Football, family and forgiveness: the driving forces of Michael Long's life

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a day ago

Star footballer, activist, reformist, leader: Michael Long has worn many labels in his 55 years.
Now there is a new label to describe the Anmatjere and Marranunggu man from the Tiwi Islands: NAIDOC lifetime achievement honoree.
When I sat down to speak with Michael about his significant contributions, he was adamant that nothing he did was achieved alone, making sure those who helped him along the way were recognised as well.
It's a long list, including his parents Agnes and Jack, the St Mary's Football Club where he got his start, Essendon Football Club for drafting him in 1989 and coach Kevin Sheedy for his support on the field and off, and perhaps most surprisingly, Damian Monkhorst, the Collingwood player whose racist abuse of Long sparked major change in the AFLM.
"Damian Monkhorst, he has had just as much impact on racial vilification and what happens in our game, and I have enormous respect [for him]," Long said.
"He's now become just as important to the rule as I have and I take my hat off to him. You know what he's done is impact on the other side of the fence."
It was just over 30 years ago — during the 1995 ANZAC day clash between Essendon and Collingwood — Monkhorst called Long a racial slur on the field.
After the game, Long decided to proceed with an official complaint, pushing the AFL to do more to protect non-white players from what he called "tactics" used to put Indigenous and other diverse players off their game.
"Obviously, I spoke to the club that we needed to put something into place to protect not just Indigenous players, but all players with different backgrounds," he said.
Taking a stand against racist abuse garnered huge public interest and put a lot of pressure on the then-26-year-old.
"I had so many different letters and death threats and they came every day. You are trying to focus on your football, and you had that in the back of your mind as well, and we were having our first child and had the media at our front doorstep," he said.
The incident led to the AFL's then-groundbreaking racial vilification policy, which bans the harassment of players on the basis of race or ethnicity, and lays out processes for complaints, investigations, and conciliation processes.
While he thinks the league still has much to overcome, Michael Long is proud of the changes he made.
"So much good that has come out of the racial vilification [code], even though it was the hardest, hardest time and probably my lifetime playing in," he said.
Twenty years after the incident, Long met with Monkhurst at the end of the 11th Long Walk to Dreamtime at the 'G. The two men shook hands in a show of forgiveness, Monkhorst calling the incident a "terrible mistake".
"I think the greatest way to show that is to forgive someone and make a bigger impact amongst not just Indigenous, but the Australian community and the football community," Long said.
Long credits the influence of his parents, Stolen Generation survivors who grew up on Catholic missions, for his decision to forgive Monkhorst.
"My mother was very Catholic and a very humble person and very forgiving and [had] all those morals as a churchgoer, and my father, they both grew up on a Catholic mission. I suppose part of that's embedded in you, and that's who you are," he said.
"I speak to Damien now and then and yeah, we have a good relationship."
After his instrumental efforts in two Essendon premierships, including becoming Norm Smith medalist in the 1993 Grand Final, Long's playing career ended in the early 2000s. It was then he turned his public profile and platform towards activism for Indigenous rights.
In 2004, the Howard government announced it would abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), leaving many Indigenous people shocked and outraged.
In response, Michael Long vowed to walk from Melbourne to Canberra to try and meet with the Prime Minister and ensure Indigenous rights would remain on the agenda.
"In 2004, ATSIC had been abolished, and I think I had come back from a funeral, and thought 'what is happening?' You know, we've lost any type of voice or working at the government at the highest level. Where is the love for our people and the challenge we face?" he said.
"That is why I felt really strongly about, when ATSIC was abolished, to keep Indigenous issues on the highest agenda with the government, because I just felt we had no vision, we had no voice. It has just been abolished."
Setting off on the 650-kilometre trek from Melbourne with his cousin was an almost "spontaneous" decision, according to Long. But there is an innate connection between First Nations people and walking.
For mob, walking can have much deeper meaning than just a mode of transportation. It is a form of connection to country and it is integral for survival.
As Wakka Wakka and Gooreng Gooreng woman, Professor Sandra Phillips, wrote in 2022, it is walking that connects generations of First Nations people.
"Walking is inherent to the experience of being Aboriginal and for a millennia along songlines and trade routes, walking went without massive disruption," she wrote in Walking While Aboriginal.
It is no surprise that over the years since colonisation, walking has been the way that many blackfellas have called for change.
The Long Walk, as it was dubbed, was just the latest in a long history of Indigenous people taking literal steps to advocate for their rights.
These include protest walks by William Cooper against Nazi Germany and colonisation, the walk-offs of Wave Hill station and the Cummeragunja Mission over treatment of Aboriginal people, the 1988 bicentenary protests and the 2000 walk for reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
"Walking is a good, strong message of bringing people along with you," Long said, reflecting on his decision at the time.
"It wasn't just about me; it was about the community and people who [had] come along from different communities. They believed in what we wanted to achieve by walking and taking that and putting Indigenous issues back on the national agenda."
The journey didn't come without risks.
He again received death threats and while on the road he shared fears with a reporter that he would be "shot" while on his way.
"There was someone that did put a threat, and I think it was one of the towns. That was the last thing I wanted, [for] people to join me and have that hanging over their heads as they are walking along."
Long spoke to his fellow walkers, assuring them he wouldn't think any less of them if they didn't want to continue the journey.
"But they all stayed," he said.
"They stayed and you talk about strength, and you talk stay the course, no-one left, so I think that was probably just as powerful as what we were trying to achieve."
In the end, Long and his supporters only made it to Albury before John Howard called to offer him a meeting.
"By the time we got there, the integral moment was meeting the prime minister, but most importantly, we got the message out there to Australia before we got to Canberra," he said.
In 2023, the Long Walk headed from Melbourne to Canberra in support of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
"What we wanted to see happen as part of the referendum and the Constitution, you know, we had a great moment in time in Australia to do that and it was so sad," he said.
"After the walk and the outcome and I don't think I left the house for a few days, but you've got to get back on your horse. We've got to keep pursuing what we've been doing.
"It just shows that there is a lot more, a lot more work to be done in our own backyard, in our own community. As much as it failed. It doesn't stop us from continuing.".
At 55, Long still has plenty he wants to do and big plans for his future advocacy, education, and development work, though he laughs that the NAIDOC committee might be "telling him something" in giving him a lifetime achievement award.
"People are recognising what you have done and your community and I've used football as leverage to give kids an opportunity," he said.
"Football has been good to me, and I hope I've been good to football. Hopefully, a lot of good things have come out of it."
His eponymous foundations, the Michael Long Foundation and the Michael Long Learning and Leadership Centre, have been running for around a decade now. They fund Indigenous education and football programs, while working to nurture up-and-coming talent in the Northern Territory.
"It's basically around education and football and using that to keep our kids in school. Obviously, there is a pathway with football for our young men and women," he said.
Now there are expansion plans on the horizon at Long's old football club, setting up a Michael Long Centre at Essendon's Windy Hill training ground.
"That's the next challenge … We see that as a national satellite to the one we have in Darwin," he said.
"Then hopefully we can start to implement that with other states as well.
"Football is one of the biggest opportunities and pathways. So I'm pretty excited about that."