For twenty five years I was a diplomat in some interesting and intriguing places. I drove through the Khyber Pass in 1973 and took photographs of Soviet soldiers and tanks in Kabul in 1986/88.

I was the first diplomat to meet with Benazir Bhutto following her return to Pakistan from exile in 1986. We became good friends, so much so, that when she became Prime Minister in 1988 one of the first things she did was to buy wheat from Australia to the value of $180 million.

I visited South African black townships during Apartheid. I was a friend of Steve Biko and Donald Woods. I was the diplomat that the white South African government wanted to throw out of the country. I took people under threat into my home for protection and others out of the country. I kept people who had been banned in touch with one another. I was portrayed in the Richard Attenborough film 'Cry Freedom' and according to Terry Lane of the Australian Broadcasting Commission the only Australian diplomat to have been portrayed in a feature length film.

I ran headlong into the Howard government when I was on the Refugee Review Tribunal. I established a vineyard and olive grove in Mudgee, New South Wales, Australia.
I have a great wife and ex-wife and five fantastic children.

Sometime soon let me tell you about being a Jackaroo in the Kimberly's of Western Australia. ( What's a Jackaroo? ). And soon I will also tell you what it was like to work on an oil rig in the desert in land from Broome ( not too far from the Kimberly's ), drive a taxi in Port Hedland during a mining boom, get conscripted into the army, go to university and work on a newspaper.

Watch this space and place.

All the best 

Bruce Haigh