By Ruth Skilbeck
The brutal murder of internationally renowned Aboriginal health advocate Dr Gavin Mooney, 67, and his partner Dr Delys Weston, 62, yesterday, in Tasmania, is a tragic loss not just for family and colleagues and friends but also for social justice, health economic movements and reform in Australia and international networks around the world.
Professor Mooney who is widely regarded as Australia’s leading health economist and Dr Weston his partner of many years, were bludgeoned to death in a brutal attack with hammer and sledgehammer, in the lounge room of their home in a secluded part of Tasmania, 20 km south of Hobart, yesterday. The couple had recently left Curtin University in Western Australia, their most recent appointments, and moved to Tasmania and purchased a spacious residence to enjoy semi retirement, in 2011.
Police have accused Delys Weston’s son from a previous relationship, 27 year old Nicolau Francisco Soares, with the double murder. He had, three weeks previously, gone to stay with the couple, reportedly hoping for a “fresh start”, no motive has yet been identified.
Professor Mooney and Dr Weston had planned to continue their work in social justice health economics, in Tasmania, and Professor Mooney was already becoming deeply involved in local health and social justice issues, according to the testimonies of distressed colleagues.
Professor Mooney was a regular contributor on health issues for the benefit of readers of the local paper The Mercury. He was renowned for working for those who were less well off in society. According to reports as soon as the couple had arrived in Tasmania they devoted themselves to making a valuable social contribution to their new home.
“We’re really quite devastated. Gavin Mooney was making an enormous contribution to social justice in Tasmania” said Tony Reidy from the Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCoss), who said that Professor Mooney had been central to writing the organization’s submission to the state government this year. This is just one example of the many that are now surfacing in the mainstream media of his impact on people and communities he worked in, compounding the social impact of the terrible loss that this family tragedy signifies.
Originally from Scotland, where he started as a trainee actuary in Edinburgh, Professor Mooney was most highly renowned for his work both in academia and in the community to support Aboriginal advancement and self-governance. In 2009 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cape Town in recognition of his work as "one of the founding fathers of health economics". Yet he is best known for his work in advocacy for Aboriginal health and self governance.
Curtin University Vice-Chancellor Jeanette Hackette released a statement yesterday on the university’s website in praise and memory of the couple and Professor Mooney who “worked at academic and community levels to pave the way for Aboriginal control of Aboriginal health care services.’
In the mid 1990s I met and was professionally involved with Delys Weston in connection with a story I was researching on a new Aboriginal Health Service on the Central Coast.
I was unable to publish that important story at the time – due to difficulties faced by freelance journalists in the Australian mainstream news media, at that time.
I will tell that story soon on this site.
