Full Story
Consensus urgently needed
Photo from The Punch
Having recently been asked where her broomstick was by Tony Abbott, it might not seem surprising that the Prime Minister has ruled out taking the Opposition leader with her to Alice Springs — although it’s understood Ms Gillard will be travelling by plane on this occasion.
Ms Gillard, who’ll be coming to town with Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, has told Abbott that she and Ms Macklin the situation “is under control” . She may be concerned to discourage the perception that the the Opposiition leader is ahead of the game as far as Indigenous Affairs are concerned. Earlier this week, Mr Abbott called for a new intervention in Central Australia and sought support form the Government for a bipartisan approach,
Abbott’s handling of Aboriginal Affairs has yet to come under attack by either the left or the right — except, that is, for Jenny Macklin, who has accused him of grandstanding. But Abbott has clearly stolen a march on the Government by making his call a few days before the Prime Minister flagged her visit.
Abbott won brownie points while in government for overseeing the introduction of Opal fuel in Central Australia with sizeable Government subsidies. The move — although it came under the Health portfolio rather than Indigenous affairs –was an Intervention in its own right and in some senses set the stage for Mal Brough’s Northern Territory Emergency Response. But, unlike Brough’s NTER, the move was seen to have consultation and Indigenous community support behind it.
Abbott is now being careful to stress the need for such consultation in any further interventions in Central Australia or the Northern Territory, although he has indicated that a little less conversation and a little more action might ultimately be the only way forward.
But exactly what is on his mind in the way of action — or in the minds of Gillard and Macklin — is far from clear.
The Opposition leader appears to have bought into the argument that social problems in Alice Springs have somehow been created or at least seriously exacerbated by the NTER. There is some circumstantial evidence for this, but it’s hard for long-term Alice Springs residents to believe they would now be living in clover if the intervention had never occurred.
The lack of historical awareness evident in this view is widely shared, however. Sadly it has been shaped by increasing bitterness and rancour in the debate over Aboriginal Affairs.
For decades, the rhetoric of academics and their acolytes — often compassionate, hard-working people who have devoted decades of their lives to improving the lot of Indigenous people — has centred on concepts like sovereignty and self-determination.
For a generation of university-educated Australians, these have become hard-wired buzzwords, reinforced by communal regrets about Australia’s frontier past and romantic beliefs in the supposedly idyllic nature of Aboriginal cultures
The Howard Government’s persistent tinkering with Aboriginal affairs and eventual dissolution of ATSIC was the build-up to a mammoth slap in the face of those beliefs: the Intervention.
Undoubtedly, like its opponents, the Intervention was at least partly ideologically driven.
But much of it its now-dwindling support base sprang from the apparent failure of the opposing, supposedly non-Interventionist ideologies to produce any improvement in the lives of Aboriginal people over 30 years.
Twenty years I had the privelege of meeting and interviewing Dr Mamphela Ramphele, a contemporary of Nelson Mandela and a key figure in the battle against Apartheid.
Dr Ramphele was visiting Alice Springs and I was a journalist with the Central AustralianAboriginal Media Association.
When I asked her what she thought about the “Aboriginal situation’ in Alice Springs she remarked that while it was important for people to celebrate and rediscover their cultural heritage, the lesson of South Africa was that our common humanity must always be considered more important.
Here in Australia, the trend towards a bipartisan acceptance that the survival and wellbeing of individuals takes precedence over the maintenance of a culture has been a painful but positive development.
If we could all agree on it as a principal — Abbott, Macklin and Gillard included — we might have the first prerequisite for a genuine improvement in the lives of all Central Australians. - Dave Richards
Tags
alice desert festival alice springs alice springs desert festival alison anderson angela-pamela arid lands environment centre bess price budgies Bush Christmas Cake bush food recipes bush foods bush foods recipe bush law bush law documentary bush tomatoes bush tucker central australia central australian history Dick Kimber environment explorers fiction heritage alice springs high rise History housing indigenous indigenous affairs john mcdouall stuart justice Nelen race relations rain riots Todd River town planning traditional law traditional punishment Udjerlah's Song uluru violence water wildflowers wild foods yuendumu
Alice Springs Weather
 18°C |
| Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Mon | ||
 | | | | | |  | |
| 21° | 22° | 23° | 24° | 25° | 23° | ||
| 7° | 8° | 8° | 9° | 6° | 9° | ||
| Data powered by |  |
Even though some sort of bi-partisan approach may make everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside, it is actually the push and shove, the one up-man ship that push our political leaders into some kind of action. The danger of everyone smiling shaking hands and agreeing is that they will probably go home and forget all about us, so lets not get hung up on whether or not our Pollies agree and lets turn our attentions to what either might do!!There is however no doubt that out of all the turmoil of the past few months, all the meetings and workshops that we have reached a very important moment in the History of our Town, not a moment generated by all the frantic efforts of the NT government to cover up its blatant failings its blatant neglect of Alice and its regions. “No”, the cause for renewed hope has come from amongst our own, from the moment that one aboriginal man made his way with great courage to face a angry community meeting of business owners and citizens organised by action for Alice at the council chambers from the moment that Lindsay Bookie chairman of the Central Lands Council faced the meeting looked them in th eye and said “yes we do have a problem” immediately silencing the crowd who then listened closely to all he had to say loudly applauding on conclusion. I think that, that moment and the several meetings that have followed between Action for Alice members and traditional owners have signaled a momentous shift, a shift for the betterment of Alice, particularly for aboriginal people. From that moment we have witnessed the beginning of the end, of the divide that has split black and white for so long. We have shifted from believing that we are separate communities, to confirming our belief in one inclusive community, Alice Springs. This common belief signifies the end of horrifyingly destructive era in aboriginal affairs. The end of a philosophy of segregation, the maintenance of culture at the expense of an individuals right to participate equally in the world that surrounds them. This philosophy that has left us with generations of people teetering on the brink of despair totally welfare Dependant bared by the barriers of language, literacy and numeracy from taking their rightful place in our community. This Philosophy of Segregation and all the bitterness that comes with it is now dead or dying,we have stepped back 50 years and will now strive once again to intergrate our communities, where matters of culture are matters for the individual not matters for governments and crusaders, we will now work for the right of equality and inclusion.There will be no instant cure for the problems on our street but with tolerance goodwill and strong intent you will witness the anger fade and the smiles return, Alice Springs will take its rightful place as Capital of Central Australia.
In a sign of goodwill come and join Action for Alice who will be marching along with traditional owners to the parliament on Tuesday to demonstrate the fervent intent of this community to succeed and demand the support of our government to facilitate that outcome.
@Steve Brown: The greater development of mutual understanding in Alice Springs is certainly welcome. It’s grassroots development is only the beginning of people working together to make one’s community a better place.
Having said this, you then seem to go on an undermine this very optimistic celebration of a renewed and shared understanding about how people in Alice need to work together. The fact that you seem to have only just realised that Indigenous people themselves recognise that there are problems indicates that it is mostly short-sighted views like your own that divide the community. You spend the rest of your comments implicating that Indigenous people or the NT government is to blame. Yet, Action for Alice is thoroughly opposed to alcohol restrictions and regulations that would provide some alleviation of the problems caused by alcohol.
Mr Brown, I share your optimism about Alice Springs, but I don’t believe you are genuinely interested in helping those who need it most in the community. The most disturbing aspects of what Action for Alice (and Advance Alice before it) was that all of those campaigns seemed to imply some privilege of its members over other members of the community. I’m glad you are all working together, but Mr. Brown you need to listen more closely and stop trying to make the community better for some at the expense of others.
Mr Brown is certainly large on rhetoric but his vision is a little impaired. I would feel more optimistic about his plans if they included affirmative action to ensure every local business takes on 2 (not just one) Aboriginal employee, if supermarkets etc guaranteed cross cultural training for their security guards so they treat Aboriginal people as human beings instead of yelling at them as if they were dogs, if they would stop the black market in Aboriginal art etc etc. I don’t think Lindsay Bookie is the saviour of the serious situation: neither is Mr Brown. The Northern Territory Government is right to ignore the calls for mandatory sentencing. Can we really ignore the ever-increasing incarceration and suicide rates of Aboriginal people or are the millions of dollars being made from the Intervention more important than human beings?
The culture is sacrosanct and the intervention is necessary mind-sets have at least one shared negative outcome. Both have embedded within the Australian indigenous outlook a crippling racism.
Claiming that culture is sacrosanct fostered an assumption of specific ethnic exceptionalism. This gave rise to questions such as why go to school? Why obey the national (or any) law? And why get a job when financial support is ours by right? The answer to each is we don’t have to do this because we are exceptional and therefore outside the normal requirements and responsibilities that apply to all the others.
With any cultural intervention, but especially the Northern Territory Emergency Response, even allowing for best intentions, aspects of shock and awe are present and are deeply resented. In the case of the NTER, having fostered a sense of exceptionalism, any program that took away the accepted perks was bound to be resented. It was felt that one ethnic group was being unfairly targeted for punitive measures.
So racism became embedded, and anyone questioning that needed only go by the KFC corner between midnight and daybreak any night this past summer. The groups milling were up to 100% young Australian aboriginals whose every word and gesture, whose entire demeanor, was aggressive, threatening and racist.
If we want to tackle the racism that is increasing its sway in Alice Springs, we have to also start there.
But there is no going back. For those die-hards who would still claim that all cultural practices are sacrosanct and all interventions are anathema, I suggest that they do themselves and their argument a great favor and view the Sherry Horman directed film Desert Flower.
Some cultural practices are barbaric. Full Stop.
Dave, another great piece. The debate about the role of culture is a contentious one – are people simply beholden to their culture or do they actively take part in shaping it? I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this, but the politics of an answer is important.
On the one hand, culture can be seen to be used as a defence against having to deal with competing norms. There are some arguments for payback that say it works better for Indigenous people because it is defined by their culture. But, just because it works better does not mean it is right. On the other hand, people like Messrs Brown and Duell seem to think Indigenous people are imprisoned by their culture and, therefore, unable to change without serious intervention. But, infantilising a people hardly encourages them to work with you.
But a view of culture as dynamic and significant to people’s lives would undermine each of these arguments. It might mean accepting some forms of payback as much as it means accepting state interventions into the lives of Indigenous people. It requires Indigenous people being open to change (and they have shown a greater capacity for change than they are given credit) as much as it requires non-Indigenous people to not speak to and act patronisingly towards Indigenous people. But, none of this happens because most discussions across these lines will ask the other to make the changes first and you end up with a chicken and the egg scenario.
I agree with you Dave: solutions will only begin to emerge once people realise that they have more in common than they recognise. It’s difficult when people disagree with each other. It might not have to be something as abstract and idealised as a shared humanity. But even if it’s just recognition of the shared space in which people must coexist, then some type of dialogue can emerge where people stop looking for someone to blame and start taking responsibility for each other.
“Yeh”, you blokes have got it right! No Aboriginal is capable of deciding whether or not they should have a drink, put their culture at risk, own their own home or really make any decision at all without your caring benevolent guiding hand. Of course they should be subject to traditional punishment and law, what was I thinking? Aboriginal people being afforded the same protection under law as us, obviously more sophisticated types!! “Sorry, my apologies”, but as a third generation Alicespringite I grew up with the likes of Lindsay and Alison, up until now I had always mistakenly thought of them as Equals. “How dumb was I”?? Of course we need to bring in more alcohol restrictions Aboriginal people simply can’t be expected to make complex decisions such as, “to drink or not to drink” without our all knowing guidance!! How ridiculous is that? We should also be teaching them more about behaviour’s expected under their culture, after all how can they know about those things without our help?? So what if they get really angry about these impositions in their life, take it out on our town, ourselves, our kids, after all they know not what they do..We can always turn the other cheek!! Who needs Alice Springs anyhow?
The trouble is that though long ago their might have been a element of “ right”, in our Paternalism, it’s been around so long, and has distorted in so many ways, grown so grotesque, that there isn’t even a pretence of equality left. Many locals don’t even stop to think that they personally, might be part of this cycle. There are so many greedy grasping hands finding any paternal angle at all to be involved, get their hands on the money, that our entire economy has been distorted by it. Any genuine attempt by our fellow Australians to deal with the problem is simply swallowed up by a self perpetuating uncaring string of parasites who try to outdo real Blackfellas at being Aboriginal. What I was saying above is that the worm is turning we Centralians are going to clean out the parasites, with a heavy dose of “Equality”! When you analyse that word you’ll begin to see what I mean, I spell it out nice and big at the end of this for you to have a think about, Meanwhile a couple of you above appear to have a fascination with “Racism”, with an obviously superior view of what makes one. While not being nearly as clever I will risk pointing out to you that the most destructive the most dehumanizing form that it takes is Paternalism. Paternalism removes the very essence of a fellow human beings life; all in the patronizing pompous belief of one’s own superiority. It is theses Paternalists that have inflicted such misery isolation and downright anger on our community. What do you suppose we should do about it??I said it before…..
” EQUALITY “
Mr. Brown who put you in charge of equality and since when was it used for pest control?
I’m sorry Mr. Brown, but your outburst is a little childish to me. I can’t help but think you’re more pissed off about not being listened to than trying to finding solutions. Need a hug?
Fine, maybe fellow Centralians and the government aren’t listening to you and for that you have every right to be angry. But despite your pretty bad sarcasm, I’m still sitting here willing to listen to what you have to say. But, please stop with the conspiracy theories of paternalism, parasites and racism – it makes me feel like I’m watching a bad episode of the X Files.
Tell me this: what do you think are the causes of violence in Alice Springs and what are the solutions?
If I could interrupt –
I don’t presume to think I know what the root causes of violence in Alice Springs are, nor what the ultimate solutions might be. But I do know that alcohol is not helping.
It is on this issue that I differ from Action for Alice. Alcohol might be just a symptom of a deeper malaise, but its overuse is ripping Alice apart.
At the same time I do not think there should be one rule for some of us and another one for the rest of us.
Therefore, as a partial solution to what is clearly a problem in Alice, I propose that all take-away liquor outlets be closed on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays for a trial period of five years. Those of us who live here can learn to work within this limit, and tourists and visitors can be told.
I also propose that the ‘animal bars’ (and doesn’t the name say it all!) be either closed forever or made to clean up their act.
We have a problem. Either we admit it and deal with it, or it will take us down.
I agree that alcohol may be a symptom of a deeper problem. But, as with any long-term treatment you need to ease the symptoms in order to treat the cause. It’s going to be hard to change the drinking patterns of one of the heaviest drinking populations in the world!
I think the idea of a trial closure of take-away outlets is worth considering. Thirsty Thursdays in Tennant used to work well (see http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2011/s3175271.htm). So, maybe the trial wouldn’t even have to be for 5 years and it could only be for one day if you can look at the results of Tennant Creek.
I think the animal bars exist because of the poor or inept enforcement of licensing laws (see http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/chance-to-end-alice-springss-era-of-animal-bars-wasted/story-fn6tcs23-1226023568372). So maybe the government needs to get serious about enforcing existing legislation. Mind you, this should probably apply to other places like Bos as well as take-away outlets.
I suppose there’s also the new legislation introduced while parliament was in Alice. The ID system used to restrict the supply of alcohol to problem drinkers seems like a good idea.
Alcohol Abuse is a problem and will remain so as long as you have a large population of people sitting around all day with nothing to do, for reasons of just plain boredom, to the all-consuming sense of worthlessness that many, especially the young men feel, a deep depression bought on by the inner knowledge that their life circumstances does not allow them to contribute or achieve anything worthwhile, knowing that by one method or another they have been isolated from the world that goes on around them, regardless of their plight. So you take away access to alcohol for the day. What do you actually think you achieve with that, in a population of bored and increasingly angry people? Once again you’re in their face, exacerbating the level of misery, frustration and isolation. Does the removal of Alcohol assist that? The answer is quite clearly No! It simply means they’ll find some other method of obtaining their fix, which may mean the really nasty Methamphetamine or the slightly better Gunyah, both freely available. Despite being “totally banned”, all of the time!! Restrictions all so develops angry in your face “F…You”, type responses, such as break and enter, ram-raiding and of course the development of Black Markets. Furthermore when supply is threatened it tends to lift the level of bingeing, people drink more, in less time, with the resulting consequences. So what have you achieved with your bans?? Let’s see if you recognise any of this. You have first and foremost created a much deeper divide in the community, them against us, this leads to ugly, loud, in your face behaviour,” Anti-Social behaviour”, in fact. You escalate the number of break-ins, increase the numbers of very drunk people, lift the numbers of people using dangerous Psychotic Drugs. Generally making the community a wilder more deeply divide place where children are in danger, often unfed and simply not capable of being educated, if someone does bother to send them to school. So the problem grows, escalating with every new generation of wasted lives. Before we began to experiment with restrictions we had drunks. Yes alcohol was a problem, people were wasting their lives drinking, but in the main there was considerably less tension in our community, the drunks were generally happier, more likely to say “good aye brus”, in passing on the streets than to be threatening and angry as they are today. We had nowhere near the levels of anti-social behaviour nothing like the levels of break-ins and nowhere near as many drinkers.
It is the fundamental right of any human being too decide how they are going to behave you cannot change their behaviour with bans, if you wish to change their behaviour you can only do it by offering a more fulfilling more attractive road through life that either doesn’t include or includes in moderation the use of alcohol. To put it simply offer them an Equal chance of living a successful fulfilling life in the world to which we all are born!! That means “Equality”, responsibilities, expectations, independence and self-reliance. Our role in this is the provision firstly of Education along with housing, transport, roads a healthy economy… job opportunities and the gradual removal of welfare from all employable persons. Give them the means to help themselves and get the Hell out of the way shove your alcohol bans back in the big black book of idiotic concepts and burn it in recognition and memory of the anger, misery, disenfranchisement, destruction and the sheer bloody waste of human lives it caused all because we were to lacking in guts and decency to take the right road, the hard road.
Mr. Brown, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. I think you’re the only person discussing the issue here who has talked about bans – everyone else has been talking about restrictions. So, don’t dismiss the idea of restrictions because you think bans don’t work. If you’re criticising dry communities laws for Indigenous communities that’s one thing, but I know that I was talking about restrictions in Alice. I don’t know if bans are a good idea in Indigenous communities – admittedly, I’m not terribly informed about the success or otherwise of these programs other than anecdotal evidence. And a lot of that anecdotal evidence is that a lot of Indigenous people feel safer in their communities because of the lack of alcohol.
Has this shifted the problem to Alice Springs? Again, I don’t think anyone can say with any certainty that there has been a decisive urban shift of the problems once found in remote communities. Many Indigenous communities were dry well before any of the problems occurred in Alice. Plus, if I’m not mistaken, police have already said (to the ABC I think) that a lot of the crime wave was caused by people who reside in Alice. So, I don’t think I agree with you 100% about the reasons why Alice is confronting the problems it is (assuming I’ve interpreted you correctly).
The idea of alcohol restrictions is that you can limit supply for a while so that problem drinkers can be targeted and treated. Problem drinkers are not just a problem to themselves but the whole community. Mr. Brown, it’s in your interests to help them. But your suggestion of giving drinkers opportunities is too naive a solution. For starters, would you hire a drunk? No. So, why not support sobering them up? Plus, alcoholism distorts an individuals ability to make informed decisions. You could get into a chicken or the egg argument – people drink because they don’t work or people don’t work because they drink. But targeted alcohol restrictions (like the problem drinker register) gives people their “freedom” to drink until they abuse it. Then attempts are made to rehabilitate their problem drinking, both for themselves and for the sake of the community they live in.
I’m not saying this is a solution or that it will work 100%. Will it create a black market for alcohol or push drinkers to steal alcohol themselves? Hopefully not. The idea is that restrictions make it harder to obtain alcohol for problem drinkers and, therefore, makes it easier for them to be rehabilitated assuming the appropriate programs exist.
Undoubtedly there is a lot of truth in what you say, Steve. I wonder what your stance is on the issue of illicit drugs, which are as you say fairly freely available in Alice Springs. Should we also abandon restrictions on heroin, opium, marijuana, methampetamines etc? And if not, why not?
Dave, you raise an issue that has been a passion of mine for a number of years. It’s been my view that we “should”, legalise what are commonly known as recreational drugs. Not because I support their use, I certainly don’t. However any person who wants to take a dispassionate look at drug use in this or any other country would have to observe that Criminalisation simply doesn’t deter people from drug use, in fact it tends to add to the mystique, its creates Black Markets along with organised crime on the supply side and an enormous portion of the world’s criminal activity is by users trying to find the money to buy drugs at many times their actual cost. When you then add the cost in policing to enforce drug laws, the costs of our legal and Health services, rehabilitation etc. Then it is obvious that the world is paying an enormous price to achieve “nothing”! Nor is that price just monetary, part of that price is the loss of household and personal security, because of the criminal activity that simply would not exist if drugs were legalised. It’s my view that just like our own situation here with Aboriginal Welfare, there are a good many vested interests in the maintenance of the status quo. Could you imagine the sheer number of job losses worldwide, if we legalised drugs? Most of those losses would be from amongst the ranks of those who actually write our laws. What a nice thought “thanks for that Dave”.
No worries. I also believe in legalising ‘recreational drugs’. I think the challenge then is how you society regulates the use of drugs. This is where the discussion needs to be, and we do need a “discussion”!