Issue 28

Labor's land management doesn't give a hoot about The People; is south of The Gap reserved for trash; on'ya, cops, for cracking down on alleged dope dealers; and a farewell to Pam Lofts. What a Week by Erwin Chlanda.

The Territory elections are six weeks away with the price of real estate and housing, although falling, still one of the main issues.

Yet the development of the new suburb of Kilgariff, up to 1200 blocks south of The Gap, except for the head works, is still little more than a sign by the side of the Stuart Highway.

Alice Springs detectives have released a comfit image of the man they would like to speak with following an alleged sexual assault in Alice Springs.
Detective Senior Sergeant Travis Wurst said a 21 year-old woman was attacked at about 11.30pm on Friday, July 6 near the Bloomfield drain way.

Bess Price on the campaign trail, talking with Laramba resident Ronnie McNamara and Napperby pastoralist Janet Chisholm.

Is a swing on in the vast Northern Territory electorate of Stuart? It's been held by Labor since 1983. Can well-regarded and outspoken senior Warlpiri woman Bess Nungarrayi Price wrest it from Labor for the Country Liberals? One voter doesn't make up the 15% needed but Ronnie McNamara in Laramba is eloquent: "We tried Karl Hampton and before him Peter Toyne. Nothing happened. We need someone who can help us ... We might vote for that Country party." KIERAN FINNANE accompanies Bess Price on the campaign trail.

About 30 police officers including drug squad detectives and a sniffer dog handler raided the Palmer's Camp in Basso Road this morning.
They arrested three men in three separate houses and confiscated drugs as well as cash.
The Aboriginal town camp has been under police surveillance for some time and was known by users as "the Maccers Drivethrough".
Police are expected to make a statement with further details soon. ERWIN CHLANDA reports. SEE UPDATES IN "FULL STORY".

Congress CEO Stephanie Bell (left) resigned yesterday as claims were being made that Indigenous Health Minister Warren Snowdon (right), the Member for Lingiari, declined to fund another indigenous health service unless it operated under the control of Congress. ERWIN CHLANDA reports.

Mining vs the rest isn't the only two-speed economy scenario in Australia: The Northern Territory has one, too.
Here it is Darwin vs the rest, and the numbers are alarming. Reviving the erstwhile expansive market gardens on Aboriginal communities, such as the Ali Curung watermelon plantation (pictured), could be one way of boosting productivity, says Member for MacDonnell Alison Anderson. ERWIN CHLANDA reports.

A massive crowd of 12,000, about 30% more than usual, was at the 53rd Alice Show on Friday, says Show president Brad Bellette. This makes it the town's biggest social event of the year. And there were more stalls and commercial displays – 250, an increase of 20. Onya, Show Society! COMMENT by ERWIN CHLANDA.

A tree in Siberia? Iceland? No, Neil Ross snapped these pictures on his rural block in Alice Springs, helping nature a bit by keeping his sprinkler on over night on Friday.
The current cold snap started on July 1 with zero degrees, followed by -1.7, -4.9, -4.3, -4, -4.4 and yesterday, -5.2 at 6.41am.
This morning it was -0.7 – we're on the way back up!
The coldest day ever in Alice Springs – so far as records show – was July 17, 1976 when the thermometer dropped to minus 7.5 degrees.
If you want to be technical, the "terrestrial temperature" yesterday, measured at ground level, was minus 7 degrees.

Brooke Weir, 10, from Ammaroo Station north-east of Alice Springs stole the show when her heifer called Camel was judged the champion female.
She was one of hundreds of locals entering their exhibits in the 53rd Alice Springs Show.
Brooke (pictured at right) raised the Santa Getrudis heifer she found her as a poddy calf at one of the station's watering points, abandoned by her mother.
Brook bottle-fed her for six weeks and now Camel spends her days in a paddock near the homestead.
Meanwhile Beef Central reports that the best pens of locally bred milk-tooth steers above 350kg nudged above $1.90 a kilogram liveweight at the annual Roe Creek store cattle sale near Alice Springs on Thursday.

In her first foray into politics, tourism operator Deborah Rock is standing for Labor in Braitling. Not previously a member of the party, she first came to Labor's attention as a result of penning letters to the editor. Their theme was to reject the idea of widespread fear and insecurity in Alice, asserting that the town was a beautiful and mostly safe place to live. That remains a key message. The magnificent landscape drew her to Alice in 1998 but what has kept her here – and she thinks this is true for many people – is the sense of personal freedom and community.

"You can be yourself and still be successful," she says, "and you can get to know a wide range of people. I love that small town thing of going to the shops and running into lots of people I know."

Not surprisingly then, community harmony is at the top of her agenda: "We need to address our problems without creating division, without talking the town down." KIERAN FINNANE reports.

UPDATE ON MONDAY 3.30pm TO THIS REPORT ... click FULL STORY below.

The Department of Defence is making an application for a gated community with 40 three-bedroom "multiple dwellings" worth $20m, not counting the cost of the land off Stephens Road. If approved the complex, to house Pine Gap staff, will be built in several stages (see plan above).  ERWIN CHLANDA reports.