LATEST ARTICLES

The price of poverty

Erwin Chlanda
-
0
The price of poverty

By RAINER CHLANDA

Those who work in the social service sector in Alice Springs, as I do, know this fact intimately: there is an incredible amount of money funding our response to a community who have incredibly little.

Our system watches as desperate people stumble and waits for them to fall before extending a paternalistic hand or one gripped around a gavel. Only once crisis strikes comes a swath of expensive support services or an inhumane prison system.

We are building prisons before houses, funding health services but not health, and responding to trauma instead of preventing it. 1000 more “beds” are due to come under the new government.

I’ve worked in various therapeutic support services with “at risk” youth in touch with the justice system for the last nine years, which brings you up-close with our struggling underclass.

When doing this work, you become a member of a group of “stakeholders” from various services that form a “care team” for the young person.  At the extreme but not uncommon end of the spectrum, a care team may include a Support Worker from a Youth Support Program at an NGO; a Community Corrections (NTG) Case Worker supervising their parole or bail; a Behaviour Support Practitioner; a non-mainstream school attempting daily at-home pickups; a multidisciplinary team of allied health professionals conducting assessments; a Disability Support Worker from the NDIS; a worker from a Diversion Program; and a Government Child Protection Practitioner who oversees all of this.

Dizzying amounts of money and resources swirl around a young person who survives on their portion of their caregiver’s $493 per week parenting-payment.

Cathy Alice at Whitegate by ROD MOSS

If the efforts of the team fail and the young person is incarcerated in a Youth Detention Centre, the tax-payer will cough up a further staggering approximate $900,000 a year, according to the NT News, to detain them in a system that has been proven to further criminalise young offenders (and increasingly so the younger they are). 

The well-intentioned and often highly skilled care team will meet occasionally for updates and to finesse the care plan, but in many meetings I’ve attended, the bulk of the stakeholders have next to no traction with the young person and several will have never laid eyes on them.

Even if a Support Worker achieves regular contact with their clients, their engagement is unlikely to meaningfully resemble the work their respective programs set out to do, as the clients’ much more pressing need to survive takes precedence.

A Social Worker, working for an NGO on a good salary, is likely to find themselves supporting their client and their family to access, for example, an “emergency relief voucher.” This involves picking them up in the organisation’s leased vehicle, often taking them to a local org to have an ID card issued, on to Centrelink for an income statement (and a lengthy wait) and to the bank for a bank statement to evidence their need, then finally to an org that will hopefully issue a $60 food voucher that can be received once a fortnight.

The worker in this scenario has to try hard to avoid the realisation that what their client needs more than their specialised support, is a fraction of their salary.

Whilst “self-determination” is a central tenet in “trauma-informed practice”, the apparatus in place appears to reflect that we’ve decided our clients are incapable of managing daily living tasks and require highly paid professionals to take over.

This isn’t an argument to say that therapeutic programs have no value, but when they are delivered within the context of the constant stress of poverty their important work falls by the wayside, along with any hope of achieving sustainable change.

The issues that determine disadvantage which play out so clearly along racial lines here and throughout our country are stubbornly complex.

Supreme Court Building

The country’s recent answer of “No” to The Voice to Parliament referendum has left us bereft of an opportunity to better understand some of these complexities. However, not every facet of disadvantage is complicated, and there are voices on the ground that are heard but not answered.

The people I work with voice their needs constantly, saying: We need food, we need adequate housing, a working car, we need to ge

t back on Centrelink. Only with basic needs met can people afford to turn their minds to further aspirations such as employment and education and meaningfully exercise self-determination. 

The impediment to meeting these needs lies not with the difficulty of complicated policy design or a lack of evidence to inform them, but with weak social and political will to enact simple measures.

Policy makers could decide tomorrow that everyone who is entitled to a Centrelink payment receives it unconditionally, and that all payments are increased so that no one is in poverty.

Tasking someone with surviving with zero income is an absurd arrangement that the whole community suffers for. This obviously dictates either relying on one’s family for support or acquiring necessities illegally, thereby risking catalysing a cascade of legal processes and interventions which of course completely dwarf the cost of simply keeping that person on their humble income.

An unconditional payment would also save the taxpayer funding the cumbersome division of Centrelink that polices whether recipients meet their obligations. The big stick of this humiliating practice is ultimately futile as, provided English is your first language and you have relative stability and some digital literacy, satisfying the requirements is easily doctored.

Those who wish to “dole bludge” and are of relative privilege work the system and stay on payments whilst those who require the most support fall through the cracks and plunge further in to disadvantage.

The near doubling of Jobseeker Payments during Covid saw millions of people relieved from poverty around the country, and a positive social impact including a dramatic reduction in property crime in the Northern Territory (where residents were not subject to lockdowns) to the lowest in a decade (see graph).

Find details here and here and here.

The assumptions that an unconditional income will generate lazy people and increase anti-social behaviour has failed to materialise in countless experiments of a “Guaranteed Income” (GI) around the world since the 1960s. These experiments have produced a strong evidence base that a GI leads to better health outcomes (not surprising), increases in employment (perhaps surprising), lower crime rates, and increased school attendance amongst a swath of other improved measures of societal health.

The policy, often dismissed as fanciful or idealistic, is increasingly being considered by governments around the world, with rise of AI and its threat to jobs contributing to its growing relevance. There are over 100 pilots of GI currently being delivered in the US, The ANC South Africa is promising to introduce it if re-elected, while the largest ever trial of it is underway currently in Kenya and showing promising results.

Beyond increasing cash flow to impoverished members of the community (not just to professionals surrounding them), any measure that directly improves the conditions in which the poor survive is the best form of early intervention.

Adequate funding could be allocated so that social housing provision meets the demand. In Alice Springs the estimated wait for social housing is in between six and 10 years with overcrowding in the NT being 43% higher than the national average.

Poker machines could be banned from pubs and clubs (as WA has done and achieved the lowest gambling losses per capita in the country). Better yet would be to eradicate them completely thus stopping the flow of upwards of $14m (figure not including the losses on machines at Lasseter’s Casino as this data is not made public) from the poorest members of our community to rich investors interstate like Iris Capital.

A landmark study of the effects of gambling on crime in NSW just found that increased spending on gambling is associated with increase in assaults, break and enter offences, and motor vehicle theft among other offences.

The gambling industry preys upon addiction and desperation and is unaccountable as its effects ricochet through the community. 

Evidence-based offender rehabilitation and therapeutic programs need to be introduced to the prison. Currently there are none at Alice Springs Correctional Centre, and scarcely any training / work programs.

Persons who are incarcerated in Alice Springs sit on remand for an average of 293 days (statistics from January, 2024) in an understaffed overcrowded prison without air-conditioning.

Can we be surprised that several riots have occurred there during sweltering summer months? Gangs and violence fill the void and we wonder why the NT has the worst rate of recidivism in the country.

Basic measures to address obvious systemic failings stare us in the face whilst we elect a government who believe that the answer to crime lies with locking up ten-year-olds, bringing back spit hoods, and fining (even prosecuting!) parents whose kids miss school.

Ryders and Johnsons in camp. By ROD MOSS.

And, in an unbelievably callous decision announced this week in the CLP’s “Corrections Infrastructure Master Plan”, youth offenders in Alice Springs will be transferred to Darwin Youth Detention Centre the serve their sentences. This will see the most vulnerable members of our community taken 1,500 kms from their home communities, severing contact with their families and support services.

These punitive measures capitalise on anger, appeal to our lowest common denominator, and have no evidence base whatsoever. Our humanity takes a blow, desperate people suffer further, and division is inflamed.

Support for these policies appears to reflect that we value our right to punish over our right to thrive together, that our thirst for retribution is so great we wish to satiate it in spite of ourselves. But these responses only find traction with inflammatory lies fed to a constituency desperate for relief from chronic crime. 

To address disadvantage, the suffering it encompasses along with the chaos that spills out into the whole community, the “Hard on Crime” fallacy must be resisted and rational, evidence-based responses pursued.

Other reading:

Jobkeeper

Jobseekers

100 GI experiments 

Gambling crime

Social housing

Parenting payment

Labor market

Riot

Gambling harm

Raising detention age

Overcrowding

Tough on crime lore

Proposed changes to jobseeker

Reduction in Crime due to increase payment

PAINTING at top by ROD MOSS, Akeyulerre Easter.

Being part of Oz is lesson from the lost Voice

Erwin Chlanda
-
6
Being part of Oz is lesson from the lost Voice

COMMENT by DON FULLER

The Results from The Voice Referendum could not have been clearer.

Australians returned an overwhelming ‘No’ vote, with all States – and around 60% of the country, saying they did not want an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, enshrined in the Constitution.

Despite this conclusive outcome, some do not seem to want to heed the result.

While there are a number of reasons that have been put forward for this definitive result, some seem to stand out more than others.

Perhaps the first of these is that most Australians do not wish to be divided on the basis of race.

However, given the outcome of The Voice, most Australians still have a deep fondness and respect for Aboriginal people and their diverse, fascinating culture.

Rather, it is the urban activists identifying as Aboriginal, some of whom have questionable and distant attachments to Aboriginal societies and cultures that mainstream Australians continue to be highly suspicious of.

This is because they remain concerned that this group continually compromises the legitimate claims of more marginalised Aboriginal people.

Such activists are often held responsible by wider society, for “capturing” and “cornering” the vast amount of finance and resources that most Australians are happy and willing to pay, for the marginalised, more traditional, and far more deserving Aboriginal people(s) living in remote and regional Australia.

Such goodwill raises the question of why activists wish to further promote racial division and disharmony amongst Australians when far more could be gained by working closely together in business and social affairs.

The principles of self-management and self-determination, introduced with excessive haste by the Whitlam government, over 50 years ago, have proved a complete failure at closing the ever-widening social gap in poverty and health, endured by the many marginalised Aboriginal people(s).

However, activists continue to push the notion of self-determination and self-management as the main way forward. Inevitably such approaches lead to questions as to whether this is because they see this as an effective strategy to lobby governments into even more additional funding.

It is also instructive to note how urban activists find it to their advantage to refer to “our people” and “our nation” as if Aboriginal people consisted of one homogeneous mass.

In fact, it is the diversity and differences in Aboriginal groups and communities in thought and social and cultural behaviours that have been long celebrated by the wider community.

The societies and cultures of the  Sea Living Peoples, the Stone Peoples of the Escarpment and the Desert Peoples of the Northern Territory for example, could not be more different and diverse.

How is it remotely possible to compare such cultures, either between each other and particularly, with that of urban based peoples with some attachment to Aboriginal people from some region, from some time ago?

The notion of “our people” also provides activists with the means of claiming funding on behalf of all Aboriginal people(s), from simple-minded governments.

Surely, this strategy is similar to referring to people from Europe as one people, which the many culturally diverse groups would resist and find insulting.

Government funding is therefore not provided to one homogenous European people but to easily identifiable different groups of people. That is, people often defined by country, just as Aboriginal people(s) can be comfortably identified.

Two months ago Warren Mundine (at left) made clear: “Australians do not want divisive and ideology-driven solutions or race-based policies. Australians want real improvements in Indigenous lives and policies directed towards need that deliver outcomes.”

Mundine identified four priorities – economic participation, education, safe communities and accountability. He pointed to the need for a decisive break from existing approaches.

In particular, he pointed to the priority need to change the way traditional lands are collectively owned and controlled by Land Councils. He pointed out that a market driven economy, where individuals can own and buy and sell private property, is fundamental to every successful economy.

In turn, a healthy economy is fundamental to social and human development for Aboriginal people.

He argues persuasively, that the current collective ownership of property and land is a model for government sponsored socialism and that it prevents the key building block for a real economy for Aboriginal people and their communities, which is private land ownership.

This he points out, sets up a vicious cycle of poverty of low school attendance, drug dependence, weak business and employment activity and social dysfunction.

To worsen things further, it also facilitates the capture of the vast government resources available for communities that are land rich but dirt poor, by urban based Aboriginals heading up Land Councils, Investment bodies and other Aboriginal organisations, supposedly for the benefit of marginalised Aboriginal people.

A functioning market economy, the proven method of success around the world, is actively discouraged: “Business ownership – the most important foundation of an economy – is almost non-existent,” Mundine explains.

Yet a system with nearly two-thirds of people in remote communities not working is reinforced by vested interests, often without the connections to land that exist with traditional owners in communities.

This sharp divergence of interests often occurs precisely because genuine traditional owners are not comfortable with meeting and business processes adopted by Land Councils and associated bodies, because much of their thinking and behaviour is of a secret and very private nature.

This is not so for urban Aboriginal people who do not have such strong cultural ties and who have often attended primary and secondary schools and higher education institutions in major urban centres. They are therefore noticeably, far more familiar with mainstream culture and behaviours than with traditional Aboriginal cultures.

Mundine further points out that it is very hard to understand why the Federal and NT governments have to pay for housing and other activities and infrastructure on Aboriginal lands when there are billions in Aboriginal land trusts and investment bodies, including from royalty payments and native title payments.

It is little wonder that Janet Albrechtsen in the Australian asks the question as to whether Aboriginal organisations such as Reconciliation Australia, are all “part of a shake-down racket”!

Certainly weak governments have encouraged this approach, to the detriment of more marginalized and deserving Aboriginal people(s).

It is however promising for Australia that the most talented Aboriginal leader of the time, Noel Pearson, has stated: “I cannot help but return to the fact that belonging to Australia is the only way forward for us. After the referendum defeat there are three possible responses.

“One, just capitulate and admit defeat. Two, being bitter, disillusioned and alienated. And the third way – that we keep making the case we belong to Australia, we belong to this nation.

“Our advocacy has got to be about belonging. We are part of the nation. We have nowhere else to go. This is our country and we have to keep making the cause for unity and inclusion.”

It would be beneficial for the nation as a whole if others would heed such wise words.

The very large amount of resources now available for marginalised Aboriginal people needs to be put to urgent, high priority tasks, not invested in some large investment body building wealth for urban Aboriginal managers and some pie in the sky future – far too late for many.

PHOTO at top: Central Land Council in September 2017.

Coober Pedy: Pearls of the Eromanga Sea

Erwin Chlanda
-
8
Coober Pedy: Pearls of the Eromanga Sea

By MIKE GILLAM

Part 1 of 2

Sitting in a wheelchair, his left leg in plaster, I met 31 year old miner Jay Fitzgerald at the Kangaroo rescue service in Coober Pedy’s main-street. At 9 pm on June 29, 2024 Jay was black lighting on the opal field, when he fell down an old shaft.

Miraculously Jay survived and is expected to rise from his chair in due course. The shattered left leg, caught up on the way down, probably helped to break his fall. A shattered right shoulder and broken ribs took much of the final impact although his back was also broken in two places at L2 & L4, fortuitously not severing the spinal cord.

One of Jay’s companions remained at the pit, the other drove to town for help. The injured man was very lucky not to bleed out while emergency services tried to find and rescue him, a five hour ordeal.

Apparently he now holds the Coober Pedy distance record for surviving a mine shaft fall at 96 feet (29.26 metres). According to a local rescue service responder Jay found one of the deepest shafts, located on a hill, to fall down.

Popular reality television series: Outback Opal Hunters is credited with a rising interest in opal mining and with it, escalation in the odds of misadventure. Disconcerting potentials for vanishing into the void are often quoted by locals, made tongue in cheek but not without some malice.

Underground Pottery

Such commentary channels Coober Pedy’s chequered history of disappearances and misadventure. Stories abound of recklessness; a newspaper office dynamited by some-one with a grievance and a screen message at the Drive-In Theatre asks patrons not to bring explosives to the venue.

Mining partners can be firm friends in poverty and bitter rivals once “colour” starts to show. I’ve heard many variations of opal fever and partnership disputes. Opals are incredibly hard to find, but it’s much more difficult to find an honest partner, they say.

Typically the aggrieved mining partner discovers his “friend” has been clandestinely working night shift at their promising opal seam. Confronted with this duplicity, the partner flippantly replies “better I do it to you than some-one else”. Without solid proof and any hope of justice, sentencing is passed in a flurry of fists.

While Coober Pedy has a reputation centred on macho stereotypes, the town’s women, less overt, are formidable investors in community and social capital. Their education and passion was on full display at a public meeting I attended and wisely, the Government appointed bureaucrats fell silent, in the face of their advocacy on matters of community planning and history.

Gay feminist, Faye Naylor, worked first as a cook, before opening the Windlass Café, a popular destination for locals and tourists. She commenced building an underground home in 1962 and established a hard working all female enclave in the process. Faye understood the importance of social cohesion and her home, replete with swimming pool, became a popular venue for parties and events.

Following the destruction of the Windlass café by a tornado, Faye and partner Ettie Hall moved underground and created the Opal Cave. The 1980 booklet “Coober Pedy 65 Years Young”, elaborates:”For the next eight years … the Opal Cave boomed and today it is Coober Pedy’s tourist mecca with over 760 coaches each year.”

The publication’s wonderfully atmospheric front cover was taken by photographer Peter Caust. The sheer volume of dust plumes hanging in the sky above the “working” opal field reminds us of major changes in the mining fortunes of the town where the air is now so good it’s surely a positive attraction for refugees seeking respite from city pollution.

Faye Naylor’s pivotal role within the local community is highlighted in a 1975 Australian Women’s Weekly story: “At one Christmas party last year there were 65 nationalities represented.”

Recently, Aboriginal involvement in opal mining has attracted conjecture and speculation from the ABC. “The very, very untold history of Coober Pedy’s Aboriginal opal miners” (August 2024).

Aboriginal familiarity with these exquisite gemstones, aeons before European colonisation, is beyond doubt but ochre, needed for painting and ceremony was much more valuable to Australia’s First Peoples.

Arrernte and Luritja people, engaged in ochre mining and trading at an important cultural site in the southern Northern Territory, attracted the attention of the Australasian United Paint Company.

In1935 the Rumbalara Ochre Mine also known as Yellow King and Yellow Queen mines was established with demand for camouflage paint peaking during the war years of 1943-44 with “1345 and 1439 tons” extracted. Heritage Assessment Report by Kay Bailey (1996).

Worker death and injuries at the ochre mines motivated legal changes “made in 1948 prohibiting the employment of Aboriginal people underground” (ibid) with ramifications for the opal industry. The Sydney Morning Herald dated 16 March 1935 records: “Lubra Killed In Ochre Mine … Diana was killed while mining in a tunnel …This is the third accident to blacks employed underground in this district.”

I’ve read several creation stories featuring opal. My favourite from Andamooka is described by Michael Harding in his 2016 PhD thesis: “A mythical ancestor came to Earth on a great rainbow to instruct Aboriginal people on law and practices, before returning to the sky …where the rainbow had rested was a large area of rocks and pebbles of all colours.

“Plenty of Opal Back Then: Opal Pulkah: A History of Aboriginal Engagement In the Northern South Australian Opal Industry c.1940-1980” (p.147).

“Aboriginal cultural life of extensive duration in and around the Coober Pedy region was still evident in the 1970s with annual ceremonies relating to men’s initiations generally taking place between October and March” (p.138).

Kestrel

“Coober Pedy lies almost directly midway between Port Augusta and Alice Springs, a route along which the trading of … ceremonial objects was … well established.” (p.145-6 ibid.)

Coober Pedy 65 Years Young provides further insights: Tom Ryan came to Coober Pedy in July 1930. “Upon arrival … camped about ¾ of a mile north of the Post Office. A few weeks later … joined by about 400 aboriginals who camped only 400 yards away and were good neighbours. Following a death in the camp, they moved to another spot … and gradually drifted away. There were no permanent aboriginals in Coober Pedy, only occasional visitors.” (p.12).

Aboriginal involvement in pastoralism was key from the earliest times. At nearby Strangeways Springs “between 1864 and 1866 was stocked with 7,300 sheep” and dingoes were a constant threat. A place of mound springs and high cultural significance it seems certain that Aboriginal people were employed in the labour intensive roles of shepherding and stock work.

Employment enabled traditional people to maintain connections with sacred sites and provide income support for their families. Aboriginal involvement in commercial opal mining came much later. Compared with pastoralism the opal industry was typically more sedentary however it did offer greater autonomy.

Intuitively I expect that women and children finding opal “floaters” and picking through potch rubble were among the earliest indigenous opal workers but enterprising individuals soon turned their hand to everything from mining, operating bulldozers, opal buying, cutting and polishing. Barney and Dorothy Lennon came to Coober Pedy to search for opal around 1938. “When we arrived there was only twelve white people and about 200 Aborigines.” (p.15, ibid)

Michael Harding’s thesis, explores his subject in great detail: “Aboriginal people began moving into the opal industry by the 1940s and their engagement remained significant until the mid to late 1970s” (p.187).

Quartz carving of Saint James

In March 1957 Aboriginal Protection Board Deputy Chair commented on the “gamble and excitement of searching for opal. (p.165). Women were highly regarded for their noodling abilities … in an industry that was very family-friendly. (p.188). People were attracted from … more distant locations as the industry began to expand. (p.188). One major point of difference … Aboriginal miners had more workplace autonomy than pastoral workers … their own bosses.” (p.189).

As fuel prices increased in the 1970s, underground miners began installing noodling machines and this displaced fossickers. While history records a significant opal fossicking uptake from the 1940s by Aboriginal people I suspect many were reluctant to become fully fledged underground miners, in part because they were concerned about inadvertently causing damage to sacred sites.

The risks of punishment were very real and the earth shattering use of explosives by miners must have been disconcerting. Conversely, noodling / fossicking offered flexibility and seasonal mobility.

From the 1940s eagle eyed Aboriginal women were among the most dedicated and proficient noodlers working on the opal fields. In 1945 Aboriginal woman Tottie Kendall’s find of rich surface opal triggered a rush to the 8 Mile field and a resulting boom. Before long Aboriginal fossickers from the APY Lands came to Coober Pedy to sell opal they’d sourced from Mintabie, 270 km to the north.

Finally in the 1970s the Mintabie boom gathered momentum and according to Wikipedia: “During the 1970s and 1980s, it had a population of over 500 people. Located within the APY Lands, the South Australian Government leased the opal field until 2018 when the residential community was shut down at the behest of traditional owners.

Confident in the strength of their pick arm, many of the miners I’ve known are fiercely independent and deeply suspicious of bureaucrats and politicians. Opal mining in the early days involved a wheelbarrow, pick, shovel, windlass, carbide lamp and hand drill for placing dynamite charges.

Over time mining methods have changed and costs continue to escalate. From dozers, blowers and tunnelling machines to blasting, drilling, tunnelling, noodling or simply using a pick and black light there are many options for those feeling lucky.

I fear it’s nearing the end of an era. Old timers, men and women in their seventies and eighties are a dwindling cohort that occupy an expanding place in my heart.

One octogenarian laughs at my concern and confirms that he takes no medication and never goes to the doctor. Never? Surely not! I prevail on another to please take the mobile phone when she goes walking in the bush alone. For reasons unclear to me, I find this reckless abandon troubling yet admirable.

With tidal ebb and flow, the fortunes of Coober Pedy have oscillated over time. An ageing population of miners is a fact of life and yet renewal is occurring. The incoming tide is bringing a younger generation of miners attracted by the popular TV series “opal hunters” and an improving opal price.

At the time of writing the near worthless potch has sky-rocketed in value and this helps to offset rises in operating costs. Potch is the base stone that must be endlessly worked in the search for elusive opal colour.

Innovative designers and technicians, led by Indian buyers are now polishing potch with its infinite variety of swirling white, yellow, grey, and black tones and creating affordable jewellery that glows on darker skin.

It’s also rumoured that larger pieces of quality potch are a viable alternative for ivory carvers who must abandon the traditions of a murderous and illegal market. Great news for elephants, rhinos, and the mining towns of Coober Pedy and Andamooka if it’s true!

The murmur of wind passing over the dugout’s light wells and air shafts, the ricochet and pitter patter of rain striking the courtyard pavement, the hum of vibrating windows, now the sharp ping of rain on the iron air shafts, and in the far distance, the rush and roar of storm cells sweeping across the landscape.

There’s a faint metallic tapping and I resolve it’s a wisp of moving twig in a zebra finch nest at the top of the air shaft in my bedroom. All these sounds, separated and multi-layered, create the muted symphony of a Coober Pedy storm cell tamed by metres of insulating rock. Soulful and comforting, as hard as I try to stay awake, immersed in this grand soundscape, I am lulled to sleep earlier than usual.

I’m awakened by the endearing sounds of baby zebra finches expecting to be fed, a gentle way to confront the challenges of a new day. What the hell, I’m still in bed listening to baby finches! My phone provides shocking confirmation that it’s a few minutes to eight. I’ve learned that you really must set the alarm when sleeping underground.

Opal inlay plate by Jim Theodorou of the Big Miner

Beneath the petrified tides of the Eromanga Sea, these are the deepest and most restful sleeps of my life. The zebra finch chatter sparks early childhood memories of my paternal grandfather. Percy would have loved Coober Pedy and been in agreeable company with the returned ANZACs who settled here. WW1 veterans, pioneers of trench warfare, are credited with building early Coober Pedy dugouts to escape the heat.

As a small child I recall one-sided conversations with my grandfather who sat inside a bird aviary surrounded by zebra finches, lost in a book and shutting out everyone. Hanging from the aviary ceiling, reconstructed coconut shells with an entry hole, were his nesting box innovation that soon caused a population explosion of finches. Evacuated from that WW1 hell on earth, the Somme, they removed most but not all the shrapnel from Percy’s legs. He was the lucky one, his friends on either side were blasted to oblivion by the artillery shell.

The faces of gruff miners crumple, my questions about their past in war ravaged Europe unanswered. Catastrophe propelled them here and I’m reminded of my fortunate life. I never heard my grandfather speak a single word but the finches speak for him and all the war impacted survivors that find a measure of peace in such places.

“The stars blazed in thousands, more and more of them as the darkness grew intense, till the Milky Way was like a bracelet of diamonds a million miles long … If we could see the stars only once in a hundred years from one particular spot, people would come crowding from all over the world to see the miracle … We never appreciate what we’ve got.” From Thiele’s “The Fire in the Stone”. (p.61)

My friend Slavco-Steve, 84, was born in Montenegro. We sit on the verandah overlooking a stunning view, a night sky that merges with the twinkling lights of distant neighbours. Our companion, Les Hoad, aged 83, worked as water supply manager for more than a decade and was elected the last Mayor of Coober Pedy.

I ask Les why he sought election in 2018 when the record of the previous Town Council looked so dire, a scathing report from the State Ombudsman making findings of financial maladministration? “I thought I could help” he replied gruffly. Pausing for a moment, Les continued: “I’ve lived here 33 years, I have two children who still live here, five grandchildren and four great grandchildren, what else could I do?”

Unbeknown to Coober Pedy voters, the state Government of South Australia had an alternative plan. The election process played out and the incoming Town Council was suspended after nine weeks. Thereafter the first Administrator was appointed in a process that has expanded with an additional two part time “Administrators” and six years later, no end in sight.

Stone masonry

Peter Rowe’s wonderful pottery kiln was last fired in 2008 but I sense the visual arts and film industries of Coober Pedy are sleeping giants that will rise in the future. Perhaps the Opal festival will broaden its scope in time to include an equal billing for the fossils of the Eromanga Sea. The town might declare Coober Pedy a dark sky destination, a place of solace for weary millions taking a break from their shuttered lives?

Of course those looking north from the ivory towers of Adelaide may have different ideas. As a resident of Alice Springs I do understand the disconnect, injustice and inefficiency of life in remote regions controlled by distant overlords. If Coober Pedy is going to thrive in the future, city decentralisation in favour of regional autonomy is critical.

Historically the Federal and South Australian Governments have viewed the remote north as a suitable place for a missile and atomic testing range, a toxic waste dump perhaps, a region where corporate miners are more than celebrated and small miners too often treated with disdain.

NOTE: In the text above we changed “the incoming Town Council was summarily sacked” to “the incoming Town Council was suspended”. We regret the error.

PHOTO AT TOP: Big Miner.

All text and images © MIKE GILLAM

 

Another call to last drinks

Erwin Chlanda
-
1
Another call to last drinks

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Central Australian Aboriginal Congress rarely misses an opportunity to preach its alcohol control gospel.

This time it’s a lecture for the new NT Government not to wind back supply regulations lest this leads to “a wave of alcohol related domestic violence, assaults, and social disorder”.

And as previously, the health NGO’s reasoning is based on selected facts supporting its objectives.

Congress CEO Donna Ah Chee makes much of the decrease in alcohol-caused domestic violence, emergency department admissions and other problems following Stronger Futures, which had the opposite effect than its Orwellian name was suggesting.

It was a no brainer that allowing alcohol into town camps and communities would spell disaster. No wonder the statistics went through the roof. The absurd policy was discontinued and the problem numbers unsurprisingly dropped. To claim that as success of the current alcohol policy is misleading.

In a media release Ms Ah Chee states: “There is overwhelming evidence that regulating the supply of alcohol – including through a floor price, reduced takeaway trading hours, and the Police Auxiliary Liquor Inspectors (PALIs) – is a highly effective way to reduce crime.”

Yet again Congress does not acknowledge that the current draconian alcohol control measures are failing to have long-term benefits although its own statistics show that this is the case.

Congress produces a monthly update of “Effects of Alcohol Policy on Alcohol related harm in Alice Springs, 2015 to 2024”. The current edition includes statistics of alcohol related hospital emergency department presentations (above).

It shows there were 5344 of them between January 2019 and March 2020, and 5868 from January 2023 to March 2024. That’s an increase of 524.

During that first period the measures already in place included Police Auxiliary Liquor Inspectors (PALIs) at bottle shops, a Banned Drinkers Register, a Minimum Unit Price of $1.30 per standard drink and a new Liquor Act that included risk-based licensing and greater monitoring of on-licence drinking.

As Congress points out, on January 25, 2023 further regulations were imposed including one sale per day per person, alcohol free days on Mondays and Tuesdays for takeaway purchases, limited hours between 3pm to 7pm except for Saturdays, only one bottle of spirits, and so on.

Yet the calculation of quantity consumed is based on the reports by wholesalers. This does not include alcohol obtained online from retailers, neither is the consumption from tourists factored in, a likely substantial drop as the industry is suffering a sharp decline. Locals clearly made up the balance.

Ms Ah Chee says: “There is overwhelming evidence that regulating the supply of alcohol … is a highly effective way to reduce crime.”

But the public does not have a current picture of offending: “Following the implementation of the NT Police SerPro system in November 2023, the crime statistics from December 2023 onwards have been determined to be not comparable with earlier published NT crime statistics”.

In 2022/23 Congress had a budget of $66.9m and spent $48.7m on employee benefits. $42.6m came from the Australian Government and $5.7m from the NT.

The Alice Springs News asked Ms Ah Chee if she wanted to comment but she did not reply.

IMAGE at top: The “health hub” of Congress under construction across the road from the hospital which has similar objectives but is controlled by elected politicians, not a race-based NGO.

Getting tourism back on the rails

Erwin Chlanda
-
3
Getting tourism back on the rails

By ERWIN CHLANDA

For most people travelling is a means to an end – getting somewhere.

For us in the vastness of outback Australia it’s an end in itself, an adventure, a buzz, something you brag about to your mates.

You may be a Japanese conquering the Stuart Highway’s 1226 km between Port Augusta and Alice Springs, gathering brownie points for the afterlife, saying “I want walk” if you offer him a lift.

On the opposite end is luxuriating in the five star hotel on rails, The Ghan, named after the Afghans who were doing it on camels. It may well have the formula for rescuing our ailing tourism industry.

Dinner at the Telegraph Station.

And of course the quintessential travellers, nomadic Aboriginal people have been doing this for 65,000 years, on foot traversing the unforgiving country, creating databases in their heads about food and water, ample if you know where they are, as well as formulating the laws of complex political and social systems of land possession and responsibility.

One thing this big country is not: Empty.

My trip on the Ghan started with expectations shaped by fares such as $8300 for a Platinum ticket Darwin to Adelaide per person one way.

Setting off in Alice Springs for Adelaide I expected to be in the company of multi millionaires if not billionaires at a starlight dinner (regrettably it was cloudy) at the Overland Telegraph Station.

Journey Beyond, the company running The Ghan, is leasing this prime historical site from NT Parks, including the precinct and trail station cafe.

I sat next to the retired head of a medium size company’s HR section.

“Are you a millionaire,” I probed, hesitantly.

“No. These people are workers. They saved and now they are here.”

A look around confirmed this: Mostly middle-class retired couples, clearly having made friends on the trip from Darwin. This is a much friendlier bunch than I expected.

Lunch in a dugout.

That is subtly encouraged by Journey Beyond. The meals (mains – Black Angus grain fed sirloin or chicken roulade; sides – herbed roasted potatoes, glazed baby vegetables, native pepper jus, medley leaf salad with balsamic dressing) were served in dishes to share: “Care for another steak? Pass the potatoes, please” can be handy conversation starters.

A similar strategy was in place when we had lunch in a dugout in Coober Pedy the following day, 12 metres under ground in excavated rooms with ochre coloured rock walls and ceilings, a former opal mine.

During the dinner the night before Ghan passengers did rounds of the historic buildings and watched the blacksmith forging bottle openers from Old Ghan rail spikes.

Local band Hard Beat’s middle-of-the-road gig soon had the dance floor buzzing.

A conga line formed behind a member of the train staff, the people universally praised by the travellers I spoke with.

No Sir this, Madam that. No white gloves.

It’s first names, right from boarding.

“When we recruit staff our first question is, do you like people,” says Turkish-born train manager Zafer Tasci, looking after 211 passengers in a train that’s nearly a kilometre long.

The 14 hour working days do not put the staff off, I was told by several of them, because after a week’s work they get a full week off.

Our train was sectioned into four “bubbles” each with four to six carriages, a lounge car and a dining car.

The rooms – too big to call them cabins – have two single or one double bed which are made into comfortable lounge chairs during the day. There is an ensuite. After flushing a jet squirts two short puffs of deodorant into the toilet bowl. Nothing is left to chance.

I found sleeping blissful. The rails are welded, no little gaps which caused the conventional klonk-klonk, klnonk-klonk. There is just that gentle rocking.

The Ghan is probably the only way to cross a continent on the ground without touching your credit card. Absolutely everything is provided. Drinks and nibbles in abundance. Even in the bush destinations are little stalls set up with Bollinger champagne, beer and soft drinks.

A flute of Bollinger in your room as you first board. Care for a night cup? Whiskey, please. Sure enough, you return from you evening “off-train experience” and there it is.

The Breakaways near Coober Pedy

In Alice Springs these experiences include the West MacDonnells beauty spots Simpson’s Gap and Standley Chasm. In Coober Pedy, the Breakaways north-east of town, the superb underground Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Elijah the Prophet and the opal mining museum, the latter providing some “free time” which is a synonymous for opportunity to buy some colourful gems. (Here the credit card does come in handy.)

Off-train experiences are undertaken in Journey Beyond’s own coaches.

They start from the safety of the train and end there.

Mr Tasci, who describes The Ghan as a cruise liner on rails, says the company of course doesn’t stop passengers from doing their own thing – but it is not encouraged.

If they are wandering around Alice Springs “we can’t guarantee their safety. We like them to stay with our tours”.

And here is the kind of thing why. Police report September 16, 2024, three days before my train overnighted in Alice: “At about 5:00am on Sunday, four males unlawfully entered a hotel room while the occupant was asleep, stealing alcohol and personal belongings.

“Shortly after, the same group allegedly unlawfully entered an occupied room at another nearby hotel. One of the offenders was reportedly armed with a machete during the second incident.”

While tourists are staying away in droves, fearing for their safety, and driven by hysterical Facebook rubbish, Journey Beyond may well have the formula for bringing them back.

The company was bought by the US Hornblower Group for a reported $600m in 2022. It was Australia’s largest experiential tourism business.

Acquisitions since 2015 had included Cruise Whitsundays and Rottnest Express, the Eureka Tower Skydeck, Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures, Outback Spirit Tours and Darwin Harbour Cruises.

The company is now under sole ownership of New York based private equity firm Crestview Partners which has a reported $10 billion in capital commitments.

Journey Beyond has a separate capital structure in Australia and its own sources of funding, according to a spokesperson.

The firm is clearly on the go with the recent acquisition of Vintage Rail Journey “immersing guests with the breathtaking landscape of NSW [in] the state’s Golden West, the Riverina Rail Tour into Australia’s ‘food bowl’, Northern NSW coast, as well as special event trips to the Elvis Festival in Parkes and the Bathurst 1000,” says the blurb.

Opportunities for Alice Springs clearly include enticing Ghan passengers to break the journey here and resuming it on the next service – or the one after.

The Staircase to Heaven near Standley Chasm.

A spokeswoman says “Australia’s leading experiential tourism group” operates 16 brands spanning the nation, “connecting guests to the land, and to each other”.

Headquartered in Adelaide, Journey Beyond was formed in 2016 and now comprises tourism brands including: Iconic trains The Ghan, Indian Pacific, Great Southern, The Overland and Vintage Rail Journeys; premium small-group outback operator Outback Spirit; eco-luxe lodge Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef; aquatic adventures Cruise Whitsundays, Rottnest Express, the Paspaley Pearl Farm Tour, Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures, Darwin Harbour Cruises and Journey Beyond Cruise Sydney, Melbourne Skydeck and Eureka 89, the historic Vintage Rail Journeys and the Telegraph Station in Alice Springs.

The Ghan has 75 carriages operating both weekly services from April to October, including crew, luggage and power vans.

In Alice Springs are five road coaches and eight in Coober Pedy.

There are 75 employees across Darwin and Alice terminals and coaches, plus six crews of 45 team members rotating through the Ghan.

Journey Beyond Rail has 584 employees across all rail operations and about 1600 employees for all of the company.

In Alice it has around 30 to 40 suppliers and across the Ghan around 80 in total.

Bradley Campbell, General Manager Rail Operations says: “Suppliers we have worked with in Alice over the last 10 years include Standley Chasm, Earth Sanctuary, Pyndan Camel Tracks, School of the Air, Reptile Centre and Tailormade Tours.”

The underground Serbian Orthodox Church of Saint Elijah the Prophet.

Next time maybe you break the Ghan trip in Alice Springs, head bush in a 4WD, nicking off from the “bitumen” down a dirt track as the sun sets, throwing your swag in a dry creek, cooking on a small fire and before you close your eyes, being overwhelmed by the endless number of stars in a sky that couldn’t be any clearer.

Who knows, Journey Beyond may branch out into that as well.

Or fly at 10,000 feet in a light aircraft, chart on your knees, ticking off landmarks which are rare – hills and creeks and major roads, not minor ones because they come and go in a landscape whose age is measured in millions of years.

Not arriving but “gettin there” is what it’s all about, yarned about under a tree in the savannah or desert as big as a European country, or in a pub, caravan park, around the campfire.

Or at a BBQ when you get home to that small, crowded rest of Australia “down south”.

PHOTO AT TOP: The rail siding Manguri is one of the journey’s oddities. It is as close as the train gets to Coober Pedy, 40 km away, although the town is the only settlement of any size between Alice Springs and Port Augusta. A local myth, according to one resident, is that the $1.6 billion railway line was not welcome by a handful of business people in the town. And so passengers from and to the opal mining capital are subjected to a bumpy ride on a corrugated dirt road to get access to what was compared to the Snowy System in terms of importance to the nation and its taxpayers.

Images by Alice Springs News and Journey Beyond.

UPDATE October 2, 2024:

Danial Rochford, CEO of Tourism Central Australia, provided the following comment:

Visitors tell us day in day out about the incredible experiences they have in Central Australia. Whether it is travelling on The Ghan, exploring the Larapinta trail or visiting vibrant Alice Springs to experience all the amazing attractions, visitors are having an awesome time.

We appreciate all the work our industry are doing to make sure our visitors have the best experience possible.

Tourism Central Australia also welcome the Government’s efforts to enhance community safety through increased police presence and measures to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.

Dick Kimber, 1939 to 2024

Erwin Chlanda
-
9
Dick Kimber, 1939 to 2024

It is with great sadness that we record the passing of Central Australia’s premier scholar, one of our most outstanding editorial contributors and all up a very fine man, Dick Kimber, after a long illness.

He will be missed throughout the community.

We send our heartfelt condolences to Margaret and family – Erwin Chlanda and Kieran Finnane.

“Real True History: The Coniston Massacre” was an 18-part account, painstakingly researched, impressively written, about a dark part of Central Australia’s history.

Find more about Dick and his work at Dick Kimber: premier scholar of Central Australia with links to his writings in the Alice Springs News.

Gallery south of Gap: Anger over government ‘no’

Erwin Chlanda
-
7
Gallery south of Gap: Anger over government ‘no’

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The art gallery should be “South of the Gap” was the main message of protesters at the foot of Anzac Hill yesterday, but a spokesman for Chief Minister Lea Finocchiaro confirmed this morning this is not what they are going to get.

One speaker at the protest said: “We won’t budge.”

The crowd of 60, young and old, had entered this major women’s sacred site through a pre-existing hole in the fence. Fittingly it was mostly women, about half of them black and half white, a sign of mutual support, as one of them put it.

The present conflict is likely to be a repetition of the row between the Labor government four years ago and a section of the Aboriginal community not unlike yesterday’s.

The Minister responsible for the gallery, Lauren Moss, said in May 2020: “Clearly no site will get consensus.”

It seems today’s CLP Chief Minister is creating a narrative inviting the same conclusion.

Last week, announcing a “pause” in project, she said: “We will make sure people in Alice Springs and associated communities understand next steps and come on the journey with us in developing the best facilities for the Red Centre.”

Said one woman: “They are trying to look like good guys. A political stunt, but it looks like doing the same thing as the last government, dominate over the voices of the people, and not consulting properly about what the people from here want.”

Another woman: “Is it for the rugby kind of audience, or first nations people, and their voices?”

Another woman: “There is no good will towards us.”

In 2020 Benedict Stevens, as Apmereke artweye a senior custodian for the town, having at first supported the Anzac Hill site, joined Apmereke artweye Doris Stuart and other custodians to demand the gallery to be sited south of The Gap, .

Mr Stevens subsequently reverted to tacit support of  the Anzac Hill site. Ms Stuart has remained adamantly opposed. She was not present yesterday because of illness but her family was strongly represented.

A senior member of the Stuart family, Faron Peckham (pictured, with Yvonne Driscoll), as the last speaker, said the new government “drew in the rugby union and league fraternity … conquering and dividing.

“She [the Chief Minister] was very clear, it was not to be south of The Gap. She had to put her mark on the project.

“We won’t budge, because this site is significant. It forms part of our cultural landscape here. It’s about us. It’s about the future generation.

“Watching the destruction now, what future does it give them? What cultural identity does it give them when they live here? We’re not going to be directed by what they [the government] are saying.

“This is our country. You are our community. We share this country. We’ve always shared this country, on the premises of respect and acknowledgement. We should not become a byproduct of commercialisation.

“We’ve got to go back to the roots of who we are as people or as a community.

“She [the Chief Minister] had no mind about the anti social stuff that’s happening in this town. They seem to discard it. There is tourism and commercial interest other than what I call poverty. Building an art gallery here isn’t going to fix it.”

Politicians were thin on the ground yesterday. MLA for Braitling Joshua Burgoyne had been invited but didn’t show.

Town Council member Marli Banks was there and encouraged the crowd to attend question time at the next council meeting, and perhaps send a deputation to Darwin when Parliament resumes next month.

PHOTO at top: Arrernte custodians of this women’s site (from left) Kristy Bloomfield, Kirsty Bloomfield, Elaine Peckham, Karen Liddle, Barb Satour. Rear: Zania Liddle, Dorn Ross and Colleen Mack.

Gallery on hold, plans to save Anzac Oval

Erwin Chlanda
-
5
Gallery on hold, plans to save Anzac Oval

In Alice Springs today, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, with the Members of Namatjira and Braitling, Bill Yan and Joshua Burgoyne.

By ERWIN CHLANDA

“There is a pause in the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Gallery of Australia program of work to work through the next steps,” Treasurer Bill Yan announced this morning.

The gallery will be built but “we will make sure people in Alice Springs and associated communities understand next steps and come on the journey with us in developing the best facilities for the Red Centre.

“Unlike Labor, we have listened to the community and taken decisive action to put the demolition of Anzac Oval on hold,” Minister Yan said.

“We will do this right and engage with the community around how we can save ANZAC Oval and deliver an iconic project of social and economic importance to Alice Springs,” Minister Joshua Burgoyne said.

“We will do this right and engage with the community around how we can save ANZAC Oval and deliver an iconic project of social and economic importance to Alice Springs,” Minister Burgoyne said.

Count ends: Greens up, Labor down

Erwin Chlanda
-
0
Count ends: Greens up, Labor down

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The trouncing of Labor may be rivalled by the rise of the Greens when the 2024 election goes down in history.

In The Centre, Asta Hill got close to sitting CLP member Joshua Burgoyne, 2261 to 1937 votes on preferences in Braitling.

The Parliament has its first Green member, Kat McNamara, who beat former Chief Minister Natasha Fyles in Nightcliff by 36 votes after preferences.

And in Fannie Bay Suki Dorras-Walker was not far from the CLP’s Laurie Zio and outscored ALP front-bencher Brent Potter.

Final numbers were announced this morning.

“A lot of the Green votes were from Labor people who didn’t vote Labor,” says CDU Professor Rolf Gerritsen.

“That’s for a variety of reasons, some of them, I suspect, because they didn’t see Labor doing much about the crime problem, and others didn’t like the rightward shift, or pro development shift, that Eva Lawler strategically introduced three months before the election.

“I am surprised at the extent of the collapse of the Labor vote, particularly in Braitling. But Labor got flogged,” says Professor Gerritsen.

Hill scored three and a half times as many votes as the ALP’s Allison Bitar, a town council member, 1627 votes to 470.

No surprises in Namatjira and Araluen where, respectively, the CLP’s Bill Yan and Independent Robyn Lambley were returned, although the Greens’ Blair McFarlane got 671 primary votes, respectable for a late starter in Namatjira.

Chansey Paech, before the election the Deputy Chief Minister, clearly is getting no joy from the other three making up the rump of Labor.

Paech was returned in the remote Gwoja but that electorate’s performance in a western democracy raises troubling questions: 6132 voters are enrolled but only 42.1% of those actually cast a vote. It’s not known how many didn’t bother to get on the roll.

Professor Gerritsen says the system of encouraging participation in NT elections is flawed.

“When someone turns 18 [in fact it’s 16] they send them a letter. Sending a letter to an Aboriginal community is just a waste of time. Half of them have the same surname, they don’t bother with letters anyway.

“Blackfellers are saying, if I vote what will change? Nothing. It’s just another thing the government wants me to do and I don’t get anything out of it.

“In the old days the Electoral Commission sent teams out to communities and enrol people on the spot.

“Aboriginal people know enough about politics to say the only government that really impacts on our lives is the Commonwealth governments. So why bother participating in this charade Territorians call self government.”

As Chief Minister Eva Lawler lost her seat – her CLP opponent Clinton Howe nearly doubled her vote, 2731 vs 1473 – her erstwhile deputy seemed a likely choice to become Opposition Leader. But Paech is neither that nor the Deputy.

“I wonder if Chansey has been promised something,” says Professor Gerritsen.

“Not in the next Federal election but in the one after we’ll have an extra Senator, or an extra two. And you’d expect that to be one Labor and one Liberal.

“Am I guessing they said to Chansey, you won’t go over well in Darwin. So why don’t you wait and you’ll be the Senator.”

Professor Gerritsen says Selena Uibo is “probably the best selection for Opposition Leader because she won’t scare the horses.

“Labor will need to set up an office in Darwin and get some of the ex-pollies who lost their seats and campaign on behalf of Labor.

“It’s going to be more than two elections to get back.”

NEWS: What is Central Australia going to get out of the CLP government?

GERRITSEN: More policemen. More people in gaol. And that’s good for the economy.

NEWS: In what way?

GERRITSEN: Well, they have to be fed. They have to be looked after. So it’s important for employment. Indigenous incarceration adds to employment and business.

NEWS: We are trading in misery.

GERRITSEN: You can see from the recidivism rates, which are the highest in Australia, that gaol is not a very effective way in changing people’s behaviour. We’ve got to think of something smarter. The problem is that something smarter is more difficult. Whereas sticking people in gaol and keeping them there for a while seems to be Territory governments’ preferred approach.

Canberra dollars to boost Indigenous movers and shakers

Erwin Chlanda
-
2
Canberra dollars to boost Indigenous movers and shakers

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The more than half a billion dollars which the just launched Aboriginal Investment NT will be extracting from Canberra bureaucrats over five years should be spent mostly on infrastructure “on the ground, in communities,” says Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour (at right).

The money had been stuck in “Federal coffers” – at times as much as $1.3 billion – under the administration of the Aboriginal Benefits Account “and Aboriginal people didn’t have access to it.

“The AINT will ensure the money is spent in the right areas and in line with Aboriginal aspirations,” says Ms Scrymgour.

And it may well be time for the Aboriginal land councils “to let go”.

She says instead of the Commonwealth Government spending money on putting infrastructure in some of these communities, AINT money could be used “rather than people getting monetary payments”.

The spending will be controlled by a board which has not just advisory functions, but decision making powers.

It consists of a member from each of the four NT land councils, including Barbara Shaw from the Central Land Council, plus four “expert, skilled members, finance and legal people” appointed by the Federal Government.

Moves to unlock these funds started by Minister Ken Wyatt under the previous coalition government.

Ms Scrymgour says the money comes from mining royalties, about 10% of revenues, and “land payments” mandated under the NT land rights act.

“How do we get Aboriginal people to be part of wealth creation? We’ve got to make sure that this money doesn’t sit with certain people in urban areas. If that money doesn’t go out into the bush we’ll see more urban drift.

“People are leaving their communities in huge numbers and they are coming into places like Alice Springs, Darwin, Katherine and Tennant Creek.

“We need to make sure that this body actually makes a difference to Aboriginal people. That the money is not being chucked to the same Aboriginal organisations and the money disappears or doesn’t make a difference to Aboriginal people.

“We need to make sure self-interest doesn’t bog it down or money gets syphoned off elsewhere.

“We need roads, we need buildings.”

The funds should be used to start up Indigenous businesses as well as attract non-Aboriginal companies and employers onto remote areas.

NEWS: Aboriginal people own half the Territory’s land and for much of half a century they had the opportunity of using it. Leasing land to commercial interests has been an option for for some time. In The Centre very little of that has happened.

SCRYMGOUR: The land rights act has evolved particularly over the last 10 years. There are more long leases, including for agriculture. Township leasing can be applied. With my mob, over on the Tiwi Island, there are industry players with 40, 50 year leases. There are a number of hotels and tourism ventures, hire car companies. That works really well. Each of the three major communities have their own businesses set up. You always have public servants and tour groups coming over. Young Tiwis are employed.

NEWS: Are there obstacles?

SCRYMGOUR: People need to be in proper control of this. If you want industry to come onto this land they’ve got to be able to have long term lease arrangements and not have the interference by individual traditional owners. What’s really important, one or two disgruntled TOs can’t sack somebody and get them off the island. The agreements have to be binding.

NEWS: There is an enterprising spirit in other Top End places.

SCRYMGOUR: It’s the same as the Yolngu mob (in north-easter Arnhemland), they took over the mine, they are running all of the enterprises. It was the vision of Mr Yunupingu. The Northern Land Council has given control over the area back to the Yolngu people. They’ve set up a number of businesses and they are in total control over it. That’s what land councils should be doing, generate wealth and to have Aboriginal people be part of that wealth creation. Land councils have also got to not be afraid to let go. And people should not entangle themselves in past grief either. The politics of the past has got to be let go and people just have to look forward. And with that fund, there has never been a better time to do it.

Ms Shaw says AINT was established to take independent control of Aboriginal dollars previously locked up in the federally-controlled ABA.

“Funds were being poorly invested and under-utilised by Canberra-based decision-makers.

“The plan sets a five-year roadmap to strategically invest and deploy $655m million.”

The News put questions in writing to Ms Shaw and the Aboriginal Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy. Both declined to be interviewed.

• Does the AINT have a required Return On Investment and if so, what is it in percentage points?

• What will happen if it is not achieved?

• How many staff will the AINT have and at what cost?

• What will be the annual cost of the running of the organisation?

IMAGE at top: Ms Scrymgour’s “mob” on the Tiwi Islands are part of the enterprising Top End, likely to get a further boost from the now streamlined Federal organisation dealing with mining royalties for traditional owners. Will they leave The Centre further behind?

TIO earns millions while crying poor

Erwin Chlanda
-
1
TIO earns millions while crying poor

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The global firm Allianz, the proprietor of the Territory Insurance Office, has hiked by 40% the home owner premium for a client in The Centre while the Australian part of the company boosted its second quarter profit by more than six-fold over last year.

But Nicholas Scofield, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Allianz Insurance told the Alice Springs rural area resident: “The main reason for the increase is due to the expiry of a period of premium discounting.” 

Perhaps to make customers less irate to be forking out, he lists a string of his company’s achievements, including being “a proud sponsor of the Australian Paralympic Committee”. The image at the top appears on the company’s website.

Says Mr Scofield: “All insurers have been forced to substantially increase home insurance premiums over recent years.

“This has been caused by significant building cost inflation driven by increased prices for building materials and building trades, as well as inflationary increases for other goods and services used in building repairs.”

But Insurance News reports that the general insurance business of Allianz in Australia in the second quarter recorded stronger results, lifted by higher renewal rates and a drop in claim-related losses.

“The business made an operating profit of $275m in the June quarter, compared with $43m a year earlier.

“Insurance revenue grew to $1.9 billion from $1.65 billion and the combined operating ratio improved to 87.8% from 98.4%.

“Total business volume surged 13% to $2.5 billion and Allianz says Australian renewal rates increased 10.6% in the six months to June,” reports Insurance News.

Mr Scofield writes to the client: “When large premium increases for particular policies are warranted, Allianz will at times cap the premium increase to reduce the impact on our policyholder.

“As a result, your last year’s premium reflected a period on cumulative discounts that have unfortunately now expired.”

He gives no clue about the formula the company used to calculate this “unfortunate” expiry.

“I acknowledge the above factors have resulted in a large increase in the premium for your building cover and that you may be disappointed with this outcome.”

Below his signature Mr Scofield list a string of his company’s achievements, acknowledged by several institutions, including being Employer of Choice for Gender Equality 2014 to 2016; Employer of Choice for Women 2009 to 2013; Workplace Gender Equality Agency citation and Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency citation.

UPDATE September 4, 4pm:

Tom Abourizk, head of policy at Choice, commenting on the News report of August 30, says: “I am still extremely skeptical that any insurer would have been setting premiums at a ‘discounted’ rate at which they were expecting to make a loss on, particularly for multiple years.”

Relief for visitor centre’s parking woes

Erwin Chlanda
-
3
Relief for visitor centre’s parking woes

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The tourism industry is waiting to have discussions with the incoming government about the planned new visitors centre on the former Shell depot site, at the western foot of Anzac Hill.

CEO of Tourism Central Australia Danial Rochford says there will be far more parking space, the lack of which has been an “almost daily” irritation at the current site in the Mall.

He says the new site has been recommended to the previous government by TCA after commissioning a report four years ago.

The industry lobby has looked at several other sites but not including the welcome rock near the Adelaide turn-off on the Stuart Highway, nor the National Transport Hall of Fame, suggested by some locals.

Mr Rochford says 50% of tourists come from the north and 50% from the south which means the facility needs to be in the CBD, which is where local traders as well want it to be.

TIO mum on massive premium hike

Erwin Chlanda
-
3
TIO mum on massive premium hike

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Territory Insurance Office “We’re for Territorians” hiked the premium of a long-time customer in the Alice Springs rural residential area by about 40%, from $2382 to $3206, a difference of $824.

That’s even taking into account a no claim bonus of 30%.

Territory Insurance Office (TIO) is a trading name of the insurer Allianz Australia Insurance Limited. Neither TIO nor Alliance would answer questions about the massive hike.

The Insurance Council of Australia said it would respond but 24 hours after emailing questions, following a discussion with a media person, we still have no replies.

We asked: Are there increases in home insurance premiums in the NT? If so, for what reason? If so, by how much?

And: Do they differ between Darwin and Alice Springs? Give figures, please. Are there occasions of around 50% hikes? If so, based on what?

Withholding of information is routine behaviour by the industry, says Tom Abourizk, head of policy at Choice.

He says the increase in the case of the Alice Springs person is “very perplexing”.

It is common for insurance companies to treat their assessment process as confidential.

It is often a result of changes to insurers’ own re-insurance arrangements, at times with multinational companies.

Mr Abourizk says it’s not uncommon for insurers to hike premiums a year or two after a client signs on, in the usually safe knowledge that people are confused by insurance and keen to avoid going through the hassle of changing suppliers.

This absurdly is punishing loyal customers.

It is increasingly common that premiums are set for individual clients rather than by region.

Mr Abourizk says knowing what the reasons are for the premiums would enable the customers to take measures reducing the risk: Selecting flood safe areas for their homes, installing security devices against people breaking in.

It’s not clear if the industry is reacting to actual pay-outs or to what the media are reporting, including crime.

“Choice has called for a risk database so people can understand what risks insurers are concerned about, engage with them, and if they can address that risk, have a right to get a better price,” he says.

Consumer’s weapons against ballooning premiums include shopping around.

Mr Abourizk says page 60 of the Northern Australia Insurance Inquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission simplifies how insurers set premiums.

IMAGE from TIO brochure: “Customers” who are smiling.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST: The writer is a customer of TIO.

Could it have a nuclear bomb on board?

Erwin Chlanda
-
0
Could it have a nuclear bomb on board?

By ERWIN CHLANDA

If a US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress drops into Alice Springs – as American transport planes regularly do to supply Pine Gap – on the way to Tindal near Katherine where it will be based, it could have a nuclear bomb on board.

Local aircraft spotters will have no trouble to tell whether that B-52 is nuclear capable: Just look for the blister with a small fin.

“The presence of [the] fins on a B-52H aircraft indicates nuclear-capability, and the absence of fins indicates conventional-only capability,” says Richard Tanter, a senior researcher with the California-based Nautilus Institute, a frequent visitor to Alice Springs and prominent peace activist with the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN).

“The horizontal triangular fins are about 30 cm in length, attached to blisters mounted on the middle of the rear section of the port and starboard sides of the fuselage, several metres forward of the beginning of the tail structure.”

Professor Tanter and Vince Scappatura, using open sources, have disclosed this information in a report commissioned by the Nautilus Institute, formed in Berkeley, California in 1992.

A release from the report authors states: “Where governments, as in the case of Australia, refuse to state whether visiting nuclear-capable B-52 bombers may carry nuclear weapons, citing the US neither-confirm-nor-deny policy as justification, it amounts to a state of wilful ignorance on the strategic implications of supporting such operations.

“Of the 76 B-52H bombers currently in the US active fleet, 46 can deliver strategic nuclear weapons. Another 30 have been converted, under the 2011 New START Treaty with Russia, to conventional-only capability.

“How will Australians know if US nuclear-armed aircraft are deployed to Australia?” ask the authors.

“The Albanese government has said it ‘understands and respects’ the US doctrine to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on US aircraft.

“The first step is to identify which US aircraft entering Australia are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

“This study provides a reliable and transparent source for Australia and other host countries to distinguish between nuclear-capable and conventional-only B-52s bombers.

“This research study, based on open sources, could have been – and should have been – carried out by the Australian government and provided to the public.”

[ED – We have asked Defence Minister Richard Marles for comment.]

Lia’s law & order: Cops make their case

Erwin Chlanda
-
1
Lia’s law & order: Cops make their case

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The new Chief Minister wasted no time getting down to what she called “the number one issue”: Law and order.

Only hours after her impressive election win, Lia Finocchiaro met with Police Commissioner Michael Murphy in what may have been a tense encounter.

Earlier this month, when she was still the Leader of the Opposition, she said: “The CLP acknowledges the Commissioner’s apology [to the Aboriginal people] but understands this is not the focus for frontline police officers who are dealing with ever escalating violent crime and anti-social behaviour on a daily basis.”

A media statement after Sunday’s meeting did not reveal a lot except that there will be controversial minimum sentencing provisions for assaulting frontline workers.

Ms Finocchiaro also said: “Work is underway to ensure Declan’s Law and other measures including criminalising bail breaches, electronic monitoring for people on bail, ram raid legislation, reducing the criminal age of responsibility” in the first week of Parliament.

The conversation between the commissioner and his new boss – Ms Finocchiaro is also the Police Minister – is likely to have included issues raised by Nathan Finn (at right), president of the Police Association, at its annual meeting on the eve of the elections.

“The Joint Emergency Communications Centre is overwhelmed with demand for an emergency police response,” he said.

“It’s estimated there were almost 200,000 triple-0 calls in the last financial year. That’s a 13% increase. Recently, the agency was forced to issue a call for volunteers to cover overtime shifts.” 

Mr Finn was scathing about the use of police officers at bottle shops: “Our members have been clear: They want to be out there, helping people who require an immediate police response – but it’s hard to do that when you’re stuck in a bottle shop, turning away drunks.”

He addressing Brent Potter, still the Minister: “Why do you keep ignoring our members – and the experts? Instead of ensuring licensees take responsibility for their own compliance and security services, you’re more concerned with keeping alcohol retailers happy than supporting police.

“Your Government has chosen to spend millions of dollars on private security guards to patrol the streets, while at the same time we have frontline police officers standing out the front of bottle shops as security guards. You’ve got your priorities all wrong and the community is suffering.”

Mr Finn described police officers “our greatest strength and our greatest asset” and welcomed the funding commitment for additional 200 officers but said he remained “concerned the Police College currently lacks the necessary staff, infrastructure, and accommodation to support this level of recruitment, placing “significant pressure” on the college forcing the postponement of internal courses to accommodate new recruits”.

Mr Potter had informed him in May that the police attrition rate was 6.1%, “a surprising drop from over 9% the previous financial year.

“However, he admitted that the figure he was using excluded retirements, dismissals, and terminations.

“I requested clarification on how these figures were calculated and was promised a response by the end of the day,” said Mr Finn.

“Despite repeated follow-ups, including phone calls and emails to the Minister, three months have passed, and I’m still waiting. This prompted the NTPA to conduct its own analysis, resulting in a higher attrition rate.

“Instead of providing us with the information as requested, the Minister has publicly alleged I falsified the attrition rate for the NTPA’s betterment.

“Noting that is a serious allegation – Minister, I invite you to explain your comments. Alternatively, you can withdraw them, and apologise.”

Mr Potter was in the meeting audience on Friday night.

Mr Finn claimed the current work conditions were forming a vicious cycle: “The lack of a fatigue management policy, safe minimum staffing levels, or single officer duties, combined with record levels of crime, leads to burnout.

“Burnout then results in sick leave, which causes workplace absences and forces members to undertake overtime.”

At March 31, the police overtime expenditure was $15.2m 170,347 hours which is an increase of 7% on the previous year, Mr Finn said.

“Members have been loud and clear in consecutive surveys: poor quality housing, lack of staff and little respite is why they don’t want to go bush.

“The Kelly Review recommended a long-term remote infrastructure investment of $192m. That recommendation was accepted by Government in principle, but whittled down to $125m over five years.”

The association’s demand is notwithstanding the per-capita level of numbers: The NT has 2.7 times more police than the nation.

In 2023, there were 372 assaults on police, “kicked, punched, spat at, belted with rocks and iron bars, threatened or stabbed with sharp edged weapons. That’s a 45% increase compared with the previous year.

“Despite strong maximum penalties for assaults on police, it’s the Sentencing Act which lets police down, time and time again.

“Other employees in Australia have access to tribunals where the appeal process is completely independent of the employer. That is what our members should have access to – a process that members can have confidence in, not an appeal process controlled by the Respondent.”

On the bright side, Aboriginal Community Police Officers (ACPOs), after years of lobbying for requests to clearly identify their roles and responsibilities “just two days ago, the department formalised a framework for this this to occur, and is providing a clear career pathway for ACPOs to transition to Constable”.

PHOTO at top: Ms Finocchiaro with police officers, pictured in June 2024. All images from Police News, the quarterly magazine of the association.

The Territory pattern of politics

Erwin Chlanda
-
4
The Territory pattern of politics

FROM LEFT: Joshua Burgoyne (Braitling) and Bill Yan (Namatjira), both CLP, retained their seats. CLP candidate in Araluen Sean Heenan lost to the incumbent Independent Robyn Lambley. Lia Finocchiaro, the new Chief Minister. (Image from a CLP how-to-vote card.)

By ALEX NELSON

In the NT elections of June 2005, the ALP under Chief Minister Clare Martin (pictured) trounced the CLP, reducing the party to just four seats.

Two of these – Araluen and Greatorex – were based in Alice Springs, held by Jodeen Carney and Dr Richard Lim, respectively.

The seat of Blain, in the former CLP stronghold of Palmerston, was retained by Terry Mills.

The neighbouring seat of Brennan experienced a boilover, with former CLP Chief Minister and later Opposition Leader, Denis Burke, losing his seat to Labor.

Burke’s defeat prompted my Alice Springs News article on August 3, 2005 “Pollies’ holy grails: an ALP Alice seat, Darwin CLP boss” where I noted that historically leaders of political parties whose electorates are based outside of Darwin always result in failure.

The list began with CLP Majority Leader, Goff Letts, who lost his seat of Victoria River in August 1977.

Others to follow were Ian Tuxworth (Barkly) and Labor opposition leaders Bob Collins, Brian Ede and Maggie Hickey, who all led Labor to its worst election defeats last century.

I neglected to mention this trait commenced as long ago as 1965, when the Member for Alice Springs, Colonel Alfred Lionel Rose, announced his leadership of the North Australia Party – and promptly lost his seat to Labor’s Chas Orr in that year’s Legislative Council elections.

When my article was published, Jodeen Carney was the new Opposition Leader, the first female leader of the CLP.

I wrote that being the CLP leader based in Alice Springs posed “a real danger for her long-term electoral prospects” but, as it turned out, history probably proved kindest to her, as she resigned from that position early in 2008.

Terry Mills took over the role of Opposition Leader, with the CLP losing creditably to Labor in 2008 but eventually leading the party to victory in 2012 (winning, it might be noted, 16 seats of the NT Legislative Assembly).

And that’s when it all came unstuck, as only seven months later Mills was ousted as Chief Minister by the Member for Braitling, Adam Giles (at right).

Things went from bad to worse during the term of the Giles government, resulting in a catastrophic defeat to Labor in August 2016, with the CLP reduced to two members and Giles becoming the second sitting head of government in the NT to lose his seat (and the third CLP leader to do so).

Giles lost Braitling to Dale Wakefield, the first Labor member in Alice Springs since Chas Orr in the 1960s.

Gary Higgins, the Member for Daly (a large Top End bush seat), took over the CLP leadership.

Like Jodeen Carney (at left) a decade earlier, Higgins resigned as leader of the CLP in January 2020, handing the role over to his deputy, Lia Finocchiaro. He retired from politics in August 2020.

Meanwhile, Terry Mills successfully campaigned for his old seat of Blain in the elections of 2016 (having resigned in 2014), and in 2019 announced the formation of a new political party, the Territory Alliance.

Echoing the misfortune of Colonel Rose way back in 1965, Mills lost his seat in August 2020.

Lia Finocchiaro was the Member for Brennan in Palmerston for one term after 2012 but transferred to the new neighbouring seat of Spillett in 2016.

She was succeeded in Brennan by Labor’s Eva Lawler!

Eva Lawler took over as Chief Minister in late 2023 but – as we all know – her tenure in that role lasted only eight months (slightly longer than Terry Mills in 2012), and she too has lost her seat.

There is perhaps something of an irony that Denis Burke’s daughter-in-law has “returned the favour” to NT Labor.

Even though it’s on the outskirts of Darwin, Palmerston now has a decided history of being a “death trap” for Territory political leaders based there – even more so than for other regions outside of the capital.

In Lia Finocchiaro (at right), we have yet another Chief Minister whose electorate of Spillett is a part of Palmerston, leading a new government with 16 members at latest count.

Far be it for me to put the knockers on her leadership of the CLP after just achieving such a convincing election victory over Labor.

However, if Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro is conscious of the consistent cycles and patterns of Territory political history and maintains her wits about her, there’s no reason why she should fall victim to the twists and turns of events that will inevitably come her way.

Animal shelter now a council responsibility

Erwin Chlanda
-
6
Animal shelter now a council responsibility

LETTER TO THE EDTOR

According to the administrator, the Alice Springs Animal Shelter registered charity has been liquidated. The ASAS will no longer be able to trade including soliciting donations.

Ratepayers will now fund its activities, minus income from animal registration fees.

Last year, the Shelter expenditure was $466,800.

Multiple crises beset the Shelter, some of them from the dumping of pets as people left town. To cover the cost, the Shelter imposed a higher surrender fee. Some people threw their pets, especially cats, over the ASAS fence.

Staff were burning out and hard to replace.

The Shelter had $120,000 in the bank but their costs were escalating, when the committee decided they could not continue.

They approached the Council at which point it would have been smart to offer funding for more staff and loan some rangers to get the Shelter through its crisis.

The Council seemed unaware that it was responsible under the Local Government Act to take over the core duties of the Shelter if it folded.

The Council is looking for another charity to run the Shelter but is unlikely to find one.

The liquidation of the ASAS wasn’t inevitable, and its loss will affect us all.

Ralph Folds, Alice Springs

UPDATE August 29

According to a media statement, the Council has resolved to take on the functions of ASAS until the end of the financial year “to make sure the animals receive the care and attention they need”.

 

CLP tipped to win, but what about the Greens?

Erwin Chlanda
-
1
CLP tipped to win, but what about the Greens?

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Alice Springs based CDU Professor Rolf Gerritsen and local historian Alex Nelson agree the CLP is likely to win the election on Saturday but they disagree about the impact of the Greens on the poll.

“I think the CLP will win. I think crime is the huge issue, and the economy,” says Prof Gerritsen.

“The economy is pretty much a sentiment in the electorate which says we’ve given them eight years, things are not better, so we try the other one. Great Australian reflex.”

Mr Nelson says: “I think the Greens and Independents are going to stand with a strong showing.

“In part that’s due to the two major parties being indistinguishable with their main policies, and voters will be looking for alternative options.”

In Braitling, which the CLP took off Labor in 2020, this could lead to the Greens getting a seat in The Centre, says Mr Nelson.

“Braitling covers an area of town which has long been thought of a good prospect for either Labor or the Greens, particularly where it covers the Old Eastside,” says Mr Nelson.

“Still, Dale Wakefield winning the seat for Labor in 2016 with an extremely narrow margin, was an exceptional event.

“This time a lot of people will be casting their vote for an alternative to the major parties. I note with considerable interest the number of people on the ground volunteering for the Greens.

“I’m told that they have more volunteers than they know what to do with. If that translates to wider support throughout the community there could be a surprise in the offing.

“Braitling is by no means a safe seat for Josh Burgoyne. It could be the case that preferences of the Greens’ Asta Hill will win the seat for Labor or the other way ‘round.”

Unlike Mr Burgoyne, as a lawyer Ms Hill would bring a background of frontline experience  both as a prosecutor and defence counsel over many years to the sometimes virulent law and order debate.

But Prof Gerritsen says: “On Saturday night Josh Burgoyne will have a grin from ear to ear. His majority will be huge.” He predicts the same for the CLP’s Bill Yan in Namatjira.

NEWS: How will the Greens go?

GERRITSEN: If you look at the Territory elections they really have about 10% and to win a seat they’ve got to get a vote higher than the CLP or the ALP candidates. And I don’t think they’ll do that.”

NEWS: In that case, are they likely to hold the balance of power?

GERRITSEN: Absolutely unlikely.

The Greens and Labor are exchanging preferences in all seats in The Centre.

Braitling first preference votes in 2020 were Joshua Burgoyne (CLP, 1548 votes); Dale Wakefield (ALP, 993); Kim Hopper (Ind, 648); Scott McConnell (Ind, 199) and Marli Banks (Federation Party, 140).

Burgoyne (2256) defeated the incumbent Wakefield (2139) on preferences, by 117 votes.

GERRITSEN: I’m predicting the CLP will get 13 seats. In case they only get 12 the balance will be held by Robyn Lambley.

NEWS: Are you confident she will get back in?

GERRITSEN: Yes.

NELSON: I’m hard pressed to believe that Robyn Lambley would be unseated in this election.

GERRITSEN: The CLP will win back seats like Port Darwin and Fong Lim. Karama, which has nearly 9%, that’s Ngaree Ah Kit’s seat, I think the CLP will win it. Karama has the suburb of Malak in it, and that is Crime Central in the northern suburbs of Darwin.

Mr Nelson says the vote in Namatjira will be a toss-up: “I think the Greens’ Blair McFarland stands a top chance of polling extremely well.”

Namatjira first preference votes in 2020 were Bill Yan (CLP, 1066 votes); Sheralee Taylor (ALP, 977); Matt Paterson (Territory Alliance, 809); Nikki McCoy (Greens, 279); Catherine Satour (Federation Party, 344) and Tony Wells (Ind, 131).

It took the distribution of all preferences for Yan (1814 votes) to beat Taylor (1792 votes) by just 22 votes.

Mr Nelson says turnout in the western bush seat Gwoja is likely to be extremely low: “It’s difficult to say whether Chansey Paech will retain the seat although the odds will still be in his favour. There is an Indigenous candidate running for the CLP.

NEWS: Paech is Indigenous.

NELSON: Yes. And he has incumbency on his side. But I think everyone in the Labor Party is concerned about their prospects. There is a lot of disillusionment with their government as it’s been operating, especially in the bush seats which is reflected in the generally poor turnout of voters in election these days.

Says Mr Nelson: “We’ve been in this territory before. In 1990 we had a Government with 14 members, Opposition with seven, there were four independents or minor party candidates, three of whom had been members of a major party previously.

“The economy was in trouble and crime was skyrocketing and we had several Chief Ministers in the lead-up to that election.

“So we have an identical situation occurring right now with the twist that the party in government in 1990 was the CLP, which retained office comfortably. I’m not convinced that that would be case this time ’round for Labor.”

Mr Nelson is a former CLP member and candidate but resigned from the party in 1995 and “other than a brief dalliance with the Democrats in the late ’90s I’ve not had any involvement with any political party”.

McCarthy on the poorest owning half the NT’s land, tourism icons

Erwin Chlanda
-
0
McCarthy on the poorest owning half the NT’s land, tourism icons

The Greens and Labor are exchanging preferences in Saturday’s NT election, with candidate Blair McFarland claiming that the major problem for local Aboriginal people is poverty.

Yet they own half the Territory’s land, about 700,000 square kilometres. How much of this is used or leased for commercial purposes?

Editor ERWIN CHLANDA put this question to Australia’s new Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, one of the Territory’s two Senators since 2016.

She deflected several questions to the Central Land Council but its CEO, Lesley Turner, declined to be interviewed.

McCARTHY: I have to get the figures for you but what I can say is that I have raised the issue of poverty consistently, especially the cost of living situation.

NEWS: What’s the annual earnings of enterprises on Aboriginal land?

McCARTHY: I can certainly get those issues for you. Look at organisations such as the Arnhem Land Progress Association, which has an incredibly high turnover, in the millions, in the shops they have, not only in Northern but also a couple in Central Australia. I believe Mutitjulu is one of them. These organisations have been run significantly well. I can certainly get other examples for you.

NEWS: The MacDonnell Ranges (pictured, Finke River and Mt Sonder) are probably the biggest tourism magnet in Central Australia. They are owned by Aboriginal people. Yet there are just minor Indigenous enterprises there, the Standley Chasm restaurant, a canteen at Ormiston Gorge and sometimes the small Glen Helen resort.

McCARTHY: We also have tourism businesses, you only have to look at the awards in Alice Springs on Saturday night. You’ve got a whole list of businesses that won awards.

The Minister was referring to the 2024 Blak Business Awards when the 14 category winners included these from Alice Springs: Kungkas Can Cook; Ltyentye Apurte Traditional Craft Centre; Angkerle Aboriginal Corporation (Standley Chasm); No Fixed Gallery; Rachel Ellis Centre Pest Management; Courtney Summers SUMTIMESSAD and Penangke Cultural Consultants.

NEWS: Do you think the Central Land Council (CLC) should have a leading role in setting up businesses on Aboriginal land?

McCARTHY: Under the Aboriginal Landrights Act the initial statutory responsibility of the land councils is supporting traditional owners with what it is they wish to do on their land. There is no doubt the CLC plays an important part to assist traditional owners in that. You would need to ask them further questions. If you are a traditional owner or not a traditional owner you should always have the opportunity to find yourself in business if that’s the direction you wish to go.

The CLC says online its “multi-disciplinary team includes Aboriginal people with expert traditional knowledge, rangers, community development professionals, ecologists, lawyers, anthropologists, geologists, accountants, bookkeepers, librarians and trades people”. Business managers or advisors are not mentioned.

NEWS: Should the CLC have expert staff who either set up Aboriginal businesses for the traditional owners or attract them to Aboriginal land?

McCARTHY: Some traditional owners may not want to set up businesses. They may wish to just set up homes to raise they children and to look after country, like in the role of a ranger program where they are caring for country, not just for themselves but the broader community, burning off, making sure there are no major bushfires, but also to look after our animal species. That is a really strong role. There are different capacities in which the CLC can be involved.

The Minister said we would need to ask the CLC whether they are involved in negotiations with major companies, and we should ask the gold mine Newmont in the Tanami how many local Indigenous people are working there.

NEWS: How much does Newmont pay in royalties under the Landrights Act?

McCARTHY: That would have to be a question for the Central Land Council.

NEWS: The CLC, Congress and Tangentyere are the shareholders of Centrecorp. Its assets, at least some of them, are commonly known. But their value and earnings are not, believed to be in the hundreds of millions. Should they be means tested? Should they spend their own money before they get taxpayers’ funds from your government?

[In March Centrecorp is believed to have sold its share in Peter Kittle Motor Company which now has a new owner.]

McCARTHY: Our investment in Congress is quite substantial because of the health gaps and the life expectancy of First Nations people. We recognise the enormous responsibility of Closing the Gap and Congress plays a massive part in that. If they want to take on other ventures or moving into other areas then those questions would have to go to the Congress board.

Minister McCarthy said she is impressed with Centrefarm’s operation in Ali Curung, and the quantities of produce given the “tiny” size of the community: “Hats off to them. They are doing a terrific job.”

NEWS: Some people say most of the harvesting is done by itinerant backpackers and others from outside the community.

McCARTHY: I can certainly say the day I visited they were all Aboriginal people from Ali Curung and they were very proud to show me around. There were certainly no backpackers when I was there.

Meanwhile some of Prime Minister Albanese’s $250m over four years is hitting the ground, including increasing funding for police, domestic violence services and youth services; expanding domestic violence services in remote communities; delivering Traditional Owner community night patrols in Alice Springs; improving access to preventative health services for children and families with early intervention, FASD and autism diagnosis and support; supporting more alcohol and other drugs treatment and rehabilitation services; increasing funding for every school in Central Australia, getting more kids to school and keeping them there; funding the construction of 20 beds to provide safe short-term accommodation in Alice Springs; improving lighting and safety measures at community spaces across Alice Springs; building better health infrastructure, such as the Todd Street Health hub and backing more youth programs and activities in Town Camps with a new purpose built Mobile Youth Hub Bus.

More than $216m has been allocated and the government is working with stakeholders to determine the allocation of the remaining $34m.

UPDATE 21/8/24 at 12 noon

A spokesperson for the Minister provided this statement:

The extent of land leased for commercial purposes is a matter for the Northern Territory Land Councils who have responsibilities under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) to consult with Traditional Aboriginal owners about land use proposals on Aboriginal land and to negotiate with proponents about developments.

Annual earnings are a commercial matter for those enterprises who operate on Aboriginal land.

McFarlane goes down the path of a dual society

Erwin Chlanda
-
0
McFarlane goes down the path of a dual society

COMMENT by DON FULLER

In my view Blair McFarlane’s policies are short on policy suggestions – besides they need more funding for the Basics Card.

It is dependence on government to provide failing solutions again!

There is no mention of the essential importance of education and the need for employment to reduce the devastating impact of a welfare based society and how these vital areas can be improved.

Employment needs to be driven by more joint venture and partnership arrangements with the mainstream business community.

There is no mention of the key role and responsibility of Aboriginal organisations in assisting overcome the major social issues.

I don’t think the problems will be solved by throwing more government money at the problems.

The results of such approaches are clear over an extended time.

This would have further and continuing impacts on an almost dysfunctional Territory Budget.

The fundamentals need to be tackled to build self-reliance in partnership with the wider community institutions.

Currently, with an increasing size and influence of Aboriginal organisations, receiving large amounts of government funding, we are proceeding down the path of a dual society.

 This can be expected to further increase dysfunction and division, as we can see in Alice Springs.

In addition, there is no mention on vast amounts of government welfare money spent on alcohol – although perhaps this is envisioned with the Basics Card. This is essential.

Many would argue that poverty is self-inflicted in many cases. Australia is at the international forefront in the very high level of resources provided to Aboriginal people.

It is not clear that if resources were doubled they wouldn’t end up badly misdirected and mis-spent.

Policies are needed to deal with excessive alcohol abuse. Those with severe alcohol problems almost inevitably suffer from poverty.

Top cop’s own PR

Erwin Chlanda
-
2
Top cop’s own PR

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The Territory police chief is continuing his campaign he launched at the Garma Festival of apologising to Indigenous people.

Ever since the event ended on August 5, every police media release has been prefaced with this: “An apology to Aboriginal Territorians. I, Michael Murphy (pictured), Commissioner of the Northern Territory Police am deeply sorry to all Aboriginal Territorians, for the past harms and injustices caused by members of the Northern Territory Police.” And so on. See above.

The Police Association, from which Mr Murphy has now resigned, has made it clear that the members under his command who have not inflicted harm nor injustices upon Aboriginal Territorians are unimpressed.

Meanwhile the police media section, which puts out the releases, is giving Mr Murphy’s personal propaganda more attention than dealing with media enquiries.

The News sent this email to PFES.Media@pfes.nt.gov.au on July 12:

“The commissioner said yesterday that during the curfew that ended yesterday some children were taken by the police to a ‘responsible adult’.

“Without mentioning names nor locations, how many children were dealt with in this way; in each case describe the circumstances of the adult and the location; has there been a follow-up by the police; what has the child been doing since he or she was apprehended; what are the ongoing arrangements for the child.

“If the arrangements are linked to Families or another government organisation or an NGO, please let me know who to speak with.

“Also, with respect to the violent disturbance in Bath Street on July 10: Was the police aware that it was likely to happen? Does the police cultivate a network of contacts in the town camps and the multitude of Aboriginal organisations who are likely to have information about community, family, tribal tensions?”

We doubled up on both issues through the new portal for police media requests – yet no response at all.

The portal includes the ridiculous mandate that no response deadline of less than two hours is accepted. Mobile numbers go straight to voice mail but there is no reply.

The News is now investigating without collaboration from the police the vexed issue of adults “responsible” for children committing crimes that have destroyed, together with social media, the reputation of the town, halving the number of tourists and doubling the number of homes for sale.

Preventing crime by easing poverty

Erwin Chlanda
-
5
Preventing crime by easing poverty

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The elephant in the room is poverty, says Greens candidate for Namatjira, Blair McFarland, in the election campaign mostly focussed on what to do about crime.

“We’re already the most over policed region in Australia. If public safety depended on police numbers we’d be one of the safest places in the world.”

Declared the Northern Territory’s Australian of the Year 2024 for his involvement in the development of Opal, a non-sniffable petrol, he says: “The success was in our prevention strategy in reducing sniffing. We didn’t get tough on sniffers, nor fill up the gaols with them in an endless revolving door arrangement. We prevented it.”

In November 2004 Supercheap installed a cage (in the background) to prevent the theft of inhalants. Pictured are (from left) the store’s manager; Jane Vadiveloo, Tangentyere’s manager at the time; Attorney General Peter Toyne and Mr McFarlane with a manual for retailers about preventing sales and thefts of inhalants. Mr Toyne had declared an emergency due to sniffers moving into Alice when avgas (which also cannot be sniffed but ruined cars) rolled out in the bush.

Mr McFarland says while reducing poverty with welfare is a Federal responsibility, the NT can do its part by lobbying Canberra and even by diverting money. However, he doubts that a Labor government in Darwin would take to task the one in Canberra.

“Aboriginal people are doing what any really poor subset of people will do. They steal, break the law,” he says.

“Poverty is the driver for all gap indicators, substance misuse, chronic illness. Some people are at the very bottom of the social order. They scramble from day to day to live and eat and put electricity into their houses.

“The poverty we impose on people on Centrelink is an absolute national disgrace and we cop the consequences. What we’ve got is an increasingly alienated subclass of people who have no respect for the system.”

NEWS: How do you fix it? Simply give them more money?

McFARLAND: Pretty much. Remember in Covid? Suddenly everyone had $550 a fortnight extra. Crime went down. There were other factors as well. Pubs were closed. People moved back out bush. People could live out bush. They could shop. The shops out bush are the most expensive shops you find anywhere in Australia. And they are servicing the poorest people in Australia. So they come into town, exacerbating the problems, because they literally can’t feed their kids in their country.

NEWS: How do you define poverty?

McFARLAND: The Federal Government hasn’t got a poverty line, if they did they’d have to acknowledge how many Australians are underneath it, and that the money they give them deliberately impoverishes them. If it doesn’t have a name it doesn’t exist.

The Melbourne University has worked out that inclusive of housing costs, the poverty line is $1145.61 per week for a family comprising two adults and two dependent children.

A couple with no children gets $691.80 a week from Centrelink, just over half of the Melbourne University’s poverty line.

“There was a 16th century English Lord who said the English legal system in its bountiful fairness prosecutes rich and poor alike for sleeping under bridges and begging for bread,” jokes Mr McFarland.

Referring to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, he says governments frequently spend money in a counter-productive way.

Maslow states the basic needs must be met first – air, food, water, shelter, clothing, reproduction and sleep.

Once these are in place security, education, employment, resources, property and health can be taken care of.

After that come friendship, love, intimacy, family and community.

These are followed by self-esteem, respect, status and freedom recognition.

And ultimately, self actualisation can occur.

NEWS: Is the Prime Minister Albanese’s special grant of $250m being spent along these lines?


McFARLAND: They are hitting the ground two layers up. They are not addressing food security, or energy security. It’s really cold. If you have consistently not enough money to both feed your family and to keep the power on, then what respect are you going to have for the system?

NEWS: Some people prefer being in gaol in winter.

McFARLAND: There is power and blankets and food. It’s a crazy system.

He says the budget of a bush school funded from the Albanese grant shot from 1.4m to 3.3m a year and from two teachers to nine.

“Because of poor alcohol policies over generations, there are kids needing specialist support, and without this it will burn the teachers out and the kids will just be floating around, having nothing.

“These are the kids who will be in and out of gaol.”

McFarland says the NT Government, as a remote area food subsidy, could put money into people’s Basics Card, which cannot be used for alcohol, instead of spending it on such projects as the national Aboriginal art gallery in Alice Springs.

“Instead we have people coming in from bush and stealing and we’ll have this big empty mausoleum, a monument to a tourist industry that’s lapsing as nobody wants to come to Central Australia because of the crime,” he says.

“Government could be allocating money more cleverly, on things that make sense in that Maslow way.

“We already have so many tourist attractions. But what we also have is a reputation that we’re a dangerous place.

“The Territory doesn’t have the scale, money and the political capacity to make the big changes, but if you can mobilise the NT Government to do it, you could put pressure on the Federal Government, in the election year, to make those changes.”

The Federal elections have to be held on or before September 27, 2025.

Mr McFarland came to The Centre in 1986 doing volunteer work for the Conservation Commission as a tracker and snake catcher. Then he worked for Corrections for eight years and worked for Tangentyere supporting night patrols from 1995.

He spent three years in Papunya as the Western Desert Corrections Officer and founded the Central Australian Youth Linkup Service 2002.

Mr McFarland and fellow Greens candidate Asta Hill between them have decades of experience with troubled young people.

[FOOTNOTE: See also our profiles of Independent Robyn Lambley and the CLP’s Bill Yan. We invited Labor’s Gagandeep Sodhi and Allison Bitar to be interviewed but they did not respond.]

Robyn Lambley: Compassionate but robust on social issues

Erwin Chlanda
-
3
Robyn Lambley: Compassionate but robust on social issues

Mrs Lambley’s monthly newsletter is quite a production, some 2000 words of news and opinion, some community advertising and a bit of cheek. FACT: The fine for not voting in the NT Election is $25. Or: Expansion South of the Gap – Is it Siberia or common-sense? “If people can drive to Bunnings for a sausage sandwich and a browse, then they can easily drive to modern new sporting facilities at Kilgariff to enjoy sport.”

Araluen Member Robyn Lambley clearly takes great pleasure in not being in a party: Her thoughts are her own, and as the longest serving of the current crop of politicians in The Centre, those thoughts are based on unparalleled experience.

When DON FULLER spoke with her this week he found her views on crime and social issues to be compassionate but resolute and untainted by sentimentality.

Mrs Lambley – yes, Mrs not Ms – entered Parliament with the CLP in a by-election in 2010 and was at various times the Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer and Minister for Health. She became an Independent in 2015 and is seeking re-election.

FULLER: With regard to community crime, your recent August Newsletter makes the point that the NT Police are over extended in Alice and having difficulty dealing with issues. You mention the need for more government support from the NT government. What sort of things?

LAMBLEY: We need to ensure the conditions offered to NT Police in Alice Springs are competitive and desirable and encourage them to stay in Alice Springs and the Northern Territory. We used for example, to offer a good housing package but, I have heard that this has slipped compared to other jurisdictions.

FULLER: Anything else that the NT Government could be doing?

LAMBLEY: We know that police are subject to break-ins like the rest of us. Police also need good quality housing with security. But one of the main problems with government in the Northern Territory is that you never get clear, honest answers regarding the numbers of police operating in a particular area and the amount of attrition, for example. The numbers are always rubbery.

FULLER: In what way?

LAMBLEY: For example, the government may claim that it is going to spend $570 million over the next four to five years on policing. This is really hard to believe or understand. Often the figures provided by the government do not agree with those provided by the Police Association. We need far more honesty on numbers such as recruitment rates and attrition rates. I am at the point where I know what I am hearing is not the truth. We would all appreciate more honesty in this.

FULLER: Do you think the Police could involve the community more by letting people know what their strategies are and how the community can assist?

LAMBLEY: Yes. They don’t involve me at all, for example. I have been excluded from all discussions over the last eight years.

FULLER: That’s ridiculous. Is it for political reasons do you think?

LAMBLEY: I have no doubt it is for political reasons. Once you criticize this government in terms of how they are operating you are quickly left off invitation lists.

FULLER: That could be one of the problems of how governments in the Territory approach their government responsibilities. Rather than taking on board criticism or suggestions not meant to be destructive or negative they react against the messenger. They don’t seem to handle this at all well.

LAMBLEY: No. The result of actively ignoring me for eight years is that they didn’t listen to my concerns that crime had been escalating from 2017, despite the fact that I was yelling and shouting about the emerging problems at every opportunity. Michael Gunner, as Chief Minister and Nicole Manison as Police Minister and Deputy Chief Minister, used to laugh and dismiss me.

FULLER: What has been the main effect of this?

LAMBLEY: This behaviour toward me and Alice Springs in general, has led to the dire position we are now in as a community. But now crime has extended to Darwin, all of a sudden it is on the agenda. Hansard will show how over the last eight years I have been demanding they take action to prevent crime from escalating – but to no avail, because the government ignored me and other people from this town.

FULLER: Why do you think crime escalated from 2017?

LAMBLEY: One of the reasons in my view, was the release of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory in 2016. These recommendations were tabled in the NT Parliament in 2017 and a main thrust of the recommendations was to soften the approach toward children and juvenile offenders. So, these recommendations were rolled out in good faith.

FULLER: What were the implications?

LAMBLEY: Blind Freddy could see that the unintended consequences of the Royal Commission’s recommendations, was that crime was going to increase and that all hell could break loose, and that is exactly what happened.

FULLER: Were there other reasons?

LAMBLEY: Another important reason was due to social media. Around that time it became commonly used by everyone, including young Aboriginal people, living in remote communities. I think this generated anger, particularly amongst young Aboriginal people, who feel that they live in horrible conditions and they don’t think that is fair, leading to a sense of injustice and anger.

FULLER: I would like to come back to that but before leaving comments about policing, do you think that the senior ranks of the NT Police have become politicized? If so, this is going to impact on their ability to perform according to the Law.

LAMBLEY: I think the NT Police Executive has had a terrible run for a very long time, with serious leadership problems. Now we have the Police Commissioner parading around at Garma making political statements and apologies.

FULLER: What should be done about this?

LAMBLEY: Law and Order is a massive problem. It has always been challenging in the Territory, but 10 years back we didn’t know it was going to get to this point. Given the position the community is in, the Police Commissioner and the Executive need to not worry about their image. Rather, they should be operating so that they can deliver on their core business. They need to remember that they are public servants and just get back to work.

FULLER: Going back to your comments about Aboriginal young people feeling there are significantly different living conditions they have compared with other people in the community – a lot of people might say they are provided with education, health care, a lot of job opportunities in communities and housing. They are not taking advantage of these things. What would you say to this?

LAMBLEY: We all know that a huge amount of funding and resources are thrown at closing the gap, particularly in the Northern Territory. Outcomes remain abysmal and an embarrassing failure to all governments involved. We can only conclude that what we are doing is not working. It’s time we had governments that were frank and fearless about this and we need to try different approaches.

FULLER: What sort of things should we do differently? For example, do you think governments should aim to have Aboriginal people address some of the consequences of their behaviour?

LAMBLEY: I think to change things we need to do a complete audit of where all this money is going. If organisations that have been given government money are not delivering, then that money should be taken away and redirected. Continuing to provide funding to organisations based on relationships with particular government ministers and politicians is a big part of the problem. There is nepotism, conflicts of interest we see all the time. It is wrong and needs to be stopped.

FULLER: There are two possible areas of concern here aren’t there? First you have the government departments delivering education, health and other services. Second, we have Aboriginal organisations receiving very large amount of government funding. How would you first deal with the public sector. It is very large compared with other jurisdictions and does seem to be inefficient and ineffective.

LAMBLEY: There is an optimal size for any public service. Once we get beyond this optimal size it becomes very wasteful in using resources to maintain itself rather than using resources to deliver to the community. I think that is where we are and we can’t sustain this.

FULLER: Are there other problems associated with such a large public service?

LAMBLEY: A very important issue associated with the giant size of the public service is that it is killing private enterprise in Alice Springs and the Northern Territory. Private enterprise cannot compete with the public service in terms of employment terms and conditions.

FULLER: Are there examples where this has caused problems?

LAMBLEY: In a place the size of Alice Springs you see local businesses that require particular skills and expertise. For example, an IT company may have to look interstate or overseas for staff to recruit people. Within 12 months they are working for the NTPS because of better terms and conditions. This has to stop. NT governments have to recognise that this is a problem and this needs to change.

FULLER: With regard to the need for audits are you also including Aboriginal organisations?

LAMBLEY: Anyone who is getting public money. But in the NT where we have a large number of Aboriginal organisations, more and more we see funding going to Aboriginal organisations and businesses. A lot of people have been calling for greater transparency and accountability from Aboriginal organisations for a long time, including the CLP in opposition. I have heard Jacinta Price talk about it. I have too, as an Independent.

FULLER: What about the current government?

LAMBLEY: The response we’ve had from the NT Labor government is that audits occur. They say that there are checks and balances and that every contract needs to be reported. But, I think it’s time for a closer inspection of what is actually happening on the ground, not what is in a report.

FULLER: A huge amount of public resources appears to be going in to Aboriginal organizations. Some people are saying that some of these organizations, including the Central Land Council are becoming involved in land and property development and acquiring large amounts of assets. Why aren’t they providing more support to Aboriginal people in Alice Springs?

LAMBLEY: I don’t have an answer for that. I have never understood how the Central Land Council works. I have had quite a bit to do with the Tangentyere Council over the years. Under Adam Giles the CLP government took away some of the funding for their big contracts for managing the houses on Town Camps and their maintenance, because they were not delivering. But under this government they have these contracts back and have been given additional funding. However, life on the town camps has not particularly improved. While this organisation receives a very large amount of government funding they haven’t put in an annual report for years and many people in Alice Springs are very concerned about this organisation, calling for greater accountability and transparency.

FULLER: You mention that with regard to the Central Land Council it is very difficult to get an understanding of what they do. But isn’t this unacceptable given their control of significant land and resources in the NT? Hasn’t the time arrived where organisations such as the Central Land Council need to be a lot more open and transparent and work a lot more in partnership with the wider community? Shouldn’t this be a major focus of government in the NT?

LAMBLEY: Yes. I agree with that premise. They seem to operate as another layer of government in the NT.

FULLER: Is the trouble is that if this dual government happens in Alice Springs and the NT, then it acts to undercut efforts toward social cohesion and can result in quite a destructive situation?

LAMBLEY: Yes. We are seeing this more and more in the Territory – the separation between white people and black people.  Policies that are meant to be a form of positive discrimination are often creating further division and animosity.

FULLER: With respect to alcohol you mention the need for mandatory treatment as an important way forward. What does this involve?

LAMBLEY: In 2013-14 I was the responsible Minister that rolled out mandatory treatment for the CLP. A main result was to get drunks off the street. But, it also gave those with a habitual alcohol problem and addiction an opportunity to stop drinking, seek medical treatment, to have food and accommodation and the basics of life necessary to improve decision making.

FULLER: Why did this program stop?

LAMBLEY: Labor chose to argue that the program was not effective and a waste of money.

FULLER: Was this reasonable?

LAMBLEY: No. I maintain it was effective, particularly compared with what we have now, which is nothing! We worked closely with the Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Programs Unit (CAAAPU) in a very good, collaborative program. We need something similar again. Currently, the town is back to where we were in 2012. We have set the bar so low over the last eight years that we are almost normalised to public drunkenness and disorder. It wears us all down to the point where there are 300 houses for sale in Alice at the moment. People want to move out but can’t sell their houses. Economically we have been smashed by crime.

FULLER: What about the cost of a mandatory alcohol program?

LAMBLEY: I would argue that the money we spent on this program is only a fraction of the current and past costs of the damage to the community caused by the major problems we face in terms of crime and disorder. Labor has ruined our town by not addressing crime when they should have and the cost of this is astronomical.

FULLER: You also mention in your newsletter that laws can be strengthened. Do you have a view as to which ones should be?

LAMBLEY: We have gone the full circle with bail laws in the Territory as a result of the Royal Commission. The bail laws need to reflect community concerns. In addition, laws around alcohol need to be strengthened because alcohol is at the core of the problems in Alice Springs.

FULLER: What do you think of the CLP policy of bringing down the age of criminal responsibility to 10 and the idea of a Skills Training Centre for young juvenile offenders because of the current gap between action on more minor offences and those that go into detention?

LAMBLEY: In an ideal world children as young as 10 should not be held criminally responsible for their behaviour. But how we live here is not ideal. I think what you see on the ground is kids under the age of 12 involving themselves in crime with absolutely no consequences. From a behavioural perspective then, kids are not learning to change their behaviour and understand the consequences.

FULLER: What has the current government done about this?

LAMBLEY: Although the current government said they would provide the necessary support services for kids under the age of 12, this just hasn’t happened. And given that young offenders are given the soft option over whether they attend services after they are involved in crimes, that doesn’t work for obvious reasons, as many don’t bother to attend.

FULLER:  Will this result in more very young kids being locked up?

LAMBLEY: I don’t think the CLP is saying that they want to lock up more kids. Rather, that those involved in crime can be directed in a mandatory way, to participate in a training program and a form of rehabilitation. I think that makes sense. I don’t think you can expect kids to change their behaviour without some support and training and if that’s optional I don’t think kids are going to participate. While the Royal Commission and Labor’s approach may be well meaning it has no practical application.

FULLER:  But these kids are still very young.

LAMBLEY: Yes. I do feel conflicted about this. I wish we didn’t have to talk about very young people involved in crime. But, unfortunately we need to. There is no future in “hoping for the best”. We need to address what is actually happening on the ground.

FULLER:  Is this due to a lack of parental responsibility?

LAMBLEY: Yes. Trying to make some parents accountable for their children is extremely difficult. Interestingly during the curfews, I was told by government officials that some parents welcomed that fact that the government was telling their children that they couldn’t roam the streets of Alice Springs at night. They welcomed that their kids stayed home.

FULLER:  Under existing legislation it is possible that a parent can be held responsible for their children.

LAMBLEY: Yes. There is existing legislation where a parent can be held responsible for an amount up to five thousand dollars for criminal damage by their children.

FULLER:  Do you think that should be activated?

LAMBLEY: This sounds great in theory but would be very difficult to recover from many families.

FULLER:  Finally, I would like to ask an overall question about governance in the Northern Territory and in particular, the NT Budget. Is the extremely high level of debt sustainable? We have had two previous Prime Ministers refer to the NT as a “failed state” and the first Chief Minister of the NT say that it is now time for the Territory to return under the Commonwealth.

LAMBLEY: I agree this is a major concern. When I was Treasurer in the CLP government we were hell-bent on reigning in the Budget in 2012. We thought we had a significant debt problem back then. In hindsight that was very low compared with now. When the CLP lost government in 2016 we handed over a debt level less than two billion. Now under Labor we have a debt level of around 11 billion.

FULLER: Should people be worried about this?

LAMBLEY: It is extremely concerning but what I learnt when I was Treasurer was that many people have no interest in this as long as the cost of living and doing business by government does not impact them. This view has been reinforced over the last eight years, watching how Labor has behaved in terms of the Budget and debt.

FULLER:  How has this been?

LAMBLEY: Quite frankly they are like kids in a lolly shop. They show no restraint. They have no understanding of money and business and accountability and the implications of getting the Territory into serious levels of debt. They do not care. They make a mockery of past efforts to stop this major problem from occurring.

FULLER:  What then does the future hold for the NT?

LAMBLEY: I don’t think the debt level will be addressed by either government. If the CLP for example, were to come in and try to implement an austerity program, or pass on the real costs to consumers of some services, like power and water for example, that is likely to have a major political impact, as it did with the previous CLP government. The future is likely to be that we will continue down this path I suspect for some years, until a courageous Federal government steps in and says this has gone way too far and makes a decision around mismanagement of finances in the Northern Territory.

NT election: Model predicts CLP win

Erwin Chlanda
-
3
NT election: Model predicts CLP win

Crime and social unrest are major electoral problems for the Labor government, not helped by social media tirelessly, and often misleadingly, bombarding the public with information.

By Professor ROLF GERRITSEN

Later this month we Territorians will vote in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly election. Recent opinion polls indicate a tightening contest as the Labor Government rallies under the surprisingly effective Ms Lawler.

Currently the CLP Opposition has a small lead and is generally tipped to win a majority of seats.

Normally, to predict elections psephologists and would-be pundits, like myself, rely on opinion polls. These are usually quite accurate about the general electorates’ voting intentions but sometimes misleading, even confounded, by the results in any particular electorate, which may produce an outcome that does not conform to the generality of the opinion polls.

Usually this is interpreted as the Member having a strong personal vote. The most-recently reported opinion polls here indicate that there is a recent swing towards independents.

Personally, I doubt that will carry through to election day. This is just some voters becoming aware an election is due and registering opinions designed to give their party a ‘wake-up” call.

Remember, a month before the 2020 election, the polls showed that the Territory Alliance had a higher primary vote than the CLP. We know how that turned out.

However, an American political scientist, Professor Lichtman of the University of California, has developed a model of predicting presidential elections that is highly accurate. He has correctly predicted nine of the past 10 presidential elections (in fact 10 out of 10, Gore really beat Bush Junior, who benefited from the crucial judicial exclusion of Democrat votes in black Florida districts).

Curiously Professor Lichtman has developed his election model from the models seismologists have developed to predict earthquakes. I have adapted Lichtman’s model in this case, to take account of institutional differences between the USA and Australia.

For instance, I have removed the variables relating to whether the President has won or lost a war. This does not seem germane to the Chief Minister’s role.

This is an exercise in whimsy. I do not want people stopping me in the street if my adaptation of Lichtman’s model does not accurately predict the coming Territory election!

So here are my 10, Lichtman-adapted variables.

Party Mandate

This category is included to take account of mid-term elections (in the NT context, by-elections).

Labor has won the two by-elections held since the last general election. So that category indicates some superiority to Labor. However, the CLP machinery has been overhauled since the former Chief Minister Shane Stone became President.

His reputation and recent donations declarations, suggest the Opposition is now better organised and attracting money from a wide spectrum of businesses. Consequently, this factor is probably neutral in my calculations.

Incumbent has no serious leadership challenges

The Chief Minister has the Labor Party unified behind her. This is as much an electoral necessity as the preference of at least one parliamentary colleague. Despite rumours of some dissatisfaction with Ms Finocchiaro, her feisty performance in the 2020 poll means she is secure in her bid to become Chief Minister. Again, I suspect that this factor is neutral.

Third Party

The presence of a significant third party may damage either of the major parties. In Australia that manifests via preferences. For example, Labor and other preferences for the Teals in the last Federal election led that Liberal-insurgent group to secure several seats and doomed the Liberal government to defeat.

In the Territory the Greens are the most permanent third party. They have never won a seat, which they could only do if they secured more first preference votes than either Labor or the CLP.

Effectively a Green vote is a Labor vote. Currently the Greens are very unhappy with the Lawler government. However, they face the “less-worse-of-the-alternatives” situation regarding their preferences. At this election, the Greens vote will probably be down and so reduce their advantage for Labor.

Consequently, the third party advantage to Labor is unlikely to affect the election result.

Current Economy

Here the CLP Opposition has a clear advantage. There is no economic growth at present, as the recent ComSec report starkly illustrated. Poor economic growth makes Labor vulnerable to CLP criticism. This is a strong variable against (deservedly or not) the current Labor Government.

Long Term Economy

From next year, the Territory economy will pick up as the implementation of several large projects will accelerate economic growth. However, that does not advantage Labor.

Appeals to future economic growth will not attract votes. Labor’s post-2020 election dithering with regard to economic growth, deferring decisions (eg on Beetaloo) has pleased neither the business community nor the conservationists. Chief Minister Lawler’s change of policy is not too late for the economy but it may be too late for the election.

Policy Change

This variable looks at whether the incumbent government is seen as responsible for significant change/s in policy. Major policy changes usually create new coalitions of supporters for a government.

Whether the incumbent government has achieved major changes in policy and outcomes is debatable. The suspicion/opinion that this Labor government has drifted since winning in 2020 has become entrenched.

It is a moot point whether the current Chief Minister has fully reversed that perception. The Greens are clear (and dismayed) about the government’s new economic and environmental policy directions, but I doubt the general electorate outside of the policy community are much aware of this “developmentalist” policy shift.

On the balance of probabilities, I doubt whether being in charge of the policy agenda has advantaged the government.

Social Unrest

Applying this Lichtman variable to the Territory we, inevitably, consider crime. This is a major electoral problem for the Labor government. The CLP is simply more believable with their “tough on crime” trope.

CM Lawler has promised more police, for an eye-watering cost of over $500 million.  However, anyone who knows anything about police staffing levels knows that continuing attrition makes raising staffing levels harder than just accepting new recruits. Anyway, despite its intellectual vacuity, the CLP policy is an electoral winner.

Scandal

There have been minor scandals dogging the current Labor government. These have been covered in detail in the NT Independent but largely overlooked in the mainstream media. However, they were the ostensible reason for the previous Chief Minister’s resignation.

These scandals are markers of either a longer-lived government arrogantly getting careless with the detail or being too lenient with mates. Consequently, these minor scandals propel (and confirm?) the “been in for too long/time for a change” lines the Opposition has been running.

Incumbent Charisma

This Lichter variable reflects that Presidential elections in America are more about two individuals competing than it is about their parties. The Labor leader, Eva Lawler has adopted a no-nonsense approach and definitely made Labor more competitive. She has taken credit for curfews and described her policies as “tough love”. Lawler has made Labor competitive after early polls showed a landslide against the government.

Challenger’s Charisma

The current Opposition Leader, Finocchiaro, was the only CLP parliamentarian in a greater metropolitan seat to survive the electoral rout of 2016. She must be a capable campaigner.

In the 2020 election when she was – by lack of alternative – the Opposition Leader, she surprised with a feisty campaign that restored the CLP’s base vote in the greater Darwin region, where this coming election will be won or lost.

I think that Finocchiaro has performed respectably, has not spooked the public servants and has led the debate with some imaginative policy proposals.

I regards these last two “leadership” variables as about even in terms of impacting the result of this election.

If I presented this interpretation of his model to Professor Lichtman, he would conclude that the CLP will win the election.

[Alice Springs based Professor Rolf Gerritsen is Adjunct Professor at the Northern Institute Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Society, Charles Darwin University.]

Bill Yan: The way to the top for the CLP

Erwin Chlanda
-
1
Bill Yan: The way to the top for the CLP

The quest for reaching dizzying heights is not limited to politics for Namatjira MLA Bill Yan (CLP), seeking re-election this month: He’s pictured in 2019 standing on the Himalayas summit of Island Peak (Imja Tse) at 6200m, with Nepalese climbing guide, Nema. Mr Yan has also walked to the Mount Everest base camp three times, including on January 5 this year.

Crime and anti-social issues will – unsurprisingly – be a major election focus for the CLP, Mr Yan told DON FULLER who probed how the party would deal with what the candidate says is “having a huge impact right across the community, whether that be people in homes, businesses or people going about their daily life”.

FULLER: Give me examples, please.

YAN: We had a forum with the candidates at the Chamber of Commerce and we heard from a woman who has been a victim of crime and threatened in her own home. As a result, she and her family are looking to leave town. People feel like they are living inside a prison and that they are trapped inside their own homes and too afraid to go out. We are also seeing anti-social and criminal behaviour in the work-place. Just recently the community bank in town gave notice that it was closing its doors due to safety risks to its staff, who have been subject to a number of threats of violence and intimidation.

FULLER: Is there enough information out there?

YAN: There has been a problem with the new IT system introduced by police and recently, we have not been able to get accurate crime statistics. This will need to be fixed quickly if Police are going to be able to direct their resources to the main areas of concern. But, besides dealing with the outcomes of crime we need to have a major focus on prevention and education, as well, to deal with issues before they happen.

FULLER: What are the side issues of crime?

YAN: The other main issue is cost of living but unfortunately this too, is being badly affected by crime and anti-social behaviour because it is increasing the costs of doing business and these costs are passed on to the consumer. Businesses are bearing the effects of criminal activities with break-ins and thefts, for example. Unless we can control crime we will see a steady decline in the social fabric of our community. This needs to be turned around so that Alice can return to the vibrant and healthy community it was.

FULLER: Does the CLP have plans to better deal with making offenders face the consequences of illegal activities? How can illegal activities continue without consequences for one group of the population at the expense of other people?

YAN: From my wide experience working in Corrections I have seen that there is a huge gap at present between kids who are first coming into contact with the justice system and the end result of youth detention. For those coming into contact with the Justice System for the first time there are a limited number of diversionary and low level programs in place. So there is little available to youth offenders beside Detention that works well. But offending has to be very serious before Detention takes place.

FULLER: But some wonder why it is that young Aboriginal people can commit crimes of violence more than once. You can go through all the “soft options” but what have these options achieved for the community?

YAN: The Justice System takes into account the disadvantages faced by these young people.

FULLER: But it could be argued that many have suffered disadvantage regardless of their origin and decisions based on racial origin, where people do not experience the consequences of their illegal actions, show no signs of working. The Justice System should make decisions based on legislation. Does the CLP have any plans to strengthen legislation so that people, regardless of racial origin face the consequences of their actions?

YAN: We have tried to bring forward legislation in Parliament around youth crime that Labor didn’t support. One that we are concerned about are the consequences of breach of bail, where currently there are no offences attached for doing this. We will change the legislation to bring back breach of bail as an offence. We also intend to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 12 years to 10 years.

FULLER: That’s very young.

YAN: This is not about putting kids in detention. Currently, all that can happen if a young person 10 to 12 commits an offence is that they can be recommended for a diversionary program. However, there is no requirement to attend the program. By bringing the age back an order can be made by the criminal justice system for the child to undertake an activity. Based on this, the CLP wants to create a Skills Camp. We are calling this “Sentence to a Skill”. We plan to bridge the current gap between first contact with the Justice System and Detention with this concept.

FULLER: How would it work?

YAN: Kids would go to this Camp. They would engage in educational activities and cultural activities, and be able to connect with elders and the community. Traditional “chalk and talk” education doesn’t work with many of these kids. We want to use vocational education and training so that they can learn applied skills, with their hands and visual skills, so that they can contribute to the community in good jobs. We will also concentrate on building literacy and numeracy skills. This should help turn their lives around so they can gain self-esteem and self-respect.

FULLER: What support will be available to these young people once they leave the “Skills Camp”? Will on-going parental and family support be necessary? (Mr Yan has already urged earlier that parents need to have a far more important role.)

YAN: Absolutely.

FULLER: What part should the government play?

YAN: That is the role of the department, Territory Families. They need to be more pro-active working with these kids and their families. Sadly, they need to do more to provide support to these families than is being done at present. Areas such as education and training in parenting and household and income management. A lot of this is just not happening.

FULLER: Is that a lack of competence or cultural understanding by the department?

YAN: I think Territory families has become too big and it’s become quite stagnant. It makes it very difficult for the department to become dynamic and to respond to what is happening. We think Youth Detention should be taken out of Territory Families and this function should be placed with Correctional Services. Currently the areas of responsibility are blurred and confused.

FULLER: Moving away from the responsibilities of government departments I would now like to turn to the responsibility and effectiveness of Aboriginal organisations. These community based organisations have received a very large amount of funding from the Federal and Territory Governments. Are they contributing to solving the problems facing Alice in an efficient and effective manner with taxpayers money?

YAN: I am asked by people all the time why, with hundreds of millions of dollars going in to these organizations, more outcomes are not being achieved. It is quite heart breaking that outcomes don’t seem to be achieved for those in need of help.

FULLER: What do you think are the main reasons for that?

YAN: I see a number of these organizations as very top heavy in management and administration. A lot of the money gets burned up there with vehicles and everything else. That takes money away from services being delivered on the ground.

FULLER: Do you think the people who manage these organizations have the necessary training and skills required to deliver these complex programs?

YAN: I would like to hope so but I haven’t got into the management of these organizations. While a number of these have been funded by the Federal government it is up to the NT government to pressure the Feds to make sure these programs are run properly and achieve outcomes. More and more people are concerned about organizations such as Tangentyere Council whose main function is to deliver services to Town Camps. The amount of money which has gone to this organization compared to the outcomes achieved for those in the Town Camps just don’t add up.

FULLER: What’s the response of the NGOs?

YAN: Attempts by the Council and myself to work with Tangentyere have not been encouraged. They have proved difficult to work with in any cooperative sense. There has been quite a degree of turmoil in this organization and nepotism within the management and Board. Similar problems have been experienced with NAAJA, with infighting and management problems. One of the shining lights in Aboriginal run organizations in Central Australia has been Congress.

FULLER: Is there enough control over how public funds are spent?

YAN: If the CLP wins government I want to make sure that any Territory money that is provided to Aboriginal organizations achieves outcomes and that it is properly spent and accounted for. We can’t keep throwing money out the door with little idea on how it is being spent.

FULLER: What measures would you put in place to encourage business and jobs growth in Alice?

YAN: As mentioned, crime needs to be controlled. It affects among other things, the ability to attract staff. We want to look at tax incentives to encourage business and people through zone taxation allowances. We want to work with the Federal government to put these incentives in place. We also want to look closely at payroll tax arrangements so that they don’t work against small business growth. We would also like to arrange for businesses to receive tax breaks for employing apprentices and trainees.

FULLER: What should be the role of immigrants?

YAN: We would like to address the changes that have occurred to visa requirements with the Federal government. These previously benefited remote regions such as Alice Springs but have been changed so that other less remote regions are now included as working destinations for immigrants. This has disadvantaged remote regions such as Alice and it needs to be changed back.

FULLER: There is a slump in tourism.

YAN: We need to encourage tourism in Central Australia which has been suffering badly during Covid and post Covid. We also need to encourage mining and agricultural activities. To do this we need to reduce the amount of approvals and red tape that are required for projects to proceed. Within mining, gas will be essential for the future growth of the Territory.  We need also recognise and support small business as these are at the heart of the Territory economy.

FULLER: How would that be governed?

YAN: We want to set up a position outside government called “The Territory Controller” to push important projects through so that they are not held up by unreasonable government processes and time-lines. This position would be a champion for important projects.

FULLER: How would you bring the debt laden Territory budget under control?

YAN: The Territory Labor party has blown the debt out in wasteful spending and wasteful projects. We need to drive our own source revenue and build our industry sectors to provide this tourism, mining and agriculture. To do this we need to rebuild our reputation to attract the required investment. It need to return to the “can do place” that it used to be rather than the “can’t do place” that it has become. The public sector has to become more dynamic and efficient and able to work better supporting business.

FULLER: The public service is very large in the NT relative to other States and Territories. Do you think it needs to be reduced if the Territory is to become viable?

YAN: We have given a commitment that we will not axe any government jobs or assets.

FULLER: But doesn’t the huge public service act as a break on diversifying and developing the Territory economy?

YAN: Part of the reason for the high levels of employment in the public sector is due to the tyranny of distance in the Territory. But the service has to become more dynamic and efficient to meet the development needs of the Territory. But I am aware that the Langoulant Report did recommend in 2019 that the size of the public service needed to be reformed and capped if the Territory was to achieve economic viability and reign in debt. However, the Labor government has ignored this recommendation and employed an additional three thousand public servants since the Report was submitted to the Labor government.

FULLER: A lot of government initiative seem to be on the never-never.

YAN: The practice of the Labor government of putting infrastructure projects on the books but not actioning them until some years later, when prices have increased sharply, has also had the effect of boosting the debt levels. This also serves to inflate the level of infrastructure projects undertaken by the government because many of them are in fact, not “new” projects.

St Mary’s ghost village: demolition by neglect

Erwin Chlanda
-
4
St Mary’s ghost village: demolition by neglect

St Mary’s, south of The Gap, is where many locals spent part of their youth. They have fond memories of the Children’s Village. When it became known in 2022 that the Anglican Church is going to sell the land, with the deal’s details withheld from the public (see story links at the bottom of this page), former residents made impassioned pleas for their former home’s history to be preserved in a dignified way. When historian and writer ALEX NELSON last weekend visited the site, now reportedly owned by the NT Government, he found it in a derelict and vandalised state and at risk of destruction in a major fire. 

Tall, dry buffel grass inside the boundary fence is dominating the property, growing hard up against the walls of buildings.

Well over a year ago, St Mary’s was vacated and put up for sale by the Anglican Diocese.

The real estate “for sale” signs have long vanished, the property (apparently) purchased by the Northern Territory Government.

Both parties, as the Alice Springs News has reported, remain studiously silent on how much St Mary’s was sold for and what exactly the government’s intentions are for the property.

Whatever, St Mary’s is now effectively abandoned and increasingly derelict – it’s a ghost town.

Last weekend I decided to take a closer look. My immediate concern was the extent of the completely unmanaged grass cover smothering much of the property and posing a major fire hazard.

My worst fears were realised – St Mary’s is a time bomb.

Internal road and tracks may serve as fire breaks but will be insufficient if a wildfire ignites in the dense metre-high dry grass, especially on a windy day.

Augmenting the hazard are numerous pepper trees (pictured), their green leafy canopies full of volatile oils that can erupt like napalm. (By the same token, pepper tree timber is excellent firewood!).

There are no fire breaks inside the boundary fences facing the Stuart Highway, Mt Blatherskite, and the Todd River.

There is no active management of St Mary’s at all.

Despite all the buildings’ doors and windows either padlocked and/or boarded over with plywood panels, nearly all have been broken into and vandalised.

This includes a building nearest the highway with asbestos contamination signage.

Windows are smashed and fixtures have been ripped from the walls.

There is no-one and nothing to prevent trespassers at St Mary’s.

The low front fence facing the highway, although repaired and gated, is no impediment.

Equally so, the high fence facing Mt Blatherskite boasts a large hole torn through the wire netting at one spot and an entire panel flattened by vehicles a bit further along.

Judging by the deteriorated chairs and furniture dumped by the major fence line breach, it’s obvious the boundary hasn’t been inspected for years.

Significantly, St Mary’s Chapel is unaffected, with intruders appearing to show some respect to leave it alone. There is, of course, no guarantee this will continue.

St Mary’s Chapel is home to the renowned heritage-listed Robert Czako mural, long championed by centenarian Jose Petrick and painstakingly restored with the aid of volunteers (including myself) in 2021.

Reportedly, the Minister for Art, Culture and Heritage, Chansey Paech, has nominated the chapel itself for heritage listing.

I’ve no idea where that’s at but it’s a moot point if St Mary’s continues to remain effectively abandoned.

I know from recent first-hand experience what I’m describing.

It’s just over seven months ago a wildfire swept over much of near-by Pitchi Richi, where I live, narrowly averting destruction of major assets and directly threatened neighbouring properties.

Luck was on my side – it wasn’t windy and there were no other fires that day, but it took virtually every available fire-fighting appliance (including a water bomber) to bring the blaze under control over a 3.6 hectare property.

Importantly, as the resident caretaker, I was on hand when the fire erupted and raised the alarm in sufficient time to prevent a major catastrophe.

St Mary’s has no-one looking after it and is an eight hectare property at extreme risk of destruction.

Given St Mary’s is acquired by the Territory government, it is now a publicly owned property and all its buildings and infrastructure are public assets.

As the property owner, the government is obliged under the NT Heritage Act to ensure the protection of the Robert Czako mural.

As the property owner, the government is obliged to ensure reasonable management is taken to mitigate the fire hazard posed by the tall rank grass dominating the site, including provision of fire breaks.

As things stand at present, St Mary’s is suffering from “demolition by neglect” a concept well understood in the building and property sectors.

St Mary’s is a place of immense local historical and cultural significance but is now in an appalling state.

The degradation of St Mary’s is in full view of the south Stuart Highway where thousands of people pass by every day.

Now that the election campaign is in full swing, the NT Government is in caretaker mode.

There needs to be urgent caretaking of the long cherished institution before inevitably it becomes too late to do so.

EARLIER REPORTS

St Mary’s sale: Anglican Church asked to give guarantees

St Mary’s sale: Time for the church to comment, says former Anglicare NT manager

Aboriginal organisations must cough up: St Mary’s supporters

Anglican Diocese: Silent night on St Mary’s sale – Alice Springs News

St Mary’s just a piece of real estate for Anglican Church?

Chansey Paech silent on what he told the ALP about St Mary’s

St Mary’s news just for a few

Garma apology: Police union canes Commissioner, MLA calls it a croc

Erwin Chlanda
-
9
Garma apology: Police union canes Commissioner, MLA calls it a croc

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The NT Police Association has condemned the apology speech delivered by Commissioner of Police, Michael Murphy APM, at the Garma Festival yesterday.

Acting President Lisa Bayliss says in a media release: “It is important to confront, acknowledge and learn from the past, without letting it define the NT Police (NTP).”

And Independent Member for the Araluen electorate in Alice Springs, Robyn Lambley, described the apology on social media: “What a croc! Garma has become a ridiculous display of patronising political rhetoric and pantomime.”

Says Ms Bayliss: “It is disappointing the Commissioner did not communicate the content, and intent, directly with the membership well in advance of his speech. In fact, the speech in its entirety was sent to the media before the membership.

“It is also not the role of police to assess the success or otherwise of Federal Government-directed policies of Closing the Gap, the Stolen Generation and the Intervention, as the Commissioner has done.

“If the Commissioner is genuinely committed to achieving the goals he has outlined, it is essential that the entire agency is included in this process and fully supported in its efforts to serve the community.

“Our members deserve the backing of the senior police executive, ensuring they are not unfairly overburdened with blame but rather empowered to continue their vital work for the benefit of all Territorians.”

Ms Bayliss pointed to changes Commissioner Murphy should be making to enhance job opportunities for Aboriginal people within the force.

“The Commissioner’s focus should be not only on Indigenous members of the public but also on the wellbeing and development of the NTP’s own members. This includes providing Indigenous employees within the NTP with opportunities to advance as far as they aspire within the organisation.

“Currently, members of the NTP employed as Aboriginal Community Police Officers (ACPOs) can only progress to the rank of Senior ACPO. If they wish to advance further, they must wait for a transition squad, or resign their position and apply as a recruit constable, as there is no existing ACPO to Constable transition career pathway.

“The association calls upon the Commissioner to address this gap by immediately.”

Ms Lambley said about the event in the Top End: “Politicians and political apparatchiks lining up in their droves pledging their commitment (and apologies) to Aboriginal people.

“The theatre and ceremony of this star-studded, red carpet glamping experience obviously impresses a lot of people, mostly from outside of the NT I dare say.

“With the situation on the ground getting worse for Territory Aboriginal people, it is hard to take any of this very seriously.”

IMAGE: Police Commissioner Michael Murphy at Garma on Facebook.

UPDATE August 6

Commissioner Murphy has resigned his membership from the Northern Territory Police Association.

He said in a media release: “The association should be strong and should be representative of membership.

“I am incredibly disappointed by the statements made by the association [on August 4] in response to my apology to Aboriginal Territorians at the Garma Festival on Saturday.

“I love policing. I know you do too, and I am proud to be your Commissioner.

“I have a vision for the future of NT Police; and in order to achieve that future, we need to be able to understand and acknowledge our history.

“Our shared mission is to serve and protect all Territorians.”

The answer to crime is work

Erwin Chlanda
-
4
The answer to crime is work

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

I would like to address the problem of crime in Alice Springs. The solution I think is NOT mentioned on the TV, in newspapers, on the radio and I cannot see it about Alice Springs anywhere on the internet (when googled).

There is also no discussion amongst friends or relatives on this subject. Whenever I mention this, people just go silent and do not even have a comment. I feel like I am pissing into the wind!

The solution to the crime problem is that all unemployed people in Alice Springs should be working like you and me!

Working at a job has many mental and social benefits. The mental benefits would include feeling useful which gives one mental stability. There are other numerous mental benefits as well. The social benefits of course include having money and learning and developing new skills.

I was born in Alice Springs and have lived in the centre of the Northern Territory all my life, and I have not seen any programme replace working at a job. Not one! All the programmes and schemes just don’t work, people say they do but they don’t! A considerable waste of time and money.

So, what is the answer to our high level of crime in Alice Springs and elsewhere? I propose an open-ended Commonwealth Development Employment Programme type of work scheme.

The old CDEP was a closed end. There was normally no prospect graduating or advancing out of the scheme with some sort of skill. There must be skills developed for people to go on with all the requirements to do a career or job, i.e. carpenter, plumber, electrician, secretary, nurse, teacher and the numerous other jobs that people do every day.

There are a few problems that the very long term unemployed have developed. One is that you hardly care about anything much at all!

You hardly care about looking after the house you live in, looking after the car you drive, the clothes you wear, that your kids going to school and to a very few or some only your kids on the street, looking after your very own health, or the amount of personal debt accumulated.

An Alice Springs family I know owes $80,000 plus to Centrelink. Robo debt is nothing compared to this setup; $40,000 plus to Jacana Electricity for a one household and a large unknown accumulation of useless effect court fines.

It also does not help that the Reserve Bank Centrelink payments are at 11.30pm at night creating a booming midnight nighttime economy that have whole families getting a meal. (Hamburgers Alice Springs is nearly number one in Australia).

Almost all do not even recognise that by not working at a job or career that it is doing psychological damage. It has been so normal not to work people think it is normal! This is not new at all; it has been documented all over the world, see examples in England coal mine country, North and South America, even China).

So, how would you start? Gently of course. First there must be a clear understanding that working at a job is good for you. Educators can find and point out all the benefits. A scheme that is designed to greatly encourage and educate people to learn how to work and to even learn how to learn new skills.

I realise the costs may be high to run such a scheme, but the benefits would be enormous. What is the generally the first things that an employer asks his or her employee? His or her tax file number! Paying some tax. Would there be enough jobs in the centre to support extra workers? Deal with it when we get there, who knows people may be keen to work elsewhere.

The way I see it, it really MUST be done, no ifs and buts because we cannot continue the way we are. The costs associated with the way we are going (law enforcement, damage done) will rise.

Of course, one does find on the internet studies that conclude where full employment is there is a low crime rate!

Bruce Clough, Alice Springs.

IMAGE: Facebook posting entitled before and after

Council runs animal shelter in a shambolic manner

Erwin Chlanda
-
13
Council runs animal shelter in a shambolic manner

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The Alice Springs Animal Shelter has a proud history as a low-kill refuge for lost and abandoned pets in our animal-loving town.

That is now all but gone.

Not long ago, the Town Council took over the running of the shelter with much self-congratulatory fanfare. The understaffed shelter was on its knees after an influx of pets and parsimonious support from the Council despite many pleas for assistance over the past few years.

The shelter urgently needs a long-term plan for its future and funding for facilities and staff.  Instead, the Council has assigned the Rangers to run the shelter. Yesterday afternoon there was an injured dog in the Mall being looked after by kind-hearted locals.  

They wanted to transport it to a vet but it couldn’t walk and Rangers were needed to drive up the Mall. Over two hours, calls to the seven Rangers including to their mobile went unanswered and finally, the dog had to be carried to a vehicle.

Instead of funding the shelter to recruit more staff and expand its facilities, the Council prefers to splash our rates on a range of expensive but dubious infrastructure projects.

Meanwhile, the shelter is run in an ad hoc, shambolic manner. Currently, it is closed and not taking animals.

There is no point calling the Rangers if you see a lost pet, they have nowhere to take it.

Many pets have been dumped onto local vets whose services are now hampered by the influx.

There is a rehoming event that may save some animals but the likely outcome of this long-term neglect and failure to urgently respond to the crisis is mass euthanasia. 

Ralph Folds, Alice Springs

IMAGE YouTube.

UPDATE 19/8/24 at 10.30am

The News asked the Town Council on August 4 to respond to this Letter to the Editor from Ralph Folds but the Council did not reply. However, when asked, it stated today that it has stepped in to operate the facility and it is still fully functioning.
“There have been no changes with the Rangers ensuring it’s business as usual for the public.”

UPDATE 19/8/24 at 11.15am

That is in conflict with a comment we received from Mr Folds this morning. When asked he said his belief that Shelter is closed was prompted by this Facebook notice (pictured), possibly posted by the Shelter organisation which is in receivership. Mr Folds says he was trying to get clarification from the liquidator but the quoted telephone number wasn’t working.

A few minutes ago Mr Folds called at the Shelter, found it closed and locked and a sign saying temporarily closed, until further notice, contact Council 89 500500.

 

Brawl over Singleton ground water continues

Erwin Chlanda
-
1
Brawl over Singleton ground water continues

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Fortune Agribusiness is again the controversial winner in the Western Davenport Water Allocation Plan 2024-2027 announced by Environment Minister Kate Worden yesterday – a day before her government entered caretaker mode ahead of the election this month.

The government’s decisions about the use of groundwater from the 24,500 square kilometre basin 350 km north of Alice Springs have vehemently been opposed by the Arid Land Environment Centre.

It lost a court case but the decision is being appealed by the Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation. 

CEO Adrian Tomlinson says the case highlighted that plans are non-binding: “We need an urgent amendment to the Territory’s water laws to ensure water allocation plans are binding.” 

He says while the new plan has marginally reduced the allocation to businesses like Fortune but they have a freer hand in how to take the water.

Two-thirds of the resource is set aside for industrial use, to 92% of which the Chinese backed company, at Singleton Station, now seems set to have the rights for the next three years.

This is about 1.4 times Darwin’s annual water supply, says Mr Tomlinson.

The remaining one-third is used for smaller existing agricultural ventures and for the Aboriginal Water Reserve which can be used or traded.

Mr Tomlinson says the licence, which is still subject to environmental impact assessment, “needs to be stopped.

“It will result in the widespread destruction of groundwater dependent trees, soaks and wetlands which depend on shallow groundwater.

“Sacred sites are at risk and salinity impacts the long-term viability of the water.”

PHOTO: Groundwater dependent tress are at risk. Image courtesy Arid Lands Environment Centre.

123...222Page 1 of 222