Dave Richards
Website: http://www.aliceonline.com.au
Dave has been stamping (and treading gently when appropriate) around the Centre since 1978 when he came here because it wasn't Queensland. Since then he's worked for every newspaper in town and some out of town, including The Australian, The National Times, The Age and The Sunday Mail in Brisbane. Dave also had a stint writing feature articles about "cross-cultural chaos" in the now-defunct HQ Magazine. In the nineties Dave got writer's block and branched out into radio, originally working in the newsroom of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association and then for twelve years as a producer for ABC Local Radio. Somewhere in the middle of that stint, Dave decided a website about Alice Springs was a great idea, and is still harping on it. He left the ABC in 2007.
Contributions
Town camp housing: “We don’t want disasters”
Territory Opposition Housing spokesman Adam Giles says he’s “not surprised” to hear that 65 of the new houses built in Alice Springs two camps during the past two years need repairs, although Territory Alliance says the faults are “cosmetic” and not structural. It may be too soon for alarm bells, but it’s a reminder of the historically proven need for vigilence when it comes to building on Aboriginal communities. Last week Alice Online ran the first part o...Read more
Town camp house faults ‘cosmetic’
Some materials used in 65 new houses built in Alice Springs town camps are beginning to “buckle and crack” and will have to be repaired, ABC Alice Springs has reported. But Territory Alliance says the faults are “cosmetic”. The ABC report said that the fault has been discovered in three quarters of the new houses, which were built under the Federal Government’s Alice Springs Transformation plan. The company would have to strip back the walls on the affected homes be...Read more
Delisted heritage site: “community can have screen”.
Developers say they will destroy the town’s drive-in screen by the end of the month unless someone takes it off their hands. The ABC has reported that real estate agent David Forrest, one of a syndicate of local business people who want to turn the site of the drive-in into an accomodation complex, has offered $15,000 to help move the screen. The Drive-In, developed in the early 1960s, was recognised as a heritage site by the Government, but Heritage Minister Karl Hampton decided to revoke...Read more
Green gong for Parsons Street plan
The brief for the redevelopment of Parsons Street –adopted in principle by the Alice Springs Town Council as part of its CBD revitalisation project – has won a prestigious international “green” award. “Green Dot Awards” for “excellence in green products and services” are given annually by the Farmani Group, which sponsors charities and organises international awards for art, photography and design. Revealing The Spirit of Parson’s Street is a concept...Read more
Roadkill’s ‘bittersweet’ story
Bill Lowe from Land for Wildlife has asked travelling folk to take a slightly closer look at roadkill; while it’s always a sad sight, it can bring good news of a sort. As Bill reported on the Land For Wildlife blog, he received “bittersweet” tidings from Dave Price in the form of a photo of a roadkilled Spectacled Hare-wallaby Lagorchestes conspicillatus he and wife Bess Price had spotted just north of Rabbit Flats on the Tanami Road. Bill reports: Initially they thought it m...Read more
Attack on film crew
A film crew was attacked and chased out of the Todd River by two drunken women into a nearby hotel where a hotel staff member was also attacked. Crew members, including Sydney-based journalist Joe Hilderbrand were getting footage at about 6.30pm (CST) on Wednesday for a documentary to be titled Dumb, Drunk and Racist, which had been commissioned by ABC2. Production company Cordell Jigsaw managing director Nick Murray told AAP there were five on-screen staff and five camera operators working when...Read more
House-fixing and myth-busting with Paul Pholeros
I and many others were enlightened and inspired by two talks at this week’s Connecting the Dots conference in Alice Springs: one by Nobel Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus and the other by Healthabitat’s Paul Pholeros. For two days delegates at the conference, organised by Infrastructure Australia, explored the vexed issues of how to improve the poor state of houses, amenities, roads, communications and just about everything else on Aboriginal communities, especially in remote areas. A...Read more
Close the grog gap
By John Boffa from the People’s Alcohol Action Coalition. Our River of Grog’ 236 two-litre wine casks collected from a small section of the Todd River bed between the Schwartz Crescent and Wills Terrace causeways, Alice Springs, on 27th Jan. 2012. Photo: David Hewitt, PAAC. As the Senate Community Affairs Committee receives hundreds of submissions on Minister Macklin’s Stronger Futures Bills, the Alice Springs People’s Alcohol Action Coalition (PAAC) is calling on the Federal Gove...Read more
Lawyers call for independent probe into death
A friend of an Aboriginal man who died in custody last month has told reporters the man was pinned down by police after taking a drunken swing at one of them, and “struggled to breathe” before he was carted to police cells. There have been reports in interstate newspapers following the funeral of Terrance Briscoe, 28, an Anmatyerre man who was found unconscious in the Alice Springs Watchhouse after being arrested for drunkenness on January 4 and pronounced dead shortly afterwards. Police hav...Read more
What a knock-out!
I had an unexpected visitor banging on the front door, just after I had reluctantly crawled out of bed. Just one loud knock; who could it be, at 7.30 am, I wondered grumpily. I opened the door with slight trepidation. No sign of the knocker, until I looked down to notice a smudge of grey feathers on our front steps. Trepidation ongoing, I gently scooped the apparently lifeless visitor on to my hand, where it lay on its back, legs in the air. Now I could see much more than shades of grey: an oran...Read more
Teachers to learn as they go
Six teachers without conventional teacher training began work in Northern Territory Schools today under a new NT Education Department program designed to encourage university graduates from a variety of disciplines. ABC News reported today the Australian Education Union’s NT Branch has described the Teach for Australia program, based on a Victorian version, was a “recipe for disaster”, but Melodie Potts, the CEO of Teach for Australia said their backgrounds in different discipl...Read more
Satyasankalpananda Saraswati, 1951-2011
Friends and family have recently celebrated the life of a Central Australian doctor and yogi whose long personal struggle with illness and its accompanying revelations led her to champion a spiritual approach to life. Satyasankalpananda Saraswati – known mostly as Satya – inspired many with her courageous life and her contributions to the yoga community both in Alice Springs and internationally. She will also be remembered for her commitment to Aboriginal health and was instrumental in the e...Read more
Recent Features
- Town camp housing: "We don't want disasters"
- Town camp house faults 'cosmetic'
- Delisted heritage site: "community can have screen".
- Green gong for Parsons Street plan
- Roadkill's 'bittersweet' story
- House-fixing and myth-busting with Paul Pholeros
- Close the grog gap
- Lawyers call for independent probe into death
- What a knock-out!
- Satyasankalpananda Saraswati, 1951-2011
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