By KIERAN FINNANE
The Town Council’s Director of Technical Services, Greg Buxton, would appear to have been ‘freelancing’ (as Tony Abbott would put it) when he released earlier this month the 2004 draft report on council’s parks. When the issue of public consultation was raised in last night’s council meeting, Mayor Damien Ryan said it was Mr Buxton’s decision to present the report, he didn’t understand why he had done so and looked forward to finding out. Mr Buxton was not at the meeting to be asked.
Two members of the public asked questions about parks at the head of the meeting. Hal Duell wanted to be assured, for the sake of The Gap’s children, that decisions about parks in what is Alice’s most “park-poor” area would not be taken simply on the basis of a “cost-benefit analysis” . He also wanted to know whether council had the right to sell any parks, if they are the owned by the community.
Dalton Dupuy wanted to know what the plans for consolidation and redevelopment of Oleander Park might be and asked whether council could “reduce the amenity” of someone living next door to a park (he lives next door to Oleander). The 2004 report recommended reducing the size of this park.
Mayor Ryan took the questions on notice but said there had been no discussion of this council selling parks, a point he repeated when the issue came up later in the meeting. Nonetheless, as pointed out previously by the Alice Springs News Online, Councillor Geoff Booth’s five point motion, that has been quietly progressing through the committee process, does include as point “D” that council “forecast savings on maintenance as a result of reducing the number of insignificant land [parcels] currently zoned as parks”.
The issues have been deferred pending clarification with Mr Buxton, who apart from releasing the 2004 report – previously considered and rejected by council and never released – also introduced a particular focus on Ashwin and Finlayson Parks. His “officer recommendation” asked for council to provide direction on the “redevelopment” of these parks. In the 2004 report their recommended “redevelopment” involved upgrading them, not disposing of them, as they were surrounded by “vocal residents”.
Cr Eli Melky pressed the point on these parks, wanting to know if council had ever discussed them in any way shape or form.
CEO Rex Mooney said there had been discussion in the past about the two parks and “the officer” (Mr Buxton and / or Works manager Scott Allen) felt it could be considered by council again.
Cr Jade Kudrenko wanted to be assured that there would be community consultation, which is when Mayor Ryan’ made his point about the director’s decision.
Cr Chansey Paech wanted the public gallery to know that he wouldn’t support selling off parks, and suggested nor would any other councillor, which would seem to be a misreading of at least Cr Booth’s and Cr Melky’s possible intentions. Cr Melky immediately clarified that he looked forward to seeing the evidence, having the discussion and consultation before making his decision.
Cr Booth meanwhile is looking forward to his tete-a-tete on the issues with Mr Buxton and Mr Allen when they return in 10 to 12 days’ time.
Officers a leap ahead of councillors on parks
Alleged burglars sought by police
Police are asking for public assistance to identify two males who are responsible for several offences including the unlawful entry of an Alice Springs bar.
Detective Superintendent Brent Warren said it is alleged the two offenders gained entry to the premises on Hartley Street by using tools stolen from some nearby parked vehicles to smash through a wall at around 2am.
Once inside the establishment, the offenders smashed a glass door to gain entry to the office.
The males stole a sum of cash and several bottles of spirits before fleeing the vicinity on foot.
They are described as being of Aboriginal appearance with one wearing a black hooded jumper with a white design on the front, and the other a grey hooded jumper with white lacing.
Police can be contacted on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. – Police Media release.
LETTER: Quota back in Alice
Sir – Quota International is looking to re-establish the once vibrant Quota Club in Alice Springs.
Quotarians from Townsville and Whitsunday will be in Alice on Saturday and Sunday, September 29 and 30, to meet with past members and any interested new members.
The club in Alice Springs folded in 2007. Since then the international organisation has changed its structure and bylaws and has been recruiting members, including Generation X & Y, who have found it to be a much more flexible group.
Founded in 1919 as the first international service organisation for women, Quota today has members in clubs throughout North America, South America, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
Its motto, “We Share,” leads members to help and encourage others, while developing friendships and promoting international understanding. Quota is known especially for its service to disadvantaged women and children and to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, and speech-impaired.
Anyone who would like to connect with a group of dynamic, caring and fun-loving people, who live for challenges, and are willing to tackle something new, should come along on Saturday, September 29 at 3pm at the Royal Flying Doctor Service Cafe on Stuart Terrace, near Alice Springs Hospital precinct. If you can’t make it on Saturday call me on 0419 658837 to register your interest or Cheryl North 0410 225004 or 0889 522072.
Jeanette Gray
Past District Governor
Proserpine
Aboriginal job training scheme in the bush: Governments, bureaucrats, contractors, public money – who gains what? A case study.
Photos above and below: Construction industry trainees in the APY lands. Photo bottom of page: One of the road trains carrying the workshop, classroom and staff accommodation to remote Central Australia.
UPDATE October 6
The Alice Springs News Online received the following responses to our questions from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations on October 4:-
Q: What were the tender details of the APY program, are they on the public record and if so, where?
A: As per the Indigenous Employment Program Guidelines, the department approached a number of Indigenous Employment Program Panel Members through a Request for Quotation about delivery of services for this activity. [ED – This seems to say there was no tender nor will the price paid by the department be disclosed. See also below.]
Q: How many people have been placed in full-time and part-time (please state hours) jobs as a result of the program?
A: All job seekers undertaking the Certificate II in Civil Construction were employed on a full-time basis by contractors of Housing SA while building work was being undertaken in Amata and Mimili. [ED – This does not disclose the amount of time these people had full-time employment.]
Q: How many of these people were previously on welfare benefits and are now no longer?
A: The Indigenous Employment Program does not keep records of its participants’ welfare status.
Q: How many people with new skills have relocated to obtain full-time work? If so, where to?
A: As the project was delivered through an Indigenous Employment Program Panel Member, the department does not have records of these details. However the Indigenous Employment Program Post Program Monitoring data indicates that 72 per cent of participants are still in employment three months after participants have been assisted in the IEP. [ED – “Are” or “were” – the program finished in early 2011].
UPDATE October 1
The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations says it “contributed” to the APY program but will not disclose how much.
A spokesman says “no future project in this area is contemplated at this time.
“The initial project aimed to build the long-term capacity of the building industry by addressing barriers such as cross cultural awareness (for both the building and construction companies and the local Indigenous community), as well as increasing the understanding of contractual obligations that construction companies must adhere to.
“The project also aimed to provide employment opportunities for local Anangu in the building and construction industry, beyond the project itself.
“Since the initial project, there is now a greater cultural understanding between mainstream building companies and the community. In addition, labour hire arrangements have been established across the building and construction industry in the APY Lands. This has provided increased opportunities for Anangu who worked on the construction project.”
The Alice Springs News Online has put these follow-up questions to the department:-
• What were the tender details of the APY program, are they on the public record and if so, where?
• How many people have been placed in full-time and part-time (please state hours) jobs as a result of the program?
• How many of these people were previously on welfare benefits and are now no longer?
• How many people with new skills have relocated to obtain full time work?
• If so, where to?
UPDATE Sept 25
When the IS Australia-run Indigenous Employment Program (IEP) came to an end in Mimili and Amata there was nothing to do for the men, says Aileen Shannon, and so she and her partner, Tony Rodgers, in January this year founded Wiltja Constructions Pty Ltd based in Fregon, in the APY lands.
Ms Shannon is an indigenous woman who grew up in Mimili. She previously worked as a public servant and as an aide to state and federal politicians.
Mr Rodgers, who is not indigenous, is a builder and carpenter. He was previously engaged by Career Employment Group (CEG) as Project Manager for the extension of the IEP Program.
In response to an enquiry about the recent fate of the trainees, the Alice Springs News Online was told by the SA Department for Communities and Social Inclusion that “12 jobs for Aboriginal people were created on the APY Lands” and “10 workers who went through the training have also gained employment” through Wiltja and “four local Aboriginal workers have travelled beyond their communities for work”.
Ms Shannon says Wiltja’s objective is to employ local workers on a casual basis: “As we develop and grow we hope to provide permanent employment for Anangu who would like to have a career in the local construction industry.
“To date, we have employed 28 Anangu across three communities and anticipate this number will grow with upcoming work scheduled in Amata and Indulkana.”
At Mimili, Wiltja has so far undertaken three contracts; the restoration of the Uniting Church (six weeks, eight Anangu employees); fencing of the single men’s quarters (two weeks), and refurbishments of the quarters (twelve weeks, four men).
A new house in Mimili for Housing SA is also on this year’s work’s schedule for the new company, and one in Amata is likely next year. She says Wiltja are fast approaching a starting date for the construction of a gymnasium in Fregon for which Federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has kicked in $35,000.
Wiltja was also contracted to demolish 22 houses across four communities – Ernabella, Fregon, Mimili & Indulkana (10 weeks, 10 men),
Ms Shannon says the men working for Wiltja are welcome to find stand-ins if they are otherwise engaged – such as doing different jobs in the community or attending ceremonial business.
She says Wiltja employs local workers on a basis that allows them to retain their Centrelink payments.
She says the number of trainees in Mimili under the IS Australia project was 13, not 25.
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Leaving your home town to learn a trade is a tough call for anyone, even more so if you’re an Aborigine living in a tight-knit remote community: while the bright lights may be alluring, the temptation of booze too often has catastrophic consequences.
Now a Darwin, Adelaide and Cairns based company has developed what may well be the answer: don’t take the people to the training, take the training to the people.
The firm, IS Australia, has developed hardware for the job that fits on a three-trailer road train: a classroom; a workshop equipped to teach skills including welding, concreting, block laying, painting, carpentry, tiling and plastering; and the third trailer fitted out as staff accommodation, all fully self-contained.
And this is the ‘software’: getting the trainees on the job, hands-on, paying them a real wage, and generating pride in the achievement of doing something very tangible for their community, namely helping to build houses.
This program goes further than the long-established Mobile Adult Learning Unit (MALU) offered by Charles Darwin University: Participants are paid workers rather than just trainees, with a full-time working week.
Under contract with the Federal Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations IS Australia deployed two of their rigs to Amata and Mimili in the APY lands south of Alice Springs.
These are dry communities.
The six months program was spread over nine months in 2010 and 2011, having a break at the height of summer for Christmas and ceremonial business.
By the most significant indicator the programs were a success: attendance by the 50 participants – 25 in each community – was 90%, according to the company’s Joshua Blake.
They were employed full-time, at award rates, by the construction firm building houses in the communities for Housing SA, the South Australian government’s housing authority.
“It was not just training for the training’s sake,” says Mr Blake.
For the trainees, aged 18 to early 50s, the day stated at 7.30am with a “toolbox meeting” mapping out the day’s jobs.
These include making concrete paths, landscaping, fabricating carports and shade structures, pouring slabs.
“We got them doing things, practical activities,” says Mr Blake.
“In the morning they learned a skill and in the afternoon they were applying that on the job.”
The daily theory training may be about using a circular saw, and the trainees would be using that skill in the afternoon on the building site.
“They didn’t learn those skills in isolation.
“There was a lot of pride for these guys to be involved in a project which improved the amenity of the community. We built that! There was a real sense of ownership and pride,” says Mr Blake.
“And the broader community were proud of these guys for doing what they were doing.”
The involvement of the community was key to the program’s success, says Mr Blake: the locals made the decisions, ranging from who takes part in the course to where the trailers were parked.
The participants were mostly blokes, with some women participating in landscaping.
Older men took on a father-role: “The younger guys understood that they were given an opportunity which the older fellows had waited a long time for.”
Earlier this month IS Australia was recognised for this project as the Winner of the Workcover South Australian Collaboration Award.
[The Alice Springs News Online invited Housing SA to comment on the program. We asked what happened to the trainees after the completion of the program, and what are the employment opportunities in the region.
We also asked IS Australia what the cost of the APY contract was. We will update the story when this information is to hand.]
LETTER: Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association says live cattle exports on the right track
Sir – After last week’s industry and producer tour of inspection of live export supply chains in Sumatra and Java, I congratulated Indonesian industry, importers and Australian exporters on the implementation of the new Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme (ESCAS) in Indonesia. We investigated performance of transport, feedlots and abattoirs across three key regions which account for the majority of the live export trade in Indonesia.
The group included Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association (NTCA) executive, cattle producers, key industry partners and newly appointed Northern Territory Primary Industries Minister Willem Westra van Holthe.
The achievements have been truly outstanding. It has been a pleasure to inspect newly upgraded abattoirs and see them operating quietly, calmly and efficiently, with no fuss, and importantly to the highest welfare standards.
We now see the unprecedented uptake of stunning with over 80% of facilities stunning all cattle pre-slaughter and this will only increase. It’s a credit to Indonesia.
The tour incorporated Australian Livestock exporter Australian Rural Exports (Austrex) who have now exported over 51,000 head of cattle into the Australian Government approved Indonesian supply chains, delivering 100% stunning.
It has allowed the NTCA to get a strong understanding and appreciation of the level of commitment to ESCAS compliance from both Australian Live Exporters such as Austrex and their Indonesian buyers, in this case Pt Agro Giri Perkasa.
While driving a major culture change the cost of compliance with the new ESCAS system has been enormous.
It certainly makes sense for the system to be continually reviewed to ensure that common sense is applied and industry is not made uncompetitive and lose trade, particularly in those countries where there are very viable alternatives to Australian animals. For NTCA Executive and National Farmer Federation delegate Tracey Hayes, this visit has been incredibly satisfying, observing the ESCAS system at work and the obvious significant changes made to improve animal welfare standards.
Ms Hayes said: “This has been my first visit to the Indonesian market since the cessation of the trade and I have been highly impressed with what I have seen. To stand alongside the slaughter men and observe the stunning and slaughter process has been very reassuring.
“The animals were handled in a calm and low stress manner and the abattoirs inspected opted for stunning, exceeding International OIE standards.
“To me this has demonstrated a commitment by exporters, importers and the Indonesian people to the animal welfare outcomes of Australian animals. The new system is designed for continual improvement and while we may see isolated breaches and challenges in the future this needs to be viewed in the context of, no system is perfect from day one.”
The tour has also been an opportunity to assess the relationship between Australia and Indonesia and get a perspective of the political, economic and cultural drivers behind Indonesian policy.
Relationships play a critical role and we need to be doing a lot more to grow that our relationship with Indonesia. That is why we have had another group of NT producers and their families visiting this week to further a successful student exchange program which started this year.
When we step back to look at it, Indonesia is the world’s biggest Muslim country, the third largest democracy in the world and an emerging economic powerhouse right on our doorstep.
While our relationship goes back a long way, it is now that we are increasingly seeing the importance of Indonesia as part of our own future, for security, trade and cultural exchange. No other relationship is, and arguably will be, as important as ours with Indonesia.
Despite the fact that our northern beef industry is currently is under extreme and compounding pressure, with increasing debt and diminished cash flow impacting on many producers, with the right policy settings and a focus on building market opportunities, the industry can rebuild and make a significant contribution to growing the northern economy.
Building our trade and social relationship with Indonesia must therefore be a central plank in achieving this objective.
David Warriner
President, Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association
LETTER: A lot of hassle for a litre of oil – motor home tourist won't spend any more money here.
I would like to award Centralian Motors the thumbs down for wasting a day of my holidays.
On reaching Alice after traveling from Port Macquarie checking the engine of my new Ford motorhome I noticed that the oil level was half way down the stick so set about to find the Ford dealer for what I thought would be the right oil.
Speaking to the service department [of Centralian Motors] I was told that they only had the oil in bulk and would need to book my van in for a service.
I explained that the service had only just been completed before setting out and all I needed was to top up the oil.
But “NO” – full service or nothing.
I left very irritated and rang Ford Australia. After thirty minutes on the phone at a cost still be received they rang through to the dealer who just completed the service in Port Macquarie, confirming that it had [been done].
I then rang Centralian Motors to negotiate a liter of oil for my van.
Hours later I was asked to return to Centralian to a very cold reception (funny considering it was 37 degrees) were I was made to wait until what seemed like the most inconvenient [arrangement] possible. I paid and left with a bad taste from what has been a pleasant holiday to date.
The oil is a special oil for turbo vehicles and not easily purchased.
I am sorry that I feel that it necessary to contact you on this matter as it left such a bad taste that I don’t wish to spend any further monies in a town [for which] clearly the dollar is more important than introducing and welcoming others to your area.
Jeff Bickley
[ED – We have asked Centralian Motors to provide a response and we will publish it when received.]
Coniston: survivors & descendants recall massacre in new film
REVIEW By KIERAN FINNANE
How could a man designated Protector of Aborigines end up leading a revenge party that would shoot at least 31 of them, including women and children, and probably many more, in retaliation for the death of one white man? It is a question that preoccupies a white Australian audience but the film Coniston, directed by Francis Jupurrurla Kelly and David Batty (the film-makers of Bush Mechanics fame, pictured below left), does not try to answer it. Nor does it look in much detail into the broad context of the infamous event it is concerned with – the last white on black massacre in Australia, starting at Coniston, about 250 kms north-west of Alice Springs, in 1928. The one hour documentary, that includes dramatised sequences, focusses instead on capturing the oral history of the massacre held by Warlpiri, Anmatyerr and Kaytetye people. The primary audience it has in mind are the Warlpiri, Anmatyerr and Kaytetye of today and into the future, so that the story won’t be forgotten.
Many of the speakers in this film are the descendants of the massacre victims; some few are survivors, young children at the time. One is Albert Jakamarra Wilson, the son of an Aboriginal tracker, Alec Wilson, who worked for the revenge party. Others who take part in the dramatised sequences are the descendants of Bullfrog, the Warlpiri man acknowledged as the killer of the white man, Fred Brooks, a stockman turned dogger.
The premise of the film was described by co-director Kelly, a Warlpiri man from Yuendumu, at its Alice Springs screening on Monday: “It’s all about white Australia but we got black histories.” He had started on this project 30 years ago, interviewing the son of Bullfrog, who could remember hiding in a cave with his father when the revenge party was searching for him – we see some of this grainy footage and a handsome young Kelly without his signature dreads. According to Bullfrog’s son, the revenge party went past but Alec Wilson went inside and spoke to Bullfrog, without realising that it was him, advising him to wait in the cave until the whitefellas went past (effectively saving him).
Some time is spent on charactersing Bullfrog. He was known as “the whitefella killer”; he did “the wrong thing” but he was “a good bloke” although a “wild fella”; he was “a cheeky man, a fighter”. Some speakers have him boasting of his deed, saying “leave me alone, I’m a murderer” and “I can kill a white man”. Kelly is urged to “make the film of that white man killer so the whole world can see”.
In a dramatised sequence the film has Bullfrog sending one of his two young wives to ask Brooks – the first white man he and his family have seen – for tobacco. The commentaries about this focus on the sexual exchanges between the white and black populations. White men came with their sheep and bullocks but “left their wives overseas”; this meant they were on the lookout for black women, and not “middle-aged ones”; like someone going for “a brand new motor car” they always looked for “the beautiful ones”. The speaker, Ned Jungarrayi Kelly (whose father died in the massacre), showed what he meant by cupping both hands under his breasts, greeted with hilarity by the audience. A very elderly woman, Myrtle Napurrula Dixon, spoke of the many single white men who “became our boyfriends”.
While all this is related, Brooks puts Bullfrog’s young wife to work around his camp and ultimately takes her into his tent for sex. There is no suggestion of force in the film; she appears to go willingly. Bullfrog meanwhile gets into a jealous rage, exacerbated by a relative’s teasing, it is suggested. He grabs his axe and boomerang and, together with a relative, kills Brooks – “chopped him up”.
A speaker comments that everything got “confused because of that woman”. Brooks “should have asked”. White men were greedy, “going through woman after woman”. Bullfrog’s wife flees the scene, he was going to kill her too – “she just kept running”. So did Bullfrog – “he left his [other] wife and kids and walked off”.
The film has Alec Wilson discovering Brooks’ partially-buried body. He informs police and he is told by Mounted Constable George Murray, the Protector of Aborigines, that he must go along with him to track down Brooks’ killer. The search party soon turns into a revenge party: random groups of Aborigines are ordered to drop their weapons “in the name of the King” and when they fail to do so, they are shot. Albert Wilson says that his father did not go along with this; his father said to Murray that people should be given a chance but was told to follow Murray’s orders.
Bullfrog sang “magic songs” to keep his pursuers at bay and sang away his footprints, we are told: he was “a tricky one”, one old man comments with a chuckle. A woman, Dora Napaljarri Kitson, says her father encountered the party and deflected their bullets with his shield and magic until they had no bullets left.
In their travels the film-makers visit the grave of Fred Brooks. Kelly’s assistant comments, “Poor thing”, but Kelly emphasises the greed of white people and their lack of respect. The film stresses that this was drought time and access to water was critical. Brooks was camped at one of two remaining soakages in the area where Bullfrog’s family retreat to, passing into their neighbours’ country. Brooks’ former employer, cattleman Randal Stafford had also claimed a water source for his enterprise.
The revenge party was on the rampage for an initial two weeks and later Murray returned with another white man, Nugget Morton, and again Alec Wilson. Morton had been attacked by an Aborigine but had ultimately got the upper hand and killed him. Now others would also pay with their lives, as the party heads north, hunting down and shooting Aborigines “like dogs”, says Albert Wilson. This goes on for a period of three weeks. A speaker reflects that the victims, as they tried to flee, must have wondered why they were being shot at.
An old man, a survivor, Johnny Jupurrurla Nelson, comments that to this day people are “too sorry” to move back to their country. They might visit but they don’t want to stay. He was a baby at the time; his mother hid him in some bushes and ran.
As the film-makers travelled around, collecting their interview material, Kelly learns from one speaker that his “mother’s father” died in the massacre. He hadn’t known that before. He is visibly moved and angry.
We are briefly told, in writing, that a Federal inquiry found that the shootings were justified, no Aboriginal witnesses were called, and Murray was returned to his position. The film doesn’t end on this note, however. We return to hear speakers evoke how present the story still is for them: “We still worry about it, all those dead people’s stories”; their “blood was dripping in our land”. Kelly briefly sums up the aftermath, ending with people moved onto government settlements, with no “justice” ever delivered – it’s the “missing word” from the story, says Kelly. And finally, we see a photo of Bullfrog who was never arrested and lived on until 1959.
The story is told with conviction but also with a certain matter-of-factness and at times, humour. In other hands dramatic techniques may have been employed to heighten the brutality and tragedy of the events. Although there were scenes of people being mown down, including little children, the tone was sober and the film was not a distressing viewing experience. It fulfills its mission to record the perspectives of the people whom these terrible events directly affected, even to the present time, as well as to engage today’s young people in the story. There are some very effective scenes where Kelly is casting people in certain roles and directing them in the re-enactments. They are funny and enlivening and pay tribute to people’s resilience. Perhaps that is a kind of justice, that people have delivered to themselves.
Coniston was co-produced by PAW Media (based at Yuendumu) and Rebel Films (Melbourne).
Country Liberals 'not ruling out' a floor price for alcohol
Key stakeholders in the Centre will meet about alcohol policy
UPDATE, September 18, 7.00pm: While they are “not ruling out” the introduction of a floor price on alcohol, the Country Liberals have “traditionally opposed it”, said a spokesperson for Deputy Chief Minister Robyn Lambley. It will be on the table for discussion at the forthcoming meeting of stakeholders in Central Australia, as will all other aspects of alcohol policy bar the BDR.
The Alice Springs News Online put to the spokesperson that the Coroner had made a specific link between sales of alcohol and the problems it causes and suggested that a concrete measure on the supply side will need to be proposed. He said the government has concrete measures but they are not on the supply side; they are mandatory rehabilitation and prison farms.
Deputy Chief Minister Robyn Lambley would appear to be foreshadowing the introduction of a floor price for alcohol – whether Territory-wide or in Central Australia only is not clear. She has just issued a press release, calling on Police Minister Kon Vatskalis to say “whether Labor supports a floor price on the sale of take-away alcohol – a supply side measure Labor previously opposed when in Government”.
Mrs Lambley also said: “As recommended by the Coroner, the Mills Government will initiate as soon as practicable a meeting of key stakeholders in Central Australia”. At this meeting “all aspects of alcohol policy will be up for discussion”, she said, but the “Banned Drinker Register will not be re-introduced because it simply did not work”.
Strangely, the Minister also describes Mr Vatskalis’ admission that there is a requirement for cultural change within the Territory police force as “hypocritical and insulting”. Chief Minister Terry Mills only yesterday laboured the point about a need for cultural change within the force. – Kieran Finnane
Bushfires an even bigger heartache when they are started by fools
ABOVE: The Finke River (foreground) stopped the bushfire just short of a popular bush camp, and the Glen Helen Resort. Mount Sonder is in the background, charred bushland in the middle ground. CENTRE LEFT: Aftermath of one of the many places where fires were started on the road to Glen Helen. CENTRE RIGHT: A curry wattle re-grows after a bushfire in the MacDonnell Ranges, near Ormiston.
By ERWIN CHLANDA
The big country we live in turns into a monster when it burns, thumbing its nose at our feeble efforts to regain the upper hand.
It’s the more agonising when the cause is human stupidity, carelessness or malice, as appears to have been the case a few days ago when part of the West MacDonnell National park, our greatest tourism asset, was turned into cinder.
An area of about 40 square kilometers was burned.
One blaze was started by the roadside near Redbank Gorge. Another, ignited in dozens of spots for some 30 kilometers on the Glen Helen to Alice Springs road, was lit by s
parks from a car driven on its rims.
The Redbank fire burned eastward towards Ormiston Gorge camp ground, which had to be evacuated, but burned itself out in an area targeted in an earlier prescribed burn before reaching the camp ground.
It also burned towards the Glen Helen Resort, stopped right on its doorstep by the mighty Finke River and parks staff.
They were unable to do much about the blaze on the road to Alice Springs, however: inaccessible country makes fire fighting difficult and blustery winds caused havoc to staff trying to control the fire.
It was a bad omen after last year’s devastating fires which consumed an estimated 45% of Central Australia.
Most fires are caused by humans. Charred areas are lining mostly the roads leading to outlying communities.
As summer approaches, you can monitor this unfolding tragedy on the bush fires map which is updated every few hours from satellite images.
Last year there was much discussion about the need for police forensic investigations to find and punish the firebugs – but even that is a curly issue.
The ownership of the parks has now been transferred to Aborigines. The parks, for a substantial fee, are leased back to the government for the use and enjoyment by the entire community. The public purse is also responsible for the management and maintenance.
So can the government get tough on fire lighters? Not in some circumstances, it appears.
The Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act says “nothing in or under this Act limits the right of Aboriginals who have traditionally used an area of land or water from continuing to use that area in accordance with Aboriginal tradition for hunting, food gathering (otherwise than for the purpose of sale) and for ceremonial and religious purposes.
“The operation and effect of this Act is subject to the Native Title Act 1993 of the Commonwealth.”
Driving a car on its rims could hardly be regarded as a traditional Aboriginal activity, but having a meal out bush by a campfire? It’s clearly enough for authorities to limit their response to hand wringing.
Parks and Wildlife Deputy Chief Ranger Gary Weir fought many fires in the 2011 inferno.
He and other rangers were burning back during one of the fires from the Stuart Highway south of Alice Springs.
They had miscalculated by a few minutes and the flames jumped the road, literally over their heads.
They fell back to the railway line but the fire overtook them again. They moved further east and finally managed to stop the blaze at the Old South Road.
Just recently, according to a tourist’s account, a camper at Boggy Hole, in the Ellery Creek, “took his shovel for a walk”.
Apparently as a conscientious environmentalist he decided to burn his used toilet paper. A gust of wind blew it away and rangers spent two to three days controlling a bushfire.
Mr Weir says some Aboriginal people burn their cars by the roadside when they break down, apparently to deny scavengers the still useful bits of the vehicle.
The gap between the necessary equipment and manpower, and what the government is willing to pay for, is so massive that it is not even worth asking: “What would it take to adequately manage bush fires in The Centre’s magnificent parks?”
Perhaps it could be asked in a year’s time, now that the Parks and Wildlife head office is being repatriated to Alice Springs from Darwin by the new government.
Mr Weir says in an ideal world areas of bush would be subjected to “prescribed” burning, wide enough for a wildfire to be unable to cross them.
That would be done – ideally – from a road or track (a graded trail is generally only used in an emergency), or along corridors blasted free of dry vegetation with oversize leaf blowers generating an airflow of some 300 km/h.
But you would not only need much more staff than available, you would need it at the right time: not much wind, and near zero temperatures. As fate would have it, this is one of the windiest years on record.
The next best thing, says Mr Weir, is dropping incendiaries from helicopters in high fuel load seasons in the right weather. This enables larger areas to be burnt, thereby protecting more land and needs minimal staff.
This year an area of about 100 square kilometers was burned in this way. Mr Weir says: “The park is now better protected in some areas.”
Another consideration is the temperature of the fire: if the fuel is the introduced buffel grass (fought as a weed in some states), the harm done to trees and shrubs is usually fatal due to much hotter fires.
But if it is a “cool” fire, burning native grasses, the crowns of taller vegetation remain intact and in fact, growth is stimulated all ’round.
The heartening part of the story is the almost magical resilience of the local flora.
There has been no rain here for months – a near record period – yet green grass and bushes are sprouting from the blackened soil.
The tuba of the plant contains moisture. Fire releases it, and life starts all over again.
BELOW: The scars of the bushfire which stopped just short of the Ormiston Gorge campground which had to be evacuated. the photo was taken looking west, one kilometer west of the campground. The Larapinta Trail is in the foreground (bottom left), and Mount Sonder (top right) in the background.
Mills sidesteps Coroner's recommendation
UPDATE, September 18, 3.30pm: Shadow Minister for Police Kon Vatskalis has called on the CLP Government to implement Coroner Greg Cavanagh’s recommendation regarding reducing the supply of excess alcohol from take away outlets. However, he puts his own gloss on what that would mean: reinstating the Banned Drinker Register.
The BDR would reduce supply only to the limited number of drinkers identified by its processes, a total of 2,491 people across the Territory as of the end of June. The figure pales in comparison with the protective custody figures quoted in the coroner’s report: 25,966 for the 12 months to the end of April, almost half of them – 11,115 – in Alice Springs.
The Coroner acknowledged “the significant efforts” of the NT Government but said quite specifically “something more must be done”. He pointed particularly to the responsibility of liquor traders: “A long term solution to excess alcohol consumption in Alice Springs requires greater cooperation amongst stakeholders (including outlets that sell alcohol) to tackle demand and supply.”
He made the link between sale of alcohol and the problems it causes explicit: he didn’t say the NT Police shoulders a huge burden from problem drunks, he said “the NT Police shoulders a huge burden from alcohol sales”.
By KIERAN FINNANE
Chief Minister Terry Mills has side-stepped Coroner Greg Cavanagh’s recommendation that an urgent meeting of stakeholders be convened in Alice Springs to commit to “all available, reasonable measures to reduce the supply of excess alcohol from take away outlets”. As reported yesterday, this was one of two recommendations to government made by the Coroner in handing down his findings from the inquest into the death in custody of Kwemetyaye Briscoe.
Mr Mills’ response in a media release focussed on “the need for cultural change within the Northern Territory police force”, although he accepted the recommendations “regarding the need for a nursing presence and improved medical rooms in Territory watch houses”. He said the government “would also work to improve protocols between the Alice Springs watch house and the hospital”, not something alluded to in the Coroner’s findings.
On the problem with police culture, Mr Mills, sees it as a “stubbornness in relation to police resource allocation”.This is something he hopes the O’Sullivan review into police resourcing will tackle, and he has increased the O’Sullivan review budget from $100,000 to $180,000 to ensure all steps are taken to get the best possible outcomes from the review process.”
On the issue of alcohol control, Mr Mills said only that the “Country Liberals will increase the focus on mandatory rehabilitation”. He said the Coroner’s report makes a mockery of Labor’s claims about the effectiveness of its failed Banned Drinker Register: “Despite what the previous Government claimed, the BDR did not stop problem drunks accessing alcohol.”
There is no evidence in the Coroner’s report that Mr Briscoe was on the BDR so his particular case is not a test of its effectiveness or otherwise. It does however offer a glimpse into a culture of excessive drinking and the weaknesses in the current regime that attempts to rein it in. The Coroner is clearly of the view that the regime needs strengthening by further restriction of take away sales.
The alcohol drunk in a lethal amount by Mr Briscoe was purchased from suburban take away outlets. He had been drinking much of the day, sharing with friends and family from 30-packs of beer purchased from the Heavitree Gap Store and in the afternoon and evening from the Flynn Drive Supermarket.
In the evening he joined a large group of friends drinking in the vicinity of Flynn Oval, which is adjacent to the Flynn Drive Supermarket . Police arrived on the scene towards 9pm after a complaint that there were drunk people fighting near the supermarket. A couple were placed in protective custody and police approached the group at the opposite end of the oval that included Mr Briscoe. The group dispersed, leaving behind bottles of wine, cans of open VB and Bundaberg Rum. Police gave chase and Mr Briscoe was apprehended after falling to the ground. The Coroner accepted the evidence of the arresting officer that it was “appropriate to detain Kwementyaye” because he was believed to be intoxicated and was in a public place.
Mr Briscoe was put in the police van and some minutes later a further three men joined him there, two of them apprehended in Adamson Avenue. Unbeknown to the police, one of the three, Oscar White, had a 700ml bottle of Bundaberg Rum hidden in his shorts – police either did not search him or did not do it adequately. This rum had been bought for Mr White by another person, from the Flynn Drive Supermarket, which suggests that Mr White would not have been served, either because he was already drunk or was on the BDR.
In the van the four detainees shared the rum. One was handcuffed and could only drink small capfuls. He and the other two all became sick and vomited as they were being taken to the Watch House, leaving Mr Briscoe to consume the lion’s share – around half of the bottle, “pushing himself into a category of extreme intoxication”.
He blood alcohol reading, taken at autopsy, was .350, “within the lethal range”. It was the view of Forensic Pathologist Dr Terence Sinton that it was the sole cause of his death. However, the Coroner was persuaded by the view of Forensic Physician Dr Maurice Odell that positional asphyxia and compromised airways also contributed.
Mr Briscoe had started drinking alcohol to excess after he turned 18. He was 27 when he died and was already showing signs of hardening of the arteries. He had five alcohol-related convictions on his adult record, although none were serious enough to warrant a term in prison. As previously reported, he had been put into protective custody 31 times, 20 of them at the Alice Springs Watch House.
Briscoe Inquest: reduce supply of excess alcohol from take away outlets, says Coroner
“The NT Police shoulders a huge burden from alcohol sales. They cannot be expected to tackle the social problems that result, in the absence of further initiatives to stop the flow of alcohol in the community.” – Coroner Greg Cavanagh, Kwementyaye Briscoe Inquest
KIERAN FINNANE reports.
Less than one month after taking power and ushering in a new era of Territorians taking “individual responsibility” for their drinking, the Mills CLP Government has been called upon by the Coroner to urgently convene a stakeholder meeting in Alice Springs to commit to “all available, reasonable measures to reduce the supply of excess alcohol from take away outlets”.
This is one of two recommendations to the government arising from the inquest into the death in custody of Kwementyaye Briscoe, who died in the Alice Springs Watch House on January 4 this year. Coroner Greg Cavanagh handed down his findings today.
The other recommendation is that nursing staff, with a suitably equipped medical room, be provided on a daily basis to the Watch Houses in Alice Springs as well as Darwin, Katherine and Tennant Creek.
Some progress has already been made on this front. Nurses began working at the Darwin Police Station just weeks before Mr Briscoe’s death, and were stationed for the first time in Alice and Katherine from April 23, 2012. At present they work from 7pm to 3am, from Wednesday to Saturday, with plans to expand the number of shifts and to recruit nursing staff for the Tennant Creek Watch House.
There are three recommendations to the NT Police, but no finding that an offence was committed by any member of the force (and there was no request from Counsel for him to so find). The recommendations are that:
• dragging detainees is unacceptable ;
• a wheelchair, stretcher or the like should be obtained to transport prisoners unable to move themselves:
• rigorous auditing of Watch House rosters be conducted to ensure the role of Watch House Keeper is maintained.
In relation to individual members of the force, the Coroner unreservedly accepted that “decent people made errors” on the night of Mr Briscoe’s death, but the “catalogue of errors is so extensive, and involved so many police officers of various rank, as to suggest mismanagement for a period of time by Police Command at a level higher than just ‘local'”.
The chronology of events from the time of Mr Briscoe being taken into protective custody up until the discovery of his dead body in Cell 9 of the Watch House makes for stark reading. Particularly disturbing is the account of what happened after the inadequate handover at the change of shift, around 11pm.
A health assessment had not been done, although the paperwork was ticked off, and Mr Briscoe had not been given medical care. Now the outgoing staff (two ACPOs and a Watch House Commander) passed on “inferior information” to the next shift, two probationary constables and Watch House Commander. This information included the “stubborn” view that Mr Briscoe was highly aggressive and too agitated to accept any care – a “fatal error”.
It is excruciating to read of the failings of this second shift, including their “utterly derelict” approach to cell checks, while amusing themselves on the Internet, and their ignoring of distress calls made by other prisoners.
“It is likely that the prisoners in Cell 16 were seeing Kwementyaye in the last moments he was alive and at the last opportunity police had to save his life. [The prisoners] could hear distressing noises from Cell 9, described by the men as coughing, gasping and choking … CCTV footage shows that the last movement of Kwementyaye’s body was a very slight twitching of his limbs, at 11.42 pm, just two minutes before the call button was activated.”
The probationary constables never spoke to the prisoners who activated the button. The next time anyone (the Watch House Commander) checked on Mr Briscoe was at 1.41am, when he was no longer breathing and already cold.
The “systemic failures” that the Coroner found contributed to Mr Briscoe’s death included the failure to roster a Watch House Keeper in Alice Springs after August 2011; the failure to roster experienced officers at the Watch House; the use of ACPOs as Watch House Keepers; and the rostering of ACPOs with probationary constables. This situation was able to continue in the absence of any formal Watch House audit.
Again, some progress has already been made on these issues. Indeed, the Coroner describes the “suite of reforms” as “so comprehensive” that he can only highlight the most significant.
These include:
• recruitment of staff from interstate on condition that they undertake a posting outside of Darwin;
• the employment of Custody Sergeants, ensuring that there is always a senior officer to properly mentor junior staff;
• the Watch House Keeper role has been retained and henceforth that officer wears a vest, rather than a small badge, identifying them in the role to “make it glaringly obvious if they were not on duty”.
• auditing of rosters and Watch House practices;
• “advanced technology” is to be used to ensure cell checks are taking place;
• the Custody Manual and the Standard Operating Procedures have been revised (the Coroner heard evidence that members of the force had either not read them or didn’t even know of the existence of the SOPs) ;
• a serious effort has already been made to improve training with regard to duty of care of detainees;
• there will be an induction package for officers working at the Watch House, “embracing information relating to previous deaths in custody and the findings at inquests” (the Coroner repeatedly expressed his dismay at the failure of police to implement previous undertakings made to him or recommendations made by him at past inquests);
• a commitment to purchasing a conveyance to assist officers to move detainees, but as the Coroner notes, “if they are so incapacitated that they are unable to move themselves [as became the case with Mr Briscoe], they should be taken to get immediate medical care”.
That leaves the matter of alcohol supply as THE outstanding issue awaiting commitment from government.
If we need any reminding, it’s all there in the Coroner’s report. He quotes Assistant Commissioner Mark Payne who has over 25 years experience of policing in the NT:
“As a serving police officer at Alice Springs, it is my experience that the vast majority of police work involves dealing with persons seriously affected by alcohol through excessive and very extensive liquor consumption. For the most part those seriously affected are indigenous and tend to exhibit evidence of chronic alcohol dependency including symptoms of poor health and hygiene.”
The Coroner quotes the statistics for protective custodies – 11,115 for Alice Springs (in both the sobering up shelter and the Watch House) in the 12 months to 30 April, 2012. Mr Briscoe had been put into protective custody 31 times, 20 of them in the Alice Springs Watch House.
“The current situation where Police Officers in Alice Springs spend half their time on duty picking up ‘protective custodies’ is simply unacceptable,” says the Coroner, yet it continues despite all the various efforts at reform.
“The NT Police shoulders a huge burden from alcohol sales. They cannot be expected to tackle the social problems that result, in the absence of further initiatives to stop the flow of alcohol in the community,” the Coroner concludes.
He describes Mr Briscoe as “but one of many young men whose ambitions, education and health were eroded by alcohol abuse. At the age of 27, he had already begun to show the signs of chronic disease. At autopsy there was evidence of … hardening of the arteries. He had clearly been binge drinking for around a decade, and alcohol had been involved in each of the adult offences he committed.”
Mr Briscoe had consumed a lethal amount of alcohol on the night of his death. His blood alcohol reading was .350, but the Coroner found that he died as a result of the combined effects of acute alcohol intoxication, positional asphyxia and aspiration, which ultimately obstructed airways and led to death”.
His supervision and treatment by NT Police was “completely inadequate”.
“This lack of care resulted in his death, that is to say, this death was preventable and it should not have occurred.”
No deposit home loans appear unlikely
UPDATE September 18, 3:45pm:
“The My New Home scheme is an interesting proposal – my only concern is that there’s often a difference between what governments, lending institutions and finance brokers say people can borrow and how much they should,” says Duncan Poulson, NT Re
gional Commissioner of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
ASIC is responsible for administering the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, including the responsible lending provisions of that Act.
Mr Poulson says: “The key concept of responsible lending is that Australian credit licensees and their representatives should not enter into a credit contract with a consumer, suggest a credit contract to a consumer or assist a consumer to apply for a credit contract if is unsuitable for the consumer. A contract will be unsuitable if people are unable to make repayments without substantial hardship.”
Mr Poulson says in September 2011, ASIC launched ‘Mortgage Health Month’ in response to rising rates of mortgage default in Australia.
“The main ‘call to action’ of this campaign was to encourage people to do a mortgage health check. In November 2011, ASIC published a report on our review of responsible lending conduct.”
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Posted September 17
The new government appears unlikely to implement the no-deposit, low interest scheme, My New Home, promised by the defeated Labor government – certainly not in a hurry.
“The dreams of hundreds of Territorians are on hold as Chief Minister Terry Mills continues to delay making a decision on this important home ownership program,” claims Opposition Leader Delia Lawrie.
But a spokesman for Treasurer Robyn Lambley says the new government’s Management Review Board, tasked to take the NT back into a balanced budget, will be looking at the scheme but has not set a deadline for this review.
Alice-based CDU Professor Rolf Gerritsen says some of the new schemes were “silly economics,” for example, “the one that allowed you to borrow [for housing] $400K, with the government putting in $200K interest free.
“You could pay off your $200K and then pay off the government upon which you paid no interest.
“I don’t think that these schemes would have continued if Labor got re-elected.
“Without restrictions on previous / current home owners the budget would have blown out.”
Prof Gerritsen says: “The scheme that waived the deposit and charges was definitely a sub-prime initiative.”
Sub-prime loans in the USA triggered the still ongoing Global Financial Crisis.
Ms Lambley’s spokesman says the NT Treasury and the Reserve Bank had expressed concerns about no deposit home loans.
The Territory Insurance Office (TIO) has announced it is not accepting any new applications “at this time” but allows “existing applicants for the My New Home Loan package to proceed with their loans”.
Eligible were people over the age of 18; they had to be a resident of the Northern Territory; there was no income or asset test, and they could own other property.
Hard work finding the small steps of progress in Territory education
The preliminary NAPLAN results
KIERAN FINNANE reports.
You have to work hard to find a positive for the Northern Territory out of the preliminary results for NAPLAN – National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy – released on Friday. New Education Minister Robyn Lambley did, pointing to the percentage rate of improvement in the proportion of students at or above the National Minimum Standard in the Territory being stronger than in other jurisdictions.
She also said that Territory students tested in 2008, 2010 (she probably means 2011) and 2012 showed the greatest gains nationwide, which “shows the hard work and commitment of Territory teachers is slowly paying dividends”.
However, Mrs Lambley described the gains since 2011 as “marginal” and acknowledged that the Territory still has “the nation’s poorest education outcomes”.
To give readers some idea of the size of the gap: at Year Three level across the various tests no other jurisdiction reports less than 90% of its students being at or above the National Minimum Standard (with a few exceptions in 2008). In the Territory only the spelling test provides the Year Three high point of 70.4%, markedly up on 2011 at 61%. However this rise, pointed to by the Minister, is largely offset by the drop in Numeracy attainment, from 77% in 2008 to 69.6% in 2012.
At Year Five level, for the range of tests in 2012 no other jurisdiction reports less than 87.5% of its students being at or above the National Minimum Standard, with the national average being over 90%. In the Territory, the highest result is for Numeracy, with 66.1%; the lowest, is for grammar and punctuation at 58.5%.
The story is similar for Years 7 and 9, with the best results being in numeracy, scoring 70.2% and 73.4% against national averages of 93.7% and 93.5%.
The preliminary results also report the NAPLAN mean scores for 2008, 2011 and 2012 and assess the statistically significant differences between 2008 and 2012, as well as between 2011 and 2012. The NT results show no significant difference in all results except for Year Three spelling which, as stated, is significantly higher. Some jurisdictions show significantly lower scores for some tests and indeed the national average is significantly lower for some tests. Mrs Lambley comments: “It is a credit to the effort of Territory educators that they have defied national trends and largely maintained outcomes at around existing levels.”
Would this have been the case if the Territory had not had such a high rate of absenteeism from the tests? Arguably the results would have been worse.
Absenteeism in the NT starts bad at Year 3 level – 10.7% absent for the reading test, compared to a national average of 2.7%; 12.1% for the numeracy test, compared to a national average of 3.1%. It stays bad in Years 5 and 7 with roughly similar rates, and gets worse in Year 9, with 14.9% absent for the reading test against a national average (also worse) of 6.5%, and 16.3% absent for the numeracy test, compared to the national average of 7.2%.
The Minister has characterised the Territory’s progress as “small steps on a long journey”. However, the results should be considered in the context of the extensive additonal investment made in education, particularly in Indigenous schooling, says longtime educator Ralph Folds, and in that light they are “disappointing”. Mr Folds was a remote area school principal for 16 years and is author of Whitefella School: Education and Aboriginal Resistance (Allen & Unwin, 1987) and Crossed Purposes: The Pintupi and Australia’s Indigenous Policy (UNSW Press, 2001).
“These results show that concerted, and expensive, efforts to lift Indigenous outcomes by investing purely in education, through new literacy programs, support services and better facilities, have not paid off. Much more important is the big picture. When education becomes truly useful and important in Indigenous lives then their school outcomes will take off, and, it seems, not before.”
In relation to the NAPLAN test, the Alice Springs News Online asked him how significant and accurate the results are as a refection of what is going on for students, and to what extent should aiming to achieve better NAPLAN results shape what is going on in classrooms.
Mr Folds replied: “NAPLAN is a well researched and designed, comprehesive national test of the skills every child should have. The outcomes are far more significant than any other results available to us and most critics of NAPLAN simply do not like the reality it reveals.”
Note: Data containing regional break-downs and other student sub-groups such as gender will be released on December 17 and individual school results will be available in February next year. Families will receive individual student NAPLAN results this week.
Click here for the NAPLAN summary report.
Lifeguards needed to keep aquatic centre alive
The new operators of the aquatic centre are struggling to get enough staff for the extended operating hours required by the Town Council last week.
Rob Heinjus, of the Adelaide based firm Casa Leisure, says he hopes permanent residents will show more interest in becoming lifeguards to make making the $19m facility work.
Around 12 of them are needed during the summer season, and three to four when only the indoor pool is in operation.
It’s hard to operate with itinerants such as backpackers or short-term visitors, he says.
The firm is complying with the current council contract which allows the closure of the outdoor pool on weekdays during the middle of the day, when patronage is low. The indoor pool is open daily from 6am to 7pm.
Under the present contract the outdoor 50 meter pool, on weekdays, is open from 6am to 9am and from 3pm to 7pm.
It is open from 9am to 7pm on weekends, public holidays and school holidays.
Councillors, supporting a motion by Cr Eli Melky, last Monday voted to keep also the 50m outdoor pool open all day, daily (from 6am weekdays, from 9am weekends and holidays).
Cr Melky concurred with Mayor Damien Ryan, who described the daily closure of the outdoor pool as “absolutely silly” and needing fixing, the sooner the better. Mayor Ryan, directing his comments to Council’s Director of Technical Services Greg Buxton, said he did not see it as his job to read every tender in detail. He was amazed about the hours and they had never been discussed in the council chamber.
The contract sum will now need to be modified to take account of the extra hours.
Mr Buxton estimated the additional cost at $60,000 p.a.
Mr Heinjus says in other regional centres, Year 11 and 12 and university students are happy to work on weekends and holidays, earning between $20 and $25 an hour.
But in Alice Springs it seems there is plenty of other work.
He says the firm will run a lifesaving course next month, free of charge to participants.
Another option would be a fly-in, fly-out arrangement for a limited period.
Photo: The indoor pool of the aquatic center (courtesy Town Council).
Goodbye at last, Berrimah Line?
By ERWIN CHLANDA
A possible cure for the Berrimah Line malaise is the by-product of the report by Alice-based remoteFOCUS – part of Desert Knowledge Australia – about fly-in, fly-out workers, presented to the Senate this week.
And this tonic would be far more potent than the pledges from either major party, invariably broken, that Central Australia will no longer be left out in the cold.
The answer could be a commission or authority, or a company established under the Corporations Act, wholly owned by the members, or some other legal mechanism, says Bruce Walker, the report’s main author.
He tailored the recommendations to the Pilbara, where governance is driven by a sustained mining boom, but says they could easily be adapted to Central Australia, which now has the welfare industry as its main business.
Dr Walker says the background to the decades-long desire of people in The Centre to have control over their lives is a litany of neglect, misunderstanding and disinterest.
The people governing the body he is proposing – board members, trustees or directors – must be “above the contest”.
They should be appointed to the “board” for a longer period than the normal political cycle “and the characteristics of the board members should align closely with the functions and mandate of the body.
“A critical issue is that a new governance body would require mandated authority to act and an ability to achieve the outcomes in the best interests” of the region.
That means their powers will need to be enshrined in law.
The report says: “The number of people appointed to the body should be smaller rather than being fully representative of a range of Pilbara [read Central Australia] interest, possibly five to seven people.”
They would be charged to serve the interests of the region plus other wider interests.
Funding certainty will be essential for success.
The body “will be required to influence Commonwealth agencies having interests and programs in the region, state agencies operating in the region and local and 
regional shires and regional authorities including Aboriginal organisations responsible for local outcomes.
“To be effective this body must be capable of influencing the direction of expenditure and performance outcomes across each level of government and at local government level.
“It must also be capable of negotiating with the private sector to obtain an optimal alignment of interests.
“Both ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’ accountability arrangements need to be defined. ‘Upwards’ accountabilities will be to various federal and state political and administrative authorities and agencies; ‘downwards’ accountabilities will be between the existing and / or putative regional structures and relevant local government, community and other representative bodies and organisations and to local people.”
It is not defined how accountability to local people would work.
It would need funding and capability “which matches mandates [and] ability to adjust mandates and settle disputes over time as no arrangements will be perfect and circumstances will change.
“Appointments should extend beyond the political cycle and be accountable to the stakeholders against the criteria laid down by them.
“Such a body would need, by its composition and legal structure, to be above the contest and endure over time.
“Accountability, ideally, might be through a reporting mechanism such as a joint (federal-state) parliamentary committee or through an auditor-general model.”
The report says in the Top End of WA, such a body should have the following objectives:-
• Maintaining and promoting the Pilbara narrative.
• Brokering and settling agreements (peace-making where agreement is not possible).
• Clarifying the mandates of all levels of government and communities.
• Clarifying outcomes and service standards appropriate to place and scale.
• Matters on notice — anticipating, researching, monitoring, planning and developing strategy.
• Conducting reviews and reporting, ongoing governance review and action learning.
Aboriginal people in the Pilbara need to be integral to the process, “not an add-on,” and this would no doubt apply to Central Australia as well.
“Changes cannot just be dictated by government,” says the report.
How the people of the Pilbara resolve the coexisting realities of Aboriginal people with entrenched legal and communal rights (and income streams and land holdings) “will be an ongoing challenge”.
Issues will be specific identities determined by culture and contract, and the desire of these groups of people wishing to derive normal citizenship benefits as individuals from services provided by government.
“They hold substantial native title rights to land across the Pilbara, and they will lock in substantial income in the form of communal royalty equivalents from these rights.
“Our earlier analysis has shown that in areas where there is a contest for resources, the agreement and negotiati
ng process actually reinforces individual and communal identities and rivalries.
“There will be conflicts between and within Aboriginal groups and between Aboriginal groups, resource companies and government which will need to be resolved in a permanent and relatively workable way.”
The report says nothing much will happen if change is left to the “public sector or conventional legislative processes.
“In fact, we argue, such efforts are negated by present governance arrangements.
“This cannot be driven from within the bureaucracy, which is constituted within the status quo and bound by its rules.
“Political leadership needs to come to the conclusion that there is a system problem not a policy problem.”
So, who will cast the first stone?
“Is there a body that is above the contest, authorised by the players to be responsible to oversee all of the above?” the report asks.
“It is now not a case of not knowing what to do, rather a case of having the collective will to do it.
“Only political and civic leadership will drive the necessary reforms.”
Photos from the report – landscapes in Central Australia and the Pilbara.
Councillors want free wi-fi in Todd Mall
Councillors this week rejected a recommendation by officers not to install free public access wi-fi in Todd Mall, asking for more information.
The main reason to not do it seemed to be cost, but councillors were not given firm information about this.
There is already some wi-fi access in the mall provided by businesses, some of it free, some paid.
Councillor Geoff Booth said, with council spending $5m on the redevelopment of the mall “wi-fi should be there”. He said it should also be available throughout the Civic Centre. Visitors to council chambers should be able to download council business papers and reports, he said. (Council used to provide multiple paper copies of these in the public gallery and to media but is now trying to go “paperless”.)
Cr Chansey Paech said cost could be influenced by limiting downloads, without affecting access to internet, email and Skype. Having wi-fi would encourage more people into the mall, he said.
Cr Dave Douglas suggested council may be able to get some corporate help to provide the service.
Crs Steve Brown and Eli Melky expressed support for the provision of free wi-fi.
Mayor Damien Ryan suggested that council ask for Expressions of Interest from providers.
Land Council chairman fined over drink-driving
The new chairman of the Central Land Council (CLC), Phillip Wilyuka (pictured), was convicted and fined $500 and $40 levy and disqualified from driving for 12 months, commencing yesterday.
The Magistrate was Mr Bamber.
Mr Wilyuka was charged with driving under the influence of “medium range blood alcohol content”.
The CLC said it will make no comment at this stage.
The offence took place on July 6 on the Santa Teresa Road.
According to the CLC website Mr Wilyuka was elected chairman on May 23 this year after a leadership spill at the Council’s Tennant Creek meeting. He replaced Lindsay Bookie.
Mr Wilyuka, 55, is a Pitjanjatjara / Yankunytjatjara man who lives in Titjikala.
He has worked in a number of jobs including stock work, building houses and as a teacher’s aide. Mr Wilyuka is currently a Lutheran pastor at Titjikala, says the site.
Selling parks again on the agenda
Local residents rally to save Finlayson Park in June, 2001. Their voices were heard. From our archive.
UPDATE, September 16, 2012, 2.20pm: With next to no discussion of the parks issue taking place in the open session of council meetings, it is not surprising that confusion has arisen. The draft report referred to in this article, identifying certain park assets for possible disposal and others for possible improvement, was included in the September committee meeting business papers but actually dates from 2004. This is not made clear on the cover of the draft, nor in the document to which it is attached, but only in small print at the bottom of each page of the draft. Nonetheless the contents of the report are of relevance to council’s current consideration of Cr Geoff Booth’s request that a forecast of “savings on maintenance” be made “as a result of reducing the number of insignificant land [parcels] currently zoned as parks”.
Apart from the public (and this journalist) councillors and officers would seem also to be confused about the issues. The recommendations A to E provided by officers do not match the A to E points of Cr Booth’s original notice of motion. Specifically Cr Booth’s notice of motion contained no reference to the redevelopment of Ashwin and Finlayson Parks. Cr Eli Melky asked in the last committee meeting how come the redevelopment of those parks – which he described as “welcome” – had slid into the the report. Deputy Mayor Brendan Heenan said costings would be needed before councillors could vote to proceed.
Officers were asked to go back and “correct” the report by Mayor Damien Ryan. Apart from wanting clarity regarding the confusion mentioned above, he was particularly exercised by the “Adopt a Park” report, part of the same agenda item and another facet of Cr Booth’s original notice of motion. He was “amazed” by its failure to get answers to the questions posed on the issue.
By KIERAN FINNANE
An issue which has previously generated a lot of heated debate, is quietly making its way through council’s Technical Services committee system, with a number of parks in the municipality now identified for possible disposal.
Last year Councillor Eli Melky proposed that council could raise funds from the sale of “surplus land” designated as parkland, while developing remaining parks with better facilities. At the time he thought that only up to four ‘parks’ were suitable for sale. There was uproar.
The issue had been dormant since 2001 when a community outcry stopped a council proposal to sell off six local parks. Now, in an initiative driven by Cr Geoff Booth, council has for its consideration a draft list identifying six parks for disposal plus a further four for partial disposal, with an estimated return of $1.65m to council coffers. Some (possibly all) of this money would go into upgrading and developing other parks. Council spends over $2m annually on the maintenance of open space, including parks and ovals.
The disposal list – contained in a draft report provided to elected members by Scott Allen, council’s works manager – identifies another three parks for return or partial return to the Crown.
Mr Allen and staff developed an assessment system to work through the issues, scoring each park against 10 criteria, including size, utilisation, security, accessibility, and environmental values. Some parks, although low-scoring, have not been recommended for disposal. These are Tucker (retain and upgrade), Gilbert (develop as a bush park), Reus (retain as a drainage easement), Spearwood (retain as a bush park), Lewis Gilbert (retain and improve), Ashwin and Finlayson (retain and improve both, in response to vocal residents’ desires) and Acacia (develop as a bush park at the gateway to town).
The parks recommended for disposal are: Walmulla (too small to be useful), Westland (with the exception of a possible sacred site, which would be returned to the Crown), Campbell (at right, residents tree-planting in this park in 2008), Rotaract East, Tmara Mara, Bowman and Kempeana (their disposal to be offset possibly by development as a park of better vacant land in the area), and Newland (to be consider for redevelopment as a retirement village).
Some other parks may have a sacred site within their boundaries and this has yet to be verified. In these cases the recommendation, as with Westland, is to return the sacred portion to the Crown. They include Maynard (the rest of the park to be upgraded) and Warber (develop as a bush park if not sacred).
Parks recommended for partial disposal are Oleander and Eagle. It is also suggested that the pedestrian walkways on Bowman and Kempeana be retained.
Cr Booth has cleverly avoided controversy by ensconcing the issue of disposal within a number of other positive initiatives for council’s park assets:
• a study to establish the current quality of the town’s designated parks;
• a study to show the potential for increasing the number of quality precinct parks around town;
• a forecast of costs for the upgrading of such parks over three years;
• a forecast of savings on maintenance as a result of “reducing the number of insignificant land parcels currently zoned as parks”;
• a feasibility study for an “Adopt a Park” scheme.
An earlier report to council earmarked the following parks for potential development as precinct parks, sized between 8000 and 28,000 sqm, and to be equipped with a certain level of infrastructure including barbecue and public toilet. They are Frank McEllister (already a precinct park for Gillen), Rotarac Park (Northside), Frances Smith Memorial Park (Eastside), Aquatic and Leisure Centre (CBD), Albrecht Oval (Larapinta). In the smaller Industrial and Golf Course areas, Spicer Crescent Park and Lewis Gilbert Park are to serve as neighbourhood parks. The Gap area misses out in this list and has only three small local parks apart from Acacia, which is owned by the Crown and is recommended for development as a bush park. One of the three small parks is recommended for disposal.
The draft report recognises the sensitivity of the issue and recommends “extensive community consultation and sympathetic hearing of the view of the residents”.
The report in full can be found in the business paper for last Monday’s Technical Services committee meeting (September 10) on council’s website.
LETTER: 150 Indigenous students in Batchelor Institute Central Australian graduation
Sir – More than 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from some 50 communities in all states and territories were honoured with awards at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education graduation ceremony held at the Desert Peoples Centre last Thursday.
It was another milestone for the institute in its continuous commitment and development of adult learning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Former outstanding student and now a successful Home Liaison Officer working with the Department of Education and Training, Debra Joanne Lyons, responded to the students, saying “ongoing study continuously inspires” her.
A multitalented Indigenous lecturer for Creative Writing, Yvette Holt, was the MC and entertained with her jokes and charismatic personality. Centre for Appropriate Technology Chairperson Peter Renehan emphasised both the resilience of Indigenous people in spite of numerous challenges and that Indigenous people continue with their efforts to grow stronger as a community.
Batchelor Institute Director, Adrian Mitchell, said the institute is growing stronger than ever. Our higher education courses, delivered in partnership with Charles Darwin University are closely aligned to key employment opportunities, particularly in rural and remote Australia. Batchelor has a long history of contributing to the development of stronger, safer and healthier communities, and the new facilities at the Desert Peoples Centre, shared with our partners the Centre of Appropriate Technology, offer the opportunity for a sustained period of growth for the Institute.
Our dedicated staff here in Central Australia have established relationships with industry, the community and other organisations, Mr Mitchell said.
Head of Faculty Health, Business and Science, Professor Jan Schmitzer said through education, Indigenous people can strengthen their identity, achieve success and transform their lives.
Imran Naveed
Senior Marketing and Communications Advisor
Batchelor Institute
Pictured from left are Fiona Kitson, Coordinator Yvette Holt, Director of Batchelor Institute Adrian Mitchell and Paul Haines.
A canvas of stone and concrete
Words by KIERAN FINNANE, pictures by ERWIN CHLANDA.
The stone walls and simple geometry of the Old Stuart Town Gaol last night became the canvas for a different kind of street art, known as “video architecture”. Aptly named, it doesn’t just look for a flat surface to mark or adorn, but actually responds to the form of the building, inviting you, creator or viewer, to re-imagine it.
The imagery projected onto the old gaol took into account its archetypal peaked roof above a square front, with a small barred window over a central door. The images had been drawn, using richly coloured crayons, by about 30 people taking part in two workshops held at Watch This Space. Anyone could participate, they didn’t have to be ‘an artist’, and that’s central to the ideas of the project’s two instigators, Jim Coad and Helen Kelly, who were invited to town as part of the Alice Desert Festival.
“We want the work to be immediate and inclusive of people and community,” said Kelly. “They can get involved in whatever way they want.”
While digital technology is used to get the imagery projected onto the walks, the pair much prefer to work with the “imperfect, responsive, naive” quality of pencils, paints and brushes in hands that are not necessarily trained, than to spend months perfecting designs on computers.
Coad “maps” the building that is to be used and from that produces a line drawing that is given to people to “colour in”. Some lovely ideas emerged in the process: the building overgrown by flowering foliage; a few lines transforming the gaol into a church; a silhouetted figure of a man with outstretched arms as if breaking free from its confines; a butterfly-like form brushing across the facade; tears coursing down the facade; ants crawling across it; two male heads in a simple line drawing of the kind that you might find on gaol cell walls. And the building’s human scale and its rough-hewn light sandstone really seemed to speak from the past, enlivened.
The side of the neighbouring police station was also mapped. The greater part of it is a flat surface but towards the front is a rounded column, no doubt a stairwell, and it was interesting to watch the way people’s designs responded to the two flat surface and then the rounded form.
On this wall there were also some live projections. Easels and paints were provided and the process filmed live, so that the transformation happened as you watched, with the movements of the human hand wielding a brush as engaging and lovely to watch as any effect of colour or motif (see bottom).
On the opposite wall of the courthouse a video projection showed the work of Damon Logan, who has a studio at Watch This Space. He’d filmed local people, a simple series of faces, people that you might bump into in the street, or in the courthouse for that matter, on any day, the people of this place.
Coad and Kelly welcomed his proposal, just as they also were delighted when Dave Williams proposed a musical piece to go with their work.
There’s more “video architecture” coming up: tonight Coad and Kelly will do two installation projections responding to their own experience of Alice Springs on the Festival Club Big Top at the Olive Pink Botanic Garden; tomorrow, Thursday, work from participants in the workshop and live projections will be on two walls of the Flynn Church in Todd Mall; and on Friday, there’ll be a projection at the Frank McAllister Park, alongside Araluen.
More events, more people = more business, safer streets
Cr Melky proposes events coordinator for the CBD
By KIERAN FINNANE
An on-going program of events – weekly or fortnightly – would attract more people into the CBD, supporting local business and creating a safer environment. The Town Council should be the instigator of such a program, employing a full-time events coordinator for the CBD, Councillor Eli Melky (at left) proposes. He won initial support for the move from his colleagues last night.
Cr Liz Martin wasn’t sure it needed a full-time commitment but she wanted to see an expanded position (council already has a community projects officer who organises some events, such as the Night Markets and the Christmas Carnival).
Cr Steve Brown thought full-time was warranted.
Cr Geoff Booth “fully” supported the motion and thought there may be possibilities of financial or in-kind support from CBD traders. Council should do some research on this, he said.
Cr Melky also proposed that council encourage the formation of a traders’ association and that the events coordinator’s “strategic marketing plan” be in line with such an association’s “business plan”.
His colleagues were less enthusiastic about this proposal. Mayor Damien Ryan thought that the Chamber of Commerce should be asked for their input, however Cr Booth poured cold water on this idea, suggesting that a lot of businesses are not members.
Mayor Ryan agreed that few if any retailers in Todd Mall were members of the chamber.
He also commented that a number of mall traders have expressed their disappointment to him with this year’s Alice Desert Festival. Where was the parade? they wanted to know. The festival is nearly over and people were feeling that it wasn’t happening. Council puts $35,000 into it and needs to understand “what’s driving it”, he said.
The motion was deferred while council officers prepare a report, examining the options and costs. CEO Rex Mooney expressed his view that a part-time position would not work. The report will be ready for next month’s round of meetings.
Pictured: A section of Parsons Street transformed by ‘video architecture’, as part of the Alice Desert Festival (see separate story this issue). The activities of an events coordinator could involve more than performance.
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Mall works to start in August but more than bricks and mortar is needed
Candidate Dianne Logan in the last council elections made activities in the CBD the central plank of her campaign.
Community work orders for council's fine defaulters?
By KIERAN FINNANE
If people who breach certain public places by-laws don’t pay their fines, the Town Council should seek the imposition of community work orders. So says Councillor Geoff Booth (pictured) who wants stiffer penalties to back up enforcement of the by-laws.
Initially he proposed increasing the monetary fines for breaches, singling out 10 by-laws for attention. He has withdrawn two by-laws from his list – “camping without a permit” and “making fire without a permit” – after speaking with advocates from NT Shelter and the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Service (CAALAS) about the disproportionate impact of such a move on people who are homeless and who rely on welfare benefits.
The by-laws remaining in Cr Booth’s sights concern:
• depositing litter;
• drinking liquor;
• possessing opened liquor container;
• causing nuisance;
• behaving indecently;
• providing false identification;
• failing to provide evidence of identity without excuse;
• failing to provide evidence of identity within prescribed time.
He has also withdrawn his proposal to increase fines (by as much as 150%), as it’s not about collecting revenue for council, he says, but about changing the behaviour of offenders. This has been welcomed by NT Shelter and CAALAS. Mark O’Reilly, Principal Legal Officer at CAALAS called for council to involve community organisations in their further investigations into alternatives to fines.
The power to impose community work orders does not reside with council. It’s a power prescribed under the NT Fines and Penalties (Recovery) Act to deal with fine defaulters. Council’s technical difficulties with accessing the NT Government’s Fines Recovery Unit has been the subject of frequent commentary in council meetings. In last night’s meeting Director of Corporate and Community Services Craig Catchlove said council now has access to the unit in relation to defaults on fines for parking breaches and public places by-law breaches and council should soon be seeing “a return on its investment”.
The bulk of fines for public places by-law breaches issued in 2011-12 ($74,884) remains outstanding. This means that the deterrence effect of the existing fine amounts is “untested”, said Mr Catchlove in his report on the issue. He advised councillors to wait until March next year before taking further action.
The community in the meantime is benefitting, he said, from improved public order as illegal camping and drinking have decreased. Graphs provided as part of the monthly report from his department actually show more people spoken to in “river runs” this year than last year, but the figures are not really comparable, as this year early morning runs are being conducted five days a week, compared to one or two last year. However, fewer drinkers have been spoken to and since March fewer infringements issued for drinking in public. While fewer standard drinks have been tipped out since April, there was a rise in August.
Cr Liz Martin wanted to know if rangers were collecting data about where people who are camping come from and what their circumstances are. Mr Catchlove said an attempt had been made to do this until people were advised by an organisation (he did not name it) not to give the rangers any information.
Councillors agreed to revisit the issues in March next year.
Asserting themselves through music
“Yuendumu has seen its troubles / We don’t need no more fighting / how about we, Warlpiri, start uniting?”
Three young hip-hop artists from Yuendumu went to the heart of the matter when they took to the stage on Saturday, as part of the line-up at The Hub, the “heart” of the Alice Desert Festival’s program.
With the audience’s enthusiastic response, and the encouragement of their mentors “Elftranzporter” and “Monkeymarc”, they overcame initial shyness and warmed to their task.
Rene (Coull) led the opening number, followed by “T-bone” (Tyrone Spencer), asserting his youthful masculine pride: “T-B-O-N-E, I’m number one, plus two and three”. The audience went mad for his moves and one young guy got up to show his own.
Rene later sang about life as a young woman; one line went like this: “After giving birth / helped me understand / what life’s worth”.
Leon “The Desert Man” (Penhall) accompanied them on keyboards.
The three, together with a bunch of other young people, have developed their music through a Warlpiri youth program called Red Sand Culture, a collaboration of the Mt Theo program and Incite Youth Arts. They’ve released a 17-track CD, with tracks downloadable from the Red Sand Culture site.
The music was mostly of a different flavour but the Desert Divas, who followed Red Sand in the program, were equally proud and hopeful: “We know where we come from / we know where we stand … we’re making our future / creating a change” went the lyrics of their group song.
There were 15 of them, led by mentors Catherine Satour and Jacinta Price. The program, for young Indigenous women wanting to develop in music, is in its third year. It was Satour’s idea: there was nothing like it in Alice when she was growing up, she said, and she had to go to Adelaide to get performance training and experience.
After the group song, each “diva” got a chance to get up as a solo or in duet.
Cassandra Williams, who’s had personal mentoring all her life from her well-known musical family, including grandfather Gus, sang a heartfelt cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “I can’t make you love me”.
Love songs, many of them original, were popular; other themes included the desire to perform, the importance of saying sorry, the importance of home (“my solid ground”), the struggle to survive.
Some promising talents were revealed, especially Lexie Woods who sang in a strong, sweetly husky voice a soulful love song, without musical backing. As with Williams, you could have heard a pin drop during this performance.
Desert Divas was presented by Music NT. – KIERAN FINNANE
Pictured, from top: Tyrone “T-bone” Spencer • The Desert Divas, Jacinta Price at the mike. • Divas: Lexie Woods singing, Catherine Satour far right, Cassandra Williams on guitar. • Rene Coull.
The way it's always been and the ways of the future
By KIERAN FINNANE
The old men from Amata stole the show. It wasn’t just their charisma but their focus – the young people of their community – and their enquiring and imaginative outlook. Frank Young, Hector Burton and Ray Ken spoke to their ideas and work at the Desert Mob symposium on Friday (pictured at left). Willy Kaika and Barney Wangin were present in the auditorium and the men were joined on stage by a collaborator, the much younger installation artist Jonathan Jones, a Wiradjuri man from NSW.
Their work continues on from earlier projects, the fruit of which local audiences have been able to see at RAFT Artspace in two exhibitions. The men are still painting – all of them except Young have work in the Desert Mob exhibition – but they have also turned their attention to teaching their young men to make their traditional weapons, kulata (spears) and spear-throwers.
As they worked they saw “how strong and powerful” the weapons would look in their art work, said Young, director of Tjala Arts and chairman of the community, who translated for the other men. They began to imagine a room in a gallery “full of spears, thousands of spears”. This is where Jones came in: “We knew he worked in a different way, filling a room with things,” said Young, “and we asked him for support.”
They started planning the exhibition with Jones a year ago and at the symposium showed an image of the way they are likely to proceed, with a host of spears (scores, rather thousands) suspended from the ceiling. They’ll also work with sound and lighting elements: “It won’t be still and straight like most exhibitions,” said Young, “it will be like a movie.”
The vision is clearly exciting for them but it hasn’t overshadowed the main game: “The best thing is the building of the spears, the old men training the young men, the same way it’s always been.” (Ray Ken’s Kulata, at right, is showing in the exhibition.)
There was a strong theme at the symposium of cultural maintenance and revival, coming from the art centres on the APY Lands. Mimili Maku Arts presented, with a very effective short documentary, the case for revival of their language, Yankunytjatjara. There are literally only a few speakers left, but the story is more complicated than you might think. Children at Mimili are growing up speaking Pitjantjatjara, rather than their ancestral tongue, partly because it is taught in schools and also because, as Yami Lester explained in the film, there has been a lot of inter-marriage as well as an encroachment eastwards by the Pitjantjatjara into Yankunytjatjara territory.
Lester (below, in a still from the film) relished his role as raconteur. There have been many marriages with those “good-looking Pitjantjatjara women”, he said. “We used to call them ‘the Spinifex Blondes’, he added with a delighted chuckle. He said these mixed couples are “happy together, but the government makes them very sad”. This is because the mining companies “are milking the water”.
On the Pitjantjatjara push to the east he also had a laugh, as he said the Yankunytjatjara themselves have also been moving into Arrernte territory at Finke.
The revival project is getting support from the University of Adelaide’s Mobile Language Team and work is starting on surveying, recording, documenting and analysing the language for future preservation.
Ninuku Arts, servicing the communities of Kalka and Pipalyatjara in the western APY Lands, also showed a short film, titled Manta Irititjangku – Ancient Land. Its emphasis was on the essential link between what artists are doing and their country, using the language of film to express this – landscape fading into painting, fading into landscape. Unfortunately a few too many tricks of the trade got in the way – too many extreme close-ups, too much focus on the ‘dotting hand’ rather than on what was being painted. The transitions were also too fast, making for a series of fleeting impressions rather than a more consolidated insight.
Other short films revealed that the medium is being explored at art centres for its narrative, and not only documentary, possibilities. There were some from Warlayirti’s Motika project, including a couple with a fine sense of comedy. And, in what was probably the hit film of the day, the signature “soft sculptures” by Yarrenyty Arltere Artists of the Larapinta Valley Learning Centre were deployed as the actors in the entertaining, honest and moving Little Dingi, a story jointly written by Marlene Rubuntja and Loretta Banks. The settings were in the town camp itself, with a few hand-made props, while the Alice Springs CBD was evoked by just a few bright lights in the darkness.
Dingi (at left, with Loretta Banks) is a punkish little boy, his grandmother’s favourite, but inclined to give her heartache by going into town by himself at night. She tries to entice him to stay at home with food and toys but still he leaves, only to be brought home in the wee hours by the police. His grandfather makes the observation that Dingi’s parents have some decisions to make. We see them sitting with family, but their minds are elsewhere – thought bubbles show poker machine reels spinning …
In the Desert Mob exhibition some of the Yarrenyty Arltere soft sculptures show a further evolution, away from their ‘bush toy’, folkloric character and more towards using form to express an idea. This is particularly the case with I saw me, and I was beautiful by Rhonda Sharpe (at right) and Grandmothers can rest too, sometimes by Dulcie Sharpe. At present the medium is dominated by women but they are pushing to persuade their men that “sewing” is open to them too, the theme of their second short film, Antanette & Tom .
Warwick Thornton, prize-winning filmmaker of Samson and Delilah, followed Yarrenyty Arltere Artists in the program and was enthusiastic about their films as well as the photographs on display in the foyer, the finalists of the Inaugural Desart Artworker Photography Prize. He made the point that not everybody can paint and that being introduced to other media can be “the spark” that some people need. He had just returned from documenta, a famous and huge exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany, where he had exhibited his own photographic work. He said working in photography had been a “breath of fresh air” after working in film-making, in which he feels more constrained by the rules of story-telling. Disappointingly, he did not show or further discuss his work.
Part of the rationale for the symposium program is to introduce artists – and many were in attendance, especially in the morning – to other modes of expression. The old men from Amata, with their thinking about the Kulata Tjuta (Many Spears) installation, demonstrated how fruitful this can be. So Thornton’s short speech was a missed opportunity. Reko Rennie took his up, with a well-illustrated presentation. Of Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi descent, he grew up in Melbourne and his earliest mode of creative expression was graffiti art using the typical visual language of the street. He later turned his attention to his family background and history, with the spraycan becoming his “message stick” and his themes focussing on identity politics.
Expression other than through visual media was also given a nod with the choice as MC for the day of Constantina Bush (at left), an Aboriginal drag queen from the Katherine area who now lives and works in Melbourne. She was warm and funny and she can sing, but it felt a little weird to have her flashes of burlesque dropping into the desert. The message seemed to be that Aboriginal art is no one thing, it is in the hands of Aboriginal artists themselves to take it wherever it may go.
As far as the visual arts from the desert are concerned the exhibition, which opened to the usual fanfare and excitement in the evening, appeared to be an expression of undiminished commitment to (mostly) painting by the artists and their art centres, whatever the pressures arising from the contracting art market. The number of large canvasses confidently and at times wonderfully handled was notable. The ascendancy of the artists from the APY Lands continues, with assertive showings of large works from many of them.
From Tjungu Palya, Araluen acquired Husband and wife story (at right), painted by husband and wife, Ginger and Iyawi Wikilyiri. It would seem to recount a long and varied life, its disparate elements holding together almost miraculously in an arcing movement around the two square metre canvas.
Martumili Artists, whose art centre is located in Newman, WA also have an impressive showing, including a major, three metre high work, Yulpu (below), by the recently deceased Pinyyirr Patterson, acquired by a national institution. The scale of this work suggests that it concerns a big sweep of country, whether in space or time or both. The clarity of the imagery shows an artist who knew exactly what she was doing, where she was going – drawing the rich traditions of the past into the now, navigating a way into the future.
Cr Brown adapts Port Augusta solution to Alice Springs, calls for closer look at youth centre proposal
By ERWIN CHLANDA
A councillor has described the new government’s plans of spending $2.5m on refurbishing the youth centre, announced in the dying days of the election campaign, as “another short term token gesture,” suggesting the project should be deferred pending a closer look.
Cr Steve Brown renewed his call to spend up to $40m for a new centre, possibly on the Memo Club or the Melanka sites, and featuring a string of facilities and services for young people and the general public.
In a discussion paper he will present at tonight’s Town Council meeting, he is also making a call for regular questioning by the town council of local departmental heads about the activities of their instrumentalities, such as it is carried out at Port Augusta.
In a comprehensive response to the report, commissioned earlier this year by the Alice Springs Town Council, about the “Port Augusta solution”, Cr Brown also claims that more harmony and fewer rules is the way to tackle Alice Springs’ problems.
He says there are too many rules creating bitterness and resentment, resulting in “anti social and criminal behaviour almost to a level that could be described as general civil disobedience”.
By contrast in Port Augusta there is “a sense of cooperative togetherness” creating a “a nice clean law abiding place that cares about its citizenry”.
He also calls for –
• a Police Citizens Youth Club “similar to those found along the East Coast” to be incorporated in a new youth centre;
• for young people who are neglected, homeless or in trouble with the law, a bush camp with cattle and horses, modeled on initiatives by long-time youth worker Graham Ross, possibly at the government owned Owen Springs reserve;
• structured collaboration with other councils, including Tangentyere, and cooperation between council rangers and night patrol;
• council stimulation “by any means available, including that of acting as a developer” of more affordable housing;
• removal of “racist” provisions such as the one preventing town camp residents from drinking in their own homes;
• Federal and NT government funding to pay for return travel on the Bush Bus so that people from communities don’t get stuck in town.
• “Welcome to Town” staffed visitor centres at the northern and southern entrances with two functions, welcoming tourists and informing them about tours, attractions and accommodation, as well as an “Op Shop style outlet providing inexpensive clothing” and “toilet, ablution and change of clothes facilities for our bush visitors who often find it difficult to access these services on what may be a day visit to town.
“Tolerance, respect, cleanliness and good manners go hand in hand with harmony,” says Cr Brown.
“Recognising that many tourists and bush visitors don’t have access to ablution facilities when arriving in town, perhaps after days of travel and camping” these facilities would allow visitors to achieve “a personal cleanliness and dress standard” suitable for a stay in town.
Cr Brown says his aspiration is “to achieve a clean, law abiding, safe, citizen and visitor friendly, vigorous, fun, prosperous and growing community that accepts, respects and provides for all its citizens and visitors equally”.
The public has the opportunity of asking questions at the beginning of tonight’s council meeting.
Photo: Mr Ross (left) and Cr Brown inspecting a possible site for a youth camp west of Alice Springs, five years ago.
Chairman of new tourist commission on hunt for experts to fix industry
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Michael Bridge (pictured), named by Chief Minister Terry Mills as the chairman of the yet to be formed NT tourist commission, says he doesn’t want to be known as the expert on the industry, but as the person gathering top experts around him in an urgent bid to re-invigorate it.
In an interview today with the Alice Springs News Online, Mr Bridge said he hopes the current CEO of Tourism NT (TNT), John Fitzgerald, to be replaced with Tony Mayell on December 1, will stay with TNT.
In what role will Mr Fitzgerald be staying?
“That’s yet to be decided. We strongly believe that John has done a very good job over the last 18 months or so and we hope he will stay with us.”
Mr Bridge said he is on the lookout for board members who are “enthusiastic about our tourism product. This is not about me and my ideas. My role is to get a group of people together, industry experts from the Territory and around Australia, put forward some recommendations to the Minister and provide some strategic direction to the executive of TNT”.
The Darwin vs Alice Springs thing is pretty engrained in our political life. Which one will have the majority on the board?
“This is about dismantling the Berrimah Line, not building it up from the other side. We want to transfer some people to Alice Springs, or employ some people in Alice Springs, build up the resources of Tourism NT down there.
“But this is not at the expense of the Top End. We are still going to have requirements for a significant office in Darwin. It is the Minister’s intent to have the majority of [TNT] people in Central Australia.”
Is it the commission which will guide and instruct TNT?
Although the number of board members (likely to be eight), and the commission’s term of reference have not yet been presented to Parliament, “our intent will be to provide strategic direction to the CEO [of TNT] and to make recommendations to the minister”.
Is the chain of command going to be the Minister followed by the commission followed by TNT? “We’re just going to have to wait to see what the terms of reference are going to be” which will be coming before Parliament at the end of October.
Is there a draft? “Not that I have seen.”
Mr Bridge has been in the NT for 23 years, at Ayers Rock for 18 months and Alice Springs for two and a half years, before moving to Darwin.
Having seen the industry gyrating pretty badly, what are your views about getting tourism back on track?
He said the challenges are the extremely high Australian dollar, the Global Financial Crisis, the economic turmoil in North America and Europe.
TNT operates in an administration with a population of 220,000 and has a budget of $40m. The Queensland equivalent serves around four million people and gets $60m a year. TNT gets 12 times as much, per head, as Queensland, yet over the last 10 years tourism to the NT has about halved. Is that a sign of a well performing TNT?
“It is a bit unfair to compare state by state. Our product is significantly different and in some cases a lot more difficult to get to. This would be like comparing the delivery of health services in Queensland and the NT.”
Inbound tourism in Australia in 2011-12 has been on the rise – up 5% from all destinations, 18.9% from China and 9.6% from Japan but we’re not getting any of that action. Why? Is that a question for Mr Fitzgerald?
“We won’t be asking John Fitzgerald the question but delving into the issue with a group of experts. We’re acutely conscious of the growing Chinese market … but none of these things happen overnight.”
Mr Bridge says NT tourism is estimated to be worth more than $1b.
“The economic benefits of tourism in the NT are significant. Getting this right and moving forward with a united voice, supporting both the Top End and Central Australia, is vitally important and that’s what I’m looking forward to doing.”
SATURDAY’S REPORT: First two tourism supremos Darwin based
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Both new tourism supremos announced so far by Minister Matt Conlan are Darwin-based although portions of Tourism NT, including new CEO Tony Mayell, will be moved to Alice Springs – where the organisation was located for many years.
Tourism Central Australia (TCA) chairman Jeff Huyben has not returned calls from the Alice Springs News Online, but a local tourism figure, Deborah Rock, a former member of the TCA board and an unsuccessful Labor candidate in the August 25 NT elections, says it is still premature to criticise key people.
It will be interesting to see who else is appointed to the Tourism Commission to be set up, she says.
Mr Conlan yesterday nominated Michael Bridge (pictured) as its chairman.
He is executive chairman and a shareholder of Air North, according to the regional airline’s website.
The other shareholders are Roger Leach, a director, and John Gamble, the finance director.
Mr Leach is a self-made businessman and Licensed Airframe Mechanical Engineer who arrived in Alice Springs in the 1970s with little more than a toolbox, and founded a significant aviation business.
Air North says it has more than 185 scheduled departures weekly, servicing 16 destinations including Darwin, Maningrida, Milingimbi, Elcho Island, Gove [Nhulunbuy], Groote Eylandt and McArthur River in the Northern Territory, Kununurra, Broome, Port Hedland, Karratha and Perth in Western Australia, Townsville, Mount Isa and the Gold Coast in Queensland and Dili in Timor-Leste.
It does not fly to Central Australia, having recently cancelled its Tennant Creek run.
Tony Clementson, whom Mr Conlan appointed as his Ministerial Tourism Advisor, contested Fannie Bay for the Country Liberals in the elections, losing to the ALP’s Michael Gunner, 2263 votes to 1724.
Mr Clementson has been the general manager of Tourism Top End – the Darwin-based opposite of TCA – for more than eight years.
On the web he invites people to contact him for “career opportunities, consulting offers, new ventures, job inquiries, expertise requests, business deals, reference requests and getting back in touch”.
CLARIFICATION: Air North stopped its flights to Tennant Creek in 2003, not “recently” as stated above.
Feeding the chooks: slim pickings from a rushed doorstop with Terry Mills, his slip of the tongue and who heads the new advisory body?
ALCOHOL REHAB, TOURIST COMMISSION, CRIME
New Chief Minister Terry Mills spoke about big changes in the government’s tourism promotion arm and gave details of the legislative foundation for obligatory alcohol rehabilitation during a rushed doorstop news conference in Alice Springs this morning.
He said John Fitzgerald is losing his position as the head of Tourism NT.
There will be a new chairman, Tony Mayell, a former executive of the NT Tourist Commission and manager of the Ayers Rock Resort. He will be based in Alice Springs, starting in December.
The Tourism Commission will be “an overarching body, like a board of directors,” Mr Mills said, “including people from within the game who will provide policy guidance and direction for the Tourism Commission”.
Decision-making will be “closer to the industry and in this case here in Alice Springs”.
There will be 120 more police, starting with 20 in Alice Springs.
From the Alice News: Under what legislation will people be incarcerated in an alcohol rehabilitation facility?
“It will be a breach of a court order,” said Mr Mills.
“That legislation is on the table for the first Parliamentary sittings in October.
“It is on the basis that if you have come into protective custody three times in six months then there needs to be a response.
“First is you are required by order of court to go and get treatment. If you breach that court order then we have no alternative but to provide that intervention,” said Mr Mills.
Quarterly publication of crime statistics will be re-introduced as soon as possible.
Alice News: Where is the alcohol treatment facility going to be and what will it cost?
Mr Mill’s last words in the doorstop: “I’ll tell you later.”
Photo: Mr Mills (left) at the Desert Mob exhibition with Desart CEO Philip Watkins this morning.
UPDATE 4.30pm
Minister for Tourism Matt Conlan says relocating Tourism NT “will help to increase the dwindling tourist numbers we have seen over the last decade.
“A component of Tourism NT will continue to be based in Darwin [and] I am currently working with Tourism NT to determine the details and how this will be implemented,” Mr Conlan said.
Central Australia boasts a 365 day a year tourism industry and “is also home to some of the Territory’s most popular tourist attractions like Uluru.
“I am committed to returning tourism to a top priority of government and I will work hard to ensure tourism once again becomes a major pillar of the Northern Territory economy.”
UPDATE 7.10pm:
Mr Mills fell victim to a “slip of the tongue” when he said this morning in Alice Springs: “There will be a new chair commencing, that’s Tony Mayell, who will commence in December.”
What he meant, according to a spokesman, was that Mr Mayell will be the new CEO of Tourism NT, replacing Mr Fitzgerald.
In a media release issued at 4.20pm today Mr Conlan said: “I am pleased to announce long term Territorian and experienced Airnorth CEO Michael Bridge will be appointed as Chair of the Board when the Commission is established.
“Mr Bridge has a deep understanding of local issues and I am confident he will maximise the Territory’s economic and tourism potential.
“I have also appointed Tony Clementson as Ministerial Tourism Advisor. Mr Clementson has extensive experience and knowledge of the Territory’s tourism industry having held the position of General Manager Tourism Top End for more than eight years.”
The Alice Springs News has asked the chairman of the local tourism lobby, Tourism Central Australia, Jeff Huyben, for a comment on the fact that both positions were given to Top End people, not Central Australians.
COMMENT
The sobriquet “feeding the chooks” dates back to Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his media adviser, Allen Callaghan. The chooks were the journalists and Sir Joh would throw them a few morsels at his pleasure, and in a way that would suit his purpose.
A contemporary version is Dixie Marshall who heads up the WA Government Media section and is the chief minder for Premier Colin Barnett and his cabinet.
In the Walkley Magazine, published by my union, the Media Alliance, the question is raised to what degree Ms Marshall’s team is running rather than serving the government. (Cartoon by Dean Alston.)
Do we have a similar situation developing in the nation’s newest Tory regime?
We at the Alice Springs News have had frequent contact with Terry Mills since he became Opposition Leader in 2003. We got to know him as a pleasant, accessible and articulate politician who would drop into our office most times he came to The Alice.
On one occasion he brought us a bar of chocolate – not a bribe, don’t worry, just a quirky gesture.
Since becoming Chief Minister just over a week ago he’s done a lot of right things by Central Australia, allocating significant ministerial portfolios to MLAs “down here”. He’s about to return the government tourism promotion arm, Tourism NT, to Alice Springs.
But there is a “but”.
Journalists have just endured 11 years of outrageous media management – manipulation is the more appropriate word – under Labor governments, at the mercy of an army of minders who made direct access to ministers all but impossible except in carefully – and cynically — stage managed occasions.
They played favorites and withheld information as they pleased. “Send us an email and I’ll give you some lines” was the attitude.
Is Mr Mills taking on board the media management of his predecessors?
In his two recent visits – on August 22 and today – there were plenty of photo opportunities but scarcely any question and answer opportunities except doorstops with extremely limited usefulness.
Both times Mr Mills gave a preamble about being in a hurry. The four journalists asking questions today had to compete getting their questions in, talking over the top of each other. They clearly had a lot more to ask than they could.
Today’s doorstop at the Araluen Centre, as the Desert Mob event unfolded around us, lasted for five minutes and 53 seconds before a minder arrived and almost bodily dragged Mr Mills away, to “say a few words” at the opening.
Mr Mills was escorted to the auditorium where he sat in the front row for 20 minutes, chatting with people in his party, as the majority of the audience ambled in to take their seats – 20 minutes the journos could have used well.
Doorstops are demeaning to journalists, inefficient, and fall well short of producing the news reporting without which a democracy cannot function.
Some suggestions to the new Chief Minister:-
• Personal conversations between journalists and politicians – especially ministers – are essential.
• Some journalists prefer one-on-one interviews because they don’t want to tip off competing media about the story they are working on.
• Facts should be available from the departments, but ministers need to speak on policy.
• Journos need to give them fair notice of interview requests, say, a day, and an interview duration of 15 minutes is usually enough.
• With me, talking on the phone or Skype is fine.
What’s so hard about that? No question, such an arrangement would benefit the new government enormously: their predecessors got no points for how poorly they treated the media.
– ERWIN CHLANDA
APY lands get income management
The Australian Government will introduce income management in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the Top End of South Australia to help families ensure their welfare payments are spent in the best interests of children, according to a media release from Jenny Macklin, Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs.
A similar system operates in the Northern Territory under the Federal Intervention.
“Income management ensures that money is available for life essentials, and provides a tool to stabilise people’s circumstances and ease immediate financial stress,” says the release.
“Consultations in May this year with APY Lands communities clearly showed strong support for income management on the Lands.
“APY Lands residents told us income management would help them better manage their money and help stop humbugging, ensuring there is enough money for life essentials, such as food, housing and clothing.
“Earlier this year, the Australian and South Australian Governments announced $2.82 million of new investment in child protection, family support and money management services in the APY Lands.
“The introduction of income management will be another important tool to help families in the APY Lands budget in the best interests of their children.
“The model of income management that will be rolled out in the APY Lands from October 2012 is similar to the one that has been operating in Western Australia since 2008 and that was introduced on 1 July this year in five locations across Australia.
“More than 1,400 people are now participating in income management in Western Australia, including 1,100 people who volunteered.
“An evaluation of people participating in the trial in Western Australia found most people thought that income management had improved their lives and those of their families.
“All people on the APY Lands, including those participating in income management, will also be able to access free financial counselling and money management services.
“From October people on the APY Lands will be able volunteer for income management and once appropriate systems are in place, income management will apply to:
• people referred for income management by state child protection authorities where children are being neglected or are at risk;
• people assessed by Centrelink social workers as being vulnerable to factors including financial crisis, which could include people who are at risk of homelessness due to rental arrears; and
• people who volunteer for income management.
“Income management ensures a percentage of income support and family assistance payments are directed toward necessities including food, housing, utilities, clothing and medical care.
“For those people who volunteer for income management and those who are assessed by social workers as being vulnerable, 50 per cent of their welfare payments will be set aside for necessities. Under child protection income management, 70 per cent of parents’ welfare payments will be set aside to be spent on necessities.
“The Government will also begin consultations with people in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia about the possible introduction of income management there, after community members said they were also interested in income management.
“Ngaanyatjarra communities face similar social issues and levels of disadvantage to those on the APY Lands and many people travel regularly between these locations.”
Picture: Minister Macklin in Alice Springs in 2008.
LETTER: Charles Darwin University climbs to middle range
Sir,- Charles Darwin University has markedly improved its standing in the Good Universities Guide, an annual rating system that compares Australia’s universities.
For the first time, CDU has gained three stars in the key categories of teaching quality and graduate satisfaction. This positions CDU in the middle of Australia’s 39 universities; an impressive achievement for the country’s youngest university.
The upgraded rating [can be attributed to] significant efforts made by academic staff towards improving course design, student engagement and the quality of learning resources.
Students are recognising CDU as a university of national and international standing.
Stabilising the technology behind the Learnline system, which serves as the online learning environment for CDU students, is also thought to have improved the student-led rating.
Improvements to Learnline design and stability have made an enormous difference in the quality of the student experience, which is reflected in the ratings.
A four star rating in the area of positive graduate outcomes indicated that CDU graduates were highly likely to secure well-paid, secure employment.
Five star ratings in the areas of Indigenous participation, access by equity groups, gender balance and cultural diversity are reflective of the CDU’s commitment to diversity in its student base.
As encouraging as these results are, there is clearly always room to improve.
Martin Carroll (pictured)
Academic Associate Professor
CDU Pro Vice-Chancellor
Mind shifting
The Teenager and the Shark, installation by Drew Moynihan, partial view. In the background, a partial view of Kelly-Lee Hickey’s Detritus Theory. Photo by Leonardo Ortega.
REVIEW by KIERAN FINNANE
Two ways of drawing you in, as if from different worlds: with one you can imagine yourself on a windswept shore, seeking protection within the flimsy shelter you find there; with the other, there’s the seduction of the curtained space you are invited to enter. Once inside, both engage you by the moving image. In one, it is you, the viewer, who moves as you take in the unfolding story, frame by frame (like a reverse magic lantern, the foundation of the art of cinema). In the other, you remain still while video image and sound sweep you away. The archaic and the contemporary intermingle, within the gallery space, and to a degree within both works.
Art is always experiential but very often viewers do not give themselves over to it. The language may be too subtle, too rigorous, too obscure, too demanding, or else perhaps too obvious or even repellent for more than fleeting consideration before we move on. At Watch This Space in an exhibition called Shift two works excitingly create their own commanding space in which to be received. No question of a glance and moving on – come inside!
Drew Moynihan conjures with a lovely lightness and sparseness the story-telling space of ages in the Western tradition – the home, the hearth. And within it he, descendant of the Irish seanchai, has a story to tell. A few written lines guide us into the territory of the mythical, the archetypal. The images while figurative, are not literal. They evoke psychic pain, and deliver hope of survival and redemption. This is reinforced as you leave the space with a trinity of abstract images – suggestive for me of a central beating heart in a black sea.
More than usually, there’s a case for not giving too much away with description of the content of both this work, The Teenager and the Shark, and the other, The Dimension Elevator Mk2, a collaboration by Dave Nixon and Nicky Schonkala. First and foremost, they are about giving yourself over to the experience.
Nixon and Schonkala work with video, but against the passive mode of taking or leaving it at the flick of a switch. You must first absorb the technical instructions (not difficult), take off your shoes (as if entering a temple), draw aside the curtain, adjust to the darkness of the space, lie down (on a mattress and quite possibly next to other people, an unusual intimacy in a gallery – as in the photo at right, courtesy L.Ortega). When the video starts, instructions guide you further towards reception of the work, towards being very physically present and letting your mental control slide towards neutral.
That’s not to say that this work won’t engage you intellectually. It will. After a while come two very powerful statements of philosophical reflection – about perception, awareness, consciousness – but first sound and image shift you into a compelling space of questing open-mindedness. It feels vast, unending: you may experience a flutter of fear, you will be moved and invigorated.
The abstract image derived from repeat patterns, whether concentric circles or lines or more complex configurations, has age-old roots in cultures around the world. It summons a tremendous potency in this work, opening me more to that vein of Schonkala’s textile art (such as the work recently highly commended in the Alice Prize), as well as to the work of Aboriginal artists such as Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri (you can see work by him at Papunya Tula Artists).
There are two other artists showing in this exhibition. Jason Japaljarri Woods has two video works, both produced by PAW Media at Yuedumu in 2010 as part of the Animating Jukurrpa series. Both are very effective in their story-telling, well-paced and each with a distinct style.
In Emu Story Curtis Jampijinpa Fry speaks to camera and enacts aspects of the story at a magnificent waterhole – actually two deep holes like eye-sockets scooped out of a smooth face of rock. Spliced into this are short animated sequences of sand drawing, showing tracks and representing the country spoken of.
In Crow Story, Neville ‘Cobra’ Japangardi Poulson (in the photo at left, courtesy L. Ortega) narrates a rather harsh tale of how crows came to be black, accompanied by delightfully drawn animations by Woods. With just a few lines, he endows his creatures with character, particularly the greedy crow sleeping on a full stomach.
Kelly Lee-Hickey, known as a poet, appeals to the poet within in her installation. She provides a type-writer and blank paper, a shredding machine, a bowl of earth, a large kettle of water, a shelf and a collection of small terra-cotta pots. This is an invitation to write, to ‘plant the seeds’ of your memories, thoughts, feelings. There is the possibility of actually sitting down and doing it and on opening night this was very popular with young children. But the work can also stand as a visualisation of a transformative process that is open to all.
Shift is part of the Alice Desert Festival. It was curated by Alice Buscombe, Pip McManus and Leonardo Ortega. Shows through to September 22.