How Painters and Dockers’ hedonistic rocker Paulie Stewart cheated death – with help from some ‘punk’ nuns

‘I wouldn’t burn the candle at both ends. I would set the whole thing on fire with a blowtorch’: Painters and Dockers singer Paulie Stewart Photograph: Supplied by Paulie Stewart

Paulie Stewart was 48 years old and had been on the waiting list for a liver transplant for more than 500 days when, at death’s door, he was visited in Melbourne’s Austin hospital by Sister Helena, a young nun from Timor-Leste sent to comfort him on his journey to the other side. A priest had already read him his last rites.

Stewart, singer of Melbourne punk band Painters and Dockers and Australian East Timorese reggae ensemble the Dili Allstars, thought Helena’s appearance must have been an omen. His association with Timor-Leste spanned decades, sparked by the murder of his brother Tony in 1975 by Indonesian forces in Balibo.