December 2010 Australian Story one of the ABC Networks most popular shows run one of their highest rating shows. Almost a million people tuned in to hear David Graham's Story of Trials and Triumphs on his outback property, the world stage, reality television and ultimately his own family.
Here we have the show in a 3 part series with input from Senator Barnaby Joyce, Radio Host Camilla Serveri, MP Malcolm Turnbull, Former Deputy PM Mark Vaile and Singer Kate Ceberano.
Australian Story Part 1
When David Graham came out to his Big Brother housemates in 2006 it was a waters...
Australian Story Part 2
When David Graham came out to his Big Brother housemates in 2006 it was a waters...
Australian Story Part 3
When David Graham came out to his Big Brother housemates in 2006 it was a waters...
Program Transcript
KATE CEBERANO, PRESENTER: Hello, I’m Kate Ceberano. Tonight’s ‘Australian Story’ is about a man who I first met on ‘Dancing with the Stars’. David Graham is a farmer. He’s a farmer who pushes many boundaries for most of his life. And sometimes his dreams have put him at odds with others, including his own family. This is his own story.
DAVID GRAHAM: Dogs are my life. You come home to your own dog and it's so excited to see you and it says, "You know what? I don't judge you. I don't think that you did so bad today or anything like that, I don't care about any of that. All I care about is that you're home and you're safe and you're here with me”.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: David's childhood was tough. I'm not saying he's a dog boy, but he just learnt to be like the dogs and they became his best friend.
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: I can remember one time he was being naughty and I said "If you keep that up, you can go and sleep outside with the dogs".
DAVID GRAHAM: So that was a pretty good incentive for me to be naughty because I thought it was fantastic. I'm like, "Yes, I don't have to sleep alone in my bed, I get to go and hang out with my mates”.
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: I realised then he was deliberately trying to be naughty so he could go outside with the dogs, so that came to an abrupt end.
JOANNE GRAHAM, SISTER: There were so many high expectations of David. He was going to be the one that would carry forward my father’s dream. He would run the farm, he would get married, he would have children and then that next generation would keep it this whole empire that my father has built going.
DAVID GRAHAM: I think I was born specifically to take on the farm, that's what I was always led to believe as a kid, it was my duty to take it on. It was something that I wanted to do but at the same token, it definitely didn't close off the rest of the world to me. Here’s this kid from Goondiwindi on this big glitzy TV show in the city. I think that it was a positive experience. It definitely helped me deal with many of my demons.
CAMILLA SEVERI, FRIEND: David came out on live television. My heart sank honestly and you do question people’s integrity.
SEN. BARNABY JOYCE: I knew David long before I ever saw him on Big Brother which I think was a bad move David. There’s a stereotype you want to break down you try and not reinforce it by going on some sort of paranoial, voyeuristic load of rubbish which was ‘Big Brother’.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: Certainly did give David a springboard into the media spotlight which he does enjoy, and he's like a moth I guess, it does attract him, or they're attracted to him.
DAVID GRAHAM: By the time I came along, dad was in his 50s. He had this little kid that he had to deal with that, I think was quite different to his other children. I spent most of the years before school out with dad, be it on the grader or just sitting on the back of the Ute out of the way, out of trouble.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: We were grading down this fence line when we first come here. David sat on the outside. The blade caught a stump. David shot out of the seat. But I’ve pulled up and decided there’s only one thing to do. I found a bit of rope and laced him to the back of the seat.
DAVID GRAHAM: He tied me in with big thick flax rope, totally coiled me in so that I couldn't move. Yeah I spent the entire day just tied into this bloody tight as all hell to the side of the door.
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: His father didn't talk to him a lot. It was just "Follow me, I'm in a hurry. Keep up, or miss out".
DAVID GRAHAM: There were plenty of times where I'd be left at a gate.
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: One time David was extremely dehydrated. Then Max came home and he just said "Well, I left him there and drove away".
DAVID GRAHAM: He’d keep going and it's a 14 kilometre jog to get back to the homestead.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: Yeah I’m a different dad. You’ve got to be prepared to walk the line and accept life as it is, it’s not a game, and be responsible. And a lot of people find that just hard to, it gives them indigestion actually.
DAVID GRAHAM: Dad would have got angry or being rough or chastising me. I'd start crying which he always saw as the ultimate weakness and you know, he'd beat me to stop crying, and then, but mum would not stop him but she'd always come in and speak to me afterwards and tell me to be strong and tell me "All you've got to do is do what your dad says and you'll be right, you'll get through".
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: Yes, that happened a lot. That’s where I felt my role was to compensate for Max, so yeah I was there for the balancing act. I think David always felt that he was never going to achieve anything like his father, or never get his father's approval. But Max, he's just not one that praises people all the time.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: No, no. Because once a kid thinks they’re better than they are, you’re creating a problem. Each child works up to a level, when they’ve achieved that level they prepare for the next one and then you praise them when they’ve reach that. It’s like climbing a ladder.
DAVID GRAHAM: As I grew older, he became much rougher and much quicker to be frustrated by what I was not doing right in his eyes. Going away to boarding school, you know, suddenly I was exposed to this whole world and learning stuff and not being chastised from my dad from learning. A lot of the time there was something missing. I didn’t think that I was gay at all. But the problem was that as I matured, that admiration of men that was inside me turned more and more to actual attraction. And then there was this most disgusting and abhorrent battle that happened inside me.
JOANNE GRAHAM: Everyone called him a fag and said he was gay and you know, he used to get picked on quite a bit at school.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: He was horrifically bullied at that school and I'd witnessed it. I walked into the dorms and I could hear, um, all these boys chanting and, sorry, I'm getting emotional again um, picking on him. My brother just cowering in the corner with this huge group of boys. I just scooped him up, just scooped him up and took him away.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: He left school but he made friends away from the locals. I think that’s where David’s took a slightly different approach.
DAVID GRAHAM: In 1999 one weekend, a mate of mine decided that yeah, we’ll head off to Sydney. I walked into a modelling agent in my boots and my jeans and my big belt buckle and my funny outback accent and they fell for it and the next thing I knew I was on a plane and off I went to Europe.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: Yeah it was opposite what I would do. Yeah I’m not for it. I must be honest. I would have been happy with him out with a crowbar and shovel. That would have pleased me more.
DAVID GRAHAM: Within a week I was in Rome and I was modelling and I was doing Hugo Boss.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: Back-packed the world for a couple of years.
DAVID GRAHAM: I worked all my way through Russia and Mongolia and met this local guy who I just kept meeting throughout Mongolia. It was so extraordinary that I was so attracted to this person. And I remember one night we kissed and I don’t think I’d ever felt so much electricity from another person. So much, so much overwhelming power of that’s just right. I knew at that moment that my life was going to be a little bit different from then on. I thought this is extraordinary. You know, should I stay or should I go? And but then there was that attraction back to my farm and everything that I knew. So I arrived back in Australia. My dad allowed me to have my own 5,000 acres and to run my own project, which is using exotic sheep breeds and land management practices.
JOANNE GRAHAM: You know he ran the whole sheep farm by himself for a few years. I had a fair idea that possibly he was gay but he sort of never said anything. I do remember asking him once and he denied it. I think that was probably the hardest part of his life.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: He went through an internal battle for a couple of years searching for anything to fill "Why am I feeling so sad? Why am I so blue? Why am I so angry? Why don't I fit?"
DAVID GRAHAM: There would have been scores of times where rather than shoot hungry sheep, I thought that I should be the one taking a bullet. My mother had always been there for me. I realised that I couldn’t go on any longer not having her know who I was and know where I was with my life. I really had accepted my sexuality, so I told her.
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: Of course I was totally in a state of shock, I guess. Like I do when I can’t deal with something, I just go blank and that’s how I went for some time.
DAVID GRAHAM: I’d no interest in telling my father. We didn’t have the relationship that talks about my personal relationships anyway. He’d made it very clear that whenever there was anything to do with homosexuals on the news or anything like that, his instant comment was “they should all be shot”. In 2006 I did get beaten up by six guys and left for dead.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: My brother was bashed, horrifically bashed. He could fight, he could fight quite well, but not in that situation, no.
DAVID GRAHAM: I had had enough, you know, I’d had enough of people telling me that I didn’t have a right to live. I went on 'Big Brother' simply because I thought that I could make a difference in the world at being a victim of a gay bashing. I thought, you know, if I could get into the living rooms of ordinary Australians, I could show them that there was nothing to fear and there was nothing to hate about a gay person. I thought how am I going to change people’s ideas if I go on the show as a gay bloke? They’re not going change. They’re going to there’s that bloke and he’s gay. You know, the gay one. So I spoke to the producers and I said “what if I go on the show and don’t reveal my sexuality, don’t talk about my sexuality at all, I just go on there as David”. And they said, “Yeah that’s a great idea”. So that was the ultimate plan of going in there and I was thwarted by the lovely Camilla.
CAMILLA SEVERI, FRIEND: As he walked in I thought “Who is this long-haired Brad Pitt?” Cause he is just a darling and we hit it off straight away. We got along like a house on fire. I decided to conveniently ask if he wanted to share a bed with me on the first night. And yeah we had a ball. It was probably about two or three days in where I started to sense that there was something that was holding him back from, you know, something innocent like a kiss or he would hold my hand and we would cuddle but it definitely wasn’t sexual.
DAVID GRAHAM: When I saw how Camilla looked at me and saw that she could feel as though she was deceived, I thought I’ve got to tell her.
CAMILLA SEVERI, FRIEND: The 22 year old girl in me burst into tears for the fact that I had thrown myself at this guy and then everything, you know, fell into place. Why he was so non- committal. Why he didn’t want to kiss. Why he was you know, very friendly. But to me he didn’t go off as being one of those typically ‘gay people’, if I’m allowed to say that. He just wasn’t, you know, my ‘gaydar’ didn’t go off is probably the best way to say it.
DAVID GRAHAM: And not only had I come out to Camilla but I’d also inadvertently come out to my entire community, and of course, my father. So that hit me like a Mack truck.
CAMILLA SEVERI, FRIEND: He was acting very strangely. He wasn’t sleeping. There was an enormous amount of agonising over how his father particularly was going to take him coming out.
DAVID GRAHAM: Just that fear of what dad would do and say. How it would affect me taking on the farm. I suppose everything seemed to ride on it.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: Well I think Big Brother was a bit of a hell for him. But they have to manipulate things don’t they? They have to work it a bit. I mean it’s, they can see something they can make that will bring ratings up.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: The way dad did find out was, um, very public for a very private family initially. We're not private anymore, thanks to Dave. Yeah, that was a really cruel way dad found out.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: I was disappointed, very disappointed. It was a downer for me. I think it’s a tragedy. Yes, it has worn a very, it come pretty heavy on me.
DAVID GRAHAM: Looking back I think it’s the only way I could have come out to my old man.
JOANNE GRAHAM: Here’s our little brother who had all these expectations put on him by both our parents and he’s now not going to be doing what they have bred him to do basically.
CAMILLA SEVERI, FRIEND: David expressed to me how his father had warmed to him in a way that he’d never experienced straight after the show.
DAVID GRAHAM: My father hugging me after 'Big Brother', it was very strange, Was it a father saying, "Forgive me for being not the perfect father"? Um, or was it a father saying, "I forgive you for not being the perfect son"? I don't know what it was and what it meant, but I'm glad it happened. I'm glad we had that.
JOANNE GRAHAM: Coming from the land, my parents have always been involved in the National Party and David has always wanted to be in politics. I mean right from the word go he’s talked about how he’ll one day run this country and be Australia’s Prime Minister and he’s had it planned most of his life.
DAVID GRAHAM: Yeah, definitely see down the track that I would put myself forward to represent an electorate.
SEN. BARNABY JOYCE: I think Australia’s very ready for David Graham as a politician. David is a good candidate. He’s got empathy, he’s got experience, he’s authentic in his political beliefs in that he’s had a long involvement in politics.
DAVID GRAHAM: Being on the 'Big Brother' of course, everyone in the party knew me and suddenly all hell broke loose because I was putting up my hand for a position after I was openly gay. Some of the dinosaurs of the party blocked me for putting my name forward for secretary of the Young Nationals. Barnaby Joyce came out in a big way and publicly backing me, I think could have come to his detriment and, um, could have been something that wouldn't have gone so well for him, but he did it because it was right.
SEN. BARNABY JOYCE: There are so many people in the National Party who are gay but it’s just we don’t, and I’m not one of them, but there’s so many people in the National Party who are gay but they don’t walk around with a wrist band saying I’m gay. I suppose if you said there’s something in the national party as a culture it’s this, its “okay we neither persecute you nor promote you, that’s your business”.
DAVID GRAHAM: It’s not that I’m pro gay rights. Gay rights is one of the many things that I believe. I just believe in equal rights. I think that everyone should be treated equally before the law.
SHARYN GRAHAM, SISTER: David is throughout various changes of his life, is constantly changing, growing, developing, and now he seems to have his feet on the ground. He seems a lot more solid. When he said that he was actually training dogs down in Sydney I went "About time, really about time, that's what you're meant to be doing”.
DAVID GRAHAM: I had this passion for dogs and really thought I should pursue that a lot more. So I set up a business in Sydney, dog training and also volunteer a lot at RSPCA which I’m now an ambassador for I have been trying to find something, I suppose, trying to find balance, trying to find who I am. And para-rescue, I think, ticks a lot of Para-Rescue is when you're first on the scene. Maybe a situation where there’s an earthquake or if there’s a plane crash. The plan is to run a team of dog handlers, and obviously need rescue dogs there to help find survivors straight away, and so I'll be heading up a team.
LUCILLE GRAHAM, MOTHER: I think David likes challenges. But when he said he was going to jump out of aeroplanes, I thought maybe he was going a little bit too far.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: I’ve got to take me hat off to him. It will only be a matter of time before he finds his career. I know he’s going to make a damn good success of it. He’s a Graham and some tough buggers in the Grahams.
DAVID GRAHAM: I strove for my father’s approval in everything. Was absolutely desperate to prove to him that my ideas could work or that I was strong enough or I was good enough. It’s really only been the last couple of years that I’ve really felt that I don’t have to show him that I’m doing anything wonderful, I have to just live my own life and our relationship, I think, has definitely changed. We’re not buddies. We don’t chat about anything other than the farm and our conversations are very limited but ah, I think we now have a mutual respect. I mean, I respect him for what he’s done, for what he’s created out of the bush.
MAX GRAHAM, FATHER: Every farmer wants his son to walk along and say that’s my boy. And yeah, I have to be proud of him what he has achieved. Some of the things he took on I could never achieve. And he took guts, he took a different approach and I guess I’m still proud of him.
DAVID GRAHAM: I suppose my ultimate goal is to have a family, a partner and children. To find that person that you know, we can have a beautiful and complimentary relationship. But it has to be on the land, it has to be in a place whereby, you know, there are dogs, lots of them. Yeah, I don't think I can go through life without returning to the farm. I’ve done a lot of things and they’ve been fun and they’ve been amazing and they’ve been fulfilling, but they haven’t allowed me to fall asleep at night and have that same sense of fulfilment and gratitude for being alive as farming does.
END CAPTION:
The Grahams say formal complaints were made to Toowoomba Grammar School about bullying issues but the school says no such complaints were received and ‘bullying is not tolerated’.