Some People Want to Shoot Me

Madelaine Dickie · Wayne Bergmann

Feb 2024 · Fremantle Press

About this ebook

'I've spent the majority of my life fighting for the rights of Traditional Owners. This has put me in the firing line. But I chose this job, I chose this political path. My family did not.' - Wayne Bergmann

It's Broome, 2010. Nyikina man Wayne Bergmann has just received a death threat. His wife has watched a friend cross the road to avoid speaking with her. His children are subject to intense schoolyard bullying. Bergmann, a boilermaker by trade, and lawyer, is chief executive of the Kimberley Land Council during the controversial James Price Point gas hub negotiations. It's an event that will tear the Broome community apart. Wayne's story starts on Nyikina country and encompasses backbreaking station work, buried treasure, a Swedish bone thief and traditional magic love songs. His is an electrifying tale of resilience, determination and optimism, which shows what it takes to be an Aboriginal person walking in two cultures in a country where racism runs deep.

About the author

Madelaine Dickie loves to write, loves to surf and loves fishing with her hundred-pound handline. In the last twelve years she's wandered and worked in Jakarta, Broome, Wyndham, Tokyo, Exmouth and Arnhem Land. In 2022, she took off on an eight-month surf drift through Mexico with her husband and eighteen-month-old son. They had a pistachio-coloured Mexican Nissan. The car's transmission blew just shy of a mountain pass boobytrapped with bandits. A week later it caught fire at a border crossing. When Madelaine takes a break from living dangerously you can find her at the desk, writing. Her debu Wayne Bergmann is an Indigenous leader from the Kimberley region. He is recognised as one of Australia's leading advocates for Indigenous self-determination through economic empowerment and opportunity, specialising in native title and mining negotiations, capital and business structuring. Bergmann is a Nyikina man, boilermaker-welder, lawyer and entrepreneur. He has served as Executive Director of Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Chief Executive Officer of the Kimberley Land Council and KRED Enterprises Charitable Foundation and is the founding Chairman and Director of the Kimber