Angela Fredericks has always had a strong sense of social justice.
It’s why she decided to pursue social work as a career, and it’s a key reason she was motivated to step up and become a key figure in the #HomeToBilo campaign.
“I very much got it from my own mother,” Fredericks told Women’s Agenda recently. “Growing up, I was always the friend of the underdog and the girl that stuck up for the people being picked on.”
Fredericks, alongside a group of other residents from the small Queensland town of Biloela, played an integral role in fighting for the return of the Nadesalingam family to their home after they were removed and placed in detention by immigration officials in 2018.
Over a period of five years, Nades, Priya, Kopika & Tharnicaa became the face of Australia’s broken and unjust immigration system and brutal treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.
“I originally met the family when I was working in the hospital in Biloela – this was back in 2017. Priya was going through tremendous stress at the time, there was so much going on. I was there helping with an interpreter,” Fredericks shares.
“The thing about living in a small town like Biloela is that once you meet someone, you continually bump into them. I’d see Priya at the shops and she’d remember you and you’d catch up.”
Fredericks explains it was her good friend, Bronwyn, who had initially been focused on supporting the Nadesalingam family, however when it was clear she would be unable to pursue the campaign in full, she asked Fredericks to step in.
“For me, it was a no brainer. It was very much the case that I was needed,” Fredericks says. “I had gone into private practice because I wanted that autonomy. I wanted to own myself so I could do my best work and this was a perfect example of why I needed to do that.”
“We were a female-led group, and at the time, I was the only one without children. It meant I had the luxury to be able to drop things at a moment’s notice and jump on a plane when I needed to.”
So what was it like, to suddenly find herself at the centre of a national media storm and as the public face of a campaign that was holding the Australian government to account?
Fredericks says she’d had no previous experience in the political sphere, so she was truly thrown in the deep end. But it was always knowing she had a purpose, and keeping that purpose in the front of her mind, that kept her swimming.
“It was a complete baptism by fire,” she says. “We woke up one morning to all these media requests and phone calls and I just had to cancel my work day.”
“Ultimately, I always kept my purpose clear – I knew what I was talking about and what I was fighting for. It helped me push through the tremendous amount of nerves I had, having cameras in my face and not wanting to say the wrong thing.”
Fredericks quickly came to realise that if you lead with purpose, it’s pretty difficult to get things wrong.
“If you’re passionate about something and speaking from the heart, you can’t actually stuff up,” she says.
And the key to the campaign’s success? For Fredericks, it was all about having the right people around.
“We had some awesome people helping – like Simone – who was our legal brain,” she said. “When you build a good team, you aren’t ever alone in the fight.”
“Before I’d go on live TV, I’d message in our group and everyone would come through with their support. That’s so important in leadership, you can’t do it alone, you need a team.”
It’s now been over a year since the Nadesalingam family returned home to Biloela, and Fredericks says they are truly part of her family.
“I had a baby about three months ago, and it’s been a real shift moving our relationship from what was such a purpose driven one, where there were always things we had to do, to now just a relaxed friendship. In the school holidays we had a picnic up at the park and Nades looked after my daughter, and Priya and I could just relax – it’s actually quite bizarre.”
“I now refer to it as a ‘boring friendship’ and it sounds strange, but really that was always the goal.”
Angela Fredericks will deliver a keynote ‘How to be an effective disruptor’ at the upcoming She Leads Conference, hosted by YWCA Canberra in August.