Harry C. Giese

This article is about the Australian public servant. For the German actor (no family relationship), see Harry Giese.

Harry C. Giese
AM, MBE
Harry C. Giese in the 1970s
Born(1913-12-09)9 December 1913
Greenbushes, Western Australia
Died4 February 2000(2000-02-04) (aged 86)
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
OccupationsGovernment administrator, public servant, and community leader
PartnerNancy (Nan) Giese
Websitewww.harrychristiangiese.com.au

Harry Christian Giese AM MBE (9 December 1913 – 4 February 2000) was an Australian public servant. He was the longest-serving member of the Northern Territory Legislative Council, from 1954 to 1973, administering Australian federal government policy for the people of the Northern Territory after being appointed Director of Welfare for the Northern Territory Administration by Paul Hasluck, then Minister for Territories under Prime Minister Robert Menzies. In 1978, after the NT gained self-government, Giese became the first Northern Territory Ombudsman.

Early life and education

Harry Christian Giese (Harry C. Giese, H.C. Giese) was born on 9 December 1913 in Greenbushes, Western Australia,[1] a third-generation descendant of a German family who migrated to Australia in the 1870s.[2][3][4] The family had originally migrated to Clare, South Australia, then Victoria, and then to Western Australia.[1]

Giese attended Bunbury High School, during which time his father was killed by a falling tree when Harry was 14.[1][5] His mother sold the family assets, and it was thanks to a generous bursary scheme and help from his uncles that Giese was able to attend the University of Western Australia (UWA)[1][6] in 1932.[7]

He played Australian Rules football for UWA in 1933. Later switching to rugby union, he became a skilled full-back player and went to Ceylon with a combined Australian team. In 1937 he played for a WA team against the South Africa national rugby union team, and in 1946 for a New South Wales country team against the All-Blacks.[1]

Career

In 1954, after senior public service jobs in Western Australia and Queensland,[8] Giese moved to Darwin, Northern Territory as the Director of Welfare in the Northern Territory Administration,[9][10] after being appointed by Paul Hasluck.[11][12] The Welfare Branch managed a suite of programs for Aboriginal advancement in health, education, housing, job creation and training, and cultural preservation.[1] Giese saw education as key to social change.[13] He established pre-school and primary school services throughout the Territory, and provided opportunities for secondary and tertiary education, and adult education in parenthood and child care, literacy and Australian society. Welfare Branch officers worked with missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, in child, family, and social welfare.[14]

Hostels and institutions included Carpentaria Junior Residential College (Church of England), Retta Dixon Home (Aborigines Inland Mission), and Garden Point Mission (Catholic). The Welfare Branch worked with the Retta Dixon Home at Bagot Aboriginal Reserve in Darwin, a home for Aboriginal children, and some mothers. In response to hearing that the older children were not allowed to attend the cinema or social events in Darwin unsupervised, in 1955 Giese asserted that, since they were wards of the state, the government should have a say in what they were permitted to do "as they approach the age where they will need to undertake their own responsibilities". He also recommended encouraging children from the home to join groups such as the Scouts and Girl Guides and Police Citizens' Youth Clubs, now Police and Community Youth Clubs.[15]

Giese, as director of welfare, was responsible for the Aboriginal Australians in the territory. However he did not appreciate the sophistication of Yolngu culture and law, when he was party to deals with a mining company that wanted to extract bauxite on Arnhem Land which involved excising land from the Yirrkala mission. The lack of consultation with the local leaders led to the submission of the Yirrkala bark petitions to the Australian Parliament in 1963.[16] After an inquiry by a Committee appointed by federal government, they published a report that implicated Giese for his advice to the Governor-General with regard to excising land belonging to the mission, in which he said that the excision would not affect the welfare of the Aboriginal people living there. Giese was further alarmed by the report, that also suggested that Aboriginal people had rights as citizens, and therefore were not wards under his care and control. However, according to historian Clare Wright in her 2024 book about the bark petitions, Giese was "the fall guy, in a sense, for the failings of Hasluck's department in negotiating the original mining agreements".[11]

Harry Giese, first Ombudsman of the Northern Territory, 1978

Giese remained Director of Welfare until 1970.[11] Giese was the longest-serving member of the Northern Territory Legislative Council, from 1954 to 1973, pushing through policies that progressively removed legislative restrictions on the rights of Aboriginal people, and moved towards their citizenship and equality with other Australians.[1][17]

After Cyclone Tracy devastated much of Darwin on 25 December 1974, Giese headed the Darwin Disaster Welfare Council.[1]

In 1978, after Territory self-government, he became the first Northern Territory Ombudsman.[18][19][20][11]

In 1979, Giese recorded an oral history interview for the Northern Territory Archives Service, in which he denied that the Aboriginal leaders had not been consulted about the mining in Gove.[11]

Other activities

As founding chairman of the Northern Territory Committee of the Menzies Foundation, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Menzies School of Health Research,[21][22] serving on its Board of Governors from 1985 to 1995 and as deputy chairman from 1987 to 1995.[1] His committee brought together as stakeholders the NT government, the Menzies Foundation, the University of Sydney, and the embryonic Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University), to set up the Menzies School of Health Research.[23] HE strongly supported the work of the school.[22]

Recognition and honours

Giese was founding president and honorary life member of numerous community service and sporting organisations, including the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, Relationships Australia, NT Rugby Union, Darwin Probus Club, and the Institute of Public Administration Australia.[25][26][27]

Personal life and death

Giese married schoolteacher Nancy (Nan) Wilson at St John's Cathedral in Brisbane on 4 May 1946. She went on to have distinguished career of her own, and the couple had two children.[6]

Giese died on 4 February 2000 in Darwin.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Australian administrator, public servant and community leader". Harry Giese. 16 December 1907. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
  2. ^ Entry in Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography. Charles Darwin University, 2008.
  3. ^ Who's Who in Australia. Herald and Weekly Times. 1977–2000.
  4. ^ "Mr E.A. Giese". Western Mail. Perth, WA: National Library of Australia. 21 December 1907. Retrieved 11 October 2013.(grandfather's funeral, 1907)
  5. ^ "Struck by Falling Tree, Man Fatally Injured". Western Argus. National Library of Australia. 29 November 1927. Retrieved 11 October 2013.(father's accidental death, 1927)
  6. ^ a b c d'Abbs, Peter; Wilks, Stephen, "Harry Christian Giese (1913–2000)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 5 April 2025, This article was published online in 2025. Research edited by Stephen Wilks
  7. ^ a b "Harry Christian Giese". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
  8. ^ "Sporting Round-Up: Fitness Officer's Record". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 31 August 1950. Retrieved 11 October 2013.(early jobs)
  9. ^ "Planning a program for Aborigines in the 1950s". Northern Territory Library Service. 1990. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  10. ^ Northern Territory Administration. "Welfare Branch Annual Reports, 1954–1972". Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  11. ^ a b c d e Wright, Clare (1 October 2024). Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the course of Australian democracy. Text Publishing Company. p. 483,570,etc. ISBN 978-1-922330-86-4.
  12. ^ Hasluck, Sir Paul (1988). Shades of Darkness: Aboriginal Affairs 1925-1965. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84362-0. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
  13. ^ Giese, H. (June 1969). Education, A Key Factor in Aboriginal Advancement. Special Schools Bulletin 6(3).
  14. ^ Northern Territory Administration. "Welfare Branch Annual Report, 1962–1963, pages 79-83". Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Retrieved 19 July 2025.
  15. ^ "Retta Dixon Home (1946–1982)". Find and Connect. University of Melbourne funded by the Australian Government. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
  16. ^ Eccles, Jeremy (21 February 2025). "A Time Capsule for Australia » Aboriginal Art Directory". Aboriginal Art Directory. Retrieved 19 December 2025.
  17. ^ Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. "Index of Legislative Council Debates and Questions, 1948-74". Darwin: Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. Retrieved 20 July 2025.
  18. ^ "Northern Territory Ombudsman First Report, date 1 July 1978 – 27 October 1978".
  19. ^ "Northern Territory Ombudsman, Australian and Pacific Regional Information Manual, 2009, page 24 (19)" (PDF).
  20. ^ "[Biographical cuttings on Harry Giese, containing one or more cuttings from newspapers or journals] - Catalogue | National Library of Australia". catalogue.nla.gov.au. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  21. ^ Wrigglesworth, E.C. (1969). The Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Trust and Foundation: The First Fifteen Years. Melbourne: Menzies Foundation.
  22. ^ a b Wigglesworth, Eric (2000). "Harry Christian Giese, AM, MBE, Menzies Foundation Annual Report 1999". pp. 11–13. Archived from the original on 12 January 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
  23. ^ "Menzies School of Health, The Early Years". Darwin. Retrieved 20 July 2025.
  24. ^ "Mr Harry Christian GIESE MBE, Member of the Order of Australia". Australian Honours Search Facility. Retrieved 2 January 2026.
  25. ^ "Institute of Public Administration Australia". IPAA. Retrieved 20 July 2025.
  26. ^ See Annual Reports and President’s Report of all organisations from the 1950s to 2000 and beyond.
  27. ^ Northern Territory Archives Service, Darwin | NTRS 226, Oral History interviews transcript 755.

Further reading

  • Harry Christian Giese Collection, Charles Darwin University Digital Collections contains documents and images including annual and other reports; speech transcripts; books and pamphlets; discussion, research and conference papers; letters; theses; handbooks and other media. Item List
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