Features
Councillors decline committee chair jobs
Four new Alice Springs Council members who swapped preferences as they campaigned on “law and order” issues have refused nominations to serve on committees on the new Council, which had its first meeting last night. ABC News reported that incumbent councillor Brendan Heenan was elected deputy mayor by five votes to four over Steve Brown, one of the so-called “gang of four”, who received the highest number of votes for councillor. Mr Brown also came second in the mayoral v...Read more
Beer doesn’t compete, say drinkers
By John Boffa, People’s Alcohol Action Coalition A study funded by the NT Government has provided yet more evidence of the need for a floor price on alcohol that would see at least some drinkers choose beer over strong, damaging fortified wines. The ‘Message in a Bottle’ survey of 103 ‘long-grassers’ by the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation, funded by the NT Department of Justice, found that nearly half drank at dangerous levels, six or seven days a week. As The Australian new...Read more
Burning Issues 3: A pastoral meditation
It seems more than mere months ago that the threat of fire – and the reality – almost overtook law and order as the apparently major shared preoccupation of Centralians. Spurts of rain and cool weather spared us a summer as tense and fiery as the Spring was. For that we are all truly thankful, but let’s hope not complacent. In fact, our sudden change in fortunes highlights the biggest problem with dealing with fire in the post-buffel reality of modern Central Australia. Top End seasons are...Read more
Voices in the wilderness
Occasionally hammering the floor with a home-made walking stick to drive a point home, his long white beard flowing freely, Peter Latz had the air of an old testament prophet as he spoke at the Desert People’s Centre recently. The occasion was a symposium on religion and language. Latz’s subject matter – the remarkable life and times of Central Australia’s first Aboriginal missionary Moses Tjalkabota (pictured) – seemed to dictate an almost evangelical approach. But the impression was ...Read more
What’s the buzz, bee-eaters? Good news and bad …
It’s been amazing to see how much effect a couple of inches of rain have had on the countryside around Alice – not to mention educational. Could we learn something from this? After a relatively dry summer, the rain has perked up the place to a surprising degree, and it’s not just the euros lapping it up. Around town (including our back yard), citrus are bursting into autumn flowering, while many natives are also blooming for the second time in less than a year. This had led to ...Read more
Giant rock wallaby looms over Heavitree Gap!
Story and photos by Alex Nelson And now for something completely different … Fairly early on Sunday morning, following one of the most divisive town council election campaigns in the history of Alice Springs, I walked from my home in the Old Eastside along the east bank of the much-maligned Todd River, into the grounds of the Olive Pink Botanic Garden (where once I used to work) and up to the top of Meyers Hill. I was a man on a mission because there was a particular photograph I wa...Read more
Memo Club: just a memory?
A Territory Opposition member says crime and anti-social behaviour contributed to the demise of Alice Springs’s oldest social club. The Memo Club In Todd Street closed its doors this week after going into voluntary receivership. ABC News reported Country Liberals MLA Adam Giles says crime is so bad in the town that people are too scared to visit pubs and clubs at night. “I think it is a reflection of the current state of both the economy and the situation of law and order in Alice S...Read more
Vote for grog control: PAAC
By John Boffa, Peoples Alcohol Action Coalition (PAAC) . Voters should be aware of which candidates in this Saturday’s Alice Springs Town Council elections are opposed to reforms that would reduce the town’s extremely high alcohol consumption. They should remember that two of the five Mayoral candidates – Eli Melky and Samih Habib Bitar – last July voted to ask Coles, Woolworths and other supermarkets to reverse their decisions to withdraw cask wine and not to sell extremely chea...Read more
Candidates for punishment
By David Havercroft The Alice Springs-based coalition Right To A Home supports the Alice Springs Town Council’s passing last week of a motion to address the need for more supported short term, emergency-type accommodation in Alice Springs. Right To A Home acknowledges this as a positive sign from the Town Council, given the hardships (including financial) that the enforcement of some of its more recent (2009) by-laws has had on people who are homeless. The punitive measures introduced by the ...Read more
Salt mine: Tellus more.
A proposed underground salt mine near the Central Australian Aboriginal community of Titjikala, about 100 km south of Alice Springs, could have a “virtually limitless” life, providing local jobs for “generations”, according to an Australian company. Potentially more controversially, the company is also promoting the prospective mine for use as a waste storage facility, stating on its website that “thick salt beds and salt domes” are regarded by scientists a...Read more
Fracking the Centre
To frack or not to frack? For a post-Gasland public, that may be the question, but not according to the Australian operations head of Canadia-based mining company PetroFrontier, Richard Parkes. The real issue is how it’s done and how it’s regulated. Interestingly, even some environmentalists like the Arid Lands Environment Centre’s Jimmy Cocking seem to agree – essentially. Like others who attended a talk by Parkes and Petrofrontier consultant Larry Franks at Charles Darwin University la...Read more
Candidate finds a voice
By Alice Springs Town Council election candidate Edan Baxter In the lead up to this Council election there is too much focus on simple visual marketing. It seems as though the key communication strategy of most prospective Councillors’ is just to get as much signage as possible located in the trees around town. Many people have said to me: “Edan – where are your placards? Is it possible for you to make it onto Council without placards?” It’s a good question – so I’ve de...Read more
Recent Features
- The hospital they didn't want
- The secret life of white-plumed honeyeaters
- Crime levels not new: police commissioner
- Mandatory treatment plan would cost hundreds of millions
- Misbehavers "not welcome": police commissioner
- That famous Whitegate mob again
- CASA and the zen of tourism
- Return of the man from Oodnadatta
- The memories are always there
- More truancy officers
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
 19°C |
| Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Mon | ||
 |  | | | | |  | |
| 20° | 21° | 23° | 24° | 24° | 24° | ||
| 6° | 8° | 9° | 10° | 10° | 10° | ||
| Data powered by |  |