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.
Stepping over the edge
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.)
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.
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
Solar power has bright future in sunny Alice
By ERWIN CHLANDA
Private and public solar power installations in Alice Springs are now producing the equivalent of electricity needed by 600 average homes here.
About one-third of this came on stream last week with the opening of the Uterne power station (pictured), on a 4.5 hectare site near the National Transport Hall of Fame.
Half of its $6.6m cost was paid by the Federal Government’s $94m Solar Cities program.
The American owner, SunPower Corp, based in San Jose, California, through its Australian branch, has a 20 year deal to sell electricity to the Northern Territory Government’s PowerWater.
It won’t disclose the price it is paying for the power but says it’s not much dearer than electricity made with gas.
Uterne – it means “bright, sunny day” in Arrernte – is the country’s largest tracking solar power system.
It has 254 “trackers” – flat racks each of which carry 12 high-effciency PV panels.
The trackers are mounted on shafts tilted on a fixed angle of 20 degrees towards the north, the ideal angle for Alice Springs, but oscillating east to west to always face the sun as it tracks across the sky.
This boosts productivity by 30% compared with fixed PV panels.
The plant will be saving 1564 tons of CO2 emissions a year, says SunPower.
All this makes for interesting back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Each tracker provides enough power for one average home, give or take a bit.
Dividing the $6.6m cost by the 254 trackers puts the cost of each tracker at around $26,000.
If you’re handy with a welder you could do it for much less. The simplicity of the design is truly inspiring!
Prof Ray Wills, CEO of the Sustainable Energy Association, who attended Uterne’s opening, says PV panels are getting cheaper all the time.
At current electricity costs you can pay off a plant in eight years. The PV panels have a life of 25 years.
Alice Springs has an average of 9.6 hours of sunshine per day.
In the last 56 years the area has averaged just 63 cloudy days a year.
So far the other solar power generators in The Alice are the plants at the airport and on the roof of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, and 400 householders who’ve put panels on their homes.
Karting: speed and tumbles
Photos and story by PATRICK NELSON
Now that the dust has settled from the NT Karting titles, won by long-time Central Australian motor sports identity Tony Connor in the Statesman Class, the Dirt Kart fraternity is gearing up for the Alice Springs titles on September 18.
Club President Gary Burns says several new drivers were planning to come out and have a go this weekend.
“The NT titles have created some excitement and energy so we’re expecting to see some new faces at the track,” he said.
In the NT titles Connor scored 116 points from his eight heats to edge out Port Pirie’s Dale Afford by one point.
Connor also did well in the 200cc Open class and would have finished among the placings but for some bad luck in the final heat of the day.
He was in second place and within a gasp of the chequered flag when both his motors blew up.
He had just enough momentum to limp over the finish line but not before half the field whizzed past relegating Connor to sixth.
About 120 drivers, including large contingents from South Australia and Western Australia, contested 10 classes over the three-day championship, which was named in honour of motor sports icon Brian Joy.
South Australia took the honours winning eight classes with WA and the NT one each.
Jarred Moore of Adelaide had an outstanding weekend winning the 100cc Open, 125cc Heavy and KT Medium classes. He nearly won a fourth class but for Australian No 1 and fellow South Australian Mark Burford who prevailed in the 125 Heavy class.
Results:
Rookies (demonstration only): Zach Wilson and James Taylor.
Junior Light: Keaton Szach, Aaron Chalmers, Nathan Chalmers.
100 Open: Jarrod Moore, Ben Stone, Bryden Chalmers.
Junior Heavy: Joe Chalmers, Jared Bevan, Louis Bull.
125 Heavy: Jarrod Moore, Mark Burford, Mat Clark.
KT Light: Jake Tranter, Teagan Tranter, Ben Stone.
KT Medium: Jarrod Moore, Joel Ettridge, Ryan Afford.
KT Heavy: Shane Howard, Neil Morrell, Jordi Little.
Statesman: Tony Connor, Dale Afford, Craig Schier.
125 Light: Ben Stone, Jake Tranter, Lockie Cates.
200 Open: Ben Brown, Rebecca Rawlings, Adrian Haywood.
PHOTOS – top: KT Medium driver Adem Mahomet takes a tumble at the Territory Titles in Alice Springs on 17 July at the Territory Titles in Alice Springs on 17 July. Above right: Oops! Neil Morrell bumps into Chris Buffham during a heat in the Statesman Class.
Stuff, big and small
By ESTELLE ROBERTS
(Mozzie Bites is on holidays)
Last year I lost all of my stuff. A fire ripped through my house leaving behind a lot of burnt out carcasses of stuff I had collected over the years. It was amongst other things a cathartic and maybe timely release as it led to my upping out of town in a very hassle-free, liberated fashion.
And now here I am in Alice Springs. Stuff can hold a strange pull on you though. It can pull at you with the nostalgia of the association that it holds. It can catch you with the sweet comfort of its beauty. For me both these things can be found in the strangest of places.
Now when I see a road train I think, “Oh, Gilberts or RTA” and wonder who is behind the wheel and I wonder how the old crew at the truck stop are doing.
Stuff and trucks are really quite friendly allies and on my way home from work I pulled onto the Stuart Highway – in front of me oddly empty but behind me a police escorted motorcade for a road train hauling a huge bright yellow Tonka truck-looking thing. I pulled down a side street and stared as they went past, blocking out the sun. It was colossal. The thing took up both lanes and on the other side motorists had also pulled over to gawk.
A bloke came out into his front yard and asked me what it was. I had no idea! He wondered if it would fit through the Gap. Instead of heading home I wondered too, would it actually fit through the Gap?
Well yes, it did with plenty of room, but oncoming traffic had to pull off the road and now I was one of the many banked up cars behind the thing. I pulled off onto Palm Circuit and raced round to get back onto the highway for another look. The on-coming cop said as he went past that I must really like trucks. “What is it?” I asked him. “Aw, big dump truck for out in the mine.” I wanted to know how many kms of traffic was banked up behind it. But he was gone.
And mining for what? Coal, gold, resources, money to make stuff with.
I’ve had an amazing run with stuff lately; my friends that left town left me a whole load of stuff. A microwave, a couch, chairs, stools, stuff stuff stuff. Getting stuff in Alice Springs is a pastime, a hobby, even a blood sport! On Saturday morning I was among the keen hordes up at the crack of dawn lawn sailing, making brief berths at stuff-laden ports of call. A restaurant closing down presented itself with all manner of stuff, wrought iron screens, cast iron fry pan and wine glasses. Ahoy, me hearties, to the land of stuff found on the rolling high lawns.
The last thing on my weekend ‘to do’ list was take the mouldy redback-infested couch to the tip. I was reminded of going with my dad when I was little – I’d find some amazing treasure which he would promptly tell me to throw back in the rubbish. This time though I had had an overload of stuff and the treasures beckoning were all too many and too much. I was happy to leave with an empty van.
Stuff holds energy. Stuff is beautiful and wonderful by virtue of the energy that its previous owners have invested. But now that I have all this stuff, do I have the energy it requires? Stuff can bind you to a place that you may call home. Stuff requires washing, folding and care and some stuff requests portions of your time and energy. I planted strawberries in an old sink. They need me to water them now. But I guess that’s OK, ’cause they are flowering and their fruits I will eventually find delicious.
We beat Darwin – in crime
By KIERAN FINNANE
In the 2011 March quarter Alice Springs again had more assaults and break-ins than Darwin, which has three times the population, and over six years the town has had twice as many murders.
The latest NT Department of Justice statistics released for the March quarter for 2011 show offences in Alice Springs against the person (464) were down on the March quarter of 2010 (485) but still higher than in the March quarter of 2009 (420).
The largest category, as always, was assault: 371 in March, 2009; 462 in March 2010; 433 in March 2011 (a 6% decrease on the same quarter in the previous year, consistent with the NT-wide decrease).
The raw figures are comparable to Darwin’s, a city with roughly three times the population. In fact, in the March quarters of 2010 and 2011 Alice Springs recorded more assaults than Darwin, which had 454 and 355 respectively.
Sexual assault figures for Alice were up in this quarter (18) compared to March 2010 (8), but down from 32 in March 2009, which was a high across the nine quarters presented.
Total property offences are on the rise: 1058 in March 2009; 1212 in March 2010; 1316 in 2011.
The largest category is property damage, with 501 offences in March 2009; 546 in March 2010; 497 in March 2011.
House break-ins is the category showing a steep rise: 55 in March 2009; 91 in March 2010; 182 in March 2011. This jump in Alice Springs of 100% on the same quarter in the previous year is in sharp contrast to the NT-wide decrease of 18% in this category.
Commercial or other premises break-ins have also risen from 136 in March 2009 to 152 in March 2011, up from the 123 of March 2010.
In the March quarter for 2011 Alice had more break-ins in both categories than Darwin, which had 144 (house) and 134 (other) respectively.
The longer-term picture is depressing for Alice, except that most serious categories of murder and manslaughter show a decrease of 33% (-3) and 100% (-4) respectively, comparing the 12 months to the end of March 2011 to the 12 months to the end of March 2006.
However, with six murders recorded for the 12 months to March 2011, the category was up by 200% (4) on the previous 12 month period.
The longer-term change for assault was 43%; house break-ins, 129%; commercial and other premises break-ins, 86%.
The biggest rise was in robbery, up by 256% (32 in the last 12 months, compared to 9 six years ago).
The longer-term picture in Darwin showed a steeper rise in assault, with 51%; a decrease in house break-ins, -33%, but an increase of 19% in commercial and other premises break-ins.
Darwin’s murder figure was up by 100%, from 1 to 2.
With small categories it is more meaningful to look at the raw figures and the picture is not pretty for Alice.
Darwin’s murder figures over the six years look like this: 1, 3, 1, 6, 0, 2, a total of 13.
Alice’s are: 9, 2, 5, 3, 2, 6, a total of 27.
Opposition Justice spokesman John Elferink, in a media release, says the latest increase in violent crime across the Territory highlights the need for the Labor Government to keep its promise and release the recorded crime figures every three months.
He says the Government’s announcement that it will move to annual crime reporting after the release of the June quarter statistics shows the Government does not want its banned drinkers register held up to public scrutiny.
The Government boasts it’s tackling crime by introducing the toughest grog laws in the country, but it doesnt want the community to see whether the grog bans have been effective.
“This is a devious move by a sneaky Government intent on hiding the true extent of crime in the Territory and the failure of their alcohol restrictions leading up to next years election,” Mr Elferink says.
The significant increase in assaults in Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek show that the Governments grog bans in those centres havent reduced violent crime. According to Mr Elferink the Government says annual reporting will reduce the impact of seasonal variations on crime statistics.
”Labor introduced quarterly reporting eight years ago. It’s remarkable 12 months out from an election theyve decided releasing three-monthly crime statistics is politically embarrassing.”
PHOTO: A CCTV camera overlooks the Mall.
Competing claims by the Government and Opposition over the previous quarterly release of crime statistics.
Reformers triumph in native title group row
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHT5qdDoB_E[/youtube]
By ERWIN CHLANDA
A meeting to sack several prominent members of the influential native title organisation, Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation, collapsed in turmoil, according to people attending the closed gathering.
The sacking motions were not put, which was a triumph for reformers who are dissatisfied with the CEO, Darryl Pearce.
They are angry about the sidelining of members with high traditional standing, and financial management which they say lacks transparency.
This follows major investments by the corporation in real estate and supermarkets, benefitting from Federal cash injections.
The Office of the Registrar of Aboriginal Corporations (ORIC), a Federal instrumentality, came in for vigorous criticism for not intervening resolutely in the protracted row.
The film clip shows native title holders outside the meeting room, and interviews with – in that order – former Lhere Artepe CEO Frank Ansell; Ian Conway, a leading figure in the reform group; and Janice Harris, a seasoned administrator of local Aboriginal organisations.
Lhere Artepe chairman Brian Stirling did not respond to an invitation to comment.
He had early in the meeting rejected a move for a secret ballot, according to a member at the meeting.
FOOTNOTE: With respect to Mr Ansell’s comment in the film clip, the Alice Springs News knows Mrs Pearce’s mother was an Aboriginal woman.
Years in gaol for six perpetrators of alcohol-fuelled killings
ABOVE: Google Earth image of Laramba, a bush settlement north-west of Alice Springs. The killings happened in the vicinity. BELOW: One of the convicted, Travis Gibson. Having had his jaw broken was one of the triggers of the drunken payback raid.
By KIERAN FINNANE
Five out of six were drunk on the night.
One out of six is a reformed heavy drinker, sober on the night.
Two out of six are alcoholics.
Four out of six had parents who were alcoholics or heavy drinkers.
Two out of six are married to alcoholics and these couples have had children.
The two victims of the six were drunk at the time of their deaths.
In the evening of December 22, 2009 six men left Alice Springs in a red Ford Falcon, bound for Laramba, a small settlement of some 300 people, around 200 kilometres to the north-west. Four of the men were armed: one had a large military-style knife, another a tyre iron, and two had nulla nullas (clubs). They were also travelling with grog: on a trip that takes around two and a half hours, they drank one and a half cartons of VB beer and a cask of Moselle between them, all but the driver. This was on top of grog that at least some of them had consumed during the day.
There was a purpose to the trip: the six intended to confront men at Laramba over a long-running dispute between their family, the Gibsons, and the Dixon-Stafford family. In particular, they were going to look for brothers Adrian and Watson Dixon and another person, who were seen as responsible for the assault on one of the Gibsons some months before, breaking his jaw.
By midnight two men in Laramba, not the Dixon brothers, were dead, as a result of stabbings to the thigh.
Two days later the six men were each charged with two counts of murder.
Last Thursday, a year and a half later, the six pleaded guilty to variously recklessly or negligently engaging in conduct that caused the death of the two men and were sent to gaol for between six and 13 years, with non-parole periods set for between three and six and a half years.
And so another sad milestone was reached in a woeful story of lives blighted by alcohol and violence, of a shattered settlement that in two years has lost at least four of its men by unnatural causes, with six more now taken out of circulation for years to come.
All six men are related to one another. Travis and Luke Gibson, aged 24 and 21, are full brothers. Gilbert Dixon, 44, is their maternal uncle; Rodney Gibson, 39, their paternal uncle. Thomas McMillan and Lawrence Rice, both 37, are extended family members. Gilbert Dixon, as his name would suggest, is also related to the Dixon-Stafford family: Adrian and Watson Dixon are his “cousin-brothers”, that is the fathers of the three are full brothers.
DISPUTE
The origins of the dispute were deaths that had occurred in the course of 2009. Two Gibson family members were killed in a car accident. They were the father of Rodney, grandfather of Luke and Travis, and the brother of Rodney, uncle of Luke and Travis. A Dixon-Stafford family member was also seriously injured in the car accident. Another Gibson family member, brother of Rodney, father of Luke and Travis, died of cancer in the same year.
The court was packed for the sentencing of the six men. Justice Judith Kelly said she had been told that the deaths of the Gibson family members in 2009, as well as “some other disturbances and disputes”, had had a “very disruptive effect” on relationships between the two families and “they fell into dispute”. It was in this context that Travis Gibson had had his jaw broken. (Travis approached this newspaper at the time, when his face was still swollen from his injuries; his complaint was that his family had been forced out of their three homes in Laramba by the Dixon family.)
There had been attempts to settle the dispute, including by Gilbert Dixon and his mother, but these were rebuffed and Justice Kelly said the Gibson family “were really compelled” to move away from Laramba, some to Aileron, others to Alice Springs. Gilbert went as far as Adelaide, with his wife and youngest sons, but was asked by both families to return and help resolve the dispute.
On the fateful day, according to the agreed facts read by Justice Kelly, Travis had been drinking at Hoppy’s Camp. He and his uncle Rodney, a non-drinker after an earlier period of problem drinking, decided on the trip. In the afternoon Rodney drove around Alice, collecting the other four. He found Thomas McMillan drinking in the Todd River. Luke had been drinking at Hoppy’s and was already drunk. Gilbert Dixon had had seven beers before setting out.
Nearing Laramba, on a dirt track near the settlement, they found a drinking camp in full swing, with many present “heavily intoxicated”. Although Adrian and Watson Dixon were not present, five of the offenders got out of their car, four of them armed, and declared they’d come “for a fight”. Many in the camp got up and ran away, but Travis punched one “full drunk” man in the head and Luke, armed with a nulla nulla, ran at a woman. She escaped into the bush. Next they turned their attention to a man, Kwementyaye Glenn, sleeping in the passenger seat of a blue Holden. Travis and Luke punched him and Gilbert stabbed him on the inside left thigh, causing a deep wound and severing an artery. Kwementyaye Glenn would die from his injuries.
Gilbert then handed his knife to Lawrence Rice, who till that point had been unarmed. Gilbert returned to sit in the Ford Falcon, while Lawrence used the knife to slash the tyres of a white Mitsubishi Challenger and others in the party smashed the rear and front windowscreens.
VICTIM
Their next victim, Kwementyaye Tilmouth, was standing next to the blue Holden, using it to support himself as he was extremely drunk. He struggled with Travis, Rodney and Luke as they punched him in the head and face and struck him with their weapons. Then Lawrence came up with Gilbert’s knife and stabbed Kwementyaye Tilmouth in his upper left leg. There were two wounds, one of which severed an artery. He too would die as a result.
With prompt treatment by people who knew what they were doing, the two men may not have died, but what chance of that was there on a dirt track outside a remote desert settlement?
Throughout these attacks, Thomas McMillan had remained in the car that the six had arrived in. The only time he left it was to warn one of his nephews, among the group of Laramba drinkers, not to “jump in”.
The offenders then smashed the windscreens on the blue Holden and finding another woman hiding behind the white Mitsubishi, Rodney threatened her with the tyre iron, while Travis punched her in the mouth, splitting her lip.
The six then drove back to Alice and went their separate ways. The next day news broke that the two men had died. Rodney got the weapons used in the attack and hid them along the creek between Hoppy’s and Charles Creek camps. Gilbert in the course of the morning turned himself in at the Alice Springs Police Station, saying that he had stabbed someone. Police spoke to Rodney later that day and he showed them where he had hidden the weapons. He was arrested and charged. By the end of the day Luke and Travis as well as Thomas were also arrested, and Lawrence was arrested the next day.
There were no victim impact statements tendered but Justice Kelly said it was obvious that the victims had “suffered” and had had their lives “cut tragically short”.
Gilbert Dixon was sent to gaol for 13 years, with a non-parole period of six and a half years for recklessly causing the death of Kwementyaye Glenn and negligently causing the death of Kwementyaye Tilmouth.
The court always hears something of the personal circumstances of the offenders during sentencing. Justice Kelly said that Gilbert already had an extensive criminal history, including 14 convictions for aggravated assault, in 1986, 1994, 1995, 1999, four counts in 2002, and in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2010. He also had a number of convictions for breaches of bail, breaches of suspended sentences and failures to comply with restraining orders.
(Justice Kelly made the point that offenders with criminal histories were not to be punished again for those crimes but the histories meant that they were not entitled to leniency accorded to first offenders, nor to be considered as a person of prior good character.)
HEAVY DRINKERS
Gilbert was raised in a household of heavy drinkers – both parents as well as uncles and cousins. He became an alcoholic early in life. His wife is also an alcoholic. They met through drinking. He has been through treatment at CAAAPU (Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Program Unit) twice but relapsed after both programs. All of his offending has occurred while he was drunk.
Justice Kelly said she’d been told that he did not drink when he was at Laramba, “a dry community” (though that designation does not seem to have prevented a lot of people being very drunk there on the night of December 22, 2009).
Gilbert is an initiated Arrernte man, who was raised and has lived mainly at Laramba and at Hidden Valley town camp in Alice Springs. He completed primary school and went to Yirara College for Years Eight and Nine. His first language is Arrernte; he also speaks Anmatjere and is described as “reasonably proficient” in written and spoken English.
He worked as a stockman at Jinka and Tanami Downs stations; was employed by Tangentyere Council and an outstation resource centre doing fencing, horticultural and construction work. He also worked as a groundsman and doing maintenance at MacDonnell Range Caravan Park.
He is a father of six, three by a first wife, three by a second.
Justice Kelly said she accepted that he was truly sorry for what he had done and together with all the offenders, he had signed a letter written by Thomas McMillan, apologising to the family members of the deceased men.
Lawrence Rice got 11 years in gaol, with a non-parole period of five and a half years, for recklessly causing the death of Kwementyaye Tilmouth and negligently causing the death of Kwementyaye Glenn. He had a “fairly lengthy” criminal history: going armed with an offensive weapon at night in 2009; causing grievous bodily harm in 2007; aggravated assault with a weapon causing bodily harm in 1994; six other counts of assault in 1998, 2004, 2005, 2009; threatening behaviour in public in 2000; and numerous breaches of parole, suspended sentences and bail, and failure to comply with a restraining order.
He is single with no children and was raised by his grandmother and an aunty in Santa Teresa. He was born with leg problems, and had to wear calipers as a child. He went to school at Santa Teresa and went on to complete Year 10 at Yirara College. He has worked variously on CDEP programs and doing stockwork. Although he was drunk on the night of the offending, there was no mention of chronic problems with alcohol in his case.
CAUSING DEATH
The remaining four offenders were all sentenced for negligently causing the deaths of the two victims. Where relevant, the sentences also dealt with the pleas of all six offenders relating to aggravated assault on other victims and criminal damage.
Rodney Gibson was sentenced to 11 years in gaol, with a non-parole period of five and a half years. He is an Anmatjere man, had one conviction for assault in 1994 and one for criminal damage in 1998 – “a long time ago”. He was born and raised at Napperby, primarily by his mother; his father is dead. He is currently single, but has two children, aged 19 and 12, and one grandchild. He had limited schooling, but has worked as a stockman and in mechanics. He had a history of alcohol misuse, “now resolved which is to your credit”, said Justice Kelly. He was the only completely sober member of the group the night of the offending.
Justice Kelly considered him the most culpable of the “negligent” group, pointing to his age and to his “father-like relationship” with Luke and Travis and to his role, with Travis, as instigator of the raid.
Travis Gibson was sent to gaol for 10 years, with a non-parole period of five years. He had no prior convictions. He is an Anmatjere man who spent most of his life at Laramba, raised by his father. His mother had problems with alcohol and he had had no significant contact with her. He went to school at Laramba but cannot read and write English. Justice Kelly said she had been told his spoken English has improved since he has been on remand in gaol.
He is the father of two young girls and was living with his wife at the time of the offending. He has done work-for-the-dole in unskilled jobs at Laramba but aspires to train as a mechanic (his father was a skilled bush mechanic).
On the night of the offending he was intoxicated by both marijuana and alcohol.
Luke Gibson received a sentence of nine years, with a non-parole period of four and a half years. The youngest of the six, he had no prior convictions. He has been married for two years and has an infant son. He has never been employed.
Thomas McMillan was sentenced to six years, with a non-parole period of three years. His criminal history was not extensive: a conviction for assault in 2005 and a number of breaches of suspended sentences and failure to comply with restraining orders.
He identifies primarily as a Central Arrernte man, though his mother is an Anmatjere woman. As a child he lived initially with his father’s family at Santa Teresa but his father became an alcoholic and left the family to live in Alice. His mother subsequently moved between town and Santa Teresa. Thomas was then cared for by step-parents, who encouraged him to go to school and to play footy. After leaving school at age 16 he went to live with his mother in Alice and himself became addicted to alcohol.
He worked for Tangentyere Council on CDEP programs and for a period at the Papunya store. Returning to Alice he struggled to maintain work because of his drinking. He is married with a seven-year-old daughter but has not been employed since his marriage. His wife also has alcohol problems and their daughter is mainly cared for by an aunt. His wife is closely related to the deceased victims of the six.
Justice Kelly was told that upon his release he intends to live in Santa Teresa, to become sober and to play “a more hands-on role” with his daughter: “I hope you achieve that aim,” she said.
Melanka block on the market again
The site of the former Melanka hostel in Todd Street is on the market again, for an asking price of $7.5m plus GST, this time complete with an exceptional development permit for a five storey “tourist and residential complex”.
The land was bought in 2006 for $6.12m. The hostel was still in place but has been demolished since.
The land’s unimproved capital value in July, 2009 was $4.5m.
The raising of the height limit from three storeys to five was opposed by some sections of the community.
L J Hooker’s Doug Fraser says the fresh advertising of the property has only just started, and although there have been a couple of enquiries, it’s likely to take some time for a sale to be achieved.
Mr Fraser said in June that the developer, Christian Ainsworth, a member of the poker machines dynasty, had commissioned Deloittes to assist in the development and that “the building costs will need to come down”.
The total area is 1.3 hectares and “architectural plans will be passing with the sale,” says the promotion.
The agency says this is a “prime corner allotment with three street frontages and adjoining parcel at rear … and numerous fully established trees on site”.
Six years' gaol for waterhole shooter
By KIERAN FINNANE
For “effectively wrecking” a man’s life and that of his partner, Reuben Nadich, who shot his victim in the back at Junction Waterhole on May 29 last year, was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. The shooting was at close range and without provocation or reason.
Mr Nadich’s “moral culpability” was equivalent to that for murder, said Justice Judith Kelly in her sentencing remarks last Thursday.
“If he had died, the fact that you intended to cause serious harm would have meant you were guilty of murder, not manslaughter, and liable to mandatory life imprisonment, with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years. It was pure blind good luck that your victim did not die.”
At the time of the shooting, Mr Nadich, then 22 years old, was on a suspended sentence for drug offences, having been released from gaol only two weeks earlier. Some 15 months of that sentence was outstanding. As he was in breach of the suspension by using Ice, an illicit drug, and by engaging in violence, the earlier sentence was reinstated. However, he will only have to serve six months of it cumulatively, that is in addition to his sentence for the shooting. The non-parole period was set at three years and three months, with the sentence back-dated to May 31, 2010, the date of his arrest. This means Mr Nadich could be out of gaol in just over two years.
Justice Kelly allowed a 20% discount on what she considered an appropriate sentence of seven and a half years, in acknowledgement of Mr Nadich’s guilty plea, even though this was, in her view, mostly motivated by there being a strong case against him, rather than by an acceptance of responsibility for his actions.
Justice Kelly accepted that he may feel “some remorse” – “you would be inhuman if you didn’t” – but she considered his main concern was for himself. She made mention of Mr Nadich’s willingness to pay restitution to his victim, but there was no “binding agreement” put forward to this end, as had been foreshadowed during sentencing submissions.
She accepted that there was “some reasonable chance” that Mr Nadich would rehabilitate, provided he kept away from drugs, though she was “not quite so optimistic” about his prospects as his family and friends were in their references.
Mr Nadich was raised by his mother, mostly in Alice Springs. He has never met his father. He became a regular user of cannabis in his late teens and started to also use Speed, Ecstasy and Ice when he moved to Adelaide and worked in the security industry, aged 20. His drug habit was described as “florid” by his lawyer.
Related reports:
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1719.html
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1728.html
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1729brn1.html
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1730.html
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1742.html
http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1743.html
Bid to sack native title holders
The row in the Alice Springs native title organisation Lhere Artepe is likely to reach boiling point on Thursday when the chairman, Brian Stirling, is calling a general meeting to sack five prominent members.
They include Ian Conway who has led a push for reform of the organisation and the suspension of its CEO, Darryl Pearce.
The others are Lesley Martin, Matthew Palmer, Felicity Hayes and Noel Kruger.
The reasons, according according to the meeting notice, are failure to attend meetings and “misbehaviour which has significantly interfered with the operation of the corporation and its meetings” or “destabilizing and generally bringing the Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation into disrepute”.
Meanwhile 90 native title holders are petitioning the Office of Registrar of Indigenous Companies (ORIC), asking it to appoint an Interim Administrator and “replace the current CEO,” Mr Pearce, because he “has betrayed members’ trust by conducting official Corporation matters against the Lhere Artepe Rule Book and failed to follow Native Title protocol”.
The petitioners say Mr Pearce’s response to a “show cause” notice given by ORIC “will not restore good governance”.
The reformers say the meeting is being called without the requisite number of members requesting it; the people under threat of expulsion have not been given a right of reply and there is no evidence that the traditional managers of the country, the “relevant Apmereke-artweye and Kwertengerle” have been consulted.
The Alice Springs News Online is seeking a comment from Mr Stirling.
Migratory threads
By ESTELLE ROBERTS
(MOZZIE BITES is on holidays)
Have you ever seen a bird fall out of the sky? I have. Once. And it was here in Alice Springs. Happens fast. A thud – and the thing that was hovering up high in the corner of your eye now lies still on the road. Some sort of hawkish bird in a mid-air, mid-flight crash tackle had felled a crested pigeon. Once I moved on it swooped down and arched back up with the pigeon between its claws amid a screeching cacophony from terrified avian witnesses.
Since arriving in Alice Springs I have had a field guide to Australian Birds out on constant loan from the library. Sometimes I like to read the calling descriptions, caw-caw-caw-tucka-tucka-tucka-tucka-tucka-tuk, wokka-wokka-chokka-chokka-chooka-chooka. I find this quite amusing!
I have never noticed so many birds before. I’ve identified a few, that crested pigeon, magpie larks and yellow-throated minors. The latter a sugar fiend commonly found pinching sugar sachets from outdoor café tables. All these thoughts about birds led me to thinking about the transient nature of Alice Springs. A lot of the people I have met have a similar story to my own, thought I would come for a visit and so far … have stayed.
Two very good friends of mine are leaving Alice Springs this week. They gave my cat Kalua and I a spot to park when I first pulled into town and they link me back to my previous incarnation as a Sydney city cat. Helping them pack and clean up, I thought that old Bessie Smith song, ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down ‘n’ Out’ could have just as easily been called ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Moving House’.
We took a walk along the train tracks the other day, heading north. We didn’t get very far or even get out of town but I saw the Ghan and the excited passengers disembarking and I saw the bored impatience of the drivers of the cars banked up at the railway crossing.
I thought about these types living their lives, working, on their way home to their lives of families and friends and wondered how long for? How long have they been here? How deeply do their roots in this place run? Or are we all more like migratory birds that move about on currents propelled by the strong and strange pull of transience. The word transience is so often coupled with Alice Springs and it’s little wonder really with so many thousands of people coming and going every year.
A few weeks ago returning from a walk I noticed a perfect little brown bird, maybe a spotted nightjar dead in the middle of the track I was sure it hadn’t been there when I first went by. According to my field guide they are possibly winter migrants. I wondered what all these sky-fallen birds were trying to tell me? Something ominous or just purely strange in a kind of eerie beautiful way. I’ve noticed that at times I have a new fluttering shadow hovering about me. I imagined that maybe with my good mates going back to Sydney this black and white willy wagtail has decided to take on their watch over me.
What you say …
Carbon tax pre-empted?
Sir – A comment on the purchase of Henbury Station by the Federal Government in cohorts with a private company R M Williams.
Have I missed something? Has the Parliament already legislated a carbon trading scheme?
If not, why are we pre-empting that legislation by buying up productive land for carbon sequestration?
How long do we allow the absolutely ridiculous speculation in carbon trading schemes to continue before we put a stop to what amounts to blatant land speculation?
A new round of the schools and insulation fiascos?
If allowed to continue unchecked, proposals such as these will eventually threaten the food security of our nation.
The announced purchase of Henbury Station just to the south of Alice Springs serves to highlight the absolutely farcical nature of these poorly thought out opportunistic carbon sequestration schemes.
It’s proposed to de-stock the property, supposedly allowing it to return to a “natural state” which would apparently sequester more carbon than it presently does.
But would it? The property will only grow what the rainfall will allow. Given that cattle eat grass, not trees, I think you will find the property already supports the number of trees per acre that it will naturally grow.
De-stocking will result in more grassy growth which when left uneaten will result in more fires.
Repeated fires lessen the fertility of the soils resulting in the suppression of tree growth which eventually results in grassy plains which means more fires and eventually hardly any trees at all.
So you end up with no carbon sequestration, no pastoral industry, no income, and no jobs for locals. What a great outcome!
Removing food-producing acreage lessens not just our nation’s but the world’s total food supply.
Given that we are not producing enough to feed the world, the removal of any production means somewhere somebody starves!
How long before that person becomes us? Further, if our nation is dumb enough to foster this and other proposals like it, why in the hell are we doing so in conjunction with outsiders, instead of the people who live in the immediate surrounds?
These are people who have depended for generations on the surrounding pastoral industry for work. This entire proposal is a threat to The Centre’s viability, traditions, and lifestyle! It must be stopped.
Steve Brown
Alice Springs
She knows how we feel
Sir – I’m glad that Rosemary Walters took umbrage to the Yuendumu “if u want porn go to Canberra” signs. She proved the very point we tried to make.
To stereotype whole communities as being dysfunctional and infested with drunks and paedophiles, as was done with the Northern Territory Emergency Response (The Intervention) is highly offensive and unjust. To paraphrase Rosemary: “I live here and I don’t think Yurntumu-wardingki are very interested in porn. Before the Intervention many people here had never heard of pornography.” Yet we’ve lived in the shadow of the “No Alcohol No Pornography” signs for over three years.
Frank Baarda
Yuendumu
Prisoners who need to stay behind bars
Sir – Prisoners convicted of sexual offences, who are likely to re-offend, can be kept behind bars, under a plan by the Country Liberals.
The Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act will see criminals who are still considered dangerous stay behind bars.
If there are prisoners who authorities believe will commit further crimes on their release, we will make sure they stay where they belong – in jail.
This is not a form of double jeopardy, where the prisoner is sentenced to another term for the same crime; rather it’s an order of indefinite detention to protect the community.
There is similar legislation in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, and it’s time the Northern Territory moved to keep dangerous criminals behind bars.
Under the plan, the Attorney General can apply to the Supreme Court for “Public Protection Orders” which would allow a prisoner to stay in jail beyond their head sentence.
The government would have to convince the Supreme Court there was a high chance the prisoner would re-offend.
Meanwhile the Northern Territory continues to lead the country in violent assaults.
A compilation of Bureau of Statistics figures released today (July 26) show the Territory has the highest number of violent assaults in the country.
During the 2009-10 financial year, there were 6,800 instances of physical assault in the Territory, meaning 5.3% of the adult population were on the receiving end of violent crime.
The next worst jurisdiction is Western Australia with a 3.9% rate of physical assault, followed by Queensland (3.5%); South Australia (3.3%); Tasmania (2.9%); ACT (2.7%); Victoria (2.6%) and New South Wales (2.4%).
While there has been a slight reduction in physical assaults against the previous 12 months, the level of violent assault in the Territory continues to come from a very high base, but I suspect it’s on the way up again.
The ABS figures show Territorians are also the most likely to be the victims of malicious property damage, car theft and break-ins in the country.
The Government should release the latest crime statistics immediately.”
John Elferink
Shadow Justice Minister (Country Liberals)
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
RSPCA ‘radicals’
Sir – Far from being the “protector” of animals that they claim to be, the RSPCA is showing they are nothing but a bunch of radical extremists, hell bent on ruining the Northern Territory economy and putting hundreds of families onto the welfare queue.
The RSPCA’s recent online publication for schools focusing on northern Australia’s live cattle trade demonstrates they are more interested in misleading students and teachers and creating economic and social mayhem than they are about animal (or human) welfare.
The ‘resource for schools’ lifts the veil on the RSPCA and shows their true colours, which are out of step with educational values and highlights their hidden agendas. Through this supposed educational resource they are misrepresenting an industry that is the lifeblood of the Territory and is a vital social component of the country.
Rather than work with graziers to assist in lifting Indonesia’s animal welfare standards, they call for a complete ban on all live exports. The consequence of this would be tens of thousands of cattle slowly starving or being shot where they stand on Territory and Australian farms, while at the same time ceding all influence over what standards apply overseas.
It shows the RSPCA has no regard for the protein needs of some of our poorest neighbours and no regard for Australia’s quarantine risks if a country like Indonesia is forced to source beef from countries not declared foot and mouth disease free.
Providing material for students and teachers that is not linked to the curriculum shows how little the RSPCA is concerned about proper and decent student education. Far from being a “non-government, community-based charity dedicated to protecting the welfare of all animals – great and small, the RSPCA is showing themselves up as not being a friend of the Northern Territory and its people.
All Territorians and Australians, especially those in the north, should visit the site before considering supporting the RSPCA – there are plenty of other non-profit groups that care for animals but don’t pose such a threat to our way of life.
Kezia Purick
NT Shadow Primary Industry Minister
Government doesn’t care about animal welfare
Sir – Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig’s decision to lift the ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia—despite the fact that Australian officials have not inspected any Indonesian abattoirs and there is no system in place to ensure that cattle are stunned prior to slaughter—shows that the government doesn’t care about animal welfare.
Instead of requiring Indonesian abattoirs to make meaningful animal welfare improvements, Australia’s government has bowed to pressure from the livestock industry. This comes less than a month after footage showing horrific cruelty in Indonesian abattoirs—including cattle being beaten and having their throats hacked and their eyes gouged out—aired on ABC’s “Four Corners”, sparking massive public outrage.
While the public is rightfully shocked by this cruelty, PETA has known about this and similar abuses occurring in the live export industry for years. In 2006, after a joint PETA and Animals Australia investigation showing abattoir workers in Cairo chasing cattle, slashing the animals’ tendons and beating them with heavy metal poles, Australia temporarily halted live exports to Egypt, but these too have since resumed.
Living beings should not be treated worse than cheap cargo. It’s time for Australia to do the right thing and ban all live animal exports for good. To learn more, visit PETAAsiaPacific.com.
Jason Baker
Director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia
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
New to the net
When it comes to using computers people in the most remote outback of Australia have a lot of catching up to do.
Of 45 people interviewed in three communities, only 6% had a computer at home, and only 1% had internet access at home.
“This makes take-up an issue,” observe the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CAT), Swinburne University and Central Land Council who have just released a study.
They surveyed Kwale Kwale, Mungalawurru and Imangara outstations, all in Central Australia.
Major findings included social and cultural issues surrounding take-up. Barriers include affordability, cost, billing, lack of computer skills, general knowledge and maintenance.
“Aboriginal people participated in the research are keen to gain Internet access and use this at home, but need more training and education on how to use the Internet and computers,” the survey found.
Pictured from left at Mungalawurru are Rosita (visitor), Esmeralda with Karen’s new daughter, Karen and Cynthia.
Nature can still turn on a show – but can the man-made Outback?
Watch the slideshow!
The Outback brand covers a vast area – one operator even claims you can experience the Outback in a Queensland Gold Coast theatre restaurant!
My first encounter with what I sensed to be the Outback was in country at ‘the back of Bourke’. I was working for a television company at the time, following the late motoring identity Peter Wherrett in a reconnaissance trip for a Variety Club Bash.
I’d grown up mostly in Sydney and, although I’d lived overseas for a period, in my own country I’d scarcely ever been west of the Great Dividing Range. On the Wherrett reccy, once we were beyond Bourke, I felt, as so many others have, that I was entering quite a different Australia and the Outback was its name (I had yet to visit a non-urban Aboriginal community, quite another country again).
Two tiny towns back then expressed for me the essence of the Outback – remote outposts of human habitation in a vast landscape, attached to the rugged past of the frontier yet remaining resilient in the present. They were Innamincka in far north-west NSW, and Marree in north-east SA, the starting point of the legendary Oodnadatta and Birdsville Tracks.
All I really remember of Innamincka is the pub and the flies. There were two flyscreen doors to pass through to get to the pub’s cool interior, allowing you to get rid of most of the flies on your back before sitting down to an excellent roast for lunch.
The flies can’t have been as bad in Marree. My memory of its beautiful two-storey stone pub in the late afternoon is unclouded by them. Travelling with Wherrett ensured our crew the attention of the publican who joined us around a large table for a spirited evening of food and drink.
We overnighted in the high-ceilinged rooms upstairs – bathroom down the hall – and I remember standing on the lovely second-storey verandah, looking out across the old railway station into the warm desert night and looking up at the clear sky where Halley’s Comet was supposed to be visible. Bright moonlight meant that it wasn’t. This was in 1986.
The intervening quarter century hasn’t been kind to Marree, where I returned for the first time just before Christmas. Travelling with my husband and fellow journalist Erwin Chlanda, I turned east just past Coober Pedy, on a well-maintained dirt road that passes through the old dog fence and an ever-changing landscape en route to William Creek. This tiny ‘town’ has preserved its Outback charm. After a beer at its corrugated iron pub and friendly chat with the publican, we then drove along the southern shores of Lake Eyre South, where the skeleton of the old Ghan line is gradually disappearing into the sandhills.
Arriving at Marree, what was immediately missing was the general impression of effort and pride that we’d observed in William Creek. It’s dilapidated, yes, but also appears depressed, as though no-one cares. Yet a local man, a descendant of Afghan cameleers, told us that they had just experienced their biggest ever tourism year.
What had the tourists thought, I wondered, when they approached the historic Marree Hotel, still standing but with its stone edifice flanked on either side by corrugated iron fences surrounding two donga parks? When they asked for a room, as we did, they would have had the choice of upstairs – the tall windows now sealed, the only air you can get noisy and conditioned whether the night is hot or not – or a donga in a gravelled yard with a few cotton palms. We opted for the deadly-dull donga – for $120! – because at least we could open its window.
But first we went out onto the hotel verandah. The view is still there, of course, across the railway line, out into the desert. But the verandah boards were warped, the seating dusty and broken, the ashtrays full, and a few stale empties were lying around.
We ate in the dining room downstairs – acceptable country pub food – under a mural celebrating Marree’s heritage while all around us were the signs of that heritage rapidly losing its value and meaning.
In the morning we wandered across to the “museum park” – a few transport relics, including the late Tom Kruse’s old mail truck – an under-inspiring display for a town with such an interesting story to tell. At the southern end of the platform a house that was surely part of the rail complex was falling into ruin.
In the rest of the town ugly corrugated iron fences around homes were common. Only the police station, the hospital, and Marree Aboriginal School were notable for their neat face to the world.
We tried to find the cemetery, but the signposting led us to the rubbish dump. Disheartened we headed out of town, driving into the North Flinders Ranges whose beauty was the perfect cure for this jading return to a town that appeared to have lost its way.
Tourism isn’t the only reason to respect the past and promote it in the present but it’s a pretty important one. I asked the South Australian Tourism Commission whether it is concerned to protect Marree’s heritage character and if so, what is it doing about it.
In reply Flinders Ranges and Outback Regional Manager, Peter Cahalan, said “the SATC continues to support heritage conservation, despite having no statutory powers in the areas of town planning and heritage”.
“In Marree, the SATC has funded projects to renew the central zone with tree plantings and other works, supported the development of the telecentre and interpretive displays at the railway station [these were closed when we visited], funded the redesign and reprinting of the town’s heritage brochure and funded an upgrade of the Arabunna Centre including the production of a short film about the Arabunna people.
“In discussions with local stakeholders, the SATC has consistently encouraged best possible design principles to new buildings.
“Looking to the future, the SATC is developing ideas for reinvigorating the marketing and development of the Explorer’s Way between Adelaide and Darwin.
“Marree is a key node on the alternative Explorer’s Way route – which runs through the Flinders Ranges and up the Oodnadatta Track – and will benefit from increased traffic on the route.”
Here’s hoping.
But back in Alice, mid-winter and at the height of our tourist season, the sad thing to reflect upon is that visitors in search of the man-made Outback, coming on to Alice from the Lake Eyre region, would similarly find precious little of it surviving here.
Kon Vatskalis a stand-up comedian at uranium conference?
The hypocrisy of this media release is surely breathtaking: “Resources Minister Kon Vatskalis will deliver a keynote address to hundreds of delegates attending Australia’s largest uranium conference this week … where [he] will promote investment in the Northern Territory.”
How will he explain to the conference that his government, with blatant political opportunism, during the run-up to a by-election, cancelled the exploration licence it had issued to Cameco Australia Pty Ltd for the Angela Pamela site, after Cameco had spent millions of dollars there?
How will he explain away the haplessness of that action, given that Labor had Buckley’s chance of winning Araluen, and of course did not?
And how will he explain to the Greenies that, now the by-election is out of the way, he is all in favour of uranium mining?
Is it any wonder we’re laughing stock of the nation. COMMENT by ERWIN CHLANDA.