Paulie Stewart

Paulie Stewart OAM is an Australian rock legend. He’s also a legend of the movement advocating for the freedom of East Timor and West Papua.

In the 1980s, he channelled his anger from the murder of his brother, one of the Balibo Five, into the infamous Painters & Dockers band that put the Australian music scene on notice. From being formed with the intention of a one-time performance to pay a friend’s parking fine, it became a forty-year-long punk rock band with a cult following.

Paulie’s activism also formed the Dili Allstars, which highlighted the plight of the Timorese, and he tirelessly supports Timor-Leste’s Alma Nuns.

Not only was he a rockstar and an activist, Paulie also worked as a music journalist with the Melbourne Herald Sun for thirty years.

St Kilda-born, Paulie has a close affinity with Australia’s First Nations people: his daughter was the first female Prime Minister in Australia’s National Indigenous Youth Parliament. He was instrumental in setting up charity and music industry groups the PRICS, the Mirabel Foundation, The Push and Ausmusic.

Despite his life-threatening liver transplant, Paulie continues to mentor refugees and young
people at risk and is still performing with the Dili Allstars and Painters & Dockers.