Garry Higgins admits that his impetuosity probably cost him his senior career at Princes Park.
But Carlton’s best first year player of 1975 has well and truly found his calling in the community at large – which is why he’s calling on his old club to lead the way in raising awareness to problems associated with family violence.
A hard-working Rotarian in his home town, Higgins is front and centre as Family Violence Coordinator for the organisation’s local initiative Say NO2familyviolence in Maryborough.
Located in Victoria’s Central Goldfields district and boasting an estimated population of 12,500 citizens, the town’s closest regional cities are Bendigo to the north east and Ballarat to the south east, with the smaller communities of Bealiba, Carisbrook, Dunolly, Majorca, Talbot and Bowen- vale-Timor make up the outlying districts.
Regrettably, Maryborough is today known for one of the state’s highest unemployment rates of 11 per cent which is around twice the state average. Worse still, the socio-economic indexes which monitor disadvantage, economic resources, education and occupation, have consistently rated Maryborough amongst Victoria’s worst.
Which is why Higgins, together with fellow Maryborough Rotarians, was mobilized into action.
For Higgins, motivation was based on the premise that remedying the issue was the responsibility of all living within the area.
“Two and a half years ago, the Rotarians of Maryborough undertook a strategic plan, which gave us the direction to focus on our local community,” Higgins said.
“Our club realised that the community itself had to change its own situation, rather than having to rely on members of the bureaucracy who fly in to places like ours, fly out again and leave nothing behind.
“We work very closely with our local council through its welfare department which is called ‘Go Goldfields’ and the state government have put a lot of money into helping us to try to address that disadvantage.”
1975 team photo: Garry Higgins in the back row (centre) standing between Eaglehawk's Greg Kennedy (left) and Dunolly's Wayne Deledio, father of Richmond's Brett.
Higgins said addressing the issue of family violence was a particular focus for Rotary “in a town where high levels of generational disadvantage, unemployment and low literacy and numeracy skills goes hand in hand with it”.
“It’s a hangover from the old manufacturing days, because Maryborough was built on the blue collar industries like the metal and the rag trades which are no longer around of course.
“So we’ve seen a big change to the community.”
Though the statistics paint a grim picture, Higgins hastens to add that there has been a breakthrough.
“When we first started three years ago, 60 per cent of all pre-school age children in Maryborough required speech therapy,” he said. “Now after three years it’s down to 30 per cent and that’s a huge turnaround.”
In terms of its anti-family violence push, Maryborough Rotary enlisted the support of the district’s local police, health service and secondary colleges – together with members of the legal fraternity and actual family-violence victims.
This week, the organization turns to Higgins’ former club, as the Carlton players complete their community visit to Maryborough.
For Higgins, the timing is right – particularly given the obvious culture change to which Carlton has been subjected.
As he said: “What an opportunity for this club to take a lead role in this area”.
