Bill Williams, passionate for improved health outcomes for Aboriginal people



This was published 4 years ago

Bill Williams, passionate for improved health outcomes for Aboriginal people

By James Massola and Dave Sweeney

Bill Williams, doctor, author, anti-nuclear campaigner, father and grandfather has died at the age of 57 leaving a legacy in the fields of medicine, literature, Aboriginal health policy and in the anti-nuclear movement that will long survive his passing.

There is no single anecdote, moment, or story that can capture the essence a life so well-lived – instead, just a quartet of passions that hint at the enormity of a character, a spirit, a man gone far too soon.

Bill Williams with wife Gisela were married for 33 years.

Bill Williams with wife Gisela were married for 33 years.Credit:Justin McManus

In his work as a rural GP in his home town of Torquay, on Victoria's Surf Coast; in Alice Springs and the remote Aboriginal community of Kintore in Australia's red heart where he lived and practiced for many years; and overseas, in Africa and South America, where he worked with rural communities, Williams healed thousands of people.

A general practitioner, he deeply understood and was moved by Aboriginal marginalisation and nuclear threats, and spent decades working tirelessly and effectively to highlight the challenges of both.

Bill Williams' final book told of his wife Gisela's brain aneurysm and her successful journey back to health.

Bill Williams' final book told of his wife Gisela's brain aneurysm and her successful journey back to health.Credit: Justin McManus

His extensive experience and work in the Northern Territory's Western Desert distilled an intellectual understanding of the impact of multiple adverse health factors into a potent fuel that drove his passion for change and improved health outcomes for Aboriginal people.

But medicine was just one of Williams' passions.

He produced three books – Men, Sex, Power and Survival, co-written with Gisela Gardener, his wife of 33 years; his novel, Kumanjayi's Country and his final book, Bleed, which told the heart-wrenching story of Gisela's brain aneurysm, hundreds of kilometres from medical back-up, and her successful journey back to health.

In these, as well as through his numerous journal articles, he touched the lives of countless other people.


Politics, and how political decisions impact on the world, was his third passion.

In the words of Gisela, he fought against the things that "threatened the life and health of everything else he loved".

He was a past president of MAPW, the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, a co-founder of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and served as an International Councillor with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

He was as at home in the corridors of Canberra, Washington or Geneva as he was in his surgery, at his writing desk, or on a picket line (a place where he met Gisela). He worked as an advocate, an adviser and an activist – always seeking to advance the themes of anti-militarism, non-violence and a nuclear-free future.

As ICAN stated on his passing: "For decades, he spoke out passionately against nuclear weapons, nuclear power and uranium mining. He cared deeply for those in Australia, the Pacific and elsewhere in the world who have suffered from these horrific weapons and toxic industries."

Williams penetrated the fog of post-Cold War world with sharp analysis, strong evidence and an infectious mixture of hope, humour and humanity. His efforts made a real difference and the campaign he helped start is now gaining real global traction with its push for an international treaty ban on nuclear weapons.

He lived by the adage "think globally, act locally", and was moved by love for people, place and country.

Born to Judith and Dr Hugh Williams in the Victorian regional city of Geelong, the third of five brothers, and a third generation doctor, Williams was a talented student who was selected in the first XI, the first XVIII and who served as school vice-captain at Geelong College.

One year after finishing school and commencing medical studies at Melbourne University he almost gave it up.

His mother, Judith, recalls that a placement in the children's ward of a Melbourne hospital, full of sick and disabled children so shook his faith he almost walked away from his chosen profession.

Instead, as was his wont, he embraced a life of service that took him to many parts of the globe, from travelling through South and Central America, working in Costa Rica and learning of the Sandinistas' struggle in Nicaragua to rural Zimbabwe, in his fifth year of medicine, to work at the Mary Mount Mission.

During a period in the 1990s as police surgeon in Geelong, Williams implemented lasting reforms including ensuring that women who had experienced domestic or sexual violence were initially assessed by a female doctor.

When Williams was not working hard to generate a wave of support for his passions, he could often be found paddling hard for a wave along the Surf Coast.

The surfing bug bit in his teens. He loved the coast, surfing most days and talking about surfing on those he didn't. He gained deep pleasure and perspective from the ocean and the natural world. He was at home and at peace in a swag under desert stars, walking amid Tasmania's bark cathedrals or rambling along the Rhine.

He was, perhaps, most at home on a surfboard in the surf at Bells Beach (where he got to know Gisela and his young daughter, Daisy), in his sprawling vegetable garden or in his adopted Germany, birthplace of his beloved wife, practising one of the many languages he became fluent in and indulging his passion for ice cream on one of their many trips there.

A reader of Latin, Greek and German who once contemplated running away with the circus; a sure-handed medico who taught himself the banjo; the smartest person in the room, an inveterate spinner of yarns who would listen first and speak second, Williams was a natural patrician and a renaissance man.

He drew deeply from the inheritance of cultures past and continuing – from Greek legends, medieval history and Aboriginal being and thinking.

He wore his linen suit, motif shirt and Panama hat with natural flair and delight, including every garish shirt his daughters bought.

He was equally comfortable in a starred restaurant or with his hands deep in the dirt of his beloved vegie garden.

He could sail, surf, preserve fruit, graft trees, cook, play music and do far more than order beer in five languages.

In the words of his daughter Lily: "He always listened: he cultivated all of his life like he cultivated his garden. He could change people's views and open their minds."

Bill Williams leaves behind Gisela, his daughters Daisy and Lily, Daisy's partner Clancy and two grandchildren – Remy and a little boy who entered the world five days after he left it.

He is survived by his mother Judith, his older brothers Timothy and Mark, his younger brothers Nicholas and Tony, their partners and their six sons, five daughters and one grandchild.

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