I remember watching the introduction of a Seinfeld episode once where Jerry, in his usual stand-up mode, was explaining his theory on why people smoke. He made smoking sound like a craving sustained due to primitive, caveman mentalities. The line went something like, “People like to have smoke near their faces to show that they have power. ‘Look. I have fire. I am mighty.’” Up until this past fortnight, I’d always thought this was such a funny and possibly accurate observation … other than a little thing called nicotine addiction of course!
I landed in the desert around Uluru two weeks ago after a six-week coastal holiday and drove to Alice the back way, stopping by Kings Canyon and Albert Namatjira’s little white house outside Hermansberg, then past Stanley Chasm, concluding with a tour of all the other places I’ve loved this past 23 years along that Western Macs side. Johnny Cash soothed the soul through the airways and hot, dry air flowed fast through the window, together making me feel like I was still a kid on a long road trip.
If you’ve never been on that back road between the Canyon and Hermannsburg please, for your own sake, do. I’m fairly sure it has been rated amongst the top ten four-wheel drive tracks in Australia, although this would probably be for visual reasons as the road – other than some corrugation – is fairly light going. On either side of the track there is amazing shrubbery and the wide sloping hills caress in a valley that looks like it was made for a path to some secret land.
Within a few hours of travel I noticed whirls of grey in the distance, what I thought were willy-willys. Slowly that burnt, husky odour met the nostrils and I realised those miniature windstorms were not comprised of dust at all, but fire. You can imagine the next bit of my story, I’m sure – the closer town became, the heavier the sky and I could feel a powerful pressure clutching my lungs.
Pulling the car over to look at some blackened ground still fuming, I found the ghost of a tree lying across the sand. I’m referring to the powdery, ashen silhouette that is left when a tree totally burns out. The original wood is no longer there, but a shadow of itself lingers until either the wind blows it away, or it is eaten back into the earth. The closer we crept to the mouth of suburbia the more ghosts I saw and then all of a sudden they were no longer ghosts, but living trees still full of fire.
You never think it’s going to be you in a situation like this. It’s surreal. When Black Saturday happened in Victoria, I’m sure the people assumed the best right until the very second that their properties and loved ones were engulfed. Luckily, it was not the case for me as you can tell because obviously I am sitting down here, writing this piece. But I was filled with the reality of this tenuous life.
Nearing Simpson’s Gap, the car was forced to slow down as black smoke blew, clouding the way in a fog so thick the car in front could not be seen. I kept saying, “Nah, they haven’t closed the road. It must be fine!” It was strange sneaking through darkness in the middle of the day, but it was not until the inferno was blazing on the bitumen right along side the car’s wheels that I truly felt fear. It did not last long and perhaps there was no real threat … even though we did eventually see a police car racing past to shut the road! But this flash of fiery images I’ll never forget.
What a way to get home. Now I’m trying to settle back in, but smoke keeps getting through everything. Last Wednesday I could not even see the top of Mount Gillan from my Eastside abode! I know that burn-offs will keep the town safe and that all the plants will one day grow back healthy and strong. Nevertheless, I cannot help but wonder, how can you stay focused with all that haze? And what psychological effect is this heavy, carbon-filled air having on Alice Springs?
So, how powerful do you feel, having smoke near your face when you’re at the mercy of Mother Nature? The answer: not very! Seeing what can happen and just how quickly the environment can change, and to what extent, is a powerfully startling experience. Photos by Oliver Eclipse.
Burnin' ring of fire
Hardware giant Bunnings confirms it's heading for Alice
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Bunnings has now confirmed the Alice Springs Online exclusive report last Thursday that the hardware giant is coming to town.
The firm is moving to buy a two hectare block at 218 North Stuart Highway (Lot 9186 – see map above).
The vendors are builder Phil Danby and businessman Steven Brouwer.
Mr Danby says they have signed a confidentiality agreement with Bunnings and cannot comment.
According to public documents, the buyers of the land are Bunnings Properties Pty Ltd of Rose Hill, NSW, and the National Australia Bank in Alice Springs is listed under “other parties”.
The land is zoned Light Industry and the most recent application listed on the title was in 2000 to construct two showrooms / sales warehouses for retail use.
In a media release today (Monday) Bunnings says the new warehouse, if approved, will create more than 110 jobs for local residents.
“Bunnings plans to invest more than $23 million in the new warehouse which will have a total store size of more than 12,000 square metres consisting of a main warehouse, kid’s playground, nursery, café, and parking for over 200 cars.”
Chief Operating Officer, Peter Davis, says Bunnings is committed towards supporting local communities and there will be “on-the-job training opportunities for local residents and school leavers.
“The project is estimated to create an additional 160 jobs during the construction phase.
“Bunnings is committed to working toward carbon neutral growth and long term footprint reduction [through] a number of energy and water saving design features,” says Mr Davis.
Alice turning into a fly-in, fly-out mining camp?
By ERWIN CHLANDA
A Darwin business has set up a fly-in, fly-out operation in Alice Springs, according to industry sources.
Quality Plumbing & Building Contractors has put dongas on an industrial block corner Smith and Priest Streets apparently to accommodate staff flying in from Darwin.
It appears the dwellings are in conflict with the zoning – General Industry – of the 5000 square meter block, and no planning and building applications have been made so far.
The owner of the business, Stavros Kantros, declined to comment.
Earlier this year the company won a $4.4m contract from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Regional Services to carry out repairs and maintenance of Territory Housing dwellings for 12 months.
The Alice Springs company previously doing that work has laid off staff.
Alice Springs based electrician Steve Brown, who had sub-contracted to the previous operator, says he made an approach to the Darwin firm, which was rejected, and Mr Kantros refused to take his calls. Photos above and below: Apparently unauthorized dongas on the industrial block.
Meanwhile Minister for Regional Australia, Simon Crean, has announced the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia would inquire into and report on the use of “fly-in fly-out” and “drive-in drive-out” (FIFO and DIDO) workforce practices in regional Australia.
He says it is “an inevitable part of coping with the skills demands and the huge growth in the resource sector.
“Ideally you want to build communities that are sustainable, but some workers will always choose to live elsewhere and commute.”
The committee will focus on:-
• The extent and projected growth in FIFO/DIDO work practices, including in which regions and key industries this practice is utilised;
• Costs and benefits for companies and individuals choosing a FIFO/DIDO workforce as an alternative to a resident workforce;
• The effect of a non-resident FIFO/DIDO workforce on established communities, including community wellbeing, services and infrastructure;
• The impact on communities sending large numbers of FIFO/DIDO workers to mine sites.
Long moment in the sun for artists from The Lands
Photo: Painting by Telstra Award winner for 2011, Dickie Minyintiri.
By KIERAN FINNANE
All year Alice Springs has had its window onto the Aboriginal art of the moment, that outpouring of cultural affirmation and expressive brilliance coming from ‘The Lands’ – home to the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara peoples. Apart from his stockroom shows, the astute Dallas Gold of Raft Artspace has had his eyes fixed firmly on the south-west. The timing for his current show from Ernabella Arts couldn’t have been better.
Last week one of its artists and one of the most senior Pitjantjatjara men alive today, Dickie Minyintiri, won the top prize at the country’s oldest Aboriginal art award, the 28th Telstra. It was the second year in a row that an artist from The Lands had taken out the Telstra; in 2010 the prize went to Mr Donegan from Ninuku Arts.
There is a fine canvas by Minyintiri hanging in the Raft show, a work in similar vein to the Telstra winner – multi-layered, with strongly inscribed motifs meshing across the surface, allowing glimpses into otherwise hidden depths. What is there is hinted at in the comments about the Telstra work, that the tracks of animals are being traced to important waterholes, where men also conduct their sacred ceremonies.
Minyintiri is fairly new to painting on canvas, seemingly another of those astonishing late flowerings that have marked the history of Aboriginal art. As Gold notes, for most artists finding their own visual language is a long and strenuous process; it’s not often that you see “the quantum leaps in visual language and style made in a matter of months” by artists like Minyintiri. Gold puts it down, in part, to the drive and commitment they have to celebrate their culture in this way. There is also a lifetime of training for Aboriginal people who maintain their traditions, from sand-drawing in their earliest years to body-painting for ceremony.
While Ernabella Arts is the oldest Aboriginal art centre in Australia, founded as a craft room in 1948, the artists for a long time resisted painting Tjukurrpa, their ‘dreaming’ stories. Under the influence of Christian missionaries, they developed a craft practice, including clothing and household items as well as traditional artifacts, and later batiks and ceramics. Their painting was distinctive for its colourful, decorative stylisations known as walka, reminiscent of Paisley designs and utterly remote from the work on canvas we see coming from the region today.
However, there is an echo of the Ernabella craft tradition in this show in the ceramic work made in the course of a recent workshop for the men at the art centre. It includes a couple of pieces by Minyintiri, hand-built cylindrical forms with sgraffito designs, and several by Pepai Jangala Carroll, eye-catching for both their form and the liveliness of design brought about by contrasting textures and tones. The simplicity of aesthetic in his ceramics though stands apart from his finesse as a painter – his dotting like shifting desert sands, seen from a great height, taking the eye inexorably to the heart of his picture where a tiny space opens up, as if onto infinity.
Most viewers can’t hope to know the depth of meaning that works of this calibre have for the artists who create them, but their aesthetic strength allows them to reach us on another plane. At the same time the work’s cultural integrity is felt intuitively. That’s the intriguing experience of the power of art.
There’s more of it in store with Raft’s twin shows for the Alice Desert Festival. Both are from Tjungu Palya, another art centre on The Lands: one will be a solo tribute show for Jimmy Baker, the other a group show. They open on September 8, the eve of Desert Mob, which will no doubt offer a further occasion for artists from The Lands to shine.
What leads to people thinking about suicide?
Patterns of behaviour emerge from the sad stories of suicide. In the wake of the recent tragic deaths by suicide of five young Aboriginal people in our region, the Alice Springs News spoke to Craig San Roque, a psychotherapist and member of the steering committee of Life Promotion, Central Australia’s suicide prevention program. He has had experience over many years of collaboration with Aboriginal people, in particular with traditional healers. He speaks of the problems using the image of the hand.
“For some people suicide is structural, like the back of their hand, with them all the time as a meditated, premeditated action, though it may be disguised, covered over with a skin.
“For these persons there may be an intense and long lasting psychic pain – the nerves in the hands. Suicide is contemplated as a release from pain, from an illness.
“Or there may be ‘bad blood’ – between people, or within a family or there may be family history of taking one’s own life. This gets to the idea of family patterns or patterns of character that turn one to the destructive or sinister side of life, perhaps an embedded depression or psychosis or personality disorder, a bipolar disorder. It’s ‘in one’s blood’, so to speak, and when combined with premeditation and intense suffering, it might lead inevitably to a planned death. A self-managed euthanasia.”
The other main form of suicide is impulsive self-harm linked with the loss of the will to live, which Dr San Roque speaks of using the image of the palm of the hand: “In the centre of the palm of the hand is a pair of opposites – intense anxiety and / or profound listlessness. A stigmata wound.”
The thumb and fingers stand for the five forms of intense primal feeling / emotion:
• suicide as an expression of loss, grief and mourning;
• suicide as depression;
• suicide as an act of rage and frenzy;
• suicide as jealousy – a crime of passion;
• suicide as disappointment.
“Loss, depression, rage, jealousy, disappointment may lead some persons to suicide as impulse – especially if mixed up in a situation of high emotional display, anxiety, fear and chaos, or listlessness and loss of self.”
Then there’s the fist – pressure.
“Some people take their lives when put under intense pressure and contradiction – pressure of expectation or the pressure of not being able to resolve different demands from too many people. I think some of the suicides recently in Central Australia have been because those people took their lives away as a way out of the pressures.
“Display among Aboriginal young people is something to look out for. Suicide as an action to display before others one’s own state of jealousy, disappointment, rage, grief.
“In display the young person may not be thinking at all —it is an impulse of self-centred attention seeking and therefore dangerous.
“Display is very dangerous when a mind and body is in the grip of drunkenness, drug intoxication, alcoholic frenzy.
“We have to add into all this the strange factor of the fashion, the ‘craze’ that can move among young people in our communities.
“People catch the idea and suicide becomes a popular way of acting – or as others might say – of acting out a cultural pattern of rage, of loss, of listlessness, of disappointment, jealousy and envy. In this way suicide might also be a kind of sacrificial act – a strange kind of suicide, a form of unthought self-immolation like those souls who burned themselves as a protest in the outrageously cruel regions of the world.
“This pattern of display, the pattern of the suicide craze, of intoxicated despair – I think this might be the beast who stalks Central Australian Aboriginal camps and towns and takes away the life.”
Life Promotion manager Laurencia Grant says it is promising that the issue of suicide is not as silenced as it once was.
“Many Aboriginal people are talking up about suicide and are more willing to work in mental health and suicide prevention or to attend training to help stop suicides and to address this problem.”
She stresses the importance of knowing that many suicides are preventable: they can be stopped.
“If more people have skills and knowledge, less fear of suicide and understand that this is a shared problem, this will impact on the rates.
“So effective collaboration between sectors of housing, employment, health, drug and alcohol, child protection, law enforcement, education and mental health can go a long way toward helping. And ultimately once Indigenous people have greater control over their own lives and own services, suicide rates will decline as has been the case among some Indigenous communities of North America,” says Ms Grant.
Desert shrinks get global gong
If the term psychotherapy conjures for many the image of a bearded Sigmund Freud in early 20th century Vienna putting his patients on the couch, the Sixth World Congress for Psychotherapy has a mind-expanding surprise in store. Aptly titled World Dreaming, the event in Sydney on August 26 will honour with its Sigmund Freud Award the contribution to the field of psychotherapy by Aboriginal ngangkari (traditional healers) from the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjtara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Lands in the cross-border central desert region.
The men and women work in NPY Women’s Council Ngangkari Project which began in 1998. Andy Tjilari and Rupert Peter were the original members of the project; it has since expanded to include Toby Ginger and five women. All the ngangkari are senior members of their communities, and all lived a traditional life in the bush with their families as children, where they began to learn the skills of the ngangkari. Their grandparents gave them sacred tools and special powers, and trained them over many years.
Today the ngangkari continue this tradition with their own grandchildren. They also work in association with numerous groups including the Northern Territory Government’s Mental Health Team in Central Australia and travel nationally to undertake practice and share their work. The ngangkari believe that better health outcomes for Indigenous people can be achieved by ngangkari and Western medicine working together and to this end they are committed to educating health workers about traditional healing practices.
According to the World Congress for Psychotherapy, their work in applied psycho-somatic therapy “demonstrates the relevance of traditional approaches in modern Indigenous contexts and complements approaches undertaken in mainstream healthcare”.
This is not the first time the ngangkari have been honoured in Western medical fora: most recently they received the 2009 Mark Sheldon Prize awarded by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry (RANZCP), and the 2009 Dr Margaret Tobin Award for excellence in the provision of mental health services to those most in need.
In 2000 a group of over 50 ngangkari in Central Australia met and decided they would tell their stories as an attempt to educate non-Indigenous health workers about the importance and value of ngangkari, with the aim of encouraging greater collaboration and understanding within the mainstream health system.
NPY Women’s Council has published a book of their stories called “Ngangkari Work Anangu Way”. A new edition of this book is in production. A DVD entitled Ngangkari, which displays ngangkari from the project carrying out their therapeutic work in their local settings, is available from Ronin Films.
The ngangkari will share their award at the World Congress with other outstanding Australian Indigenous mental health professionals: Winthrop Professor Helen Milroy and Kamilaroi Elder, Aunty Lorraine Peeters. Professor Milroy is the first Indigenous Psychiatrist in Australia, while Lorraine Peeters, former Senior Australian of the Year (2006), has developed the Marumali Healing Program for Indigenous people suffering the effects of trauma, specifically in relation to the Stolen Generation.
Says Dr Anthony Korner, Chair of the Organising Committee of the World Congress for Psychotherapy: “Together these distinguished award winners represent a spectrum of Indigenous contributions across the country. All [of them] retain and sustain Indigenous perspectives and commitments in contemporary Australia. All work in association with each other within Indigenous networks. Furthermore all are nationally and internationally renowned for their work, which challenges and amplifies the understanding and practice of psychotherapy in an Australian context.”
Pictured are ngangkari Iluwanti Ken, Naomi Kantjurin and Maringka Burton (photo by RHETT HAMMERTON) and Toby Ginger, Rupert Peter and Andy Tjilari (photo by ANGELA LYNCH). Both courtesy NPY Women’s Council.
Amnesty replies
Amnesty International Australia, through their Campaigns Director, Andrew Beswick, has made the following brief statement in response to
Says Mr Beswick:-
As a human rights organisation, our role is to point out where government policies fall short of the international human rights standards they have committed to uphold. Unsurprisingly then, we are looking at the future of the more than 500 homeland and other smaller Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, through that lens.
Governments are the ones that are predominantly responsible for making sure our human rights are fulfilled. And it is this notion of accountability, along with these international standards, that inform our recommendations for government action in our report ‘The land holds us’: Aboriginal peoples’ right to traditional homelands in the Northern Territory.
Rather than the “victim status” we have been accused of assigning to Aboriginal peoples, we advocate strongly for the right to free, prior and informed consent to be respected and provide a platform for the powerful voices of those directly affected by these government policies in our campaign.
Suicide: a new and growing problem among NT Aborigines
By KIERAN FINNANE
Suicide is a new and growing problem for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The only detailed published study, looking at data from 1981 to 2002, shows that there was only one suicide by an Indigenous man in the NT in 1981, in contrast to seven that year by non-Indigenous men. In the 22 year period the first suicide by an Indigenous woman was not until 1991, while between one and three by non-Indigenous women had been recorded in every year since 1984 and four were recorded that year.
The study by Mary-Anne Measey, Shu Qin Li and Robert Parker was published in 2005 by the NT Department of Health and Community Services. It reports that the rate of suicide amongst men in the NT, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, increased during the 1990s and early 2000s, while the Australian rate remained stable.
At the end of the study period the rate for Indigenous males began to increase sharply: in 2001 to 2002 it was approximately three times the comparable Australian rate, while the NT non-Indigenous male rate was approximately 1.6 times the Australian rate.
The rates among Indigenous women increased substantially from 1991 to become twice as high as the Australian female rate by 2001-2002. The rates among non-Indigenous women had been lower than the Australian female rate in the 1980s, and reached a similar level in the 1990s.
As we reported last week Independent MLA Alison Anderson has called for detailed recent data on suicides in the NT to be made available. She particularly wants to see the distribution across urban, rural and remote parts of the Territory.
Ms Anderson also asked for statistics on “how many Aboriginal kids actually come into Cowdy Ward and Ward One in Alice Springs with mental illness, paranoia and all the symptoms of psychosis”. She wants to know how many of these cases are related to the use of ganja (cannabis). This call is supported by Laurencia Grant, manager of Central Australia’s only dedicated suicide prevention program, the Life Promotion Program. Set up within government in 1998 in response to a high incidence of youth suicide, the program, while still funded by the government, is now auspiced by the NGO, the Mental Health Association of Central Australia (MHACA). Apart from Ms Grant, the program employs Brian Kennedy, Larissa Knight and Valda Napurrula Shannon.
Since 2001 Life Promotion, as part of its service agreement with the government, has kept a record of suicides in Central Australia (for this purpose, the NT area south of Elliott). The figures are based on police reports of deaths suspected to be suicides and some cases have yet to be officially deemed as such by the Coroner.
They show that from January 2001 to January 2011 there were 108 suicides in the region. The majority of them were male, Indigenous and aged over 25. Specifically, there were 79 Indigenous suicides compared to 29 non-Indigenous; 91 male to 17 female; 69 over 25 years of age to 39 under 25.
The majority occurred in the region’s major towns: 44 in Alice Springs and 17 in Tennant Creek. But the remote areas were over-represented with 47.
This year there have been six deaths by suicide in the Centre. As a number that looks much like recent years. For instance, last year by the end of August there had been eight deaths by suicide. However, the age distribution this year looks different: five out of the six have been under 25. All of the five have been Aboriginal and four out of the five were male. The deaths have also come in a cluster, with five occurring in the two months of July to August. One occurred in the Western Desert, one in the Pitjantjatjara lands, one in Alice Springs, one in the Barkly and one in Warlpiri country.
Preventing and containing possible clusters of suicides is one of the tasks that the Life Promotion team attempts. Acting on the concern that one suicide can put other people at risk, when the team receive police reports of a suspected death by suicide, they call an interagency response meeting. Those attending are members of the Life Promotion steering committee.
Says Ms Grant: “I try to provide everyone with as much accurate information as possible about what has happened. Sometimes this comes from people phoning in from the community affected.
“We try to identify family members, partners, children and other young people who may be at risk and to work out what the capacity for support is from every person in the room.
“This response strategy has never been evaluated and for most people it goes beyond their job description, but it demonstrates a lot of good will and a recognition of combined responsibility.”
However, agency response can only go so far. Most often it is family and friends who are in the best position to prevent a suicide and a central focus of the Life Promotion Program is to better equip workers and other members of the community to respond.
Some headway had been made in this area with what is known as “gatekeeper training”, with the support of Lifeline in auspicing the Canadian program called Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), which teaches people about recognising warning signs for suicide, how to respond to them and where to go to get further help.
Some new creative ideas seemed to be called for to adapt this style of training to the life realities of many Aboriginal people in Central Australia. These are being brought together by the Life Promotion Program under the heading of “Suicide Story”. This is a training package made up of short films, audio material, animation, artwork and activities, all designed to get Aboriginal people talking about suicide, understanding why it has become a problem in Aboriginal communities, some of the cultural beliefs around suicide, and what they can do to respond to both serious concerns and common threats of suicide.
Ms Grant says threats can be thrown around pretty freely in order to get things that the person wants and at times are a form of domestic violence though they can be acted upon impulsively and irredeemably. They confuse the issue of suicide and the behaviour is worrying for the person or family on the receiving end.
So far the training has been trialled in Tennant Creek, Yuendumu, Hermannsburg, Numbulwar (off Groote Eylandt), Alice Springs, Mutitjulu and Ali Curung. Life Promotion have now received funding for two years from the federal Department of Health and Aging to extend the training.
Ms Grant says it has been particularly valuable for the program to be able to employ Aboriginal people to help deliver the training. Valda Napurrula Shannon, based in Tennant Creek, has developed a program activity around fire, which has such a central role in Aboriginal life. Participants are asked to identify the things in life that feed a person’s inner fire, that keep them going each day, and the things that can cause a person’s fire to die down and what needs to be done to re-stoke that fire.
Ms Grant says the activity is very effective, easy to do and Life Promotion has been approached by other organisations to train their workers using this tool.
Causes
No-one would doubt that each suicide has its own complexity, but there are some common associated factors and patterns.
The 2005 study of suicide in the NT, extracted information from the Coroner’s files over three years from 2000 to 2002.
During that time Indigenous people accounted for 45% of the NT deaths by suicide. Three-quarters of all deaths by suicide occurred in the Top End and the following figures all relate to Top End data.
Demographic risk factors appeared to be: marital status (63% of suicides were by single, widowed, divorced or separated people); employment status (41% were unemployed); and occupation (56% were involved in physical work).
Associated risk factors appeared to be: alcohol or other drug use (56% at time of death, 72% around or prior to time of death); depression or other mental illness (49% had such a diagnosis); relationship problems (25%).
For the majority (61%) there was more than one factor present.
Relationship problems were the most common associated factor for younger people; alcohol, for those aged 35 and over.
Males accounted for 85% of all suicides, with the most common associated factor being alcohol, followed by relationship problems.
The study also found that only one third of the people who had committed suicide had had contact with a health service provider in the previous 12 months.
Lifeline – 13 11 14
Beyond Blue – www.beyondblue.org.au
Reach Out – www.reachout.com.au
PHOTOS: Top – feeling unloved. Centre – hearing voices. Drawings by Sue McLeod for “Suicide Story”. Below – Suicide Story training for Pitjanjatjara people held at the college in Yulara in May 2011. Laurencia Grant kneeling at the front, far left.
Arts ambush
Curious tourists, mothers with prams and workers on their lunch break walking down the Todd Mall yesterday were unexpectedly joined by three silent, bright eyed, pale clothed, ‘other-old-worldly’ strangers.
This was the Post Family performance, the third of the ‘Happenings’ in this year’s Alice Desert Festival. As we all know, the Festival features a vibrant program celebrating artists, dancers, actors and musicians from Central Australia – besides a selection of what I’m told are Australia’s hottest acts.
The ‘Happenings’ are enactments that appear to erupt spontaneously underneath The Sails in Todd Mall at midday. The idea is that sets of performers will appear suddenly, take surprised passers-by on a whirlwind of a show, and then leave. It’s as though the whole event was merely a coincidence, or even more confusing, that the recitalists are not actors at all, but the characters they play.
Yesterday, the Post Family – Brother, Sister and Little Sister Post – adventured down the Mall into the 21st Century after having been isolated in some dislocated reality of their own for who knows how long. They were dressed in white, lace, linen, overalls, bonnets and hats, as though they had stepped directly from the 1920s into 2011.
Wordlessly skipping, limping, or gazedly swaying from shop to bench, from grassy mound to tree, the family tried to figure out this new environment by labeling it with post-it notes. Everything around had to be observed and categorized by the post-its. Hence, of course, the title – Post Family.
Other than the fact that art-theater is just plain fun, the Post Family’s social commentary was on the compulsive need we, as humans, have to compartmentalize things. The concept was in part a study to consider how mislabeling might occur due to context, or background.
So the group would find someone, or something to engage with and would either mime, or label the topic to further understand the new world. A woman sat on a bench with her daily things, her water bottle, bag, lunch, phone in her shoe and The Posts covered her from head to toe in sticky notes. She just kept giggling and saying, “Thank you. I didn’t know that was my bottle of water. Lucky you put that label on it.”
The Post Family found this really satisfying, being allowed to put a post-it note on and have it appreciated. Brother Post put a label on a couple and just wrote ‘lovers.’ The two were awfully embarrassed and said immediately, “NO. No. No.” Brother Post watched the guy crumple it in his hand, but after he had left the man took it out again and drew a love heart on it, giving it to Sister Post.
Other onlookers, however, were totally disconcerted with the performance. One man, after Little Sister Post tried labeling his hat, said, “I know it’s a hat. I don’t need that note.” The manager from a shop had to be assured from a Red Hot Arts worker that the notes would be cleared up and that the ‘weirdoes touching and tagging everything’ really were a part of the Festival. Afterward Sister Post confessed, “Quite a few times my character was a little bit heart broken because people didn’t want to speak to me. In fact they ran in the opposite direction!” Another Red Hot Arts worker said, “It was so awkward to see people walk by and do a double take. It was awesome!”
In spite of this, the uncomfortable feeling that some had was really just a by-product of the family’s performance. The fact that the audience found it difficult to process and sometimes accept, though, meant the characters were conveyed authentically and were exceptionally realistic.
The Post Family could also tell by people’s body language if they didn’t want to participate and respected that silent ‘no’. Well, for the most part!
Eleven Greenstones, the creator behind the Post Family entourage, said, “When it all really comes together, especially in street theatre, is when you’re actually performing it out on the street because that’s when you’re engaging in this environment that you’re in. When you’re face to face with people – who are kinda creeped out because you don’t talk and you look at them a little bit funny and you might have a bit of a tick.”
The ‘Happenings’ embodies the theme of the festival, creativity and community, perfectly. Often spectators don’t even know that this is an arts event and then unintentionally they end up participating. They might have been in the middle of a theatre piece for several minutes before they even realize! Besides, it’s a little bit different each time because it’s about who’s there and the weather, as well as the concept.
Last year strangers were hugged and people pirouetted down the mall singing the ‘desert is alive with the sound of’ … you know the rest. And last Thursday we had two gunslingers dueling with broken hearts under the title The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. Who knows what the next one will be?! Not me! Expect the unexpected, I’ve heard.
But I’d recommend checking out the Alice Desert Festival website for the dates of the next ‘Happening,’ as it’s totally worth being taken on an unknown journey, seeing what alien planet you land on and if you’ll ever return before finishing your coffee and heading back to the office.
Pictured are The Post Family trying to figure out Todd Mall. Photo by OLIVER ECLIPSE.
Fire fighting: red tape comes first
Police arrest alleged firebugs
Police say a 32-year-old man will face court after allegedly deliberately lighting fires at the base of Anzac Hill overnight.
The man was arrested after a member of the public alerted police to his actions just after 6pm on Wednesday. He allegedly lit several fires near Schwarz Crescent and the Alice Springs Youth Hub which required two fire units to extinguish.
The man was arrested a short time later and he has been charged with setting fire to land or property and causing a bushfire. The latter charge attracts a maximum penalty of 15 years jail under the Criminal Code.
A 32-year-old man is in custody today (Thursday) after police caught him allegedly lighting fires in the Todd River overnight.
As tired fire fighters are looking for some respite after battling major blazes, it is suspected that several small fires around Alice Springs have been deliberatly lit.
Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service and Bushfires NT say they are working very closely with NT Police to detect and investigate illegal fires “and any individual caught lighting fires under these circumstances will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law”.
They say fines for illegally lighting a fire in contravention of the Fire and Emergency Act have recently been upgraded and as of 1 July 2011, the maximum penalty for illegally lighting a fire is $13,700 or two years imprisonment.
Veteran designers triumph
By KIERAN FINNANE
Mother, father and three daughters came together to win the Fantasia category and were chosen for acquisition at the annual Wearable Arts Awards on Saturday. Mother is Colleen Byrnes, a veteran of the awards and multiple prize-winner over the years. Husband Tony joined her as creator and together they fashioned from metal pieces, test tubes, wires and crystals exquisitely detailed bird-like forms to adorn Shae, Bec and Nikki in their Fluoro Swan Trilogy (pictured). The trio’s appearance on stage was greeted with gasps of awe and appreciation from the audience, the only time this happened en masse during this year’s presentation, no doubt helping to assure them of a win.
Colleen continued with avian inspiration to also win the Top Notch award, with an elaborate headpiece called Wings in Flight.
The judges for the adult show were Nicky Schonkala, a textile artist and past entrant; Lucy Stewart, an artist, arts worker and teacher; and Tim Rollason, director of the Araluen Arts Centre and Cultural Precinct.
A trio of designers – Liza Balmer, Julia Burke, Jo Boniface – won the New World Sustainability category (using 80% recycled man-made materials) with a sun-power generating Valentino-inspired gown, modeled by Sophie Wallace.
There was more shadowing of haute couture in the Master Class, in which past category winners were given identical core materials to design from. Carmel Ryan won this, with Philomena Hali highly commended, both of them also veterans of the awards.
Carmel’s creation was one of three entries by her. The cleverly titled Tie the Knot in the New World Sustainability category was a bridal gown, knotted and crocheted from butcher’s twine, industrial cord and wire from washing machines. And she also entered the Top Notch category with a very tall concoction of clown and joker masks. After 10 years of participation in the awards, Carmel has said this year will be her last: she’ll be sorely missed if she maintains her resolve.
Getting right away from haute couture, harking back instead to fertility rites in ancient cultures – Australian Aboriginal and others – Tamara Burlando won the Natural Fibre (no less than 80%) category with her Nomadic Goddess. The goddess’ padded buttocks and multiple pendulous breasts were the antithesis of the conventional sexiness that is favoured in the awards and it was stimulating to see a designer go there.
Winner in the Youth category, Mikaela Bennion, also did something different, creating a mini-drama about drug abuse, titled Down the Rabbit Hole. One performer was in the role of Alice, with obvious reference to our town; the other was the White Rabbit, representing the allure of drugs. Alice was fully costumed, while the Rabbit was only masked, cleverly drawing the distinction between the fullness and complexity of a person and the shallower dimension of an external influence.
Performance was also foregrounded in The Future is Fantastic, created by Alecia McNuff. The concept was simple, the realisation excellent: on the darkened stage tiny white lights flicked on and off, then began to dance, joined by another form created by tiny blue lights. Models Adam Harding and Marcus Harding moved well in a stop-start hip hop style, using elements of surprise, creating an exciting kinetic sculpture. This earned the entry the Nigel award from Araluen’s lighting and stage designer Greg Thomson for being “quirky, left of field, and definitely theatrical”.
Finally, People’s Choice from the Saturday evening performance went to a creation by two designers from Queensland, Marge Coogan and Laurel Clegg. Titled Paradise Lost / Ulysses is Dying, it took its inspiration from the Ulysses butterfly. A hooded cloak in a full circle represented the winged creature, while its habitat, the northern rainforest, was evoked with richly coloured embroidered and appliqued detailing across the cloak. Performer Roman Macairan then stripped the cloak away, to reveal the warlike man beneath who “has left his footprint on paradise”.
Another performance high point of the evening was the beautifully conceived ballet, called Pandora’s Box, by the Duprada Ballet Company. The dance was integrated with the presentation of the Master Class – the Pandora’s Box of the title becoming the box of identical materials that the four entrants in this class were given to work with. The dancers cast a spell of youthful innocence and grace over this part of the presentation.
Numbers of entries in this year’s awards were noticeably down on previous years – 26 compared to last year’s 40 or so – and while there were undoubtedly beautiful and interesting entries, the high-level ‘wow factor’ of some past awards nights was missing. This went too for the projected backdrops, which really took off a few years ago, with individualised treatment of each creation, evoking its sources of inspiration and giving the audience a close-up view of its details and textures. The live close-ups were still there but the imaginative, at times sumptuous interpretive visuals were not. For past shows this had obviously required a great deal of intensive work, but it boosted enormously the quality of the presentation and was missed in Saturday’s presentation. Meanwhile, the text-based projections introducing each section looked rather dull and bureaucratic.
In regard to these points it would seem some work needs to be done by the Alice Desert Festival to maintain the awards’ quality and dynamism. Let’s hope that the creation of the Brian Tucker Gallery of Wearable Art in the west wing of the foyer at Araluen – a great way to honour the spectacular success over the past decade of this homegrown event – does not signal that the best days of the awards are behind us.
Slideshow photos in order of appearance: Fluoro Swan Trilogy by Colleen and Tony Byrnes (two shots); Wings in Flight by Colleen Byrnes; Aurora Solaris by Liza Balmer, Julia Burke and Jo Boniface; Lady (ooh) Lala by Carmel Ryan; From Rags to Glad Rags by Philomena Hali; Tie the Knot by Carmel Ryan; Nomadic Goddess by Tamara Burlando; Down the Rabbit Hole (Alice) by Mikael Bennion; The Future is Fantastic by Alecia Mc Nuff; Paradise Lost / Ulysses is Dying by Marge Coogan and Laurel Clegg; ensemble shot, showing Duprada Ballet Company dancers and Master Class entries. PHOTOS by KIERAN FINNANE.
The day our Old Timers move to centre stage
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKDIQ29Y4m0[/youtube]
If you’re serious about spending the rest of your days in The Alice, chances are someone will pop the question: Got your booking in at the Old Timers?
And chances are it won’t be at all an unfamiliar place: each year thousands of locals spend the second Saturday in August there, buying jams and books, dolls and clothing, getting their face painted, riding a hurdy gurdy, entertaining the crowd with a song or just having Devonshire Tea.
The fete is run entirely by volunteers, as Old Timers village manager Mary Miles explains in the film clip.
The interstate network of Frontier Services of the Uniting Church also kicks in: parishes in NSW, Victoria and South Australia send boxes of goodies – knitted goods, children’s wear, coat hangers and knee rugs – seven trestle tables full.
Locals supply home made cakes, marmalades, and preserves. You can buy books by the box – $6 a small one or $10 a big one.
Anything new this year, the 44th fete? Nope. People like it the way it is – and was.
How many people go? Thousands. How much money is made? It was $64,000 last year. This year’s takings are still being counted.
While in some places aged care homes exist on the fringe, this one thrives in the very hearts of the people of Alice Springs.
Bushfires were expected yet authorities are still not ready
Photo above: Map of bushfires in Central Australia earlier this week. Bottom: Peter Latz, native grasses in the left of the photo; thick buffel on the other side of the fence.
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Massive rains last year boosting exceptional plant growth made it inevitable that 2011 would be a major year for bushfires – but authorities are still gearing up to cope with them.
The fire west of Alice Springs is still burning out of control, but no longer in the immediate vicinity of the town.
Matt Braitling, from Mt Doreen Station, the chairman of Bushfire NT’s regional council, says the fire fighting effort had to focus on protecting assets, including Aboriginal outstations at Bond Springs and the Golden Mile just west of the town, either side of Larapinta Drive leading to the West MacDonnell Ranges.
Despite early warning that the region is facing the worst fire season in 10 years, Bushfires NT, the government instrumentality charged with protecting the community from disaster, is still getting up to speed. Mr Braitling says staff are still being hired to get the complement up to about six.
The government has only just re-appointed people to the council, and it has not met recently.
The number of fire fighting vehicles in the southern region – half a million square kilometers of the Northern Territory south of Tennant Creek – should be increased from three to four, he says.
There should be more and better equipment for volunteers, about half a dozen people at the moment. More should be encouraged to join.
There is only one grader in the whole region for cutting fire breaks and “burning back” – the major strategy for fighting wildfires.
But that grader, says Mr Braitling, is old and urgently needs to be replaced: “We’ve asked for it to be replaced but we’re still battling government bureaucracy, I suppose.”
He says it’s difficult to hire privately owned graders “to put out in the middle of the scrub.
“A lot of people really don’t want to put their $250,000 or $300,000 machine out there.
“The problem we have, who is going to pay for the vehicle, if it is burned, to be fixed or replaced.
“That’s an issue that’s been with us forever.”
Volunteers and Bushfires NT staff fought hard and bravely in the past weeks, but at times the “vollies” could do with more understanding from their employers, when they turn up for work tired or late after a night of fighting fires.
Mr Braitling says most fires are deliberately or carelessly lit, at the roadside, by travelers.
There has not yet been any lightning – a frequent cause of fires later in the season.
Mr Braitling says the satellite based North Australian Fire Information website is a “godsend” and has been providing valuable real-time fire information since about 2000.
Meanwhile according to one of Central Australia’s most eminent wildfire experts, botanist Peter Latz, the massive blaze last week burning right up to the western edge of Alice Springs is no surprise but came a bit earlier than expected.
The author of Bush Fires & Bush Tucker and The Flaming Desert says the fire will probably protect the town from a much worse one later in the year.
Dr Latz says the ferocity of the fire was caused mostly by buffel grass, introduced as a dust suppressant by the CSIRO decades ago, and now covering much of Central Australia.
While trees mostly survive the “cooler” flames of native grass, many were destroyed, including trees in the West MacDonnell national park: “Where there is thick buffel under the mulgas they are dead.”
He says the last big fires were only a decade ago and mulgas need 25 years to regenerate.
Dr Latz says control burns had been carried out in the park: “I don’t know what went wrong there,” he says.
“What worries me more, we’re going to end up with very few hollow trees.
“The first trees that burn down are trees with hollows in them, where birds nest and possums hide out.
“This means we’ll have fewer bats and then we’ll have a lot more insects and that will upset the whole system.”
Had mosaic burning been done west of Alice Springs?
“Not as much as could have been done had the government made more money and staff available, but I can’t point the finger at anyone.
“”There’s no blacks and whites in what we’re talking about, I’m afraid.
“You can always do more, but unless you burn every square centimeter of Central Australia you are going to have fires.
“There is no way you can guarantee that you have enough fire breaks in a year like this. They don’t work in a year like this,” says Dr Latz.
“In 2001 the Stuart Highway had been mowed on both sides, 150 metres wide, but the wild fire jumped in two or three places.
“This week’s fire started on the northern side of the range in hill country where it is uncontrollable.”
Dr Latz says the spread of buffel is now well beyond conventional control: “It’s like trying to hold back the tide. Buffel should never have been introduced in the first place.”
When it was no-one thought it was a problem: “The same as with rabbits.”
When he warned of the dangers of buffel “they laughed at me and said buffel is a very important grass for the pastoral industry and if we tried to do anything now we’d be persecuted.”
Biological control is now the only answer but pastoralists “are very much against it,” says Dr Latz.
District Officer of the NT Fire and Rescue Service, Dave Pettit said on Friday the blaze west of Alice had been brought under control through extensive back-burning and clearing of fire breaks.
“The success can be attributed to the combined efforts of Bushfires NT, NT Fire and rescue, volunteer firefighters, NT Emergency Services volunteers and Parks and Wildlife staff who worked tirelessly for the past couple of days,” he said.
Over 650 square kilometres of country has been lost. The larger of the two fires originated on the Tanami Highway on August 8. This fire was contained on its eastern flank on August 9 by back burning a 10 km break along the rail corridor.
The southern flank was contained in the early hours of Thursday morning by back burning along a five km fire break bulldozed through the rough and hilly terrain behind the Larapinta Drive subdivisions.
Crews are still working to widen this break, said Mr Pettit.
The fire to the west of Alice Springs that originated on August 9 in the Golden Mile area was contained on the eastern flank within the Simpson Gap National Park on Wednesday.
At the peak of the fires, 57 personnel from the NT Emergency Services, local council and contractors were working to gain control of the fires. Over the course of the events, about 900 man hours were committed toward fire fighting and support roles, Mr Pettit said.
Stepping over the edge
By ESTELLE ROBERTS
How to start? How to end? And what’s in the middle? A jelly belly paunch, a rippling washboard or taut curves?
I used to be a beekeeper. Keeping bees was an interesting one amongst the many incarnations I’ve had in the employment world. I’ve been a wine-maker’s sidekick or ‘lab technician’ as my CV states. I’ve cooked, cleaned, gardened, painted and bar wenched at a truck stop. Looked after baby birds in Ireland and fingered beautiful coats, hats ‘n’ scarves in smoky cloakrooms in Paris. And of course I’ve made countless coffees and waited thousands of tables.
I have had so many jobs that catching up on my tax has been a right mission. I had to ring one boss up as I didn’t recognise their trading name but there was a time I used to work in an ad house sticking glossy advertisements to their Styrofoam backings.
So they say Alice Springs is a land of employment opportunity for the inexperienced and gung ho fast talker. And so many thanks and hats off to Mozzie Bites for lending me your boots – they’ve been roomy and sometimes a little blistery but I’ve enjoyed wearing them thoroughly.
I’ve shared lots of stuff, some of my favourite stuff including my newfound affection for stuff, roadhouses, the ocean, birds, trucks, food in its different contexts, circles and you know… the weather. It’s been a curious experience writing in a small town somewhat anonymously but maybe not really. I wonder sometimes who the readers are of this word smithing enterprise (and thank you, Mum, for your proud comments).
Every week I endeavoured to find something interesting to write about, appreciating having this lens through which to view my little existence. I’ve looked at Alice Springs with an alert inquiry that I’ve enjoyed putting into words in this peculiar stream of consciousness manner. So many half stories half jotted down on café docket books.
I had been talking to a friend before this writing post came up about how I wished I could be more disciplined (in more aspects than one) and write. I’ve had many beautifully bound, gorgeous blank paper notebooks follow me around reproachfully, but I was always so reluctant to mess up their lovely white pages with my scrawl. I like to write in exercise books with blue lines and scrawl away as I have been. Time travel and other nonsense fills the dotted line marked for School Subject. And Estelle Roberts fills the dotted line marked Student’s Name.
Sometimes writing took me places I wasn’t looking for, like an unsolicited memory or far flung places reached only with imagination and maybe a little luck on the road to the future. At times I loved having the time to reorder my thoughts or play with a word that I wanted to pair with just the right other word. But I have also secretly relished the pure panic driven momentum that precedes deadline, choosing a photo, screaming at the computer to hurry up and read the camera! Rounding up the edges to form firmly around a topic.
One of the things I realised was that I like to write in circles. The other day though I read a really nice piece that was a bit cyclic but also tailed off openly towards the end. I would love to experiment with more writing. For example to just end something as though it’s just stepped off the edge of a cliff. No fall, no landing, no diving into water. Just that step over the edge.
Work starts on new Flying Doctor tourist centre
A $3m contract to redevelop the Royal Flying Doctor tourist centre in Alice Springs has been awarded to Probuild NT Pty Ltd.
The project includes a 70 seat theatre, interactive information portals, increased retail space and a full scale replica of the fuselage of an operational Pilatus PC 12 Aircraft.
Construction will start mid August and is expected to be completed by mid February 2012.
The lighter side of law-making
If you think politics is dull and PC, here’s proof that in the Territory it’s not.
The live cattle export industry has a lower mortality rate on its ships than P&O cruises, says Shadow Business Minister, David Tollner.
Calling on the Chief Minister to push for a fighting fund promoting the industry “down south”, he says the live export and the pastoral industries “should be a source of national pride.
“Unfortunately, as a result of gutless Labor governments in Canberra and Darwin and manipulative animal welfare activists, the industry in northern Australia is on its knees.”
Mr Tollner says: “Cattle ships are sophisticated feed lots which keep animals healthy en-route to overseas markets, there are nutritionists on the ground in Indonesia and the industry supports the livelihoods of thousands of Australian businesses and families.
“Southern Australians need to understand the strengths of the industry to protect it from animal rights extremists.”
• Shadow Minister for Transport Adam Giles (pictured) yesterday re-stated the Country Liberals commitment to open speed limits.
He says they were removed in 2007 by the current Labor Government after undertaking a road safety review.
“That review found that tourists, young drivers and Indigenous Territorians were over represented in the Territory’s road toll.
“The review also identified drink driving and not wearing seat belts as the two main contributing factors.
“Speed was never isolated as the sole cause of the majority of accidents.
“Official road toll figures in 2006 were 44. Following the removal of open speed limits the toll increased to 57 and then 75.
“Last year it was 50, higher still than when speed limits were removed.”
• Shadow Treasurer John Elferink says under Labor, the Territory’s net debt has blown out to $6.7billion, including liabilities. A dollar coin weighs 9 grams, is 25mm in diameter and 3mm thick. There are 111 dollar coins in a kilo, 111,111 in a tonne.
He says the Territory’s debt takes on mind-boggling proportions when considering:
– It would take $2.2million to fill a 20 tonne road train trailer and $6.7million to fill a three trailer road train.
– It would take 1000 road trains – extending about 50km – to haul the Territory’s debt plus liabilities.
– A $1 coin covers an area of about 500mm square and it would take $2million to fill 1km square.
– Darwin’s area is 112km square. Placing all our dollar coins within Darwin’s footprint would make a stack 90cm high.
– Stacked on the Parliament House footprint, which is 12,900 metres square, the Territory’s debt with liabilities would make a stack 7.8km high.
– Joined end to end, the $6.8billion debt with liabilities in dollar coins would stretch 167,500km – over four times around the world.
– Under Labor, the Territory has accumulated a mountain of debt – approximately $29,000 for every man woman and child and $56,000 per taxpayer.
Says Mr Elferink: “The Labor Government is addicted to spending – and Territory taxpayers are paying.”
Hampton mum on Kilgariff suburb
ABOVE: The $10m headworks for the Kilgariff suburb well under way but no word yet on the development deal.
By ERWIN CHLANDA
The NT Government is spending $10m on headworks for the new suburb of Kilgariff, but still hasn’t made up its mind – or won’t tell – how the 1200 block project will be developed.
The usual process for opening up public land for private housing is for the government to call tenders. The winner then puts in the internal services – roads, water, power, sewage, and so on, in accordance with government specifications.
For this development the best guess cost per block is $60,000.
The developer then gets to sell the blocks for whatever he likes – the going rate till recently has been $300,000.
A nice little earner, but no great help for what has been, at least till now, a drastic land shortage and skyrocketing prices.
Robyn Lambley, when successfully campaigning for the seat of Araluen last September, was asked in an interview with the Alice Springs News whether the Kilgariff land should be sold for the development cost.
Ms Lambley said: “That could be an option. Perhaps somewhere in the middle, between market value and the cost of development, is a good place to negotiate.”
The News asked: If it’s somewhere in the middle, who would get the profit which would still be around $100,000 a block?
Ms Lambley said: “It would go into the government coffers. You could argue that the profit could be used for interest free loans to people breaking into the first home owners’ market. That would be a neat little package, really.”
No matter how vital this debate is for the community, it’s not an issue that Karl Hampton, the Minister for Central Australia, will engage in.
The News has been seeking an interview with Mr Hampton since May – no luck.
We caught up with him at the Alice Festival launch last week …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtqL-sPvCak[/youtube]
… and with that Mr Hampton, the only Labor MLA and Minister in Central Australia, blended into the crowd.
Anderson blames ganja for youth suicides
ABOVE: MLA Alison Anderson at a rally this year outside Parliament during its sittings in Alice Springs. By her side is Councillor Mildred Inkamala (pink shirt) of the MacDonnell Shire Council.
By KIERAN FINNANE
With the funeral of a nephew who took his own life fresh in her mind, MLA Alison Anderson in last night’s Legislative Assembly debates asked for a breakdown of statistics on suicide in the Northern Territory. She wants to see what the picture is in urban, rural and remote settings, suspecting that, from her experience, young people in remote communities are more vulnerable.
The nephew buried last week in Mutitjulu was the second in Ms Anderson’s family to suicide this winter. The second young man took his life in a suburban street of Alice Springs. He was buried in Hermannsburg on the same day as his father, who Ms Anderson says died from alcoholism.
She tells the Alice Springs News of two other young men who have recently suicided: one, only 14 years old, within the last week, another also this winter, both in remote western desert communities.
She blames ganja (marijuana), alcohol and hopelessness. Under their sway “young people are not afraid to pick up a rope and go and hang themselves”. She says there is no case “to sensationalise” but there is a case to “start talking”. To do that it’s necessary to have “a picture of what’s happening so we can start helping”.
“All we have to offer is CDEP and welfare – we’ve got to give more.
“As parents, grandmothers, and aunties we marched with bodypaint to stop our kids from petrol sniffing. I don’t see this happening now as our kids destroy themselves with ganja.”
She pursued the issue of ganja in the Assembly: “Regarding the effects of mental illness with ganja amongst our kids, I would really like the Minister for Health to give me statistics of how many Aboriginal kids actually come into Cowdy Ward and Ward One in Alice Springs with mental illness, paranoia and all the symptoms of psychosis. How many of these cases are related to ganja? I believe we have to take these matters very seriously.”
Other factors contributing to the stresses on young people’s lives can include traumatic family disputes, says Ms Anderson. She made her remarks on suicide in the context of speaking to the Assembly about the long-running inter-family feud in Yuendumu.
She said: “It is really sad that these communities continuously go through this process of sadness and ugliness through all these disputes and, I believe, it is part of all of us to get together and start talking to these people about the harm that they bring onto themselves, their children, the whole region and the whole community, because it disrupts a child’s life at school, it disrupts a child’s life at home, because kids are just put inside cars and they go to the nearest community or they flee to places like Adelaide.
“Yes, people have a choice, they can move around. However, one day that person has to come back and if anyone is a good hater, let me tell you, Aboriginal people are good haters. They will wait for you. It does not matter how long it takes. You might go to Adelaide and live there for 10 or 20 years but you are going to come back. You might have a grandfather, a mother, a father, auntie or uncle that still resides at that community. That dispute will flare up again.
“This is the long-term education strategy we have to have in our regional towns and our communities. We have the perfect opportunity now with the shires being rolled out to the community because you can link that to the municipal services of towns like Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Katherine. One rule applies across the whole region.”
Lifeline – 13 11 14
Beyond Blue – www.beyondblue.org.au
Reach Out – www.reachout.com.au
Threatening sign at Nyirripi unauthorised and removed
An aggressively worded sign about dog control, posted by a Central Desert Shire officer at the store in the western desert settlement of Nyirripi, has been removed. The sign included a threat that dogs hidden from the visiting vet would be shot.
Nyirripi has a population of some 320 and is roughly 440 km north-west of Alice Springs, or 150 kms west-southwest of Yuendumu.
CEO of Central Desert Shire, Roydon Roberston, said he became aware of the notice yesterday (Sunday) and “ordered that it be removed”.
He said the notice was placed by the shire officer “in conjunction with senior community members”.
“No authority was given or would have been given by Executive Management as the sign is not in keeping with Council Policy. Further discussions will be held with the staff member involved,” said Mr Robertson.
A vet is in the community today – as advised by the sign – and is expected to attend to 15 dogs today and a total of 30 before leaving tomorrow.
The shire’s Dog Management Policy, adopted in October 2008, stipulates a maximum of two dogs per household.
Mr Robertson says compliance with the policy has been “mixed” across the shire, while reported dog problems have “escalated” at Nyirrpi, becoming “worse than other communities”.
He says the shire council has received numerous complaints from government agencies and council staff concerning dogs, including packs of roaming dogs.
He says the Local Board at Nyirrpi, has been very keen for the vet to again visit. (Local Boards are appointed to advise council on local issues and aspirations.)
Amnesty's Utopia report full of omissions and misrepresentations
Photo above: Jeffrey Pepperill Kemarr and family at Camel Camp on the Utopia homelands, about 30 kms from Arlparra. Source: Amnesty International, Lucas Jordan. Below: Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, with daughter Ngarla and granddaughter Ruby, in 2006. From the Alice News archive.
By KIERAN FINNANE
Human rights organisation Amnesty International has released what it calls a research report, focussed on the changes in government policy, particularly since the NT Intervention, that have affected the Utopia homelands. These are 16 small Aboriginal settlements dispersed across 3500 square kilometres either side of the mostly dry Sandover River, to the north-weast of Alice Springs.
The central thrust of the report, titled The Lands Hold Us, is that government policy with respect to housing is denying the people of the homelands – around 1400 of them in the Utopia area – the right to their traditional lands. In the report this argument has two arms: one, that through leasing government is actually taking away land; and two, that through inadequate funding of new and refurbished housing government is taking away the possibility of people to live on the land.
Nowhere in the report is there an acknowledgement that leasing only applies to a tiny fraction of Aboriginal lands, that is the land on which government is building and/or maintaining infrastructure. The fraction, in relation to the combined prescribed communities under the Intervention, was said to be 0.1% by architect of the Intervention, then Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough. The Alice Springs News is not aware of a factual challenge to this figure, but as the leases only apply to townships or specific land portions within townships, whatever the figure, it is certainly tiny in proportion to the mass of Aboriginal-owned land.
Nowhere in the report is there an acknowledgement that leasing does not change underlying title; the land remains Aborginal-owned, even if control over a tiny portion of it has been ceded for the duration of the leases to governments, as it is anywhere when governments invest public funds in the provision of infrastructure and services.
On the contrary, sweeping statements about Aboriginal land being taken away from traditional owners are reported without qualification by Amnesty’s so-called team of professional researchers. Interestingly, they are not named and their qualifications for the research task are not stated. Photographers are given individual credit but authors not, apart from Rosalie-Kunoth Monks as author of the Foreword.
As an activist Mrs Monks is entitled to rhetoric in her Foreword, and her depth of feeling and commitment to her people are not under question. However, when the report’s anonymous authors in the body of the report quote her and others on their perceived loss of control over their land without any attempt at balance, explanation or qualification they do mischief.
Mrs Kunoth-Monks is quoted as saying: “Break any one of those arms [language, family, law, lore] and sever it from the land, you are committing the death of a race of people. It is so vitally important for our identity and the continuation of that, one of the oldest races in the world, that government are mindful not to sever, not to kill.”
Further into the report a “group of Aboriginal elders” is quoted as saying in part: “Through harsh changes we have had removed from us all control over our communities and our lives. Our lands have been compulsorily taken from us. We have been left with nothing.”
And later an Arlparra resident is quoted as saying: “Aboriginal land. ‘Im [government] can’t take it away! You know we can’t go. It is Aboriginal land! That’s right. ‘Im can’t take ‘im away! We stay here. Arlparra; Aboriginal land.”
These memorable, emotional declarations are used in the report as either overarching or concluding statements to its various sections that want to be seen as factually and rationally argued. It may be good rhetorical strategy but it does not make for useful, sober analysis, which is what the report wants its readers to think it provides.
The report’s recommendations are so broad as to be meaningless. While elsewhere the report uses the term “available resources” (with the addition of the word “maximum”) and urges “budgetary prioritisation”, it does not consider any of its recommendations in relation to these factors. How much would it cost governments “fulfill”, as proposed in Recommendation 1, the rights of Aboriginal Peoples to their traditional lands? Is spreading around the resources available, as is implied by Recommendations 2 and 3, the answer? If not, how would priorities be established in relation to this?
One of governments’ answers to prioritising policy implementation and spending has been the Growth Town policy, identifying towns and some town camps for a concerted effort with housing and infrastructure improvements. If these improvements are brought about, by not only government action and expenditure but also by changes that Aboriginal people themselves can initiate, then benefits may arise for people choosing to live on homelands and outstations. One of the ways that this could happen is through regional transport networks, linking homelands to growth towns and regional centres where services are or will be located. The NT Government has committed to this and has made some progress. The Amnesty report does not give it the least consideration.
The absence of a Growth Town east of the Stuart Highway in Central Australia was recognised when the Working Future policy was announced. At that time the then NT Minister for Indigenous Policy, Alison Anderson, said that Arlparra would be funded to support the Utopia homelands. She also said that outstations that had effectively become small communities would be taken out of the outstation funding environment (which no longer provided for any new housing to be built). The Amnesty report misses the opportunity to scrutinise government action or inaction on this front by its outright rejection of the Growth Town hub and spoke model. It calls instead, in Recommendation 4, for the Commonwealth to ensure that all housing on homelands meets the standards for adequate housing under international law, without any consideration of budget implications, in particular in relation to one of the factors it identifies as defining “adequate housing”: “Adequate housing must be in a location that allows access to employment options, health‐care services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities.”
The report does present some evidence of the benefits for people of living on the Utopia homelands. For instance, it refers to medical research pointing to their relative good health, such as their impressive 40% lower adult mortality rates compared to other Aboriginal peoples in the NT. But when it comes to economic participation the case is fudged. The report says “some people on homelands remain dependent on welfare payments”. It does not attempt to quantify how many people on the dole. It says there are “opportunities for people to participate in the mainstream economy, while remaining on their homelands” and it names some: “Indigenous art, eco‐tourism, natural resource management or ‘caring for country’ programs”. Again, it does not attempt to quantify – how many people are involved in taking up these opportunities? Then it produces this extraordinary statement: “Homelands also form a central component of the Northern Territory tourism industry, contributing $775.78 million per year, some 5.8 per cent, to the Northern Territory economy”.
To be fair, this is a direct quote from a research paper published by the ANU’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, headed up by frequent commentator on Aboriginal affairs, Jon Altman.
The paper in turn sources its information to the Tourism NT website. Just in case readers are confused by the construction of the sentence, the dollar figure quoted has to be for the entire Territory-wide tourism industry. The Alice Springs News has not been able to find this figure on the Tourism NT site but there are figures of this order describing the size of the whole industry.
Neither have we been able to find a dollar figure to match the contribution of people on homelands, nor a description of homelands as central to the industry. Research on Indigenous Cultural Tourism that is on the site, using figures relevant to the period from 2006-07 to 2008-09, shows international “cultural visitors” as rating highly visiting an Aboriginal site or community – 27% favour doing this. “Cultural visitors” make up 72% of all international visitors to the NT. However, roughly twice as many visitors to the NT are domestic, and of them only 13.2% are “cultural visitors” and in turn only 6.8% of that group are reported as favouring a visit to an Aboriginal site or community. This data helps put into perspective the claim for homelands as being “central”. Who could quarrel with it as an aspiration but achieving it will not be helped by a lack of realism about the current situation. For example, tourists are not allowed to go to most homelands without a permit.
The report’s discussion of NT Intervention is focussed on the Intervention’s alleged removal of Aboriginal peoples’ rights. Like many Intervention critics before them, the authors’ approach to rights is broad-brush. There is no consideration given to those aspects of the Intervention that have attempted to protect the rights of the vulnerable, such as children. The report’s emphasis on the overriding importance of consultation and consent – Recommendation 5 – pays no heed to the potential voicelessness of children, and possibly others, in such scenarios.
On the question of having a voice, the report is critical of the NT local government reform that scrapped small Aboriginal community councils, replacing them with shires (“mega-shires” in the language of the report). Once again, the report fudges on this issue. It gives no account of the local boards that feed local issues through to councillors, and thus loses the opportunity to look at instances of their effectiveness or lack thereof. It deplores a loss of representation in the Utopia homelands, but does not acknowledge that their number one advocate, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, is the president of the Barkly Shire. It is critical of the way the shires have brought together “a wide variety of regional and disparate interests from pastoral, mining, Indigenous and non‐Indigenous town‐based and remote representatives on shire boards”, without even being prepared to consider the way that this might present opportunities for the peoples of the homelands. The report also does not acknowledge that Aboriginal people have a majority on the Barkly Shire Council, a majority that is in proportion to the 70% Aboriginal demographic . Would acknowledging this be unstrategic, detracting from the victim status assigned to Aboriginal peoples in their arguments?
The report’s final recommendation, number 6, is that governments take into account the previous five when it comes to renegotiating the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding on Indigenous Housing, Accommodation and Related Services, which will expire next year, together with the SIHIP. The “renegotiation” will presumably happen in the wake of the current “Stronger Futures” consultations being conducted by the Commonwealth. The amorphousness of Amnesty’s ambit claim on the issues is hardly helpful. There may well be achievable steps that could be taken to support the development of a viable future for the peoples of the Utopia homelands but they are hard to discover in Amnesty International’s report.
Alice Springs Festival: let the fun begin
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfKF7ejdHc[/youtube]
Mayor Damien Ryan and Minister for Central Australia Karl Hampton, with two young helpers, took the launch of the Alice Springs Festival literally, with a flotilla of paper boats in the Chifley Resort pool. A zany poolside performance by the Dusty Feet Dance Collective provided light relief after the obligatory speeches.
Our film clip also has chair of Red Hot Arts, Kalikamurti Suich, and festival and events manager Scott Large, explain why they are heart and soul immersed in the annual spectacle.
The first event is as soon as next weekend – the hugely popular Wearable Art Awards, where the arts of bodily adornment are taken in ever more unexpected directions.
The festival proper kicks off on September 9 with the sunset street parade leading into a weekend of music, performance, workshops, a children’s carnival, all at the POD Space at Anzac Oval.
Imported drawcard for the Friday night is urban roots act Blue King Brown, fronted by Natalie Pa’apa’a, supported by local bands Dr Strangeways and Tjupi Band.
The Bush Bands Bash takes to the stage on the Saturday night, while Desert Divas – women vocalists from around the region – will perform at lunchtime.
The Darwin Symphony Orchestra are the Sunday night attraction, combining with singers Warren H Williams, Catherine Satour and Jacinta Price for an event called Big Sky Country. The orchestra will also perform at the Desert Park on the Tuesday (Sept 13), with NT Administrator Tom Pauling reciting Shakespearian sonnets to a composition by Cathy Applegate.
A play about the extraordinary Olive Pink, called The First Garden, will have its premiere the following weekend. The play has been written by Chris and Natasha Raja and will be presented at Olive Pink Botanic Garden.
Desert Mob at Araluen is the premier visual arts event of the festival, but there will also be some interesting shows around town: Souvenir, a reinterpretation of the “red centre” at Watch This Space; work from the dynamic Tjungu Palya Art Centre at RAFT Artspace; a first solo show for Kay Rubuntja Naparrula at Muk Muk; and an intriguing artists “lock in” at the empty shopfront next to Monte’s.
Bushfires a massive threat as warmer season looms
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Lots of fires are burning in Central Australia but the danger will get much worse when the hot season starts, says the Bushfires NT’s Grant Allan.
The fires are about on par with the last season of high rainfall, in 2001/02. Again the summer will be volatile and land holders are encouraged to take immediate action to prepare, including undertaking management burns when conditions are appropriate and low temperatures still allow them to be done safely.
Mr Allan says these prescribed burns will prevent fires getting out of control as happened 10 years ago.
People in the bush should act now to protect their communities, homesteads, bores and fence lines, by grading fire breaks, reducing fuel loads and patch-burning.
It seems all the fires on the map have been deliberately lit – there has been no lightning about – but it is not clear which of them are controlled burns and which got out of hand.
Mr Allan says the Central Land Council, the NT Parks Service and some pastoralists have carried out extensive controlled burns during the past three months.
Before the declaration of the summer fire season, for the area beyond the 50 kilometre radius of the Alice Springs fire protection zone, permits to burn are not required.
The summer fire season is usually declared during October but given the massive fuel load, it may be started as early as September 1.
Mr Allan says the warmer weather in the past few days has led to bigger and longer burning fires, whereas in the recent cold weather they usually went out overnight.
There are far fewer fires in the areas in Queensland and Western Australian either side of the Territory (the mauve lines on the map running north-south are the borders).
Colour code for today’s fire map, showing about a million square kilometres: Blue – fires in the past 7 days; red – 6 to 12 hours ago. Green and grey areas are “fire scars” from blazes earlier this year. The arrows show the wind speed and the percentages denote relative humidity. The readings are taken at TiTree, Kintore, Uluru, Alice Springs, Jervois, Rabbit Flat and Lajamanu. Map courtesy Bushfires NT. Up to date map here.
Public meeting delivers report card on the Intervention and suggestions on where to go from here
ABOVE: Youth worker George Peckham on the microphone at Tuesday night’s public meeting. AT RIGHT: MacDonnell Shire workers at Apatula (Finke). Photo source: MacDonnell Shire, 2010. BELOW: From our archive: Young local women staffing the Centrelink office at the Tjuwanpa Resource Centre near Hermannsburg (Ntaria) in 2007.
By KIERAN FINNANE
“I’ve got 55 positions across MacDonnell Shire – I can’t fill all of them because I have to compete with Centrelink.”
It was one of the starker statements of the two and half hour public meeting held in Alice on Tuesday evening, about the second phase of the Federal Intervention.
The speaker was Tracey McNee, coordinator of Community Safety at the shire, making a point about the disincentive to work created by ease of access to the dole. She “took her hat off” to shire residents who had taken the work, but commented on the remaining vacancies: “[People] don’t necessarily have the same pressure and pushes to apply for those jobs.”
The jobs are with night patrol services: “No-one is saying night patrol is an easy job, but it is a job,” said Ms McNee.
Centrelink is potentially “a large part of the solution,” responded veteran community development worker Bob Durnan, suggesting that the organisation has the motivation and capacity as well as permanent staff in communities to help people into jobs (presumably with some forcefulness, if necessary). He said while government has poured a huge amount of money into job networks, they are not based in communities and don’t have local knowledge. Centrelink is in a good position to take over job network functions, he said.
Brendan Heenan, an alderman and owner of MacDonnell Range Caravan Park, spoke of his experience of taking pre-release prisoners for work experience at the park and then offering them a job upon their release. He said they work for two to three weeks but then, under the pressure of family and alcohol, they don’t turn up for work. He saw mentoring as a possible remedy.
Well-resourced mentoring was also proposed by businesswoman Jenny Mostran, who said the incentives available to private enterprise for the employment of Aboriginal people are “miniscule” and do not take into account the amount of time a qualified person must spend to properly train a new recruit.
Mentoring got a tick from Barbara Shaw, town camp resident and lead activist of the Intervention Rollback Action Group (IRAG); she thought Indigenous Business Australia should be called upon to do the job.
Jimmy Cocking, of the Arid Lands Environment Centre, pointed to the opportunities likely to flow from a changing economy with a greater emphasis on land management and clean energy development. He suggested that people be helped to identify the opportunities and to set up enterprises.
Kay Eade of the Chamber of Commerce said that it is very hard to set up enterprises in communities because of a lack of accommodation. Without attention paid to this, she said, the NT’s growth towns will continue to be Aboriginal communities with government services but no other employment, and won’t be like any other town in Australia (contrary to the government’s intention).
The jobs discussion attracted the most targeted comments, although there were some broad claims from IRAG: Aboriginal people “are still stuck on the unemployment line”; “The shires have employed a lot of whitefellers, there’s not a lot of work on the ground”; “There’s no proper employment for Aboriginal people.”
This last came from Ms Shaw whose comments about her own situation suggest what she means. She said she is “in and out” of employment but wants to find a “proper job”: it would need to suit her and her children with respect to school hours and she would want to be “happy with the job for the rest of my life”. (Wouldn’t we all?)
Education, particularly school attendance, drew the fiercest exchange.
A woman, who described herself as a clinical psychologist having worked extensively in remote schools, said one reason that kids stay away is that school is “threatening and unsafe” for them. She said the programs are “not appropriate” and the “wrong kind of teachers” are being recruited.
Bess Price, Warlpiri woman and current chair of the NT Indigenous Affairs Advisory Council, told the woman she was “embarrassed” by her comments. She said kids probably should be “kicked up their arses” to get them to school, their parents too. We must “stop making excuses”, said Mrs Price, and “with one voice make sure we all try to help our children out in remote communities, even the ones running around the streets here in Alice Springs, to get them educated, to get them into a normal situation, like you would have in your home with your children.”
The “no excuses” message did not dissuade a woman who works for the Red Cross from talking about the racism of teachers playing out in the classroom, even if it is “unconscious racism”, nor comments from an IRAG member about the “massive impact” that changes to bi-lingual education policy has had at Yuendumu amd Lajamanu, about CDEP changes having forced a lot of Aboriginal educators out of the schools, about the “disaster” of SIHIP and its failure to address massive over-crowding.
Mrs Price responded: “I lived in a humpy, I got up at eight o’clock every morning, my dad dragged me out of the humpy and took me to school. I showered and got to school every day, so there’s no excuse for anybody and I survived …
“I didn’t have bi-lingual education when I attended Yuedumu school, I learned to read and write my language after I did for English.”
And, according to Mrs Price, Yuendumu school is doing well – “there were 100 kids the other time I was out there” and the school has “a great principal”.
Member for Drysdale, Ross Bohlin (Country Liberals), who happened to be in town, was very taken by Mrs Price’s statements: “M’am, you are an inspiration!” He suggested that hands-on and pictorial learning can be overlooked. He said he was not “academic”, had trained as a mechanic and later became a policeman. Academic education “is not always the answer”.
Robert Hoosan, president of Old Timers town camp housing association, said he had not been to school; he got his education in the police force. He said he tries to push his kids to go to school.
A man wanted less emphasis on compulsion, though that was not to say it does not have a part in the overall strategy. He wanted to see more thinking about ways to “instill a love of learning”. A woman agreed, finding incentives /disincentives arguments a distraction: “Let’s keep the conversation around education.”
Reducing the harm caused by alcohol was the third priority area of discussion proposed to the meeting by its chair, Mark Coffey, former senior police officer, now heading up the Alice Springs Transformation Plan. He asked Mr Hoosan, who had said he hates grog, what he thought.
Mr Hoosan might hate it, but he didn’t seem to want to be told what to do about it: “You tell us how to live, you’re controlling our lives.” And he said when he calls the police at night, “they don’t rock up”. He said that at Old Timers camp he’s “in a canoe”, and perhaps he needs to get “on the ship with you” (Mr Coffey, or perhaps whitefellas in general).
Barbara Shaw advocates local alcohol management plans, as are underway in three town camps, including Mount Nancy where she lives.
Tracey McNee pointed to the misconception that the Intervention was responsible for grog bans in remote communities. There were no “wet canteens” (bush-style licensed premises) in communities in Central Australia before the Intervention. Communities had already spoken on the grog issues and declared themselves “dry” (grog-free). She was concerned about undermining that with the negotiation of local alcohol management plans.
A woman criticised the Intervention’s “punitive” approach, and wanted community “empowerment”, for instance by more money to support Aboriginal-run, community-based programs.
Mark Lockyer, town camp resident and independent activist known for his strong statements on the drinking culture in camps, said: “Children learn what they live.” He recalled seeing children, when five-litre casks of wine were available, filling the bladders up and drinking them. He said restrictions had made a difference in the camp, he’d seen a drop in drinking, more people were sobering up.
Bess Price wanted to see “more guts” in the NT Government’s alcohol policy.
Betty Pearce, a prominent senior Aboriginal woman, said the government would be too “afraid to do anything drastic” on grog issues, because it would affect whitefellas’ economic interests.
She criticised the failure of the Intervention to provide rehabilitation and counselling services in communities, and fired a broadside at land councils (presumably relevant to the Intervention generally, rather than to grog measures in particular): “While land councils are in control, you’ll never get anything done.”
Phil Walcott, psychologist and early independent candidate for Greatorex in the next NT election, spoke about giving back to individuals the “responsibility for their choices”.
Jane Lloyd, who has long worked in the area of family violence, particularly in remote communities, and is an advisor to the Australian Crime Commission’s National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence taskforce, responded that people exercising choices (to drink grog) can “inflict great harm on others who can’t choose”, including unborn children. She called for greater support in schools for children whose capacity to learn has been affected by the drinking of others.
The groundedness of this comment did not stop the next speaker from asserting that “identity is everything” and criticising the absence of “real respect for Aboriginal culture and heritage” in schools. Cultural values are the “essence of what helps people rehabilitate”.
The meeting went over time to deal with safety, particularly policing, health and housing. Views continued to oscillate between the practical and the aspirational, between critique and grumbles (Barbara Shaw objected to having different coloured tiles in her taxpayer-refurbished house).
As people began to leave the meeting, the discussion was increasingly dominated by IRAG, who at least have to be given points for persistence and organisation. They were present in number, filmed the proceedings and distributed a two-page document outlining an alternative to the Intervention.
They want a return to Aboriginal community government councils, to reinvent CDEP, no township leasing, no hub towns, more money for all communities, more money for community-based programs, for Aboriginal-managed health services and culturally appropriate alcohol treatment, recognition of customary law … in other words, go back to where we started, and wasn’t that so successful.
Kalua, we’re not on the East Coast anymore
Sometimes I feel like Dorothy looking down at her little dog and saying, ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore’. Except I’m saying to my little black cat, ‘Kalua, we’re not on the East Coast anymore’. With this past week’s sunny days and warm dry winds I’ve several times thought myself to be near the beach. I don’t know what it is exactly, the smell of sunscreen, the fact that it’s miles away or the Buffle grass rustle like waves to the shore. Either way as pleasant as this has been it has also induced a sort of panic at the thought of what am I going to do when summer really does hit? I realised it was deadly necessary to try and scope out swimming spots in Alice Springs.
I know I am not the only coastal baby out here in the desert with nowhere in 2000 miles to the shore. But really what is to become of us? How will we make it through the summer? I guess for many it means stepping out for a month or two. And there’s always the aquatic centre and I guess there’s always the option of a cold bath. For me though the bath is for warm flickeringly lit lounging as your thoughts run all about the bathroom ceiling.
I wish those poor explorer types had been right and that an inland ocean was still a feature out here. Can you imagine? I bet Alice Springs tourism would look like a whole lot different, maybe more like the Red or Dead Sea. Anyway so some people have pools, some people have the gumption to drive 100 plus km to a water hole for a swim and as I found out over the weekend you’re quite likely to find lots of people at these spots on a nice day.
Over the weekend I checked out the swimming spots along the road out to Glen Helen. I camped at two mile and watched by an old bull swam for a minute or two before the sun went down in the skin tingling water. I must thank this horned bovine because without him I probably would have stayed on the warm sand. The next day sitting by the water I again mistook myself for being by the sea. The only reason I knew I wasn’t was that the birdcalls were all wrong, not a sea gull in ear shot but after a while I started mistaking crow caws for their distant gull cousins. I couldn’t help thinking what an amazing and pretty much untouched spot.
If those explorers had have been right, I could just imagine the beauty and health resorts touting the amazing qualities of 2 mile river mud exfoliating treatments. All along the shore of the great inland sea and its creeks and water holes, lifeguards, fake tan, topless sunbathing and ghetto blasters blasting. God it sounds just like Coogee and I already found Ormiston gorge and Ellery Creek Big Hole too well signposted and paved, busy and close to parking for a leisurely paddle. I’ve got to say that the weekend’s reconnaissance mission was a success and its been an age since I’ve slept so soundly with that blissed out delicious feel that watery fun in the sun gives.
And if I am really honest with myself, how often did I actually schlep it across the city on a bus or two from the inner west to the eastern beaches?
There is something about water though isn’t there. There’ s something about immersing your self in it that grounds and yet also sets sail wild dreams and imaginings. Its different in different places, the ocean (which may shortly become extinct in my vocabulary) is a frothing, spritzing invigorating expanse stretching all the way to the horizon. And differently a waterhole can reach to still and ancient depths.
Some people may get all Freudian and call all this urge to swim in natural places an irrepressible urge to get back in the womb, others though judge entire societies on the merits of their bathing systems alone. And I, I think I’m just a bit scared of summer here and I plan on using all the tools and resources available as well as my, my, my imagination (play: Brass in Pocket by The Pretenders) to stay well immersed this coming summer here in Alice Springs.
Lhere Artepe: corporation is the main game
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Lhere Artepe member Michael Liddle (at right) has spoken out about what he says is the urgent need to restore order in the Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation (LAAC).
He says there is an unacceptable lack of transparency in Lhere Artepe Enterprises Pty Ltd (LAE), a commercial offshoot, whose “heart and soul” is the Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation itself. He raises questions about Darryl Pearce (at left), LAAC’s administrative head.
“Who is running the corporation now? How did Darryl Pearce get from the corporation to LAE and who made that decision?
“LAAC should be for all Central Arrernte people in Alice Springs,” says Mr Liddle.
“I have no financial interest in the Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation nor Lhere Artepe Enterprises Pty Ltd.”
He says members find it difficult to even get in touch with the organisation set up to represent them.
“When people ring the office they get no answer. When they go there the doors are locked.
“Lhere Artepe has lost its credibility because of one family group’s failure and ignorance to recognize other stakeholders within the corporation.”
Meanwhile, email correspondence between Mr Pearce and the vendors of company shares, a deal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, are circulating in the town. The Alice Springs News has seen a copy of that email, which indicates that the deal was mired in acrimony. In the email Mr Pearce expresses himself in intemperate language, although from what he writes he has also been on the receiving end of some.
Mr Liddle, when asked by the Alice Springs News to comment about the email, said: “This implicates a lot of people.
“My interest is not with LAE but with the corporation itself.
“The issues with LAE will sort themselves out later.”
The News sent Mr Pearce an earlier draft of this report, quoting from the email and offering right of reply. We heard back from his lawyer.
The lawyer told us the proposed article “contains confidential correspondence, publication of which would constitute a breach of commercial confidence between the parties referred to therein” and that “Mr Pearce reserves his rights to institute proceedings against you” should we publish the article.
Meanwhile a source within LAE says the company has made purchasing decisions worth millions of dollars without informing directors of the company.
LAE are developers of residential land in the Mt Johns Valley.
This source declines to be named.
NGOs call on Town Council to revisit no camping by-laws
By KIERAN FINNANE
At a time when the massive government efforts are being made in Alice Springs and Central Australia towards the provision of housing, including temporary accommodation options, a number of non-government organisations (NGOs) this morning launched the Right to a Home coalition.
In their sights were, in particular, the Alice Springs Town Council and its public places by-laws, enacted last year. The coalition, through spokesperson David Havercroft of the advocacy body NT Shelter, called on the council to amend the by-laws where they are having “a negative impact” on the homeless, and to develop a “social inclusion” policy. This would be about taking steps “to bring about positive change in the lives of these people”, in contrast to moving them on and fining them when the alternatives to sleeping rough are limited.
The removal by council rangers of swags and bedding left in public places – among the by-law provisions described as “punitive” – shows a “disregard” for the plight of the homeless, said Mr Havercroft.
Council has been enforcing its no camping in public places by-law since the opening in February of the Apmere Mwerre visitor park on Len Kittle Drive. However the park, with its maximum two-week stay, is not a “panacea” for homelessness, said Mr Havercroft. The alternative of visitors staying with family and friends, whether in town camps or in public housing, leads to overcrowding and its attendant problems.
He acknowledged the “significant” government housing initiatives in Alice Springs but said there was no choice but for governments to spend more money, providing more housing stock and allied services to address the “horribly high” incidence of homelessness in Alice Springs. He cited a figure drawn from a national report, of 187 people per every 10,000 as homeless in Alice Springs, compared to the national average of 53 per 10,000, and said that authors of the report had suggested that Aboriginal people may be undercounted by as much as 19%. The coalition wants the local rate to be brought in line with the national average.
Speaking to media after the launch, Mr Havercroft said no camping by-laws were appropriate with respect to people such as backpackers, but said exceptions should be made when the homeless were “the people of this land”, that is, Aboriginal.
He suggested that, as long as there is a dearth of short-term and transitional accommodation, council should provide services to campers, such as ablution blocks, but acknowledged that such a provision would in all likelihood encourage greater numbers.
He acknowledged the complexity for governments of visitors arriving in town without adequately planning for where they would stay, and of people with housing in bush settlements who live for prolonged periods in town.
He called on governments to work “with precision and leanly” in planning housing provision, but said he did not know enough detail about SIHIP spending to make a comment on its approach.
The idea to form a coalition began about a year ago, at a time when the Town Council was preparing to enact its by-laws, and agencies, responding to the plight of people sleeping rough during a period of miserable, cold wet days, were being warned against providing them with tents and bedding.
Organisations represented at the launch were: Alice Springs Youth Accommodation and Support Service, Amnesty International Australia, Arid Lands Environment Centre, Australian Red Cross, BushMob, Central Australian Affordable Housing, Drug & Alcohol Services Association, Mental Health Association of Central Australia, NT Shelter, NT Council of Social Service, and Tangentyere Council.
Enforcement of the no camping by-law:
The Town Council began enforcing its no public places by-laws once the visitor park opened in February, issuing 13 public places infringements in that month, two of them for camping without a permit.
In March there was a big jump: 200 infringements were issued, but only 41 were for camping without a permit. 141 were for drinking liquor in public.
In April, 32 infringements were issued, seven for camping without a permit. In May, the figures were 17 and seven; in June, 26 and 15.
Picture below: This morning’s launch. The speaker is David Havercroft.
Car of holiday maker torched
A man who would give his name only as Sean arrived in Alice one night about 10 days ago. He says there was a hole in the sump of his 4WD and he could drive no further. He pulled up in an open area off the Stuart Highway, not far from the Colonel Rose Drive turn-off, and made camp.
The next day he says he began calling mechanics to get help to fix his car but they were all busy. He says he also called camping grounds but, as he was travelling with his puppy, Sharko, they didn’t want to take him.
He says he received a visit from the Australian Federal Police, stationed at the airrport. He explained to them that he was not camping but broken down. In the course of the week he started work on repairing the car himself. Some Alice locals also offered as helping hand.
After a further visit from the police, he was obliged to find accommodation and on Saturday night did find a camping ground that would accept him with Sharko.
When he returned to the car on Sunday, it was a burnt shell. He found the Stillson wrench that he had left under the car on the front passenger seat, indicating that it had been used to break the window to gain entry to the car.
The interior was so completely burned Sean could not tell whether anything had been stolen.
Theft would be one thing, he said, but he wanted to know why whoever was responsible decided to destroy the car. Good question.
Letters
Email: letters@alicespringsnews.com.a
Will the good news outweigh the bad?
Sir – Do we focus on the good news or on the bad news? This is the question being asked by the Town Council, the Chamber of Commerce and our tourist industry.
Let’s look at some good news first.
Part of the carbon tax will be an increase in funding for renewable sources of energy. Our status as a solar city means we can benefit from this.
If the aeroplane boneyard gets going, this will put a novel feather in our financial and tourist caps.
The Desert Knowledge, CAT, CSIRO and Arid Lands complex south of the Gap gives Alice a brains trust that can be built upon.
The new suburb of Kilgariff is being built. The new Aquatic Centre has been.
The recent initiative by Coles to acknowledge and start to address the devastation wrought by alcohol in Alice shows corporate social responsibility peeking through. They are setting an example for our other corporations to follow.
The advertisements run locally by Action for Alice prove that responsible people living in Alice really do care about what is happening, and what will happen, in this town we all share.
We remain the central hub for a style of indigenous painting that has been called the last great art movement of the 20th century.
Araluen is a worthy centre for our many artistic expressions.
With our demographic mix we are a melding of cultures that, at its usual best, works and works well.
With our clean air, clean water and easy access to inspirational country, Alice Springs is a place like few others to raise a family.
Our schools, from primary to tertiary, are full to bursting with our hopes for tomorrow.
And the bad news?
In the all-important quest for government funding, we play second fiddle to Top-Enders whose vision does not extend south of the Berrimah Line.
Social flatliners from our satellite communities keep coming into town to drink themselves stupid, do stupid things and contribute nothing. They then disappear back into those same satellite communities leaving us to sweep up the broken glass and broken lives left in their wake.
We can fix the first by seceding from the Territory, but if we can’t put a stop to the second, we will soon be sweeping up a broken Alice.
Then all the good news will count for nothing.
Hal Duell
Alice Springs
Thinking outside the square
Sir – With the inevitable final decision by the Lands and Planning Appeals Tribunal, permitting Telstra to proceed with a 24 metre high phone tower in the Larapinta area after seven years disputation, one wonders whether a different approach by all parties concerned might not provide a more satisfying long-term outcome.
Travel broadens the mind, it’s said; and as my flight approached Riga International Airport in Latvia in July, 2008, the first thing that caught my attention was an enormous tower (pictured) situated on an island in the Daugava River near the city’s southern outskirts.
The third tallest manmade structure in Europe, its primary purpose is for transmission of TV channels across much of the flat Latvian landscape.
It resembles the world-famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, perhaps lending some credence to Riga’s claim to be the “Paris of the Baltics”.
It’s an imposing edifice, unmistakable on the skyline yet situated so that it does not inappropriately dominate the city, which architecturally is seen as one of the most diverse and best preserved in Europe.
The sheer scale of it is best appreciated from close-up, which I did on a pleasant river cruise that included a tour around the island. It creates a startling juxtaposition with the natural vegetation below, yet its simple structure creates an elegant solution to what otherwise risked being an ugly utilitarian blot on the landscape.
Far from despoiling the view, this TV transmission tower actually creates an attraction as a landmark in its own right. It’s evident a lot of thought went into its construction, most impressive given the impoverished status of the Latvian economy.
In many respects Latvia reminded me of my home in Central Australia. By European standards it’s a remote and under-populated region (about the size of the Irish Republic, Latvia has 2.5 million people, much less than either Sydney or Melbourne).
Tourism is a major economic mainstay, much of it occurring on a seasonal basis as it does here (coincidentally the same time of year).
However, as an independent nation Latvia cannot rely on constant taxpayer funded largesse as we do in the Northern Territory – there’s no equivalent of a Canberra for that country.
So necessity becomes the mother of invention – in Riga a tremendous amount of effort has gone into preserving, restoring or reconstructing the historic character of the old city, while modern structures like the TV transmission tower add a new dimension to architecture which can add to, or at least complement, the aesthetics of place and nature.
Perhaps there are some lessons in that for us.
Alex Nelson,
Alice Springs
Get out of cushy Canberra, say NT cattlemen
Sir – The Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association has backed calls for the independent review and Senate Inquiry to extend their deadlines and come to Northern Australia to talk directly to affected producers and their families.
If the Senate doesn’t leave the rarefied chambers and cushy armchairs of Canberra, we will have no confidence that it will have done its job properly. People need to be given a chance to have their say when the committee is considering draft legislation aimed at closing down an entire industry which is vital to Northern and rural Australia. Pastoralists won’t have a say if the committee sits only in Canberra. In fact, by sitting in Canberra it will be unduly influenced by the uninformed activists based in Southern Australia who have ready access to their politicians.
Our recent trip to Canberra revealed a frightening lack of knowledge and understanding of basic issues surrounding the live export trade, indeed of Northern Australia generally, among politicians representing Southern constituents.
It is a telling fact that 80 per cent of Australia’s land mass is represented by only 6.6% of Federal Parliamentarians. It would be a gross miscarriage of justice and a failure of democracy for such a vital matter to be considered only in the committee rooms of Parliament House, Canberra, without exposing the Senators on the committee to the realities of what is being proposed by Senator Xenophon, Andrew Wilkie and the Greens.
I back comments by Labor Member for the Kimberley, Carol Martin, at the weekend who expressed concern that the inquiries will lack balance if they don’t have face to face contact with pastoralists. Ms Martin pointed out that pastoralists were helpless in the whole process, whereas animal welfare lobbyists had had five months to prepare for the airing of the Four Corners footage. Ms Martin was quoted on the ABC at the weekend as saying, “The cattle industry has been brought into ill repute by a stupid government making stupid decisions to please one per cent of the constituency who usually don’t vote for bloody Labor anyway.”
I say, “Hear hear.”
Rohan Sullivan
NTCA President
Exploration worker in the 60s says he likes resource project
Gday Erwin, (and Team) – Thanks to your excellent weekly online News Service.
We have just read with much pleasure the best news story [about the coal to diesel proposal in the Simpson Desert] ever produced since Alan Wauchope and Peter Wilkins were in competition!
I commenced my working life in the Alice in the early 1960s, on the first oil and gas exploration lines out from Mt Dare and Old Andado.
We miss Alice.
Kind regards to all who know us up there in God’s Country.
Peter and Marlene Bassett
American River
Kangaroo Island.
Neighbors not consulted over school’s outdoor learning area
Sir – Education Minister Chris Burns is again riding roughshod over the interests of residents living near an Alice Springs school.
The construction of a Covered Outdoor Learning Area at Gillen Primary has angered residents living near the school.
It’s de-ja vu for Alice Springs residents. Residents living near the school were not consulted on the nature of the building and its proximity to homes.
Most only received notification that the building was to be constructed just a few days before building commenced.
This failure to consult bears a disturbing resemblance to the development of an indoor basketball stadium just metres from homes at Centralian Middle School.
It’s beyond belief that just a few months since committing to improving the Government’s consultation processes, the Education Minister is presiding over a similar debacle in Alice Springs.
I have written to the Education Minister expressing my disgust at the Government’s failure to consult over the school development and I will work with residents to have their objections heard and to have the COLA relocated elsewhere within the school’s grounds.”
Robyn Lambley
Member for Araluen
Love, sadness for The Red Centre and Aussie arts and crafts
Dear Sirs (a very British greeting but that’s what I am) – I have just read your article about Renate Schenk, along with reports in other papers of alcohol related crime, with sadness.
My husband and I first visited Alice Springs in 1994 when we drove from Uluru to Ross River and finished with a few days in Alice.
We fell in love with The Red Centre and the Outback. The whole experience was everything we hoped for and although, even then, we were advised to avoid the Todd River area in the evenings, we enjoyed our few days exploring the main tourist areas.
In Alice we bought three wall hangings of the type shown in your picture – they were all proudly “Made in Australia” and we have them still.
Between 1986 and 2006 we have visited Australia six times and each time we were determined to explore a different corner of your fabulous country. Grant you, the impetus for our visits was having family out there but after the first holiday in 1986 we needed no ulterior motive to keep returning – just the funds!
Each trip gave us some magical moments and wonderful memories. There are too many to recount.
We returned to the Red Centre in 2001, hiring a small campervan out of Alice and spending a week exploring Uluru (again), Kings Canyon and the McDonnell Ranges, including the Mereenie Loop Road.
Our only slight disappointments came with the inevitable “progress” and the increase in tourists.
The base walk around Uluru became discreetly cordoned; it made no difference, those who wanted to take the 1000th photo simply stepped over the rope and ignored the signs to respect the sacred areas.
Port Campbell National Park and the 12 Apostles went from a wild and wonderful natural experience in 1986 to fully commercial, Visitor’s Centre with coach parks and boardwalks by the time we returned in 2003.
By 2006 we noticed a marked increase in accommodation and car hire costs (and the UK pound wasn’t as weak then as it is now!); everything seemed much more commercial, whether it was Sydney, Noosa, Gold Coast and so on.
Our biggest disappointment was the amount of cheap souvenirs. Trying to buy anything of decent quality made in Australia became a challenge almost as tough as Outback driving!
My favourite store in Sydney has gone to the wall – Weiss Art. We did find a small family business with a stall at The Rocks Market in Sydney where I spent a small fortune.
And in Queensland we bought two watercolour prints by a local artist. They now are proudly hung in our lounge. But I guess that we are of the few who would rather buy one genuine Australia-made article than ten made in China.
It must be even more difficult now that the infamous Global Downturn has affected most of us.
We are now retired and know that with the current exchange rates between our two countries my husband and I cannot afford to do the kind of independent trips we used to enjoy and the organised tours all tread a well worn route, moving on after just a day or two in each place.
They miss so much.
We hope to get back to Australia one day and when we do we’ll do our best to support local arts and crafts – if there are any.
Good luck and best wishes
Isobel and Dave Smith
UK
Lifting of live export ban welcomed
Sir – The Federal Government’s decision to lift the suspension on live cattle exports to Indonesia is a relief to the industry and pastoralists who have faced almost a month of uncertainty about the future of their industry and the trade to Indonesia.
Now our efforts and focus must shift to immediately hammering out the logistics around the practicality of how the resumption will take place on the ground.
Primary Industry Minister Kon Vatskalis will be talking with officials and industry about:
• assisting the transition back to exports;
• supporting Territory families affected to understand how the resumption will work;
• identifying after-effects including managing oversupply of cattle;
• exploring new potential markets in Asia.
We estimate there will be an extra 100,000 head of cattle left on country that would otherwise have been exported to Indonesia. As the cattle trade resumes it is important that the necessary assistance is provided to Territory pastoralists to help manage their excess cattle.
The NT Government will also provide funding to host and train Indonesians involved in the industry so that animal welfare standards are adhered to.
Paul Henderson, Chief Minister
Kon Vatskalis, Primary Industry Minister
Sir – I cautiously welcome the Federal Government’s decision to lift the blanket ban on live beef exports to Indonesia.
While details are sketchy, I welcome Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig’s announcement that live cattle exports will resume with Indonesia and hope the decision breathes life back into an industry that has been on its knees.
The decision to slap a six-month blanket ban on live exports to Indonesia showed the Federal Government was woefully out of touch with northern Australia. Its knee-jerk reaction has damaged northern Australia’s economy as well as our relationship with Indonesia.
Senator Ludwig’s back-flip was necessary and overdue. I look forward to seeing the details, although it appears the Commonwealth has put the industry back on the same footing it was immediately after the Four Corners program went to air.
In the weeks since the blanket ban was announced, the livelihoods of thousands of Territorians have been under threat as income streams dried up. I hope the Commonwealth honours its commitment to compensate pastoralists and workers affected by the ban.
The blanket ban has highlighted the importance of the Northern Territory re-establishing a permanent presence in Indonesia to capitalise on our strategic relationship to mutual benefit.
Terry Mills
Opposition Leader
We welcome your comments:
Email: letters@alicespringsnews.com.a