We need more than a new government

Erwin Chlanda
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2

PHOTOS (from top): Report author Dr Walker (left) with Julia Gillard, then Federal Education Minister, and Harold Furber at the opening of the Desert Knowledge complex in  2010. • Tourism – how to revive it? A visitor looking down into Palm Valley. • Are we hoping for a mining boom? The main pit of the Granites gold mine (photo courtesy Newmont). • The Bush said “no” to Labor: a voter in Hermannsburg. • Law and Order: Mounted police officer pouring out beer confiscated from illegal public drinkers. • Aborigines were the key to the change of government. This is the mobile polling station in the Karnte town camp in Alice Springs.
 
Governance Reform in Central Australia
Comment by DR BRUCE WALKER
 
The impact of the “bush vote” has not gone unnoticed in commentary around the change in government in the NT.  But in many respects it was predictable. The success of the Royalties for Regions initiative in the last WA election, and the impact of the regional Independent members in the formation of the current Federal government, all point to a wider disaffection emerging from regional and remote Australia.
In Remote Australia common issues are globally familiar: People live remotely from centres of economic and political power but are facing rapid social and economic change. Local signs are a high turnover in business, ongoing local employment shortages, fluctuations in tourist numbers, high mobility among Aboriginal people, Fly In Fly Out as a business practice impacting on local communities. Then there are the secondary effects – law and order and behavioral issues.
These tend to be dealt with as separate issues, yet in our view they are the outcome of a larger more complex dysfunction – a dysfunction created the way governments go about making decisions; the way government engages with – and governs – its citizens and institutions.
 
What Terry Mills has ahead of him
 
The new Mills government is now confronted by these same characteristics – though governments elsewhere have found they are relatively hamstrung because many of the issues cannot be fixed by local public policy responses.
“Fixing the Hole in Australia’s Heartland: How Governments Need to Work in Remote Australia” is the title of the Desert Knowledge Australia remoteFOCUS report that attempts to outline the impact of these dysfunctions on remote Australia and how they contribute to the issues people read in headlines or hear politicians attempting to wrestle with.
These dysfunctions exist despite the many well-meaning efforts of public servants and civic leaders over the years – and independently of which political party is in power. They appear in many forms but the underlying causes are the same.
While identifying the similarities from region to region and across the globe, the report also identifies a framework for developing regional governance responses that have legitimacy, authority, and effectiveness. This framework is grounded in international experience and extensive engagements across remote Australia. It draws on the many government reports that themselves highlight the need for governments to work in different and more responsive ways in remote Australia, and in ways that go beyond better “coordination”.
 
What does this look like in Central Australia?
 
Central Australia is a product of its history, its geography and its peoples. It covers 64% of the NT and contains 24% of the NT population. It has an estimated regional population of 48,000 people including 28,000 in Alice Springs, 8137 in the Barkly Shire (including 3500 in Tennant Creek), 4887 in the Central Desert Shire and 7322 in the MacDonnell Shire.
Its broad-based and relatively fragile economy has always been subject to fluctuations of the seasons and decision-making taken in places well removed from Central Australia.
The core elements of settlement in Central Australia are now undergoing significant adjustment from largely Commonwealth and Territory-led reforms of Aboriginal policy. Significant financial investment in those reforms are accompanied by a hope that the resources sector will also land in the Centre or that tourism will return if the dollar drops. Given the political profile of Central Australia, and despite the recent election result, the normal processes of democratic government are unlikely to resolve the underlying structural divisions exacerbated by these reforms. The region is in a state of economic transition.
Alice Springs is the major centre for the regional economy. The town has the range of infrastructure and services expected in a regional centre and its local economic base—government services (Aboriginal administration, health and defence related services), tourism, retail, transport and some manufacturing and pastoral and an expanding mining sector.
It is the service hub for the communities of Central Australia plus the eastern part of Western Australia and the top of South Australia. It supplies services not available in any other town within a 1500 km radius and is headquarters for two of the three shires in the region.
Mining produces the biggest share of Gross Regional Product (GRP) in Central Australia including in the Barkly Shire but doesn’t employ many people. The other larger government, health and community services sectors employ more people locally but they only represent about 9% of businesses.
Recent investment of the NT and Commonwealth governments in Aboriginal communities and town camps in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek Transition Plans have delivered a significant economic stimulus into the region.
 
Government investment
 
The economic base of the region is currently precariously positioned and dependent on future government investment. The significant mining opportunities traditionally contribute to the boom and bust nature of the centre whereas tourism and the provision of services to Aboriginal people have made a more consistent contribution to the region’s growth. Failure to understand this would be a significant impediment to current policy reform. The recent rise in the Australian dollar has impacted on tourism and this fact, in concert with changed policy settings in Aboriginal affairs, have created increased uncertainty in Central Australia.
Rolf Gerritsen, a Central Australian economist, estimates that if Aboriginal people were suddenly extracted from Central Australia the Alice Springs economy would shrink by 40% and there would be widespread out-migration of non-Aboriginal people. This is an indication of interdependency of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations, and the degree of dependence of Aboriginal people, the Central Australian communities and NT Government on national funding.
The dilemma for all governments is that the pressure for Aboriginal people to move to find employment and services either has them converging on the hub or migrating further south to large coastal cities.
If a consequence of these initiatives is to depopulate the remote regions of Australia, matters of national strategic interest need to be weighed carefully. Governments need to have large programs to house, educate, and employ people in the migration towns with little immediate capacity to fit easily into urban living.
A significant adjustment would occur if government or defence retreated from the region. The Commonwealth has already shown it is disengaging with direct contact in Aboriginal communities.
Operating within this fragile regional economy is something like 1,800 businesses: 79% are micro or small businesses and 83% of these businesses are reliant on other external government investment and the transient population for their survival.
These are largely property and business services, construction, retail and transport and storage. The value of the most numerous businesses is not reflective of the business contribution to Gross Regional Product.
The region is heavily dependent on government investment and public funds transfers, with 35% of the population drawing Centrelink or Job Services network benefits.
 
Values, ideas and land uses remain a puzzle
 
The failure or inability of current governance arrangements to resolve the differences in values, ideas and land uses that have been at the heart of the intercultural space in Central Australia still challenge the region today.
The dominance of Aboriginal issues has left the region without the capacity to tackle some of the future challenges. Nor has it allowed the region to develop the types of institutions that will enable contested views to be resolved over time.
Another contest that remains unresolved is the relationship between the different levels of government and the shuffling of mandates and the lack of clarity around longer-term directions for the region.
The difficulties and underfunding of new shire arrangements and the separation of the largely Aboriginal interests into the shires as differentiated from the Municipality of Alice Springs is a further example of the failure to fully engage and respect the region as a total system, rather than two systems requiring two systems of governance.
 
No-one’s in charge
 
At all levels of government there appears to be not one person nor department responsible for taking an overview or a holistic view of the impact of change on the region: a view that examines the impact on business, environment and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who have invested in the region.
A large number of small business people influence political response. They often do not necessarily share either the values of Aboriginal people or of the pastoralists and land managers who are involved in the contest over land use. They are a group who generally support the policing or strategic intervention approach to stabilise the community in the short run. They are often indifferent to activities that engage Aboriginal people and they do not build community institutions that can deal with and govern the contest of views. Such an approach would require more time and more intense relationships.
In this contest, government has increasingly assumed an executive role and adopted a managerial response. Invariably that is a controlling role and it has distanced the community from the setting of policy.
Executive government has used its power to take charge of delivery of service in order to improve human development indicators. It is now able to influence consumption, spending and security of individuals.
That means the community has been largely disempowered. The way government has gone about procuring services in support of this approach leaves little room for local suppliers to be innovative. Without that local innovation the adequacy of the measures in a sustainable sense are questionable.
Local institutions have become overloaded or where they have contested the executive approach, they have been underfunded and disappeared.
There has been an expectation created that the shires will assume greater responsibility for the small communities abandoned by the Commonwealth and the NT Government as they consolidate their growth towns and hub and spoke models of service delivery.
Law and order cries within Alice Springs and the policing of pornography and alcohol in outlying communities have led to an emphasis on security as a basis for investment and development.
The upshot of all this is more, not less marginalisation. Can the new government change that? Can it provide more local control?
Measures in the past have brought contested and turbulent responses among some Aboriginal people and among the non-Aboriginal population. Hard won social capital was lost. For more remote people it has created a feeling of despair and what Bob Beadman once described as torpor.
The current Federal Government has renewed interest in regional Australia and has developed a large mix of specific programs. The challenge for governance reform is how to ensure these investments work in the best interests of the region.
 
Good intentions, patchy responses
 
Government has demonstrated its good intentions through a long-term commitment to targets to “Close the Gaps” in a specific number of areas. This commitment has financial commitment, a commitment to be strategic and coordinated not only within the Commonwealth agencies but also between the Commonwealth and the Territory.
Executive control of housing, welfare and security services and social security payments complemented by the placement of government business managers in communities and adjusting the role of the Regional Indigenous Coordination Centres all point to a strong commitment by the Federal government.
However, returns from this endeavour appear patchy and, whilst improvements are noted, they are often ephemeral or are outpaced by even more significant improvement in the same indicator among non-Aboriginal populations. In that sense, gap closing may be a problematic measure.
The new Mills government has prioritised listening to remote Territorians.
There is a growing agreement within government that training of staff in community development techniques would be desirable. Greater community engagement and meaningful consultation and negotiation would also assist in achieving government and community objectives. However, there is currently no program to support this.
How do we get the Commonwealth / NT / Local Government / and communities all pointing in the same direction and working in unison?
What is clear from the remoteFOCUS work is that despite a uniformity of analysis of what needs to be done, and recognition at the highest levels that current outcomes are problematic, the system of government appears unable to make the necessary systemic adjustments. On our analysis many areas of current systems and practices need to be addressed systemically.
It is clear that innovative economic policy rather than a singular focus on improved subsidies, welfare and services must be at the heart of policy on Central Australia.
Economic policy requires more from government than setting macro-economic conditions. It needs to become an active partner in business / livelihood with community and private sector. It needs to be prepared to be innovative – more of the same regional development will not work.
Agglomeration, regional integration, and regional connectivity are keys to an innovative response in Central Australia.
Government could stimulate capacity in Central Australia though micro-economic reform including adoption of more innovative regional and procurement policies.
The current arrangements comprise three tiers of government and a series of ad hoc regional arrangements overshadowed by localised law and order concerns. This appears to be incapable of resolving both the priorities and the contests that need to take place around these arrangements.
The structure and configuration of institutions across central Australia are, therefore, largely not fit for purpose. Failure to innovate is most marked in the public sector.
For Central Australia, the national debate over rights and responsibilities of Aboriginal people and the general question of citizen rights and equity for all Australians has created service expectations that cannot be financially sustained in this region.
 
Contradictions
 
There are a number of inherent contradictions within the current policy mix impacting on Central Australia.
• There is a lack of clarity of national purpose as to whether Aboriginal people can pursue cultural difference and whether, as a result, the nation is prepared to respect Aboriginal difference and allow a future for remote settlements which that difference reflects. At a more nuanced level, what cultural difference is Australia prepared to accept, support and fund?
• As a consequence we currently have an unworkable settlement strategy in Central Australia. The hub and spoke service model of the growth towns strategy and the abandonment of homelands by the Commonwealth set a default policy of population movement to large regional centres. This is without regard to economic issues, and is indifferent to the consequences for a range of other employment and human service outcomes that result from such mass mobility.
• Central Australia has an inadequate economic base to support the infrastructure requirements and the recurrent effects of such a de facto de-population strategy. Fiscal federalism allows the Territory government to apply revenue assessed by the Grants Commission against needs of remote communities to be allocated independently of those community needs. [Ed: Refer to previous article by Prof Rolf Gerritsen.]
• With elements of Commonwealth disengagement, a distant and largely over-stretched Territory government and grossly underfunded local governments there is no effective or legitimate means to address concerns. This is unless the Commonwealth invests significantly in regional renewal and alternative governance outcomes. This disengagement means that many of the elements of civic life normally present in a community are not available in remote communities.
• Targets for change have been elusive and, in hindsight, judged chronically inadequate and opportunistic, chasing new projects or hoping for mining to arrive or commodity prices to increase. The employment targets required will require more than reliance on markets if government is to sustain any improvement in human development indicators.
The response to these five concerns has been a managerial response that in ways – unintended – simply reproduces the problems.
 
Towards governance reform in Central Australia
 
What might then be the basis for a discussion around a new governance reform in Central Australia, and what mechanisms might be used to facilitate that discussion?
We need a unifying vision that goes beyond service provision, law and order and reliance on the boom and bust cycles of commodities. With three levels of government, representative community organisations, a business community and a web of representative Aboriginal organisations the task is formidable. Simply returning local control in the absence of systemic governance reform may well meet people’s aspirations but our research suggests it is unlikely to provide a basis for renewed regional development.
First of all we need to confirm:-
• What are the issues in the region?
• What needs to happen at each level of government and of communities themselves?
• What are agreed objectives, what are we wanting to achieve?
• Who is responsible for what tasks, including keeping everyone on track over time?
• Are the resources and capabilities matched to the task?
• What structure will have the authority and legitimacy to maintain this approach over time?
One approach would be the establishment of a regional innovation trial where the principles and approach outlined in the remoteFOCUS report are applied. The specific aim would be developing an on-going process of learning, consensus and regional capacity building – a starting point with a defined scale and scope. This will build momentum for change as required, and potentially provide “proof by good example” of the usefulness of such change.
The mix of economic and social issues in Central Australia call for a big picture approach, a shared vision across the region, rather than a mere focus on Alice Springs. That, combined with place centered approaches, would create the necessary shared vision.
 
New networks to create new solutions
 
Innovation in its broadest sense involves creating new ideas, and diffusing them into economies, driving changes which improve welfare and create economic growth. It is also increasingly dependent on interpersonal relationships as ideas develop within networks seeking solutions to particular problems. Where innovation takes place these relationships shape informal cultures and formal institutions to create more conducive environments for particular kinds of innovation. There is also a territorial dimension to innovation because innovation relationships depend on proximity for interaction and geographical proximity can allow people and business to interact more easily.
Irrespective of the starting point, the remoteFOCUS report establishes a number of clear criteria, including vision, authority, legitimacy and effectiveness against which reforms at any level can be evaluated.
• Is there a capacity to have a guiding vision or narrative that gives direction and explains the actions of all levels of government, that is, a shared vision?
• Is there a capacity to settle mandates?
• Is there a capacity to match mandates with funding and resources?
• Is there local accountability within the various administrative structures?
• Is there a capacity to review and adapt mandates as experience accumulates and learnings develop?
• Is there a body that is above the contest, authorised by the players to be responsible to oversee all of the above?
 
Three or four tiers or just more tears?
 
The current three-tiered system of government fails to do this adequately in Central Australia. Land Councils and Native Title Bodies provide effectively a fourth tier of governance adding to the complexity of arrangements.
Are new arrangements possible in Central Australia? The answer will be in creating regional governance with the authority, effectiveness and legitimacy to respond to the nature and pace of change in Central Australia and deliver on a regional innovation strategy.
Working through these issues requires a resourced, skilled and independent process to be put in train, and an action / learning / innovation framework to be established. It will also require a commitment from each level of government and leading Aboriginal organisations and the Land Council and Native Title Bodies.
We know that more of the same will produce more of the same and therefore a changed approach to how government operates is needed.
We accept that:-
• If the three levels of government and the community(ies) are working at cross purposes success is impossible because goals are different.
• If members of the communities disagree with or do not support what governments are trying to do, wicked problems (health, education, employment) will not be solved.
• In Central Australia government is the main provider of an economy (as against having some industries and particularly mining which do not of themselves ensure an economy as against having an industry).
• In the short term the pressure of change may require unique operational realities.
Discussion of possible new governance needs to be open to new evidence and n
ew concepts. It needs to be sustained and not immediately politicised.

Starting the discussion
 
The account of Central Australia provided in this article is one possible context statement for Central Australia that might begin that conversation. The very fact that you as a reader may disagree with this article highlights the importance of people developing together a reasonably shared understanding of the context before they proceed to the next steps. 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.
This article is an extract from the “Fixing the Hole in Australia’s Heartland: How Government Needs to Work in Remote Australia” report providing a starting place for developing different government governance approaches in Central Australia.
Further information on the RemoteFOCUS project, including a copy of the full report after its launch on September 10, can be gained from www.desertknowledge.com.au/remoteFOCUS <http://www.desertknowledge.com.au/remoteFOCUS> .
[Dr Bruce Walker is the remoteFOCUS Project Director and principal author of the report.]

It pays to read the fine print: were First Nations fear-mongering?

Kieran Finnane
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By KIERAN FINNANE
 
“They will take your vote, and take away your freedom! Lock you up, and give your children away! Make you pay for living on your land! Make you pay rent forever! Kick you out of town after taking your money! Control your Governance and say they now what’s best for you!”
That was the fine print on the back of the First Nations Political Party how-to-vote cards, a lot more dramatic and threatening than the spoken statements of Ken Lechleitner, co-founder of the party with Maurie Ryan, whom we have quoted in recent articles. (He is pictured at left, with candidate Edan Baxter who has since resigned from the party).
There’s been no complaint to the electoral commission, and even if there had been, it does not have the responsibility to “police truth in advertising”, a spokesperson told the Alice Springs News Online. 
The media does, however, so the News asked Mr Lechleitner if these messages to voters could be substantiated.
He answered with an over-riding question – “What autonomy do people really have?” – and went on to explain, in fine rhetorical style:
“Life, liberty and estate are fundamental to being part of a society, being able to participate in a society. These things are denied to a section of the community. They are over-ridden, railroaded. They can’t get involved in the economy because they can’t use their land as collateral. If they could, they’d be able to participate, they wouldn’t have to be begging.”
This point about land has been his central theme and well covered. Lack of individual control over the land is what he, at least, is referring to in relation to freedom. But what about the second point, the spectre of people being locked up and their children given away?
 
Target?
 
“Look at the plans of the other parties!” he says. “They are going to clean up the streets, clean up the parks – which group of people are they targeting there?
“Locking people up, isn’t that’s what being done, with the soft form of mandatory sentencing that’s going to be introduced? In another year, people will realise what they’ve done.”
At the same time he welcomes the result of the recent Territory election, for the way that it has shifted voting power to the bush: “It’s fantastic, people will be able to hold the party in power to account to deliver on their promises. It will be a really interesting four years.”
But back to the point about children: “The whole Intervention is built around that issue. This is a call for us to wake up, what do we do now? There’s a lot of futuristic thinking happening but not on our side. There are 2010, 2030 documents but what has been Aboriginal people’s participation in those?”
Is he or the party suggesting that children not in vulnerable or damaging situations are being removed from their families?
 
Blame?
 
He seems to acknowledge a problem: “In some cases parents aren’t there, they’re dead and families can’t do it, can’t care for those children.
“I’m not blaming anyone, what happens is for a good reason, but does it have to be like that? We’ve got a lot of waking up to do about what we need to do and improve. The responsibility falls on us.”
It all sounds more reasonable when he speaks to it. So why the alarmist language on the how-to-vote cards?
“We can’t force people to think in strategic way,” says Mr Lechleitner.
Moving on: what about people having to pay for being on their land and paying rent forever? All over Australia people who live in public housing pay rent. Is he suggesting that Aboriginal people should live in public housing rent-free?
No, his point is again about people being able to raise money by using their land as collateral to build their own houses, and then pay rates for municipal services.
And people being kicked out of town after their money’s taken – what’s that all about?
“Getting rid of drunks from parks, from public places – what’s that saying? You’ve got no space, you’re not welcome anywhere around town. You can purchase your drink but when you go round the corner it will be confiscated. Where does that leave everyone? It’s a very, very sad situation.”
 
Imposition? 
 
So, on the final point about governance, is that about the imposition of the shire model?
The creation of the shires should have been celebrated as a move towards inclusion, says Mr Lechleitner: “It could have been about bringing remote communities out of a stand-alone Aboriginal governance system into the Westminster system, but it was not promoted in a positive way. That philosophy of government is a good thing, but the process hasn’t been.”
He’s reluctant to get into detail, saying that the other parties have “plagiarised” FNPP’s ideas: “The litmus test will be how well they are executed.”
He says no-one wanted to touch outstations when he campaigned in the Federal election, but “now they are the flavour of the month”.
But how will they be funded, he wants to know: “Will government pilfer the Aboriginal Benefit Account – in another example of ‘we know what’s good for you’ – or will money be allocated from the NT Government budget?”
On the shires, he says they need to be restructured to deliver greater autonomy to local decision-makers. He says “the representative structure exists, all we have to do is adapt it”. The detail, however, is “our secret”.
Meanwhile, Edan Baxter, the First Nations Political Party candidate who stood for the seat of Araluen in Alice Springs, has resigned from the party. He says he feels that it is best for him to return to “my own space as an independent”. His resignation is more about how he now wants to allocate his time, but he told the Alice News that he was “not happy” with the messages on the how-to-vote card, and did not hand it out during the election. He also did not allocate preferences.
 
Pictured, above right: Mr Lechleitner campaigning at Hermannsburg (Ntaria), supporting the Warren H. Williams standing for the FNPP in Namatjira.

Young dancers make their mark

Kieran Finnane
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By KIERAN FINNANE
 
Instead of skating or biking dare-devils on the edge of the half-pipe, it’s a crowd of parents and friends. They’ve come down to the Alice Springs Skate Park to watch Sprung, a new youth dance group. In the lead-up they are kept entertained by a band of skateboarders, and even when the performance starts a few kids on scooters continue to use one end of the park – it’s their space, after all. But it’s great to see it also being used for a different kind of activity, and its dramatic possibilities make it an excellent choice of venue.
 
As the sun goes down, there’s a familiar rattling sound. The first dancers emerge, shaking out a rhythm: the rattle is from the all but empty spraycans in their  hands. They brandish them almost like a weapon, they inscribe bold flourishes in the air. The image is clear: this is about making your mark, as is spelled out in the overall title for the piece, Graffiti.
 
There was a youth dance performance at the recent Wearable Arts Awards by members of the Duprada Dance Company. They had a very different energy: the emphasis was on the collective, the group moving as one, a strong feature of teenage life for many. The Sprung dancers express something more fiercely individual. These young people are bound together sure, but on conditions – they need room to move, to influence, to be acknowledged and desired.
 
The performance pays strong attention to youth culture: the graffiti sequence is followed by a piece about staying connected via mobile phones. There are gestures and stances associated with mobile use that have become instantly recognisable – the group treats us here to the full repertoire. This piece also has the merit of some spoken word, that adds to its depth.
 
The same goes for the next sequence where the recorded voice-track has the performers considering how they have made their mark – “by being a male dancer”, “by following my dreams”, “by trying to act older”. The choreography here emphasises  individual difference.
 
The overall performance used the Skate Park spaces and forms to good dramatic effect. I would have liked the scripting to continue. I think there were three more sequences, including a good one about pairing-off dynamics, but they began to blend a bit for me. Spoken word, even used sparingly, would have the merit of focusing the general viewer’s attention and possibly also help articulate the dancers’ moves more clearly.
 
Sprung is for dancers who have already had some training at school, giving them an avenue for continuing dance without having to leave town. At the weekend performances credit was particularly given to choreographer and dance teacher , Miriam Nicholls (formerly Bond). The Alice Desert Festival program gives credit also to Jordan VanderSchuit, James Loveday and Hayley Michener, as well as the dancers. They were supported by Incite Youth Arts and the Dusty Feet Dance Collective.
 

Land Council chairman charged with drunk driving

Erwin Chlanda
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0

By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
The new chairman of the Central Land Council (CLC), Phillip Wilyuka (pictured), has been charged with driving under the influence of “medium range blood alcohol content”.
The alleged 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.
He will appear in court again on September 12.
The CLC said it will make no comment at this stage.

Palm Valley, Gosse Bluff to the rescue of our tourist industry?

Erwin Chlanda
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5


 
TOP: 4WD tourists arrive at Palm Valley. ABOVE: A montage of photos of Gosse Bluff’s western rim. RIGHT: Magnificent thick vegetation dominated by the unique Red Cabbage Palms. BELOW: A section of Palm Valley from its southern rim. • Palms among the first that you see in the valley. • Nasty Mexican Poppy weed in the bed of the Finke River traversing the conservation park. • Cycads in Palm Valley. • Google earth image of Gosse Bluff.
 
By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
You are in a narrow valley formed by sheer red rock walls, studded with cycads and ghost gums with gleaming white trunks.
On its floor, towering over lush vegetation in the cool shade, are some 3000 Red Cabbage Palms which have their origins in Central Australia’s tropical past, survivors in a true oasis now surrounded by harsh dryness.
The annual rainfall is just 200mm but water seeping to the surface forms small ponds, and provides life for the majestic trees.
You’re in Palm Valley.
Some 50 kms to the north-west is Gosse Bluff, believed to have been created 140 million years ago when a comet, 600 metres wide, slammed into the earth, blasting a hole 20 kilometers across.
Erosion has reduced the crater’s height by two kilometers, and its diameter, to five.
The craggy rim holds you captive as you view it from a small rise inside, not in the least because of the stories told by the local Arrernte, who call the place Tnorala: In the legend it was formed by a baby slipping out of its celestial mother’s coolamon and falling from the sky.
This place once rich in food was abandoned, as the story goes, when long before whites arrived, all men, women and children living there were massacred by kadaitcha men from the desert to the south. They in turn  were killed by the avenging family.
No-one lives inside Tnorala now.
To the world today it is a prime example of an impact crater. For our tourism promoters it apparently does not exist. Gosse Bluff had 1216 visitors this year up to the end of May.
Palm Valley and Gosse Bluff have two things in common: they could both be major attractions.
And this is a matter to which, judging from election promises, the new Mills Government is likely to be paying a great deal of attention when it dismantles the over-funded and under-achieving Tourism NT.
Both Palm Valley and Gosse Bluff are, in fact, reserved for a tiny fraction of tourists, current or potential: all those who don’t have a big 4WD, don’t want to or can’t afford to hire one, and don’t like going on organised tours are excluded.
There’s a great bitumen road, 120 kilometers, from Alice Springs to Glen Helen.
There is a great bitumen road, 60 kilometers, from Glen Helen to the turn-off to Gosse Bluff.
The distance to the bluff from there is six kilometers. It’s unsealed and marked 4WD.
This means people arriving in The Centre in a two-wheel drive car are discouraged from going there.
If they hire a cheap 2WD ($46.90 a day, according to one company) their insurance would be voided if they go off the bitumen.
To go to Palm Valley they are up for $166.95 a day for a large 4WD (the small ones don’t cut it).
This is surely one of the crassest examples of incompetent road planning, all under the nose of Tourism Central Australia which, it seems to one longtime local operator (speaking on the condition of not being name) is in the final stage of “implosion”.
The access situation is similar at Palm Valley.
You’re on a great bitumen road for the 120 kilometers to Hermannsburg – for which Growth Town tourism enterprise opportunities surely abound.
If from there you’re heading to Palm Valley, just 18 kilometers away, be ready for one of the worst roads known to man. It will take you an hour and a half. Much of the final section you’ll be in first gear low range 4WD.
It’s no big deal in terms of driving skills, just time consuming, irritating, burns a lot of fuel and increases the risk of importing or spreading buffel and couch seeds (the place is heavily infested with those weeds already), and Mexican poppy (quite a few plants are in the Finke River).
No question, 4WD enthusiasts need love, too, but for them we should set aside tracks in other areas, with real driving challenges.
Isn’t there a monorail for sale in Sydney? A slim single rail would be a lot less offensive than this dreadful road. But then that would require thinking big – like Paul Everingham did with Ayers Rock Resort, to which our tourism’s centre of gravity has been allowed to shift.
I digress.
It is noteworthy that the lousy state of the road to Palm Valley is seen as desirable feature by the Finke Gorge National Park’s Joint Management Plan of October 2011.
“The four wheel drive experience at Finke Gorge National Park is highly valued by visitors seeking adventure and solitude,” says the plan.
Is this a convenient excuse for leaving the Palm Valley access road in the disgraceful state it is in, for not spending any money on it?
The plan mapping out the collaboration between traditional owners (under the auspices of the Central Land Council), and government parks authorities, is long on protecting “cultural sites, springs, seepages and associated ecosystems … and to share the area’s rich cultural heritage with visitors,” and short on specifics about the tourism potential, such as projections of earnings: “The Park will receive a high level of management input from park operations with great scope for the joint management partners to increase Indigenous employment associated with the Park.
“In collaboration with adjoining landowners, opportunities exist to expand biodiversity conservation, four wheel drive routes and explore accommodation alternatives.” And so on. But where are the numbers? Where are the projections of earnings?
The plan says the park gets an estimated 28,400 visitors a year. From January 1 to August 31 this year, 16,562 people visited Palm Valley.
The Ayers Rock – Uluru national park had 298,034 visitors in 2010 and 273,430 in 2011.
The future of the Finke Gorge National Park – including Palm Valley – will be in the hands of the “Management Committee [which] will meet at least once each year”.  What dynamic change can we hope to see from that? What venture ever got off to the ground with an annual planning meeting?
The committee’s membership “will consist of at least two senior Parks officers, Traditional Owner representatives and a Central Land Council staff member. Traditional Owners will decide their representatives.”
There is no mention of a tourism industry representative or someone with business nous on that committee although the report says the “partners will work with the tourism industry, the Central Land Council and local operators to foster Aboriginal employment in tourism and assist the development of local Indigenous tourism enterprises including cross-cultural voluntourism [sic] opportunities”.
What are they going to do for Alice Springs?
Chief Minister Mills has during the campaign, in very obscure terms, foreshadowed moves to put the industry in a stronger decision making position.
Will Tourism Central Australia (TCA) still be around to have a say?
The tourism operator says he has not been consulted about these changes, neither by Mr Mills nor by the TCA.
He believes the Tourism NT (TNT) marketing arms may be privatised.
TCA needs to be revamped, he says, it has lost focus on its membership base, its heavy funding from TNT should be re-examined: After all, would a watchdog bite the hand that feeds him?
The operator says there are fewer people on the front counter of TCA, less attention is given to sales, and there’s a lot of duplication: “They are keeping their seats warm until they know what’s going on.”
The Alice Springs News Online has made several requests for an interview with TCA chairman Jeff Huyben. He has cancelled one appointment and so far not agreed to another.
We are seeking comments also from new Ministers Lambley, Anderson, Giles and Conlan.

Bleak tunnel vision in new book on Alice Springs

Kieran Finnane
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11


 
Alice Springs
Eleanor Hogan
NewSouth Publishing, 325 pp.
 
REVIEW By KIERAN FINNANE
 
 
With her book Alice Springs, author Eleanor Hogan sets out to write an account that moves beyond “the polarities of political debate and media perceptions of Alice Springs”. This is stated at page 38, when I was already beginning to have my doubts. At the end of reading the further 261 pages, in a handsomely produced small format hardcover, these are confirmed. She has focused almost entirely on one pole, the bleak one, of a town all but overwhelmed by Aboriginal tragedy and dysfunction, and deeply divided along race lines. Tell me if I’m wrong, but that is the dominant media perception of Alice Springs, and for all her efforts, Hogan has just added to it, in spades.
 
I’m surprised. I remember hearing her read at writers’ events when she lived in town. Her pieces were almost always witty, with a sharp eye for people’s foibles, and they were strongly located in the life of the town as she experienced it. She could be acerbic, but humour seemed to be part of her take on the world. This book markedly lacks humour (despite the claims of the blurb).
 
It also lacks heart. A phrase from its early pages sticks in my mind. Hogan is describing Todd Mall: there are the tourists “identifiable by their strong walking shoes and hats with flyveils” (a cliché in itself), and there are Aboriginal people, drifting past in knots “like shoals of disconsolate fish”.  There’s something coldly objectifying about this image and it’s never counter-balanced by something else.
 
Of course I, like anyone who has spent time around town, have seen individuals and groups of Aboriginal people who look sad, sick, inebriated, and others who look and sound angry, sometimes threatening. I also have often seen groups of Aboriginal people, men and women, stopping in the mall or the streets of the CBD, clearly pleased to have run into one another or – believe it or not – into their non-Aboriginal friends and acquaintances, talking and laughing, with babies passed from one person to the next to be showered with affection. Not to mention the groups of high-spirited children, or the youths with their fresh white shin-high socks, bright t-shirts and baseball caps, or the laughing girls, with their languid movements, plucked eyebrows and hair, sometimes with blond or coloured streaks, combed tightly back into a knot or ponytail.
 
There is a group of girls described in the book’s early pages: “They have huge brown eyes, wide smiles and long, slender limbs. Although dressed in grubby sportswear topped off with rough-edged, home-styled haircuts, they possess a lanky model like quality.”  But Hogan (pictured at right) is immediately worrying for them, quoting from her own journal at the time – will they end up pregnant, or infertile from STDs or victims of family violence? Her worry is confirmed. Within three months the eldest of them is dead. This was J. Ryan, who died in January 2006, having been assaulted and raped by other young Aboriginal people and left for dead by the side of Grevillea Drive.
 
There is no denying the profound tragedy of this death and there are no doubt lessons to be drawn from it. However, apart from it confirming her generalised worry for the fate of girls in Alice Springs, Hogan’s account is mainly to make a point about white, middle-class residents having become inured to Aboriginal violence and suffering, an illustration of the “almost unspoken stand-off … between the black and white populations of Alice Springs”.
 
Almost all her material is mustered around these themes. Chapter Two on “The Gap”, for example, quickly becomes a discussion of Aboriginal drinking and the efforts to curb it. In so doing it offers a vignette of her attempt to talk to people who appear to be waiting “for cashed-up friends and family members to come out of the bottle shop with grog”. She mines her awkward conversation with them for all it’s worth, but it still doesn’t amount to much and I wonder why she’s included it. Perhaps it’s there to show some kind of effort to contact those “dark figures” drifting at the edge of her vision at all times. There’s plenty of talk about them, precious little with them.
 
She makes another attempt in Chapter Three when, despite feeling sick, she agrees to give an old Aboriginal woman a lift. This turns into a protracted and alienating experience. Hogan ends the account on a note of distaste from which she retreats into her own domestic realm.
 
The only encounter with an Aboriginal person where there’s a glimmer of warmth (as opposed to bucketloads of concern and preoccupation) comes later, when she meets the artist Marlene Rubunjta at the Larapinta Valley Learning Centre. Rubuntja touches her on the shoulder and Hogan feels liked. In the context of the book, it’s like the second shoe dropping, the human connection we’ve been waiting for that would give reason to all this spiritless enquiry. It doesn’t happen until page 260.
 
There are a few other Aboriginal voices, from interview material, the predominant one being Darryl Pearce. I can understand the appeal; on a good day he could be pithy and incisive. However the events that led to his sacking from the enterprise arm of the native title body, Lhere Artepe, and his subsequent departure from Lhere Artepe itself, put a different complexion on the comments she records, especially when they concern the purchase of the three IGA supermarkets. Rather than try to deal with that complexity, Hogan dismisses it as sounding like “the not uncommon story of an Aboriginal organization struggling to manage the competing demands of different family groups” and, as she somewhat patronisingly puts it, “running economic enterprises within western structures”.
 
Hogan’s interview base generally is narrow, almost all of them, like herself, from within the social justice sector. The only non-Aboriginal voice, other than those offering analytical commentary, is that of a motel manager, tending towards – you guessed it – racist views and practices. Her interviewees are not without their insights, of course, and nor is she, but this is well-trodden ground, worn to the bedrock by the end of the book.
 
The opportunities Hogan gives herself to break out of this framework are not taken. She attends the Beanie Festival at which a tenuous connection allows her to revert to the material of a previous chapter, in which a trio of Aboriginal sisters from Tennant Creek – lives mired in alcohol and violence – have come before the Supreme Court, one as the victim, two as the accused. She goes to the annual Pintupi show by Papunya Tula Artists and is soon discussing carpetbaggers and sweatshops. She hangs a chapter about sport on a local AFL grand final, but the discussion is all about racial divide and conflict on the one hand, and the potential for sport to do some social engineering on the other. She uses charming descriptions of the seasons in Arrernte as epigraphs on chapters that start with seasonal weather changes yet does not introduce us to their author, Veronica Dobson, nor reflect at all on the manifestations of Arrernte as a living language within the social and cultural life of Alice Springs. Even the chapter about white women, which cries out for Hogan to step in from the sidelines, withers under her jaundiced gaze: she speaks of the “sexual prospects for do-gooding, middle-class white women”; of “litters of children … deposited with successive women” by one man; the “eighties trucking dyke aesthetic” that has hold of the lesbian population; the allure for women of the landscape “because of the presence of so many circular and rounded shapes”; of the “‘Olive Pinkers’, following in the tracks of a patron saint”.  Her allusions to the “lively cultural and sporting communities to join”, to the sense of “possibility” that decided her to make a life here for a number of years are not followed up.
 
This book is one of a series on Australian cities, published by NewSouth (University of NSW Press). All the other titles are focussed on the seaboard capitals, authored by some of the best-known names in Australian writing. Hogan’s Alice Springs will gain prestige as a result but sadly, it will be unwarranted. Overall, she by-passes her subject. For all her investment in detailed physical description, the town Alice Springs does not come to life. It’s there as a husk, crumbling under the weight of depressing statistics and policy failures, of rumination on “Indigenous policy” (her professional background), of lamentation over Aboriginal suffering. The “snatches of hope” she identifies are paltry indeed, found in a few statistics and programs. The dust jacket blurb portentously promises that this “red, calloused earth … is where the real world ends” – ironically pointing precisely to the book’s failure. The “real world” is apparently elsewhere, the places where “expatriates” (Hogan’s term for people like her) go back to; by this book’s reckoning Alice Springs is just a basket case.
 
Above: The book cover – Alice Springs? No, it’s Roma Gorge in the West MacDonnells (photo by Ryan Tews.)
 
UPDATED, 4 November, 2012, 3.37pm:
 
The View from Here
 
Well-known Alice Springs lawyer RUSSELL GOLDFLAM (at right) launched Hogan’s Alice Springs at Talapi Gallery in Alice’s Todd Mall on September 27, 2012. Below are his speech notes, offering a quite different assessment of the book.
 
 
As it happens, this isn’t the first book I’ve helped launch about Alice Springs in this delightful gallery space.  The last one was Rod Moss’s The Hard Light of Day, a book which was widely praised for unflinchingly telling a no-holds-barred story of the troubled and tragic trajectory of the members of a local family.  And as it happens, the book we’re here this evening to launch, Eleanor Hogan’s Alice Springs, is also unflinching, and also contains stories of trouble and tragedy – but it is a completely different book.
 
Moss’s account was unique and extraordinary, because he did something very very few non-Aboriginal people who have come to live in Alice Springs have ever done: he became intimately and profoundly connected with a group of town campers, and documented his adventures with them over an extended period.
 
Eleanor Hogan’s experience, and her account of it, are much more ordinary and familiar, and for that reason, in a sense more authentically representative:  a smart and sympathetic visitor arrives, settles in, gets in turn intrigued, astounded, horrified, confused, engaged, gob-smacked, alienated and beguiled by life in Alice, makes a home for herself, gets down to work, and, then, after a few years, pulls up stakes and leaves.  That’s what happens to most of us who come here.  We don’t get adopted by and tangled up with a family of traditional owners.  We are fascinated by Aboriginal culture, but we are careful not to intrude, and we soon discover that living in suburban Alice Springs is not at all like being a participant-observer documentary-maker on location in some exotic tribal village.  What we get are glimpses, and intimations, and clues.  But insights and epiphanies are elusive and, well, not the stuff of everyday life.  Indeed, it’s all a bit discomforting, and it’s often more than a bit awkward.
 
And so Eleanor has compiled Alice Springs: part field guide, part journal, part almanac, distilled from a blend of personal vignettes and carefully collated facts.  She has a squiz at Alice though her own cool eye, and she also talks at length to friends, colleagues, community leaders, elders and, on occasion, men and women she just happens to come across, so there are many voices and viewpoints jostling for attention here.  I was one of the people Eleanor interviewed when writing this book, and it is a bit disconcerting, but also in a way reassuring, to see one’s own half-forgotten words swimming up to the surface of the page.  Indeed, the Alice Springs Eleanor Hogan depicts is very much the Alice Springs I live in:  she spends a lot of time down at the criminal courts, where I work, and she spends a lot of time chewing over the messy and unpalatable business of how come our courts are so full of their daily misery, which is what I chew over too.  If you work in the area of human service delivery in Alice Springs, you’ll find this book takes you through the landscape of your own life.
 
But that doesn’t mean that Alice Springs has been published with us, or at least primarily with us, in mind.  It’s part of a series on Australian cities – so far, all the State capitals (except, curiously, Perth) have been covered – designed, I think, as an annotated atlas of metropolitan Australia, primarily for armchair travellers. So it’s not just for the people who live here, but for the sort of people who might think about living here, or the sort of people who come up for a holiday and a look around, or the sort of people who might think about doing so, one day.  Because, let’s face it, there are far more Australians who have a picture of Alice Springs in their head than any actual Alice Springs dust in their pockets.
 
So writing a book like this is freighted with responsibility:  the responsibility not to mislead would-be visitors about what they’re in for, and the responsibility to do justice to all those jostling, jousting voices and viewpoints.  Oh, and it’s got to be a good read, and it has to fit the series format, and it’s important not to offend anyone, and, oh yes, keep it edgy but accessible, and funny but serious, and smart but not smart-ass, and don’t lose the all-important narrative thread, and don’t forget, dialogue: dialogue is what keeps it real, and Eleanor, always remember, this is your book, so tell your story in your voice.  It’s a mystery to me that anyone would actually start a book like this, and a miracle that anyone would actually finish it.  But she has, and here it is.
 
I was a big fan of Eleanor’s now sadly discontinued 1000 post Alice Springs blog, The View From Elsewhere, the only blog, I have to confess that I’ve ever followed.  El’s Elsewhere was sometime sly, sometimes shy, always wry.  It was set in Alice Springs, but what marked it out as special, is that it was about Eleanor, and perhaps, I don’t know, you’d have to ask her, perhaps it was for Eleanor.  But although there’s a lot of “Elsewhere” in “Alice Springs”, this book isn’t about Eleanor (although El is there, hovering, occasionally putting in an appearance). It’s about Alice Springs. And it isn’t for Eleanor, it’s for us, and also for them, all those people elsewhere with some half-baked idea or other of Alice Springs knocking around in their heads.  This isn’t The View from Elsewhere.  This is The View from Here.  It doesn’t mislead, it does do the warring voices justice, it is respectful, but doesn’t shy away from Alice’s sharp edges, it’s an accessibly good read, it’s funny and serious, it’s smart but not smart-ass, and yes, there’s real dialogue for good measure.  And as well, it’s in the voice of El.
 
Which is why I have great pleasure in declaring the pages of this book, open.
 

Centre pollies on the front bench

Erwin Chlanda
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0

The Centre did well in the allocation of ministries in the new Mills government.
All except newcomer Bess Price, who has the huge Stuart electorate to look after, are on the front bench.
Deputy Chief Minister, Robyn Lambley (pictured with Mr Mills during electioneering in Alice Springs), is Treasurer and will also assume responsibility for Education, Families and Children, Corporate and Information Services and Central Australia.
Adam Giles has the Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government portfolios, and Matthew Conlan has Tourism and Major Events, Arts and Museums, Sport and Recreation, Racing and Parks and Wildlife.
Alison Anderson has responsibility for Regional Development and Indigenous Advancement.
In addition to his responsibilities as Chief Minister, Mr Mills has taken Police, Fire and Emergency Services, Lands, Planning and the Environment, Land Resource Management, Asian Engagement, Public Employment, Statehood, Multicultural Affairs, Young Territorians, Senior Territorians and Women’s Policy portfolios.
He will be assisted in the areas of multicultural affairs, youth and seniors and Women’s Policy by new Parliamentary Secretary Peter Styles.
John Elferink is the new Attorney-General and Justice Minister and Minister for Correctional Services and David Tollner has Health, Alcohol Policy and Essential Services.
Willem Westra van Holthe is the new Minister for Primary Industry and Fisheries and Mines and Energy.
Peter Chandler is Minister for Business, Trade, Economic Development, Employment and Training and Housing.
In addition to assisting the Chief Minister with his Multicultural Affairs, Young Territorians, Senior Territorians and Women’s Policy portfolios, Peter Styles is also Government Whip.

Festive on the outside, same old on the inside

Kieran Finnane
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6

Jurrah arraignment adjourned
 
By KIERAN FINNANE
 
What was expected to be an arraignment, at which the Supreme Court would hear Liam Jurrah enter a plea, ended up being an adjournment. The wigged barristers laughed at the media present from four outlets. But at least our false expectations had exposed us to the excellent street art (pictured at left and below) by Nicky Schonkala and Ralf Haertel, as part of the Alice Desert Festival.
From a distance their ‘knit graffiti’, in bright colours and bold repeated motifs, resembles Aboriginal art. Up close it becomes clear that the artists have uncovered a new aesthetic purpose in that classic of fetes and op shops, the hand-knitted or crocheted blanket. The work, which required a cherry-picker to install,  has given the dour Alice Springs courthouse a transforming friendly face, but inside, its serious business goes on unchanged.
In the Jurrah matter, all that happened, however, was that his bail conditions were altered, allowing him to reside also at an address in South Australia, given that his employer, the Melbourne Football Club, will be going into recess. Mr Jurrah (pictured arriving at court during the committal) will spend time with family over the summer, his legal representative John McBride told Justice Dean Mildren who granted the application.
On July 25 this year the celebrated footballer from Yuendumu was committed to stand trial on a charge of assault causing serious harm as well as three further counts of assault on three separate victims. His committal hearing attracted national media coverage.
His co-accused, Christopher Walker and Josiah Fry, will be tried with him.
For Mr Jurrah and Mr Fry, arraignment will now take place on March 11 next year, with their 10-day trial starting the next day.
Mr Walker, as his lawyer has previously said, will plead guilty to some charges, including the assault causing serious harm. There may be dispute over facts.  This will be heard on October 29 this year.
Mr Jurrah, dressed in dark suit and tie, appeared by video link from Melbourne.
Mr Fry had been released on bail at the end of the committal hearing but is now in custody. He and Mr Walker appeared by video link from the Alice Springs gaol.
 
RELATED READING:
No intention of fighting, Liam Jurrah victim tells court, but another witness puts nulla nulla in the victim’s hand
Half shot or full drunk?

Country Libs now hold all seats in Central Australia

Erwin Chlanda
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1

The Country Liberals now hold all seats in Central Australia with the confirmation of the victory in Stuart by Bess Price (pictured) who defeated Karl Hampton.
The Country Liberals will now have 16 seats in the Legislative Assembly, with seven for Labor.
The independent in Nelson, Gerry Wood, comfortably held his seat with 59.2% of the two candidate preferred vote.
In the last Parliament Mr Wood held the balance of power.
Two candidate preferred results in Central Australia are as follows (CL = Country Liberals, ALP = Labor Party)
Braitling (73.4% turnout):
Adam Giles, CL, 73.8%, 2592 votes
Deborah Rock, ALP, 26.2%, 918 votes
Araluen (74.6%) turnout:
Robyn Lambley, CL 72.2%, 2612 votes
Adam Findlay, ALP, 27.8%, 1008 votes
Greatorex (76.6% turnout):
Matt Conlan, CL, 64.8%, 2278 votes
Rowan Foley, ALP, 35.2%, 1236 votes
Namatjira (59.8% turnout):
Alison Anderson, CL, 68.6%, 2006 votes
Des Rogers, ALP, 31.4%, 918 votes
Stuart (62.9% turnout):
Bess Price, CL, 53.4%, 1484 votes
Karl Hampton, ALP, 46.6%, 1297 votes

Street names story turns to saga

Kieran Finnane
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0

By KIERAN FINNANE
 
The wish of Lhere Artepe Enterprises (LAE) to honour traditional owners by naming streets after them in the Mt Johns subdivision has back-fired, or at least stalled. The commercial arm of the native title holders body, LAE, proposed the names “Werlatye” and “Irrampenye” for two new streets, which the Alice Springs Town Council, after some resistance, approved.
According to council’s first lot of meeting papers, the names were after traditional owners born in the mid-19th century near where the Old Telegraph Station came to be built. In a later explanation, councillors were told that ‘Werlatye’ means ‘woman’ in Arrernte, and ‘Irrampenye’, man, with the names referring to the ancestors of the present day senior custodians and traditional owners.
Since publicity on the matter, council has received a number of phone calls, suggesting that the names are “offensive” to traditional owners, says CEO Rex Mooney. Comments to this website have also suggested this (tending to blame council, somewhat unfairly).
Council has now written to the Territory’s Place Names Committee, pointing to the concerns. No action will be taken until the issues are clarified, says Mr Mooney.
The Alice Springs News Online asked LAE if they consulted anybody before proposing the names. Sally McMartin, speaking on behalf of the board, said yes, they had. To the best of her knowledge the names are those of “two original people in that country around the Telegraph Station”.  She expressed surprise at the controversy that has arisen.
•••
Meanwhile, in other council news, Mr Mooney and Mayor Damien Ryan have attended the AGM of the Outback Highway Development Committee, held in Boulia, Queensland this week. This follows Mayor Ryan’s recent participation in two days of lobbying in Canberra in support of the project – “a strategic project that needs strategic funding”  and that “will never be built on votes”, he said.
Getting financial support for the project will be one of the items on council’s agenda when it meets with the new Territory government, says Mr Mooney.
The cost of sealing the route from Winton in Queensland  to Laverton in Western Australia is estimated at $540m. The committee is seeking a minimum of $25m a year from the Federal Government and will want to match that with a commitment from the combined states and councils affected by the route.
This would allow the highway’s construction “to proceed in an orderly manner”, says Mr Mooney.
Funding the further redevelopment of Todd Mall will also be something that council will be wanting the new government to address, says Mr Mooney. While Labor had committed $2.5m for that work (deemed entirely inadequate by the Mayor), the Country Liberals made no such promise.

Remote Oz: neglect is just the beginning

Erwin Chlanda
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2

The camp at the Granites goldmine north-west of Alice Springs. Workers fly in and out from all over Australia. Photo courtesy Newmont Mines.

 
By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
A recurring theme during the election campaign was the question, why bother voting this side of the Berrimah Line? And from that quite frequently flows: Let’s break away.
But how?
Answers to that seem to be taking shape in several quarters. Desert Knowledge chairman Fred Chaney suggested getting rid of the states and running the country from Canberra and through local governments on steroids. (How Territory blundering could help the nation.)
And the election has suddenly shifted the political centre of gravity from Darwin’s northern suburbs to the bush, through candidates and

even a new party.
Now Bruce Walker (pictured), long time supremo of the Centre for Appropriate Technology in Alice Springs, and now the director of remoteFOCUS, Desert Knowledge Australia, has argued in a submission to the Senate enquiry into Fly-In, Fly-Out (FIFO) that there are broad issues in remote Australia that need to be fixed.
Dr Walker is taking a guess what a bloke in the bush would say to the question: “How do you feel?”
• Powerless. We have no say over the decisions which affect our lives.
• We are served by bureaucracies which are remote, personnel are often transient, there is little or no sense that public servants are responsible to us as against their bureaucratic and political superiors in the metropolitan capitals.
• While we are heavily dependent on government, attention from governments is irregular and unpredictable.
• Financial flows are not sustainable.
• Elected governments do not mediate the sometimes very significant global influences on our communities and lives (FIFO is a case in point).
• We live in the forgotten backyards of the capital cities. We are not part of a national narrative which makes sense of the decisions made elsewhere and which affect our lives.
Across state borders, people of the inland have a lot in common.
Says Dr Walker: “Remote Australia [has] a dual economy and absence of a market that might deliver outcomes without government interventions.
“Local institutions are being overwhelmed, many are unsuited to the tasks they confront, and as a consequence, they are unable to create durable and equitable arrangements to manage conflict, deliver services or sponsor entrepreneurial activity.”
He says one answer is “decentralised governance and community engagement [but] these approaches are challenged by a highly mobile population moving across great distances.”
Do the people running the show really care? Maybe not. A growing number of them is “expatriate in their outlook and commitment, is not tuned to local diversity, and unlikely to be seeking durable innovations in business or service delivery”.
It could be worse still: “Remote Australia presents tough challenges, many of which may be immune to public policy.
“It includes citizens who are the most peripheral of all Australians to the mainstream economy and politics and, on the other [side], people who are intricately and beneficially linked with unprecedented global shifts in economic and political power.”
Despite the current attention to remote Australia, particularly Aboriginal disadvantage, “normal legislative politics are unlikely to result in the structural reforms needed to address these issues”.
So far we haven’t even made up our minds about what is “the national interest in remote Australia,” let alone formulated “a settlement pattern that supports that national interest.
“At present, governance is constituted, on one side, by departments and agencies in the federal or state capitals … and at local levels via a generally under resourced local government or groupings of Aboriginal organisations,” says Dr Walker.
“Authority remains almost wholly concentrated in the distant centres and the local bodies have insufficient scale or capability for the planning, coordination and representational roles that are required.”
The OECD has advocated regionalised or place-based approaches. They are at the heart of the Cameron-Clegg domestic agenda in the UK, he says, while in Australia, “joined-up or whole-of-government approaches” aren’t doing what they promise.
Dr Walker says a submission by shires also points to the impact of present rating arrangements and the undesirable dependency on corporate largesse which they induce.
In addition, the Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) has the unintended consequence of creating economic incentives to bypass the development of communities in favour of a largely itinerant workforce.
For example, people living in Perth but working in remote locations, on a FIFO arrangement, can claim tax concessions for remoteness without that benefitting a remote community (they would spend most of their earnings in Perth).
On the other hand, if the employer provided houses for the worker’s families in the remote location, creating a community, they would be hit with FBT.
Says Dr Walker: “Taking the Pilbara again, decision-making is now largely centralised in Canberra and Perth or crystallised in those locations by decisions taken in boardrooms that are in some cases not even in Australia.”
While these companies have a legitimate interest, that of the local communities often comes second.
Says Dr Walker: “For much of remote Australia, public policy remains blind to the fact that geography and globalisation conspire against an even spread of economic opportunity.
“Viable economic livelihoods in remote Australia require an innovative blending of the formal economy, ‘hybrid’ or social enterprise economies, and public sector equity, risk mitigation and enablement.
“Dealing with this blind spot in our national interest requires skills and capabilities that successive governments have underinvested in.”
The remoteFOCUS group will soon be publishing its major report on the governance of remote Australia, including recommendations on major actions to address the issue. So, watch this space …

Murdoch's Centralian Advocate probes Alice Springs News Online – and engages in selective quoting

Erwin Chlanda
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6


UPDATE Fri Aug 31, 2pm: The Centralian Advocate today has printed only part of the story – a clear attempt to make me and this publication look bad.
 
Citing public interest as its motive, the Murdoch paper invited me to respond to questions and to comment. I did – but the Advocate left out the most salient detail. My statement to reporter Brooks was: “I have no debts other than to Forrest …”
 
Just in case she didn’t get it: I don’t owe a cent to anyone except David Forrest. – ERWIN CHLANDA
 
 
 
The Murdoch-owned Centralian Advocate is making enquiries about the Alice Springs News Online and its editor, Erwin Chlanda.
 
We received the following email on Tuesday, signed “Sally Brooks, Journalist, Centralian Advocate” saying: “I have been following the Randal Carey case and came across information that you were declared bankrupt in June.
 
“I also saw a new business, Alice Springs News Online, was registered on May 16, 2012, the same day the court case in which David Forrest applied to bankrupt you, started.
 
“I am writing a story about this for the paper, and wondered if you would like to respond?”
 
Mr Chlanda replied: “It was I who applied for bankruptcy and my application was granted. David Forrest’s application did not proceed.
 
“I have no debts other than to Forrest, formerly a principal of Framptons First National Real Estate, pursuant to a defamation judgment.
 
“In what context is the Alice Springs News Online registration being raised? It is not a business but a business name, and the registration is not in my name.
 
“Are there specific questions you wish to put? I would certainly like to respond.”
 
On Wednesday Ms Brooks sent further questions, saying they related to the public interest of the story:-
 
Q: Does your bankruptcy jeopardise the trading of Alice Springs News?
 
A: The Alice Springs News Online is continuing with a new management structure.
 
Q: Is it ‘business as usual’ for you?
 
A: I used to be the Managing Editor, now I am the Editor.
 
Q: What is the relationship of the business name Alice Springs News Online to alicespringsnews.com.au?
 
A: Alice Springs News Online more accurately reflects our current activity.
 
Q: If there is a relationship, why was the business name registered on the same day the Forrest bankruptcy application started?
 
A: You have your facts wrong.
 
COMMENT
 
The defamation action arose from one report in a long series of stories, most of them exclusive, about the Frampton New Homes scheme which collapsed in 2010, with a dozen home buyers losing a lot of money, not to mention peace of mind. (Reports can be googled on this site.)
 
The critical content of the report sued on was changed at the earliest possible opportunity (the following edition), without Mr Forrest even having contacted us.
 
The court this year delivered an entirely one-sided judgement and awarded the maximum payment of $100,000 plus interest to Mr Forrest who has since left town. I had a credible defence, based on carefully articulated legal principles drafted by barristers, but I did not have the resources to employ a legal team. I had to represent myself to the best of my ability.
 
As I have said before, the way our society deals with defamation must be reformed. The present procedures are a major impediment to our freedom of speech, with whoever has the deeper pockets being a critical factor in the outcome.
 
I am Alice Springs’ longest serving journalist, arriving in 1974, and ever since have provided news about Central Australia for print and television media here, interstate and overseas.
 
During the half century in my profession, having never before had a defamation judgment against me, I risked my life covering armed conflicts in Nigeria and Biafra (before emigrating from my native Austria), in Afghanistan (embedded with a Mujahideen group behind Soviet lines), and Cambodia during the UN sponsored elections.
 
My colleague and wife Kieran Finnane and I founded the weekly Alice Springs News in 1994 as the first ever sustained, locally owned and controlled newspaper. In March last year the News went exclusively online. Our online edition (as an adjunct to the print edition) had started in 1997 – among the nation’s first internet newspapers.
 
And now, in the public interest, we have a question for the Centralian Advocate: Where was it when a dozen local families formed the Framptons New Homes Broken Promises group in response to dealings by Frampton New Homes between late 2008 and mid-2010?
 
– ERWIN CHLANDA
 
 
 

Black power: voices from the bush have made themselves heard

Kieran Finnane
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Ken Lechleitner on polling day, campaigning for Warren H. Williams (back to the camera) in Hermannsburg.

 
By KIERAN FINNANE
 
The Darwin-focussed politics of successive Territory governments have finally got the challenge they deserved and it came from the black vote in the bush. Credit has to go to the Country Liberals’ significant work in communicating with bush electorates and fielding credible candidates with strong local roots – this transformation of the Country Liberals is one of the major changes wrought by Labor’s 11 years in power.
But the performance of the First Nations Political Party, particularly in the electorate of Stuart, suggests a broader politicisation of Aboriginal people, no longer happy to have other voices speaking for them, no longer wedded to Labor because of its historical support for  land rights.
Maurie Ryan (pictured, in 2007) for the FNPP in Stuart has attracted 16.4% of the count to date, a healthy vote for a minor party candidate, and his preferences will decide the final result. His strongest support came unsurprisingly from the Lajamanu booth, up in the Victoria River area in the far north of the electorate, his home country. Here he got more than half the vote. He also outpolled the Country Liberals’ Bess Price in her home community of Yuendumu, although there Labor’s Karl Hampton got almost half the vote. (Lajamanu and Yuendumu are the two Growth Towns of the vast electorate.)
The challenge for the Country Liberals government will now be to respond to their new support base. Their promise is no less than scaling back Labor’s “super-shires”, putting smaller, more effective structures in their place – a daunting task and necessarily expensive as lack of adequate funding in the sector, no matter what the governing structures, is critical.
The challenge for the First Nations Political Party is to remain active, develop its thinking beyond the broad brush, and identify future credible candidates. On polling day at Hermannsburg Ken Lechleitner, one of the party’s founders together with Mr Ryan, was excited about the future. He said the party would re-register as “Australia’s First Nations Political Party” and contest the next federal election, possibly also outside the Territory: “There’s a lot of interest in other states – if these guys do well, there’ll be a rippling effect.”
He says there are already candidates willing to stand in six lower house seats, as well as for the Senate. They are not necessarily Indigenous and Mr Lechleitner is enthusiastic about this.
“Our party is about all nations coming together, coming to a watering hole or a place where we meet, bringing all sorts of cultures together, in a culture of working and development.”
He pointed with satisfaction to the non-Indigenous candidates standing for the FNPP in the Territory – Edan Baxter in the seat of Araluen and Dimitrious Magripilis in Sanderson (Mr Baxter had more support than Mr Magripilis, with 7.8% of the vote compared to 2.1%).
One of Mr Lechleitner’s key ideas is for Aboriginal people to be able to use their land as other landholders do – developing its commercial potential by using it as collateral for a bank loan.
The Alice Springs News Online asked him about what he thought would happen if the commercial venture fell over and the bank foreclosed. How would he feel about the land passing out of Aboriginal ownership?
He spoke first of the necessity for “financial training” – “You have to understand what you’re getting yourself into” – and then enthused about the possibilities of enterprises reflecting Aboriginal knowledge, such as commercialising their intellectual property regarding plants of nutritional and medicinal value.
But, the News put to him, no matter how good the idea, there are inherent risks in business. Would Aboriginal people be willing to risk their land?
Only “a limited portion” would be offered as collateral, he said. His wife, Michelle, joined the discussion: “We wouldn’t dream of giving our land away, we know how hard our old people fought for it,” she said. But, through her side of the family, they have “a beautiful block” in the Jay Creek area with nothing on it but a shed. They’d like to do something with it, but don’t have any way of raising capital.
The discussion moves back to the broad brush vision. Mr Lechleitner talks about the importance of Aboriginal labour in the post-war years in Alice Springs, but “they didn’t understand the economy, how to generate wealth”. Joint ventures are the answer, for instance in agricultural enterprises: “Other cultures understand how to grow food off the land to perfection, but we’ve got the land, let’s work something out.”
As we are talking, he receives a phone call from his sister in Yuendumu who tells him that the polling booth there might be closing because “family fights” have broken out. The subject changes: “That’s another thing we want to do – uphold traditional law, to remedy this situation so people can get on with life. He could get in there [pointing to FNPP candidate for Namatjira, Warren H. Williams] and write the law that we could live under.” Without this, Aboriginal people, like the feuding families in Yuendumu, will continue “living in fear”, said Mr Leichleitner.
The two issues he focussed on are among the biggest challenges facing the Territory. Can the FNPP take the debates any further? That will be their task in the coming years.
In building political credibility they also can’t afford to do what Mr Lechleitner did in the lead-up to the election. At the meet-the-candidates forum on August 7 he was still saying he would stand in one of the Alice Springs seats. In the end he didn’t.

LETTER: Sports tourism is money in the hand!

Erwin Chlanda
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1

Sir,- Alice Springs has a wonderful sporting culture, excellent sports venues and great sporting organisations. Let’s bring all those elements together and create “Sports Tourism”.
This will put money in the hands of sporting bodies in the Alice while at the same time boost our economy, it will be a win win.
Let’s promote Alice Springs as the ideal venue to host national sporting tournaments where the focus is on attracting sports with a strong participation level.
Local sporting clubs who are part of national bodies and hold national tournaments would be ideal to work with.
Alice Springs’ geographical advantage being in the centre of Australia, gives it an added distinct edge on other locations. It makes logistical and economical sense to host national tournaments here in the Alice.
A partnership between sporting organisations and local business should be developed to ensure this venture has a sustainable future.
This could lead to establishing a performance based sponsorship agreement between sporting clubs and local business.
We have everything we need in the town for a sports tourism venture, there are great organisers who run local sports clubs. If the visiting sports have a nice experience, then they will tell all their friends back home and word of mouth will start us back on the right track.
Councillor Eli Melky
0427 012 699
eli.melky@goldenhome.com.au

LETTER: Time for a third sealed national route

Erwin Chlanda
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Sir,- The Outback Highway Development Council Inc (OHDC) in the last two months has updated the WA, Qld and the federal governments and the federal opposition about the Outback Way project, which returns $4.70 into the economy for every dollar spent.
The meetings have been advantageous, with welcome support  from all levels of government. However the appropriate funding avenue needs further work, by us, the states and the Commonwealth.
With the current IA state priority listing as a critical component, the Outback Way struggles to compete with the larger projects – yet delivers on every other assessment guidelines
The OHDC Inc. will be working with IA in the coming months, in addition working with the states and the Territory to pursue a stand-alone project from the three relevant jurisdictions, and efforts are continuing to include a strategic component in IA funding mechanism so cross border projects can be recognised on their merits – ie: being good for the whole of Northern Australia, without the need for State priority listing.
We are shovel ready, if given the funding – we have the first five years of road works prioritised by sections effecting connectivity the most, the decisions are about the whole route and don’t get caught on parochial state and territory borders.
As Glen Stevens from the RBA suggested we need enabling infrastructure to keep Australia going – the Outback Way saves two days travel from Perth to  North Queensland for freight, $16,000/mining movement one way from Qld to WA, $1million / shift for emergency equipment transfers, makes it easier for WA and Qld to use the Darwin port, it changes the way we do business both domestically and as an exporting nation.
Patrick Hill
Chairman OHDC Inc.

LETTER: Get value for money from the pollies

Erwin Chlanda
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0

Sir,- Well how the tables have turned after the election. The Berrimah Line is still in place make no mistake it’s a numbers thing but the power is now on the other side because of the numbers .
This would have to be the best chance for the revitalisation of the NT since self government. Darwin as a block is divided on both sides of the political fence so that leaves in, my view, the remaining MPs to set the agenda, and with a connected focused approach would see some outstanding results. The refreshing thing is that the bush block of MPs aren’t academics, they have their heads focused on life and not on loosely constructed theories based on the eastern coastal fringe.
There will be a shortage of money, so where are the savings going to come from? Bullet focus groups, consultants; put middle level management back at the coal face. Top level management can do their own work, research, and reports. Freeze all pay rises to 2% of savings, use local talent, empower them and make the MPs accountable to their electorate by being in it 50% of the time.
Demand more of the Federal politicians instead of their lackluster efforts and if they don’t perform, replace them at the next election. It’s your money – decide if your getting value for money.
So in closing, this is the time for action and wise policy decisions and revamp of the NT. Good luck.
Peter Johns
Mackay QLD, formerly Alice Springs

Trucking … you gotta love it!

Erwin Chlanda
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1

By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
Amidst the crusty truckies at the reunion in Alice Springs last week was one quite unlike the rest: she is a petite blonde driving the rig of the year, a 50 tonne Drake low loader pulled by a 550 horsepower Western Star – total value, more than half a million dollars.
Perhaps the only hint there may be a woman driver behind the wheel is the prime mover’s colour: pink.
Julie Gavin transports earthmoving and mining equipment all around Australia.
She works for Perth-based Gavin Transport, owned by hubby Eamonn, with a fleet of 31 rigs.
She loves the job. Why?
“I don’t know. It’s in my blood. My dad was a truck driver. I pretty much grew up under a truck or in a truck.”
What’s the future of the industry?
“Good question. What’s next week’s lotto numbers, Erwin?”
Since the days of Julie’s dad, trucks have come a long way: stronger, more sophisticated, safer and greener because they are more fuel efficient per tonne.
Most of all they are bigger: it takes as many drivers to drive a small truck as it takes to drive a big one.
And that’s the best way to deal with the industry’s main worry: shortage of drivers.
Julie says “her” truck has an automatic gear box and, of course, power steering: “It’s great. Sit back, enjoy the view.”
Driving the huge machine isn’t a big deal but coping with a growing bureaucracy certainly is: a long shot from the past which is frequently a subject of yarns at the annual reunion, attended by 1000 people last weekend, held by the National Transport Hall of Fame.
Says Julie: “I love hearing the old stories.
“They were able to get away with a lot more than what we can these days.
“Some of the things they used to do, you wouldn’t even dare try them these days, overloading, running back roads to try and hide from being pulled up.
“There are a lot more restrictions in place.
“I don’t get into a lot of trouble when I get pulled over. My paperwork is up to date, everything is all good.
“I have to stop when the sun goes down, because my truck, when loaded, is oversize,  and so I get a good night’s sleep every night,” she says.
“But there are a lot of silly things you hear.
“Someone makes a spelling error in their logbook, and they get a $400 fine for it.
“I can’t see how this can kill anyone, or is a safety issue, when someone spells Alice Springs without the ‘e’ on the end of Alice.
“That’s how stupid it’s gotten. A lot of it is just revenue raising.”
She says in WA a driver must have a break every five hours “but if you go 10 or 15 minutes over, and it puts you at a truckstop where you can have a shower, get a coffee, you have a proper rest, they don’t mind in WA.
“They don’t like it to but they give you that leeway.
“But in the east, five minutes over your drive time and you’re fined, big dollars, $600 up.
“Each state is different. In SA the driver is fined and the company is fined even more.
“You can be pulled up at a weighbridge and they can get you for one, two, three, four five thousand dollars just like that, on the spot.
“Your whole week’s wages can be gone with just one guy in a bad mood.
“They go right through your logbook, all over the truck, pick any crappy thing he wants and starts writing you up.
“It’s a hard industry to be in. You wouldn’t do it if you didn’t love it.”
She’s just done a trip from Perth via Port Augusta, Broken Hill, Burke, Goondiwindi, Towoomba to Brisbane.
Once you hit the Queensland roads it’s pretty bad, she says, “terrible, ripped up, bumpy, more like a bush track than a highway”.
But the rest of Australia isn’t too bad.
She’d like to do more trips up the Stuart Highway: “In my opinion it is one of the best highways in Australia, it’s nice and smooth and you can see for miles.”
She has a speed limit of 100 km/h but fully loaded keeps it to 60 or 70 km/h. Going faster “the tyres heat up and they blow.
“I don’t want to be changing tyres all day.”
She has four spares, and a small crane in the middle of the gooseneck to lift them off and on.
Eamonn says to get drivers “you’ve got to find someone who lives it, breathes it, and  when you find them you’ve got to hang on to them.
“Until they get their licence they can get more money at MacDonald’s.
“They can wash trucks but they don’t want to do that any more.
“And when they do get their licence, and they are young guys, the insurance premiums go skyrocketing because they have no experience.”
Another disincentive is “too many rules and regulations. We need some commonsense.
“We still get the odd young guy coming through.
“You’ve got to want to do it, don’t ya?”
Caterpillar’s Jeff Tyzack says the truck manufacturing industry is hugely competitive now, with 17 major brands, American, European, Japanese and Chinese now.
Jeff’s firm shouted the reunion crowd lunch on Sunday, in the picturesque Stuart’s Bush Kitchen, cooked and served by volunteers.
He says a CAT prime mover starts at around $200,000 and like most, is a marvel of engineering.
“The emissions that come out of the engines … look at the tailpipes, they are still silver inside.
“They are not black, sooty engines any more. They are clean, they are green.
“The transport companies are making sure the trucks are maintained very well so they get the best possible fuel economy and the best possible life out of the vehicle,” he says.
Computers monitor fuel consumption, speeds and how the driver is driving the vehicle. A certain rev range must be used to get the best performance and fuel economy.
The trucks are safer than ever before. ABS anti-lock brakes are now in virtually every new truck.
Yet the fuel economy of trains is far greater – so how can trucks compete with rail?
He’s driven road trains up and down the Stuart Highway in media events a few times, and says there is a strong case for motorists to be educated about how to live with road trains.
“Let’s say a road train is coming up the highway at 90, 95 km/h, closing on a car with a caravan which is doing 90.
“Often the car driver’s first reaction is to back off on the throttle. He will slow down much quicker than a road train can.
“The road train has to brake to avoid the caravan” and this can lead to the trailers sawing and possibly leaving the road.
“If the caravan driver stays at a constant pace it’s much safer for them and for the truck driver,” says Jeff.
“And if you overtake a B-double or a road train, he will just hold his speed and hold his lane.
“He knows you’re there. He can see you.
“You just have to make sure what you are doing is safe.”
In the wake of last week’s fatal crash just north of Alice Springs, between a road train and a car towing a heavy trailer, Jeff says there should be more driver education: “You can get a car licence and then you can put a trailer on the back without any further training.”
Road train drivers are “very gentle on the steering wheel, otherwise your trailers will move around.
“A car and a caravan have the same effect.
“A nervous caravan driver who’s a bit too abrupt on the steering wheel, will make the caravan sway. Then they over-correct and suddenly there is an accident.”

Sun, smoke and dust all part of the bush flavour

Kieran Finnane
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1

By KIERAN FINNANE
 
Crocodile meat and bush tomato were the “mystery” ingredients. Sun, smoke and dust went without saying.
The third annual Bushfoods “iron chef” competition was held last Sunday, at the Quandong Farm in Ilparpa Valley, where picnickers were welcomed by the Scales family. It was a somewhat challenging induction into cooking on an open fire for UK chef Chris Messenger, who’d never done it before. Suren Perera had, but often looked like he was longing for the cool stainless steel of his kitchen at the Barra on Todd.
They were both commended by judge Bec Gooderham, a former organiser of the competition, for doing “an amazing job” in the conditions. Her fellow judges Lisa Perry (Reality Bites) and Raelene Brown (Kungkas Can Cook), both experienced chefs,  commented on the difficulties of cooking with crocodile meat as well as cooking over a fire or in a camp oven. “Regulating the heat is a challenge,” said Brown, “it depends on the wood you use.”
Messenger’s first step in dealing with the croc was to take a mallet to it. He then grilled it to make a croc burger, topped with a roasted capsicum and bush tomato tapenade, and served on damper flavoured with bush tomato, cooked in foil over the hot coals.
He also served a camel curry. Brown appreciated its combination of chilli and bush tomato, although Gooderham felt that the chilli was too dominant.
Perera sliced the croc into thin strips, marinated with bush tomato, lemon myrtle and tomatoes and served it as a warm salad. He also cooked a croc mains, flavoured with lemon myrtle and bush limes which gave it “quite a punchy flavour”, according to Perry.
Apart from presentation – “beautiful” in both cases – and flavour generally, the judges were particularly looking for a bushfoods taste and Messenger’s bush tomato damper gave him the edge to win the comp.
While the chefs were sweating it out, the Scales family were doing a side line in witchetty grubs, damper and ‘roo tails. The grubs had been harvested on the block and were roasted on soft sand under a dusting of hot coals. A Canadian couple amongst the on-lookers were persuaded to have a taste: “Actually not bad!” said Lye Lang. They are recent arrivals, Scott Lang having a two year contract at the hospital. They were delighted by the laid back small gathering, the bush atmosphere and their introduction to foods of the desert.
There was more to follow from the ever-inventive domestic cooks in the second heat of their competition. They love their word plays: judges were treated to “Bush-chetta”, Joy Woods’ lemon myrtle flavoured pumpkin spread on crusty damper; and “Quabbit”, David Woods’ slow-cooked wild rabbit (which he’d caught himself) in a quandong sauce. Franca Barraclough kept it simple, serving a ratatouille with bush tomatoes and Warrigal greens. All were delicious and “would sit nicely on a menu anywhere”, said Lisa Perry.
However, seasoned competitors Michael La Flamme and Pamela Keil stole the show with their Bush Benedict. This consisted of a poached omelette flavoured with saltbush leaves and native peper, topped with a bush Hollandaise sauce using native passionfruit, lemon myrtle, and bush raisin, served on a ‘roo tail sausage spiced with native pepper and anise myrtle, and a wattleseed muffin. As a palate cleanser, they had also made a ‘roo tail aspic.
“Oooh !” “Mmm!” The judges were almost speechless in their enjoyment.
After a while Perry commented that the aspic was “one of the best things I’ve tasted in a long time”.
Brown commended them for their “perfect” bread once again and described the entry as a “true bush breakfast”.
There were also two entries in the sweets category: Barraclough had used Burdekin plums from Magnetic Island to make a crumble with a wattleseed and buckwheat topping, while Sue Woods had produced petits fours and chocolate drops with a bush tomato surprise inside. The judges particularly liked the latter and gave her the prize.
Now heat winners go forward to the final which will be held in conjunction with the Bushfoods Gala Dinner on October 10 – plenty of time to dream up new combinations to wow the taste buds.
Entries in the competition have dropped away in comparison with earlier years, which suggests that the Alice Desert Festival needs to do more and timelier groundwork in the lead-up to keep this as one of the festival favourites.
 
Pictured, from top: Chris Messenger (foreground) and Suren Perera sweat it out in the Bushfoods “iron chef” competition. Event coordinator Clare Woods lends a hand with the fire. • Messenger’s winning croc burger approaching completion. • Sally Scales shows off a particularly large witchetty grub. • Michael La Flamme and Pamela Keil’s winning Bush Benedict.

Adorned and adored

Kieran Finnane
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3

Above: Top Youth entrant Erika Hamilton receives her award from sponsor Jen Standish-White. At right, judges Lucy Hope (red floral headpiece), Kaye Kessing and Dave Nixon.  

 
 
By KIERAN FINNANE
 
Though the veteran designers of the Alice Desert Festival’s Wearable Arts Awards have all but bowed out, the arts and the show live on. Certain names are now establishing themselves as ones to watch out for  – such as Simone Kilian and Tina Tilhard – while names associated with different roles – such as Jen Standish-White and Mary Menotti – have emerged to reveal unsuspected talent. Edginess, provocation and humour were not to the fore this year, but refined skills were – in design, execution and performance. Many models did much more than strut – some expressed moments of intense drama and emotion, others revelled in the sensual experience of the adorned body and pulsating music.
Collaboration
Standish-White has sponsored the Youth Award (for secondary students) for years. On the weekend her creation, a collaboration with Batchelor Institute art lecturers Brigida Stewart and Amanda McMillan with their students Betty Conway and Molly Napurrula Martin, won in its category (for two or more designers), took out the People’s Choice award, and won the acquisition award.
Wonderfully detailed, Desert Steampunk (at right and below) used screen-printed fabric of intricate designs in greens, golds and rust (the contribution of Conway and Martin) for flattering, well-constructed and beautifully embellished garments, inspired by science fiction and neo-Victorian aesthetics. Its particular achievement was to make at the same time a high impact image by having two models, a good-looking man and woman (Jimmy Cocking and Allanah Jansons), and designing a sexy performance for them. The “Ooooh!” that Cocking got when he took his jacket off hit the highest register on the people meter on Saturday night and in general the audience just loved the gorgeous sexy vibe these two put out.
Simone Kilian had entries in four categories and demonstrated her eye for form, with Sails in the Sand; a sense of humour, with her headpiece, Coffee Anyone?; and decorative as well as technical skill in Angled. All these entries were supported by strong performances.
Extraordinary possibilities
Tina Tilhard can see extraordinary possibilities in the most mundane of household objects. Last year it was mousetraps, this year teabags, right down to their strings which were used to make the bodice of a costume inspired by the curves of a teapot and perhaps the steam off the tea’s surface. The serpentine moves of Sally Balfour as the Tealirious Sirena reflected the inspiration beautifully and helped clinch top prize for the entry in the New World Sustainability Award.
Gentle humour was in evidence in the runner up in this category, Alex Stephens’ It’s in the Bag. The performance was a well-timed double act, with the fabulously tall Stephens  trying to deal with an unusually weighty bustle, which turned out to be concealing the smaller Kira Stephens. And never has the ubiquitous green shopping bag looked so good, artfully scrunched to form the flounces and the elaborate bustle.
A simple and moving performance by Courtney Summers set off a beautifully crafted costume by Leonie Oakes, one of a number of interstate entries this year.  Titled Beneath the Surface, it was inspired by the ocean and its creatures and took out the Natural Fibre Award.
Primal experience
The Top Notch Award was a strongly contested category, the only one in which we saw a veteran entry, Philomena Hali offering a wonderfully mobile silk organza creation, Hot Head.
A collaborative effort from Mary Mennotti (concept) and Henry Smith (creation) won the category and was one of the performance high points of the evening. Menotti, supported by two male dancers, Dominic Fallini and Matthew Leyland, managed to really summon the s
ubtitle of the piece – A Primal Experience. Wearing the headpiece, she embodied the Aquila Marirosa of the title, an eagle or perhaps an imaginary powerful bird, emerging from the darkness, lifting into flight, settling with its great wings and scouring the horizon for food or threat.
It’s always interesting to see what current events and ideas get picked up by designers. Last year’s bushfires in The Centre inspired one of the strongest entries of the evening, in both design and performance. With Deliberately Lit (at left), Clare Whitcombe undertook both roles to excellent effect and got top prize in the Fantasia Award. Gay marriage also popped up its head in the Youth category, with The Wedding by Suzi Nitschke. The wearable aspect was pretty straightforward, but the performance by Nitschke herself with Clare Thomas gave the entry its impact.
The Youth category was won by Erika Hamilton in a delightfully adolescent outfit and performance inspired by Popping Popcorn. Teen spirit was also manifest in the post-interval performance by the Duprada Dance Company. The three male dancers contributed enough of a gender balance and the choreographic emphasis on the whole group moving more or less as one made this a really successful expression of teenage energy and focus.
 
Video, in order: It’s in the Bag by Alex Stephens; Tealirious Sirena by Tina Tilhard, performed by Sally Balfour; The Upside Down Tree by Kate Yoffa; Aquila Marirosa by Mary Menotti and Henry Smith; Coffee Anyone? by Simone Kilian, performed by Hamish McGauchie; Hot Head by Philomena Hali, performed by Melissa Zahoruijko; Top End Coast Line by Carol Phayer, modelled by Jaimee Eaton; Beneath the Surface by Leonie Oakes, performed by Courtney Summers; Angled by Simone Kilian, performed by Jasmine Ahwah; Duprada Dance Company; final parade of award winners.
 

Below: Co-runners up in the Fantasia Award, The Lady of the lake (designer Sarah Hill, model Dacqmar Guascoine) and Angled (designer Simone ) Kilian, model Jasmine Ahwah).

 

LETTER: Change necessary to secure bright future for solar project in Alice

Erwin Chlanda
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0

Sir,- A Charles Darwin University review into the Alice Solar City project has found that while the project has been highly successful, it must adapt if it is to continue and survive into the future.
The review found that the project had made a substantial contribution to the Alice Springs economy, had a large and positive effect on the electricity system, and contributed to the community spirit and profile of Alice Springs.
But Alice Solar City must develop a future direction that secured its survival, especially as the current Federal funding arrangement was coming to an end, the review said.
The review, by Charles Darwin University Senior Research Fellow Professor Rolf Gerritsen, Dr Benxiang Zeng and Rachel O’Leary, was undertaken as part of a memorandum of understanding between the university and Alice Solar City.
“Alice Solar City has become even more important since the introduction of carbon pricing, but without the base funding that it has received over the past five years, it would need to adapt to survive,” Professor Gerritsen said.
“Their challenge is great but it has been such a success that we are optimistic that the consortium partners will redesign it in a way that will enable it to continue contributing to sustainable resource use in Central Australia.”
The review found that the program had been responsible for increases in energy efficiency, self-sufficiency and diversification among participants in Alice Springs, and for reducing greenhouse gases.
Professor Gerritsen said that not only had the project exceeded nearly all its initial targets, it also had produced a number of other positive benefits.
“We calculated that the economic impact has been equivalent to the injection of about $100 million into the Alice Springs economy,” he said.
“It has also led to some skills enhancement in the local workforce.”
Professor Gerritsen said the purpose of the review was to assist Alice Solar City stakeholders plan for the future and sustain what has been a worthwhile initiative.
Patrick Nelson
Regional Public Relations Officer
CDU

LETTER: Tennant Creek radar shut-down puts lives at risk

Erwin Chlanda
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0

Sir,- We, the  Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association, have questioned the Federal Government over its decision to shut down the Bureau of Meteorology in Tennant Creek and along with it, the weather radar.
It was truly extraordinary that the Government had made the decision to shut down the radar with absolutely no discussion with the people in the region and no idea of the risks to life, and safety of families in the region.
Radar is an integral part of management and safety for the Barkly region, allowing the monitoring of storms and weather events in real time.  The distances are enormous and each cattle station in the region covers many thousands of square kilometers. Radar is a vital planning and response tool for medical evacuations, daily operations, aviation and road transport, in a region where roads are unsealed and quickly impassable after rain.
This decision puts lives at risk, as well as significantly reducing our productivity.
This is cost-saving gone mad and a decision the outback cattle industry and wider community cannot afford.  We are trying to recover from the live cattle ban and now we cop another hit without warning.
It looks like a decision made from a well lit, safe and air-conditioned departmental office in Canberra, far removed from the lives and livelihoods of remote Australian families.  This needs to be fixed and the solution is to keep the radar operating.
The radar doesn’t need to be manned, it simply needs to be periodically maintained and at minimal cost this should be a very easy decision to reverse.
David Warriner,
President
Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association. Tel 0417 642 076.

Convincing win for Country Liberals: ALP likely to lose its only seat in The Centre

Erwin Chlanda
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The Country Liberals party has won a convincing victory in yesterday’s Territory elections, ending an 11 year rule by Labor.
The ABC says the party is likely to have 15 seats, with nine for Labor and one independent.
The change was mostly in the bush – previously supporting Labor.
In the huge electorate electorate of Stuart, the CL’s Bess Price (1004) is likely to unseat Karl Hampton (892) with First Nations Political Party candidate Maurie Ryan on 394 votes. Preferences will decide.
Ms Price said this morning that Mr Ryan had directed his preferences in Stuart to her, although elsewhere First Nations preferenced Labor.
She is confident to have won the seat and is overjoyed about the result: “It hasn’t really hit me yet that I will be part of the team that governs the Territory.
“Today I’ll be with my family, rejoicing, relaxing and preparing myself.”
In Central Australia’s other huge bush seat, Namatjira, the indomitable Alison Anderson was re-elected as a conservative candidate in the electorate which she had first won for the Labor Party.
By this morning’s figures she had 1690 primary votes, more than double her Labor opponent’s Des Rogers (740).
The CL’s Robyn Lambley, Adam Giles and Matt Conlan comfortably retained the three urban seats in Alice Springs.
Voter turnout in both rural seats was poor – just over 50% on current figures, with absent, early, postal and declaration votes yet to be counted.
PHOTO: Party supporters for the CL (left in the picture), the ALP and Greens at the racecourse polling place in Alice Springs.

Polling day: Backing family, dad Warren H and aunty Alison

Kieran Finnane
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3


UPDATE, August 25, 10.41pm: With 95% of the ballot counted, Alison Anderson (Country Liberals) has been returned in Namatjira with 64.5% of the vote. Des Rogers (Labor) has 28.3% and Warren H. Williams (FNPP), 7.2%.
Ms Anderson’s win is part of a historic swing to the CLP in the bush, which has given them government.
 
By KIERAN FINNANE
 
Nicholas Williams (at left) was in Hermannsburg this morning, handing out how-to-vote cards for his father, Warren H. Williams, while stationed in front of Alison Anderson’s campaign vehicle.
“I’m campaigning for both,” he said, “Warren is my father, Alison is my aunty.  I’m doing it for family.”
In practical terms that meant telling prospective voters to put his dad at number one but to give their second preference to Ms Anderson. This went against his father’s how-to-vote, where Ms Anderson was in the last spot, with second preference going to Labor’s Des Rogers. Nicholas said he didn’t mind who won the seat, out of his two relatives.
What would he see as the most important issue in his home community?
He thought about that for a while before replying: “There’s not enough focus on the kids. I mean the teenagers, 25 years and under. Not enough focus on why they don’t listen to their families, their parents.”
What can government do about that?
“First the families have to change. The kids need role models, not just one role model, more than one, who they would listen to.”
Who had been a role model for him?
Again he thought for a while.
“I used to live at Hermannsburg in the holidays. I was away for school, living with my grandmother in town. She was my role model, my mum’s mum, so my grandmother, and my mum and dad.”
These days he works at the tearooms, serving visitors to Hermannsburg’s historical precinct, and also at Top Shop, on the cash register or doing whatever’s needed. But he’s got big plans: “I’ve been working on my walking trail for the last three years.”
It’s a six-day trail across the range from the back of Ipolera and ending at Palm Valley. His vision is to take visitors on a guided walk, camping with them at night. He had a collaborator for the first two years. That relationship ended and now he’s looking for a joint venturer to help him put the enterprise on a business footing. Meanwhile his father and other family members are giving him a hand.
No matter what the outcome of this election, it felt like a bright future awaited this focussed young man.
His father (above right, in sunglasses) was standing across the way, supported by Ken Lechleitner, a leading figure in the First Nations Political Party (FNPP) and his wife, Michelle Lechleitner.
Mr Williams said the Namatjira campaign had been “an eye-opener”: “You know where Ampilatwatja is and then you have to travel there and you realise how just how big the place is. And you meet people who think you’ve forgotten them.”
He said the people he had spoken to were “looking for a change”.
What kind of change?
“I guess they just want to be free. We were free 10 years ago, before the Intervention and all this other stuff.
“A lot of people have asked what I would offer them. I told them it’s about teaching our culture in schools, getting people to respect our law and culture. We’ve got to start with the kids.”
In his home community he was feeling confident of strong support. As one man said, when asked whom he would support: “Warren, he’s from here, I grew up with him.”
Elsewhere Mr Williams felt he’d done “pretty good”.
He said if the seat doesn’t change hands, he’ll run again next time, for the FNPP: “It’s for our people, and for people who live in the NT, not only Aboriginal people. Like pastoralists, nobody talks to them. If I got in, I would talk to the people that work on the land.”

Inside the school grounds, Labor commanded a prominent position, but only one campaigner was present, Vince Jeisman (above, blue t-shirt), long-time electorate officer for Warren Snowdon MHR.
He said he didn’t know where the candidate, Des Rogers, was today, as he himself had been constantly on the move over the last week covering the mobile polling route where Mr Rogers couldn’t.
How did he think the vote was going?

“It’s all over the place – nearly 100% in some places, nothing in others. We’ll only know when it’s all brought together,” he said.

He had a hands-off approach. When voters arrived he spoke to them from behind the table where he was sitting, inviting them to take one of Mr Rogers’ how-to-vote leaflets if they intended to vote Labor. There were three to choose from, each one showing Mr Rogers with different Aboriginal people, presumably his supporters in the electorate. I asked Mr Jeisman who they were. “I don’t know,” he said.
Further into the school yard, halfway between the two entrances was Ms Anderson (at left). Her corflutes were outside but from here, she spoke to each and every voter, presumably in Arrernte in this Western Arrernte community. Usually the interactions were brief, focussed on the how-to-vote, pointing to the boxes – “One, two, three!”
She said she has been getting most preferences from votes cast for Mr Williams across the electorate. She is confident of holding her seat, which she won as a Labor candidate in 2008 but has contested this time for the Country Liberals (after a period as an independent).  Her scrutineers have told her that she has received overwhelming support across the electorate, she said.
She will stay at Hermannsburg this evening while the votes there are counted and then drive into Alice Springs, where she will do a “live cross” to the tally room at 9pm.
She has been the target of relentless attacks since her defection to the CLP, particularly from retiring Labor Minister, Chris Burns.
It will be interesting to see how the Namatjira electorate responds.

LETTER: Truckies should get danger money

Erwin Chlanda
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1

Sir,- I’m currently running THE TRUCKIES DANGER MONEY PETITION to have danger money incorporated in our award system as we have the highest rates of death for any occupation in Australia.
I have lost many mates over the past 20 years as a professional truckie and this is being funded by me and done solely by myself and my wife Tonilea.
She is a Workplace Health and Safety advisor with over 10 years experience. So far I have had around 1500 people sign my personal petition including Federal Members of Parliament. There is Facebook Group (Using your facebook Australia login go to search look up truckies danger money you will see it as a closed group. Then ask to join we’ll add you).
It has over 1000 members from every state of Australia and around the world , USA , EUROPE , CANADA.
The petition can be printed from TRUCKIES DANGER MONEY and also I have handed out thousands of petitions to truckies on my way to Alice Springs, and I’ve visited over 400 roadhouses over 4500 km so far.
I’m trying to Meet 5000 Truckies and so far am just over 3000!
My phone number is 0409619838 and my email address is steven_tonilea@yahoo.com.au
Steven Corcoran

After pork barrelling and scandalous waste of money, business as usual after the election? Afraid so.

Erwin Chlanda
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9

COMMENT by Rolf Gerritsen, Charles Darwin University
This week the media reported that the NT government was going to spend over $400,000 to subsidise a ferry service between Darwin and the Tiwi Islands – to the tune of over $10,000 per trip. A scandalous waste of money.
Yet the fine print revealed that this was to be a trial – coincidentally starting the day before the NT elections and concluding in November. I predict it won’t continue after that time. The dates mentioned here reveals that this was a classic instance of election-focused “pork barrelling”. The Labor Government must be worried about holding the seat of Arafura and so applied some last minute grease to its campaign. We have seen several commitments of that type from both major parties during this election campaign. All this is par for the course. All politicians, notwithstanding their political stripe, share a conviction that the proper governance of their jurisdiction urgently requires themselves to be on the treasury benches in parliament.
More serious is that the election campaign has revealed that the real scandal in the NT – the diversion of general purpose (GST) monies from Aboriginal purposes to propping up the lifestyle of Darwin residents – is not only alive and well, but unchallenged by either major party. Whoever is elected this weekend will continue this deeply unethical practice.
The NT “earns” about seven times per capita of the average share of the GST revenue apportioned to the States and Territories by the Commonwealth Government via the Commonwealth Grants Commission. That is in recognition of the high proportion of disadvantaged Aboriginal people in the NT. Yet only about 60% of these “earnings” are actually applied to Aboriginal health, education, housing, etc. The rest goes to fund expenditure in Darwin.
The Territory exhibits an extreme form of what economists call “urban bias”. In common parlance this is expressed as the “Berrimah line” effect (though more accurately now it should be the Virginia line, because Palmerston is included in this skew of NT expenditure to the Greater Darwin region). So the NTG spends about 2.4 times as much as its assessed need on urban transit but only about 25% of its assessed need on non-urban transit. Expenditure on families and children’s services (an obvious area of Aboriginal need) is at about 35% of the Grants Commission’ assessment of need. I could give other examples.
This election campaign has dramatised that urban bias is intrinsic to the Territory’s political economy. For instance, on my rough reckoning of expenditure promises from the media, the Government has promised over $25 million of new expenditure on “culture and recreation” – swimming pools, music festivals, etc – in the greater Darwin region.  Compare this with the $2.5 million promised Alice Springs for the mall up-grade. Here the only other promise of significance – $2.5million for new lighting at Traeger Park – is for the convenience of the AFL; we can see the footie perfectly fine with the current lights.
These points are not trivial. Every Port Adelaide or Bulldogs game at Marrara oval costs the NT fisc the equivalent amount of the construction of one Aboriginal house, or the annual dialysis costs of five persons. These are the real equivalences in play.
This situation is irreversible. So long as the Darwin seats decide who is in government, nothing will change; urban bias will rule even if the CLP wins this election. So what are we to do? There are several possibilities.
We could call for the NT to be divided, between north and south, into two territories (as it was briefly in the 1920s). This would at least reduce the electoral power of Darwin in the southern half of the NT.  We could call for the Commonwealth to resume formal control over the NT’s Aboriginal population and be responsible for expenditure in that area? In effect the NT government would then become the government of the major urban centres of the Stuart Highway.
In any case the current election will change nothing. So we need to start a debate about the future of the Northern Territory. As currently constituted the Territory is unsustainable and further Commonwealth intervention is inevitable at some stage. The so-called “Statehood” debate is a nonsense and we need to consider alternatives. This debate needs to take place in the full recognition that the current governance system in the NT is an impediment to sensible long-term solutions to our obvious problems.
PHOTO: Prof Gerritsen.

Police seek man believed responsible for three assaults

Erwin Chlanda
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0


UPDATE Tuesday, August 28, 5.30pm: Detective Senior Sergeant Travis Wurst of the Southern Investigations Division said the 25-year-old handed himself in to police this afternoon.
 
Police are calling for public assistance to locate Gregory Abbott (pictured), believed to be responsible for three assaults in the Northern Territory this year.
Detectives believe the man is currently residing in or around the Alice Springs region.
It is alleged the offender assaulted a visitor at a Darwin residence in March 2010 and seriously assaulted two visitors at two separate residences in Alice Springs in June 2012.
Police advise the public to not approach him and phone 000 immediately.
“If you have any information on the whereabouts of Gregory Abbott, contact Police on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000,” police say.
More information is on the Territory’s Wanted page.

Pollies and public disconnect: is there a bigger main game?

Erwin Chlanda
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1

COMMENT by ERWIN CHLANDA
 
What a choice to have on Saturday!
On the one hand we have Labor which has removed any doubt about its disdain for Alice Springs by promising to spend as much on footy TV lights – to be used maybe once or twice a year – as it would on the town centre’s facelift.
And the Country Liberals are proposing to spend a corresponding amount – $2.5m – on the Youth Centre although locals say that’s nowhere near enough and doesn’t cover the facilities and services also badly needed. There is a lively debate about a facility costing 15 times as much.
Mayor Damien Ryan and Chamber of Commerce CEO Kay Eade have expressed their dissatisfaction with Labor’s effort, with the town’s third major lobby, Tourism Central Australia, notably absent from the debate.
But that’s detail. The more fundamental issue is that when people think, “What difference will I make by casting my vote?”, many say, “Not much”.
Why? Because there is a growing disconnect between the pollies and the public.
The tiny size of our constituency notwithstanding, politicians have introduced filters and barriers between themselves and the voters, using an army of minders and one-liners spruiked incessantly, through media releases, advertising and social media – and far too little face-to-face contact.
Labor leader Paul Henderson was in town for just a few hours to make his major election announcement, attended by the media and hardly anyone else. The exchange was only a few minutes underway when a minder decreed: “Last questions.”
Opposition Leader Terry Mills yesterday spent a half hour being shown every nook and cranny of the Youth Centre but the media doorstop was cut short.
The Alice Springs News queried the price of land at Kilgariff and were told market forces would set them.
MLA for Araluen Robyn Lambley was standing right next to Mr Mills. Two years ago she gave an interview to the News canvassing the notion of selling some of the land at or near the cost of development (some $75,000 a block). No opportunity was given to revisit that train of thought.
Under what law would Mr Mills lock up drunks not voluntarily attending rehab? The answer? “We have a plane to catch.”
No they didn’t, it was a charter flight that would sit there as long as instructed.
But don’t blame the pollies for that – blame yourself.
There was much talk earlier in the year that 2012 would need be a watershed, the time when we arrested the town’s decline, with elections of both local and Territory governments. The opportunities to influence candidates and get precise commitments from them were not offered to us but we could have created them.
We didn’t.
The Chamber of Commerce and independent candidate Phil Walcott made valiant efforts to organise election forums. They were poorly attended and used by some as a soapbox for their own ideas, rather than extracting commitments from the pollies present.
Maybe we’re asking the wrong questions: What, really, is the main game?
Bruce Walker, who chairs remoteFOCUS, a project facilitated by Desert Knowledge Australia, is raising some interesting questions in a submission to the Senate.
OK, we are those who are living “in the forgotten backyards of the capital cities, and they are not part of a national narrative which makes sense of the decisions made elsewhere which affect their lives”.
But the “we” here doesn’t mean Territorians, but the people inhabiting desert Australia – those of us living in the vast remote parts of all the states except Victoria and Tasmania.
Would that be the framework that could get us excited?

Alleged assaults at youth rehab facility: Barry Abbott pleads 'not guilty'

Kieran Finnane
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0

By KIERAN FINNANE
 
For the first time this week some detail emerged about what allegedly happened at Ilpurla Outstation last year that led to Barry Abbott (pictured), former Senior Territorian of the Year, facing charges of aggravated assault and deprivation of liberty.
Mr Abbott and his four co-accused, all members of his family, pleaded not guilty to all charges in the Alice Springs Magistrates Court on Monday. Their hearing is set down for December but defence lawyer Russell Goldflam had asked for a hearing to deal with legal argument.
How could this happen without some factual context, Magistrate John Neill wanted to know. So the briefest outline of agreed facts was presented on Tuesday afternoon.
This included that seven of the complainants were aged under 18 as of October 9, 2011, while two were aged over 18. That the seven were “children” (in their mid-teens) was critical to Mr Goldflam’s argument that a particular defence is available to his clients in relation to some of the charges of deprivation of liberty. That defence justifies the use of force – providing it is not unnecessary and not likely to cause death or serious harm – in circumstances where a person in loco parentis is using such force to “discipline, manage or control” the child.
The defence is provided for in one section of the Criminal Code, while the charges are laid under another section, which also outlines possible defences for those charges and in some respects is not well drafted, argued Mr Goldflam. Mr Neill said that Mr Goldflam’s attempt to “widen the safety net” for his clients was understandable. He will give consideration to the arguments for and against (the latter made by prosecutor Stephen Geary) and give his decision on September 18.
Other agreed facts were that all the defendants were employed by the Ilpurla Aboriginal Corporation, which was running a residential rehabilitation facility mainly for male youths referred to them by the courts, CAYLUS (Central Australian Youth Link Up Service, an arm of Tangentyere Council), the government’s Alcohol and Other Drugs Services, individual families and other agencies in Central Australia and interstate.
Mr Abbott is the director of the corporation. Only the defendants were present at Ilpurla at the times of the alleged offending and they had sole responsibility for the complainants.
The court had previously heard from Mr Goldflam that there were three separate incidents of alleged offending.
In relation to one of them, three defendants were present, not including Mr Abbott Senior. His daughter Valerie Anne Abbott was in charge, with Barry Shane Abbott and Shakira McCormack also on duty. The complainants were put into a weldmesh “cage” on the back of a vehicle. The door was secured and they were not free to leave. They were allowed to leave the cage some hours later.
This was as far as the agreed facts went.
Mr Goldflam had earlier given “a thumbnail sketch” of the circumstances which led to the complainants being put in the cage.
The incident occurred in the middle of the night. The seven youths and two young men were involved in petrol sniffing – forbidden, of course, at Ilpurla. Two of the youths burnt themselves in the process. One of them, together with seven others, was put in the cage and all were let out some time later that morning or by early afternoon.
These events have resulted in nine counts of deprivation of personal liberty charged jointly against the three defendants and two counts each of “failure to provide the necessaries”. The latter charge pertains to the staff’s response to the two youths who were burnt. One suffered “full thickness” burns, the other, partial. They were not take to hospital until two or three days later. Ultimately they were evacuated from Alice Springs for treatment. One required skin grafts.
Mr Goldflam said there was no dispute that the burns amounted to “serious harm”. However, they were given First Aid at Ilpurla and there was some consultation by Ilpurla staff with medical staff at Kings Canyon, he said.
The charges involving Mr Abbot Snr occurred earlier. He is alleged to have assaulted two under-age youths and locked them up in in the back of an abandoned vehicle “something like a paddy wagon”. Damien McCormack also faces charges over this incident.
The aggravating factors in the assaults were read out when the defendants were charged. They concern the age of the complainants, that they suffered harm and that they were threatend with a weapon, in Mr Abbott Snr’s case, a stick. The agravated assault charge aginst Mr McCormack was withdrawn, as was one count against Mr Abbott Snr.
Mr Geary said that no serious harm had resulted from the assault charges in all incidents.
Mr Goldflam said no medical treatment was sought or required as a result. Mr Geary said there is some medical evidence but he “might not lead it”.
Counts of “negligently causing serious harm” against Ms Abbott, Ms McCormack and Mr Abbott Jnr were all withdrawn.
The third incident occurred after the incident with the burns and concerned the same two youths allegedly assaulted by Mr Abbott Snr. On this occasion they ran away from Ilpurla. When they returned it is alleged that Mr Abbott Jnr assaulted them (threatening them with an electrical cord) and locked them up, with Mr McCormack and possibly Ms Abbott allegedly assisting in the locking up.
All incidents are alleged to have occurred between August 8 and October 9 last year.
 
See also earlier report: Barry Abbott will not face jury trial

Alice singled out in German Foreign Office travel warning

Erwin Chlanda
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12

By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
The website of the German Foreign Office singles out Alice Springs as Australia’s only location mentioned in the chapter dealing with crime (Kriminalitaet) in its general travel advice (Allgemeine Reiseinformationen).
The first paragraph deals with the national situation in general, saying Australia is a safe country to travel in although there are thefts and break-ins into cars, and backpackers should be alert to thefts in hostels.
But the second paragraph in the chapter says this: “In Alice Springs care needs to be taken especially in the dark. Repeatedly there have been reports about assaults, also on foreign tourist (including armed robberies and rapes).
“With mobile homes only camping grounds with guards should be visited.” (Editor’s translation.)

Mills pledges $2.5m for Youth Centre "transformation," gets attacked over drunkenness measures

Erwin Chlanda
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5

By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
Country Liberals leader Terry Mills pledged $2.5m “to transform the Anzac Hill youth centre into a Police and Citizens Youth Club”.
 
A media release said it will “have access to youth workers and other appropriate support networks as well as organised activities and sports infrastructure.
 
“The existing centre will be re-developed in stages [no time frame is given] and the upgraded facility will include a cafe operated by the PCYC.
 
“The centre will provide a safe place for children on the street at night and opportunities for positive contacts between police and young people.
 
“This is a first step in the considerable body of work required to re-engage young people into the broader community.”
 
Mr Mills told supporters and media at the centre this morning that it would be an “excellent community facility here … to build our community and to strengthen and make us a more confident place to promote Alice Springs as a premier desert community to the nation, and hold our heads with great pride.”
 
After an inspection of the old and ramshackle building – once the favourite Friday night hang-out for thousands of teenagers over decades – the “whistle stop tour” left little time for local and Darwin media to explore issues.
 
How many blocks at the new Kilgariff suburb will be sold and at what price, the Alice Springs News Online asked.
 
Mr Mills flicked the question to Greatorex MLA Matt Conlan: “We have to leave it to the market to determine the price.”
 
Mr Mills said the issue will be one to be dealt with by the proposed independent Planning Commission “seeking community input early in the planning process rather than at the back end when it hits the Development Consent Authority.
 
“There has to be some confidence over the planning decisions … so we know where we are going and there is confidence in the marketplace,” he said.
 
“Secondly, to make sure there is an increase in supply … the market then can determine a fair price.”
For someone to expect “me to stand here and say I can name the price doesn’t understand that we are a free market party. We make sure that there is a balance between supply and demand.”
 
Will there be an amalgamation of prison and alcohol rehabilitation farms? Where exactly are these rehab places going to be, asked the ABC?
 
TiTree, just north of Alice Springs, has been nominated, Mr Mills said.
 
“$30m has been put up straight way to make sure this facility is up and running.”
 
Mr Mills said these facilities would be for people failing to seek help. It is a measure for “those who breach a court order requiring them to get help.
 
“There would be an additional requirement for that assistance to be sought and provided, and there would be support for those rehabilitation services who are providing it.
 
“But if that is not sought [that would be] a breach of a court order and then there would be the intervention.”
 
But Russell Goldflam, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, says this is tantamount to re-criminalising drunkenness.
 
“There is no power in the Australian legal system to order a citizen who is not suffering from an acute episode of mental illness into ‘a facility’, this is to lock them up, unless they have committed a criminal offence. The current Alcohol and Other Drugs Tribunal has no such power.
 
“The Country Liberals are in effect promising to recriminalise drunkenness, but they are too ashamed of their own policy to admit it.”
 
Drunkenness was decriminalised decades ago in the NT and elsewhere, in accordance with a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, says Mr Goldflam.
 
“To make being drunk an offence again would cause more harm, and, by expanding the scope of criminality, result in a dramatic increase in crime, by the Party which promises to reduce crime by 10% a year.”
 
Mr Mills said there would be 20 extra police in Alice Springs permanently, “not just when some problem arises that causes embarrassment for the government.”
 
His government would bring in police decision-making “closer to the people of Alice Springs”.
 
Will there be new infrastructure for tourism, asked the Alice Springs News Online.
 
“You are getting ahead of the game.”
 
The CL policy statement says: “We will establish a Tourism Commission that will have real input from industry representatives. Tourism operators will have control over the future of their industry.”
 
Has he asked the operators what they want?
 
“We haven’t got a Tourist Commission yet.”
 
Mr Mills said his government would not “take Alice Springs for granted” and would be showing genuine respect for Alice Springs.
 
He’d already told the Mayor that he would “respect the third tier of government”.
 
PHOTOS: Country Liberals leader Terry Mills and MLA for Araluen Robyn Lambley this morning, with reporters. A sketch of what the refurbished centre would look like. Mr Mills shakes hands with Alan Page who has been a volunteer at the Youth Centre since 1971.
 
FOLLOW-UP
As there was no opportunity for asking Mr Mills further questions this morning the Alice Springs News Online has emailed him these:-
 
• Would a CL government provide two more lots of $5m to the Alice Springs Town Council, as it requested, for the revitalisation of town centre? (The Labor commitment is for just $2.5m).
 
• What plans, if any, does the CL have for the development of horticulture and agriculture in remote areas to soak up the massive number of unemployed there?
 
 
 

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