Matt and the Media

Australian Story : 26/04/2001

A Sense of Destiny
Producer: Ben Cheshire
Researcher: Mara Blazic

Hello. I'm Lisa Wilkinson. After many years of working in magazines and television, I've been lucky enough to meet some pretty extraordinary people. But very few are as special as somebody you're about to meet - somebody I call a really good friend, Matt Laffan. When you first meet Matt, you can't help but wonder why some people are given so many challenges to get over in life. In Matt's case, I think maybe it's because he can be an inspiration to everyone he meets.

MATT LAFFAN: For people in my situation - well, there are two choices. There's the choice that you embrace life and you participate, or you don't. The alternative - don't - I just can't comprehend what that would mean. I cannot imagine not using my brain. I cannot imagine not being surrounded by intelligent, interesting people, and I cannot imagine not having a goal in life. It just comes from - I guess it might even be a sense of destiny.

When I was born I was given time to live - a very short time. And I was given one week. And so I guess when I took in those first sharp breaths, something went deep inside of me other than the oxygen. There was this will to live, this knowledge that life really is about a short race and making everything, making what you can of every opportunity that comes your way. I guess when people ask me how has it been growing up with a disability or, in fact, living with a disability, it's a little bit like, for me, that great Australian film 'Babe' and the pig - the pig who didn't realise he was a pig. For me, it's very much the same. I'm someone living with a disability and have always done so, but I don't really realise I have a disability until a situation where people point it out to me.


JOANNE SUTTON, friend: When they first meet him, they're a bit sort of apprehensive and a bit sort of shy. They don't know what to say and they don't know if they should ask him about his disability. But he just sets people at ease and engages them in conversation. Two minutes later, they totally forget that they are talking to somebody with a disability.


MATT: When I was trying to decide what it is I wanted to work towards, the law I felt was a career in which I could use my abilities and my disabilities, as it were, would be regarded as of no real consequence from the beginning. I work at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for New South Wales. The interesting thing is in the court, people often, the first opportunity they have to speak to me as a lawyer is over the telephone. Sometimes I'll let them down easily and say, "look, I'll be easy to spot. I should be the only bloke in an electric wheelchair in the court. Come up and introduce yourself." Sometimes I forget. And I've had a couple of coppers say, "My God! This is you? You came across the telephone as being six foot tall, and about to tear the place apart."


NICK COWDERY, Director of Public Prosecutions: The office of the DPP has a competitive employment practice. Matt had to compete in that process along with everybody else, and he was successful in obtaining a permanent position.

I think one of the lessons that arises out of Matt's achievements is that any physically disabled person, when given the opportunity, when given the access, can achieve just as much, if not more, than an able-bodied person, because there is something in that determination, something in that application, the will to succeed, which very often propels such people above able-bodied people. And that certainly has been the case with Matt.


MATT: Victims, witnesses and accused seem to regard me as other lawyers do. I think there's this feeling that, well, he's got this far, let's just see how he goes now. Right? He's got this far so he must be alright. Sometimes I think it might work in my favour, and they think, "Crikey! this bloke must be good," you know? So we'll run with that and see how we go.


Rugby, the game which everyone knows is played in heaven, was always going to be a natural sport to which I would head because of my dad. He is a rugby coach and went on to coach New South Wales Country, New South Wales 'B' and New South Wales. He is the man who has shown me what I can do, and he has offered me every support I've ever needed.


DICK LAFFAN: It was 30 years ago that we were waiting for Matt's arrival. There'd been an X-ray, but we didn't notice that there was anything untoward. The doctor who delivered Matt called me over to have a look at him when he was wheeled out of the theatre. The doctor was somewhat agitated and asked if there'd been any history of dwarfism in the family. I'd say you'd have to say I was shocked and quite upset about it, but it had happened and he was our son, so that's where you go from there. I mean, for some time we weren't sure whether he'd survive.


JENNY LAFFAN: At the time, the medical staff thought he wouldn't survive more than perhaps two or three days. People didn't know exactly what the problem was for quite some time. My father was an obstetrician and a gynaecologist and he went through X-rays and had more X-rays done, and he did the research and he actually diagnosed the baby's condition - diastrophic dysplasia.


MATT: In simple terms, that means that I'm born with short limbs - they don't grow to a normal length. Also, scoliosis and kyphosis of the spine, which is a twisting of the spine which becomes more obvious the older you get. It's inherited and it's a recessive gene. It's just one of those flukes of nature whereby two people carry the gene and come together and their offspring inherit it.


JENNY LAFFAN: I was really looking forward to having more children. Our plan was always to have six children. My engagement ring has eight diamonds - six children and me and Dick. That was our plan.


DICK: What we had to do was find out what the chances were of the same thing happening, and they were one in four chances, but they could have been much worse. So we came to the conclusion that there'd be no more children.


MATT: Last year, I was lucky enough to be one of the torch bearers for the Paralympics. These bright-eyed, confident little Koori kids came up to me and wanted to hold the torch. So I gathered them and their little buddies and their teacher together and showed them the torch, and we had some fun, and then they invited me to their school.

When you want to be something - say you want to be a teacher or you want to be a lawyer like me, or you want to be a nurse or you want to be the best footballer - and things get a bit tough, I want you to think of me, OK? And what I want you to think about is this - I'm always gonna be taller than that, I'm always gonna be stronger than that, and I'm most likely gonna be smarter than that. And if Matt can do it all, then I can do it too. Okay?



DICK: Matt, really from a very early stage, progressed better than we thought. We didn't expect him to walk - he did walk. He became, very early in the piece, once he could talk, a very good conversationalist. Anything that he thought he could perhaps have a go at, he tended to have a crack at it.



JENNY: Many of our family and friends thought that we should send him to a special school, but we didn't want to do anything like that. We wanted him to have a really normal childhood.


DICK: As Matt got older, the spine, instead of growing normally, started to twist, and that's when the physical difficulties really started.


JENNY: Dick noticed that he couldn't work his tricycle anymore, that his legs weren't working properly for him. And then we noticed that his walking was becoming more and more difficult, and he started to show pain in his face.


MATT: At the age of 10, it became obvious that I required an operation to correct the twisting of my spine.


DICK: We were told of the risks involved, but there was no alternative.


JENNY: I don't remember being told there was any risk. I just remember thinking from now on, Matthew would be fine. No more pain. He'd be able to walk.


MATT: I was, of course, oblivious to how dire the situation was. I was aware that I may not walk again, but I didn't realise that there was every likelihood I could die during the operation.


JENNY: As Matthew started to recover from the surgery itself, it became more and more obvious that he had lost all movement and all sensation from the mid-thoracic region down.


MATT: I was asked to wriggle my toes and apparently I did. I was asked whether I could feel my toes, and apparently I could. A very short time after that, I couldn't. So it was probably a blood clot or some bruising or...I don't know. It's a very traumatic operation around that particular area.


JENNY: I thought... I thought, we will survive this together. We will fight through this together. And we'll survive it.


MATT: It was obvious that a manual wheelchair wasn't gonna be right for me because of the length of my arms, so an electric wheelchair was the ticket. As soon as I got in it, I felt an immediate sense of independence. I was able to move. I was without pain. And there was a sense of freedom.


DICK: The fact that Matt couldn't play wasn't frustrating for me. What I tried to do was share as much of my enjoyment in the game with him. And fortunately, he has enjoyed it. And perhaps if I'd had a son who was normal who wasn't much good at the game, then he mightn't have been at all interested and there wouldn't have been that bond that we've got together.


MATT: Dad being involved with the New South Wales team was fantastic for me as well in as much as it exposed me to players who ended up being the world's best - Nick Farr-Jones, who went onto be the World Cup Captain in '91, and Peter Fitzsimons. These guys, at first, were my heroes. They were fellows I looked up to. But what these fellows did for me was introduce me to their world, and make me feel and believe that my world was a part of theirs. So they'd send me a postcard or, if I was ever crook, they'd give me a phone call and see how I was going. And as the years progressed, these heroes became friends. And I don't know of many people who have had that opportunity.


NICK FARR-JONES: We cracked a fairly instant affinity and we enjoyed early discussions. And I knew how passionate Matt was for the game, and that amazed me. You know, there was an instant bonding because of that - that I saw a young fella who obviously couldn't play the game, but his knowledge of the game and his love for it his passion for it, was burning. And from then on, we just became good mates.


PETER FITZSIMONS: Matt ain't a disabled person. He really, fair dinkum, is a man with disabilities. He's a man first, and after it comes these disabilities. And in many ways, these disabilities are the least interesting thing about him. He has intelligence, he has humour, he has drive, he has great integrity, great honesty, great faith.

The other thing about Matt is he's a very blokey sort of bloke. Where does he get that blokiness from? I don't think you'd have to look too much further than his dad. He's no-nonsense, he's no mucking around. What's the problem? What's the solution? Right? No solution? Well, how can we make the best of it? And that would have been his approach from the beginning. Jenny, similarly. And, you know, one might say that Matt had the misfortune to have the condition that he has, but he had the great good fortune to be born into a very fine family who, to a large extent, has been able to cover for that.


DICK: From my point of view, I suppose I could say Matt's my hero. I use him as a model - if that's the right word - in that if something's going wrong for me, well, what the hell am I complaining about?


MATT: A few years back, I just felt that I wanted to be involved in rugby. I wanted to give something to the game and get something out of it. One of the major difficulties is, in mitigation, obviously, as you well know, you've got to talk us down from 'very dangerous'. I'm not gonna be a coach like Dad. These are my skills. I'm a lawyer. I work with the DPP. I love rugby. I can't wash rugby jumpers, but there must be something I can do. So now, every Monday night during the rugby season, I appear at the rugby judiciary and hear the matters which come before us. That allows me a marriage, if you like, of my passion for rugby as well as my skills as a lawyer.

The great thing about living in this city is this - my backyard is the best backyard in all of Australia. When I wander into my backyard, I wander through Hyde Park and I've got the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge not so very far away. And pretty much everything I enjoy doing in the city - it's all available to me and I don't rely on anyone else to get me there. Throughout my life, people have been very good to me. And people say to me, you know, it must be tough being in a wheelchair, and the like. Well, no, it's not - not for me, anyway, because it seems to have opened more doors than it's shut. Occasionally there are a couple of stairs to get into the bloody door, but we even seem to get around that.


NICK COWDERY: Well, Matt makes it look easy and treats it as if it IS easy, but it can't have been easy. And it is not easy for him now, I know. But he's done it by application, by calling on the resources of his considerable intellect, sprinkled with a good dose of humour from time to time. And he's just kept at it until he has succeeded.


NICK FARR-JONES: I want him to inspire my children too. He does. It was very important to me and my wife when we made Matt godfather of our eldest daughter, Jessica, and, you know, I want Jessica and my other three to grow up with a wonderful balance in life, and part of that balance is, you know, sometimes you meet people in wheelchairs and what have you, but don't be, you know, confounded by it. Support it and learn from it. I don't want them to sort of be confronted by a person who has obviously got, you know, severe physical disabilities and sort of think, golly, I've got to get away from this.


PETER FITZSIMONS: The amount of disabilities that he's had that he's been able to overcome are extraordinary. I mean, I think 99 things out of 100, he overcomes and he's found a way around them. The one remaining, as far as I can see, is to settle down with a partner with whom he can live happily ever after. I don't know how that works. I've talked to him about it a bit. It's his business. But that would be the one thing I would wish for him. He has got a lot of love to give, and she'll be a lucky woman, the one that gets it.


MATT: Do I see myself as sharing my life with a woman and having a partner? Yeah, I do. I do. If I was given a crystal ball which said, the next 10 years, you're not gonna find anyone with whom you can spend time and share things, then I would be sad and I would be lonely, but I don't believe that that's the case.


JOANNE SUTTON: Matt is an incredible flirt. Oh, an incredible flirt. And he's got this incredible ability to make everybody, especially women, feel like they're the most important, special, magnificent person in the entire world. And he's got that ability to do that to every woman he meets. And that's great. He compliments them. He says the right things - Oh, your hair looks lovely today, or, have you had a haircut? I mean, he's perfect. He's perfect. And he knows it. He knows it. Yeah, he knows it and he works it.


MATT: Apparently - I can't see it myself - but apparently, I'm an outrageous flirt. Apparently, I'm charming. Apparently, I can be romantic. I can't see it. I just play it by the book. But that sort of manliness, that blokiness, that heterosexual spirit which is in me, is quite obvious to female folk and company. Matt Laffan will not be in a bar and have a couple of drinks and be eyed, or eye, a particular girl and go home with her and wake up in the morning and wonder what he's done and who is this person beside him. That's just not gonna happen. The courting game is the old-fashioned game when it comes to me - that is, someone has to get to know me and me to know them for all the other things outside the physical. But the physical could also be regarded as a barrier too.

I once used to say to some mates of mine that all I really wanted was 24 hours without a disability. I just wanted 24 hours so that I could do certain things. Since then, I've got a little greedy and now I want one week. And during that one week there'd be hell to pay, because Sydney just would not be big enough. I think the night club scene would be in a world of trouble, because dancing is something I'd really like to do. There'd certainly be a rugby match I'd have to get involved with. I'd go running with the old man. I think I'd pick Mum up and put her over my shoulder and run down the end of the block with her just to stir her up.

Like a lot of people out there, I'm looking at the Internet and the way in which it works as a medium for communication, and I established a website in order to assist people with disabilities to travel around Sydney, New South Wales and Australia. My needs mean that I need a bit more income for the future, and that's why I'm always looking at different opportunities and trying to look at the skills that I have and how I'll be able to use those in other enterprises, because I want to live comfortably, I want to provide for those I love, and I want to be independent.

And I think the major point of destiny for me, in my own small way, is hopefully the kinetic energy I might pass on to others. So my own story might be a fairly simple one in the end, but if it rubs off on other people - those who've been close to me or those who've just come across me - and they go on to do greater and bigger things, well, that's a destiny in itself, which I believe in. I believe in that.

Matt is now developing an international TV travel series featuring himself on the road.

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