Paulie Stewart OAM - Activist, Punk Rocker
Lead Singer of “Painters and Dockers”
Q: Let’s start with music, because that’s how I first knew you—in the pub gigs of the ’80s. Do you give your music a label? Do you call yourself punk?
A: I never considered myself a musician at all. I sort of got into it by accident—my claim to fame was being a bad trumpet player in the school band. But I went to all the punk gigs and ran into this group of guys. One day at the South Melbourne Market, one of them said, “Didn’t you play trumpet at school?” I said, “Yeah, but I was shithouse.” He replied, “Doesn’t matter—it’s punk. Just come along and play one song.”
So we did this benefit gig in Port Melbourne. The drummer was Billy Walsh from Cosmic Psychos. We needed a band name, and since the pub was the Painters and Dockers’ pub, we thought, “We’ll call ourselves that—for one night only.”
That night the neighbour hated the noise so much he jumped the fence with an axe and started chopping up the mixing desk. Kids freaked out, someone rang the cops, and three divvy vans turned up. The one rule at the Painters and Dockers’ pub was no cops allowed. A huge brawl broke out—beer, blood, vomit everywhere. I was on stage playing one song thinking, “I want to do this for the rest of my life.” Forty years later, we’re still going.
Q: You had a reputation as the “bad boys” of Melbourne. Was that deserved?
A: Not at all—we were the softest pussies you’d ever meet. But because we were linked with the union, people assumed we were hard-asses. Like when the Picasso was stolen, the cops came straight to us saying, “Give it back.” We hadn’t touched it! But we played it up.
Our video clips didn’t help either. Mushroom Records wanted us on a yacht with models for Nude School. We said, “No—we’ll do it naked on a pig farm.” Then for Die, Yuppie, Die, we filmed outside the Melbourne Stock Exchange—on the very day the world financial markets collapsed. Time Magazine even mentioned it, saying the crash was “kicked off” by us. We loved the chaos and leaned into it.
Q: When you play today, do you perform new material or mostly the old stuff?
A: A mix of both, but the crowds mostly want the old songs. Our fans were in their twenties back then—now they’re in their fifties and sixties. They come back to relive their youth, and suddenly you’ve got bald guys stage-diving and pogoing like it’s 1982.
Just last week we played in Brisbane with a huge crowd. Jeremy Oxley from the Sunnyboys joined us, and we did a couple of their songs together. That was special.
Q: The Melbourne pub scene of the 1980s was legendary. What was that like for you?
A: Incredible. You’d know it—you said you were at gigs around 1980. We’re about the same vintage. It was an amazing scene.
These days, I even run the Punk Rock Walking Tour for the St Kilda Council. Fitzroy Street had the famous Thursday Night Crawl—you started at the Prince and worked your way along. I bet you were there too.
Q: Your brother Tony was one of the Balibo Five. How did that affect you at the time? Were you angry?
A: I wasn’t sure that I was angry, but I knew my mum was—she was devastated. Later, when I was starting the Painters and Dockers, one of my friends said I’d be a great frontman because I was so angry and could just scream the words out. That fire came from somewhere.
Q: You’ve also been very involved with East Timor. How did that begin?
A: I was deeply involved in supporting East Timor’s fight for independence from Indonesia. One day I came home to find a strange man dozing on my couch. He introduced himself as Xanana Gusmão—who later became East Timor’s first president. We’ve been close friends ever since. Out of that, I created the Dili Allstars, a band to support the Timorese people and their struggle.
Q: And now you’re supporting West Papua?
A: Yeah. What happened in East Timor is happening again in West Papua. I came to this interview wearing my “Free West Papua” T-shirt. I’ve been part of the Rize of the Morning Star albums that support their liberation movement.
Q: You’ve also been active with First Nations Australians.
A: That’s right. My daughter even became the first female Prime Minister of the Australian Youth Parliament—a proud moment for me.
Q: More recently, you’ve been working with the homeless in Melbourne. Can you tell me about that?
A: I work with the Salvation Army and Collingwood Football Club at the Magpie Nest Café in Melbourne. I suggested we have music one day a week for the homeless community there, and it’s grown from strength to strength. Music creates joy and connection, even in tough times.
Q: Looking back, do you have any regrets?
A: Only that I took drugs—especially heroin—when I was younger. Sharing needles gave me hepatitis, which meant I later needed a liver transplant. That’s the one thing I’d change if I could.