This episode gets to the heart of a few topics that are very important to me, and so many of us – offshore detention, healing our colonial legacy, cultural and intellectual property and aid dependency.

I suggest listening to this one with a cup of tea in hand – there’s a lot to take in!

Enjoy,
Rachel and the GWH Team