Aboriginal alcohol reforms: you would never ever know if you never ever go

In all the brouhaha of John Howard's and Mal Brough's military intervention in the Northern Territory on the pretext of protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse, there has been one clear hallmark - lack of consultation with Aboriginal communities.

There is glib talk about banning alcohol in Aboriginal communities in complete ignorance - or taking for granted the complete and utter ignorance of white Australia - of the reality: that a significant proportion of Aboriginal communities are dry and that Aboriginal communities - particularly older Aboriginal women in communities - have worked hard and spoken loud and long to get control over alcohol frequently in the face of feigned deafness on the part of the white powers that be.

The Tennant Creek story is very different. This is the mainstream town that closed the pubs at the behest of a powerful Aboriginal community. It is documented by the 2007 Miles Franklin Award winner, Alexis Wright, in her book Grog War which was commissioned by the Julalikari Council.

To-day, on The World Today on ABC's Radio National, there is the report of an investigation by the National Drug Research Institute - including Dr Tanya Chikritzhs and fellow researcher Professor Dennis Gray from Perth's Curtin University - which has found that, ten years on, there are positive statistics demonstrating the impact of what Tennant Creek did more than a decade ago. Transcript available here.

How good it is to hear Tennant Creek being recognised; their work being justified and verified; and the public statement of indigenous instigation of alcohol reform.

If you only listened to Howard and Brough, you would never ever know if you never ever go!

Tennant Creek liquor laws half-hearted?

The Grog Book. Strengthening Indigenous Community Action on Alcohol. Revised Edition. Department of Health and Ageing, Canberra 2005. Available from http://www.alcohol.gov.au, or phone 1800 020 103 ext. 8654.

Miss Eagle has received the following comment with regard to the post on the Night Patrol at Tennant Creek:

I've driven through, and stopped overnight in, Tennant Creek in each of the last two years but wasn't aware of the night patrol. I did note that some types of alcohol, eg fortified wine, are not on sale. This seems to be a half hearted way of approaching the problem, though it's better than nothing.

Miss E started to respond in the comments but the response was a bit long and deserved a better exposure than being tucked away in the comments.

Believe Miss Eagle when she says there was nothing half-hearted in Tennant Creek's approach to the liquor problem.

Miss E can understand someone calling the respoonse half-hearted but, from her viewpoint, the only whole hearted response would be to ban liquor for blackfellas and whitefellas alike. But this would cause an uproar among the whitefellas (as the Tennant Creek laws did - an effigy in someone's front yard) and lead to an even greater outbreak of grog smuggling by both blackfella and whitefella alike.

Two things: we live in a democracy and places like Tennant Creek have to live on a daily basis with Aboriginal people and their culture. Such a situation is unknown to the majority of Australians living on the urban fringes in a white dominated culture. Aboriginal culture is not some nice abstract thing which includes eating kangaroo and doing dot paintings. Living with Aboriginal people of significant numbers (half TC's population is black and approx. half of those are traditional Aboriginal people) means that their culture impacts on whitefella culture. The two cultures have to acknowledge each other and live together on a daily basis.

One of the factors which should be acknowledged with drinking in the Aboriginal culture is that the right to drink is tied up in a very real and historic way with Aboriginal civil rights -predominantly because of the experience of Albert Namatjira.

So in Tennant Creek not only whitefellas were unimpressed with the new liquor laws. A number of Aboriginal drinkers were unimpressed as well. One Aboriginal man said to Miss Eagle that, each pay day, he gave his pay to his wife and kept out his drinking money. Why should he not be able to drink as he pleased? All Miss Eagle could say was to get together the people who thought like he did and have their say. This voice, as far as Miss E could tell, was never heard.

The publicans of Tennant Creek fought the introduction of the new liquor laws through the court in a quite protracted case. They lost. Always remember vested whitefella interest and the way it markets its product. Never forget - as whitefellas do when comdemning blackfellas for drinking - the whitefellas who will do anything to get grog to blackfellas for profit.

Miss Eagle remembers years ago the publican in Burketown in the Gulf country who was such a thoughtful person that he sold a very, very rough red to the blackfellas in plastic flagons so that they would not cut themselves. Then there was the shop in Mount Isa just around the corner from the Mount Isa High School which met customer demand in a thoughtful way as well by selling methylated spirits ready mixed with Orchy (orange juice) which could be purchased chilled straight from the refrigerator and then taken the 50 meters or so across to the bed of the Leichhardt River to drink with friends while doing a spot of gambling. Mental note: Must talk about gambling which is an even worse problem than grog and no one ever mentions it or does anything about it.

With the mention of methylated spirits, Miss Eagle must refer to the campaign conducted for many years by Tony McGrady, former Mayor of Mount Isa and Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, to have methylated spirits made unpalatable for drinking. He did succeed - eventually. Let's ask ourselves why such a simple matter took so long? How many blackfellas' brains turned to jelly while whitefellas looked the other way and could not make a simple administrative decision in a matter which did not affect their well-being or profit?

The laws that were introduced in Tennant Creek were not iron clad. How could they be? But thanks to the nous and organisation of Julalikari Council, Tennant Creek - black and white - went on a journey which no mainstream community had been on before in this nation and no one has had the guts to follow since.

Now, contrary to public opinion, the drinking blackfella has always known how to get the most alcoholic bang for his buck. That's why the popular purchase was always a five litre cask of moselle. The sale of this was banned. But, of course, there were substitutes - Fruity Lexia, port and sherry.

Another problem developed with the consumption of port and sherry: the littering of streets with broken glass. Hardly a street corner was exempt. The problem had never been quite so evident with the casks. So the Tennant Creek Town Council applied for and received funding from the Northern Territory Government to pay for a ute and two men to keep the streets clean. The Northern Territory has a wine cask levy which makes such things possible. However - and isn't there always a 'however' - TC's wily General Manager of the time used to divert the two men and the ute to other tasks so that the original purpose of the funding was frequently unfulfilled.

Get the message! We complain about blackfellas - from ATSIC to drunks on the street - but where do they learn their lessons, what examples are set for ethical behaviour in the white community?

But back to half-heartedness. There was great co-operation to make the new laws work. Antipathy to the laws - with the exception of the publicans - in a public way soon subsided. The NT Liquor Commission and the Police were on side. Pubs which did the wrong thing were shut down - albeit temporarily. The Shaft at the Tennant Creek Hotel (otherwise known as The Swan) was caught by the Liquor Commission serving grog to drunken blackfellas. The owners were taken to Court and were forced to close all their outlets for three days - including their popular Steakhouse restaurant. The Goldfields was closed on a couple of occasions because of the raucous behaviour of drunken blackfellas.

Word to Miss Eagle is that the laws have fallen into disrepair because they were constructed around Thursday as the uniform Social Security benefit pay day. The government began to stagger paydays for different benefits and Thursday - the one day when public bars and bottleshops were closed - no longer has the same significance.

Now there is one little thing the Howard Government could do, without uproar, by administrative fiat - go back to a uniform pay day and get the NT to close public bars across the NT every Thursday.

Tennant Creek, Night Patrol, and Thirsty Thursday

Logo: Julalikari Council,

Tennant Creek, Northern Territory

So you, dear Reader, are a bit non-plussed about Mal Brough's apparent about face on grog access for Aboriginal communities? Get a dose of reality on the whole Shock and Awe Campaign.

Howard and Brough are strutting the national stage as if they are the only ones with ideas, the only ones to think of solutions. No, they are not. But they are part of the problem - the problem that has cut funding for Aboriginal initiatives, refused to listen to Aboriginal people making their needs known, failing to fund their reasonable and justifiable proposals.

Aboriginal people - particularly the women and, of them, the grandmothers - have strong views about alcohol and access to it. Most Aboriginal people, in spite of white views to the contrary, do not drink. Survey after survey outlines this. Some believe that alcohol and the way whitefellas make money out of blackfellas by selling it to them legally or illegally is nothing less than genocide.

This means that Aboriginal people, as a generality, are highly motivated to do something about alcohol usage and access. Tennant Creek, arguably, has been the place of the most creative attempts to combat grog and its effects. The Aboriginal community in Tennant Creek established the very first Night Patrol in Australia. The Night Patrol - largely staffed by women - drives around at night and picks up alcohol affected people. The violent, obstreperous ones are left for the police who take them to the local watch-house. The others are either taken home or to the shelter/drying out place.

Night Patrols have been established in numerous Aboriginal communities. They are a success story of Aboriginal Australia. For more information on the Night Patrol experience in Tennant Creek please read here and here.

But the Tennant Creek story does not begin and end with the Night Patrol. With the idea that was to become known as Thirsty Thursday, Julalikari Council - the energetic, creative, and involved Aboriginal organisation in Tennant Creek - suggested closing down the liquor outlets for one day to make the significant point of the impact no grog could have on Aboriginal communities. Read this description of Julalikari's radical proposal and its implementation by a former resident of Tennant Creek, Paul Cockrem.

Julalikari Council commissioned Miles Franklin Award winner, Alexis Wright, to document the history of the closure of the Tennant Creek pub's and the changes to licensing laws in Tennant published in Grog War.

It was good to hear Peter Dabbs on The World To-day this afternoon. Peter used to be in the Northern Territory with the Menzies School of Health. He was part of the team from Menzies who surveyed the residents of Tennant Creek as we tried one set of liquor laws for three months and another set of laws for another three months. Go here for a number of publications by Menzies relating to alcohol and Aboriginal communities. Peter Dabbs co-authored a report on the Tennant experience - d’Abbs P, Togni S, Crundall I. The Tennant Creek Liquor Licensing Trial, August 1995 – February 1996 : An Evaluation. Darwin: Menzies School of Health Research, 1996. Purchase price: AU$16:50 - which can be purchased from Menzies.

Aboriginal insecurity: thinking on vines and fig trees. Part 4. Reality on a road trip.

Miss Eagle is publishing the following from Crikey. The Howard-Brough Shock and Awe Campaign of the past week astounds people because it bears no relation to the reality of their experience. "People" who have - unlike John Howard - acknowledged the reality of Aboriginal disadvantage, the child abuse in Aboriginal communities and have lived in the NT working side by side with Aboriginal people to get on with things and build a better life. Bob Gosford, who writes below, seems to get it. So please take a dose of reality from his road trip. Please note: The links related to the names of Aboriginal organisations mentioned were added by Miss Eagle to facilitate access to knowledge on the part of the reader.

11. Fear and loathing in the Northern Territory

Bob Gosford writing on the road from from Ti Tree, Tennant Creek, Katherine, and Darwin:

Over three days this week I drove from the deep south to the tropical north of the Northern Territory and visited families along the way to gauge early reaction to Howard and Brough's promise to their children. From what I saw parents are drawing their own lines in the sand – and that line is firmly set at their front gates.

They say that if Howard, Brough or anyone else mandated by Canberra turn up at their houses to take their children away for a compulsory examinations for signs of s-xual abuse they will resist to protect their children.

I was driving from Alice Springs to Darwin when John Howard's coup of last Thursday was announced. I spent the night in a roadhouse there and all the talk was of Howard's move. Comment varied from "well-overdue and a good thing" to "we'll be rooned". Things were little clearer the next day and I went to the local council to see if they'd heard any more.

The Anmatjere Community Government Council offices are in the centre of the five square mile special-purpose lease excised from the Aboriginal land trust that surrounds the town. Ti Tree is a small, quiet town that provides the usual services to tourists and the people living and working on the surrounding cattle stations and small Aboriginal communities.

Many of the more essential services are provided by the council. Crikey asks the council staff if they have any comment about Howard's plans but they have nothing to say -- all they know is what they have seen in Brough's four-page press release and on Sky News the night before. A few hours and 350 kilometres up the road, I pulled into the Julalikari Aboriginal Corporation's offices in Tennant Creek. Julalikari provides 'cradle-to-grave' services to town camps and small Aboriginal communities scattered across the Tennant Creek area and the Barkly Tablelands. The staff can't say much about Howard's plans and they're loath to speak until after council meets this week. Elliott is another 'open' town another 250 kilometres closer to Darwin. The local 'white' council administers part of the town, but the Aboriginal town camps and some outstations are serviced by the small and chaotic offices of the Gurungu Aboriginal Corporation.
What do these organisations have in common? They are all squarely in the sights of Howard's coup. Why does this matter? Because they all stand to have the land they and their people have fought so hard for stripped from them -- again.

There are many organisations like Anmatjere, Julalikari and Gurungu in the NT -- they are run by good people who do the hardest of jobs with little thanks or government support.
These parents don't mind their kids having general health check-ups – they think it's a great idea and this could be done at their local Aboriginal-run and owned clinics and health centres staffed by people that they and their children know and respect.

But they point out what these centres need is real and sustainable resources and a plan which includes them as part of the solution -- and not a part of some greater game.
But they are firm in saying NO to compulsory examinations by doctors that don't know their kids, that they and their kids don't know, have never seen before, and in four months time they might never see again. They worry what will happen to their kid's medical reports and most of all, they worry about their kids being subjected to these unnecessary and intrusive examinations by strangers.

Vindication - but will there be Justice

Miss Eagle received news this afternoon of the result of the Coroner's findings on the death of Mulrunji (otherwise known as Cameron Doomadgee). The Coroner found that an individual policeman kicked Mulrunji and so contributed to his death. Miss Eagle hesitates to call the Coroner's finding justice: vindication, yes; justice, yet to be seen.

Mulrunji has been vindicated. Will justice follow?

One of the great sadnesses in this whole sorry saga is the death of Mulrunji's son.

The Queensland Police Union is in denial on the subject.

Dear Reader, why does this not surprise Miss Eagle? If the Commissioner has the same attitude, the future will remain as bleak as it ever has been when Aboriginal people come in contact with whitefella's law and the Queensland Police will have lost an opportunity to move forward.

The Coroner has made a number of recommendations in her report and Miss Eagle publishes them.

Miss Eagle is a Queenslander. She has lived in the Northern Territory and in Walgett in north-western New South Wales. All these places have significant Aboriginal communities. Miss Eagle cannot say forcefully enough that the attitudes of the Queensland Government on Aboriginal issues and policies is still rooted in the early 20th century. There is no difference whether the Government is Labor, National Party or Liberal. Queensland refuses to implement policies which work elsewhere.

One of the Coroner's recommendations is for the establishment on Palm Island of a community patrol. Miss Eagle lived for a number of years in Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. The Aboriginal community of Tennant Creek established many, many years ago the first Night Patrol in this country. The Night Patrol picks up non-violent Aboriginal people under the influence of alcohol. These people are either taken to their homes or to the alcohol and drug abuse centre. Violent people are left for the police to put in the watchhouse. Such a detox centre is also a recommendation of the Coroner. See what Miss Eagle means? Hardly rocket science. Aboriginal people themselves control these systems in the interests of their own communities - but in Queensland........

And as for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody? Well, if you live in Queensland, the attitude would be: why bother.

~~~~~~~~~~

INVESTIGATION OF MULRUNJI’S DEATH

ARREST AND POLICING

1. The arrest of Mulrunji was not an appropriate exercise of police discretion. There were a range of alternatives to arrest available that should have been preferred. These include giving a caution, issuing a direction or commencing proceedings by way of notice to appear or summons.

2. The Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (PPR Act) should be amended to
reflect the principle of arrest as a last resort. This might be achieved by amending s 198
to provide that a police officer may only arrest an adult without warrant where the
officer reasonably suspects that he or she has committed an offence and where they
reasonably believe that no other action, in all the circumstances, is appropriate given
the matters set out in s 198.

3. The PPR Act should be amended to include an explicit statutory duty to consider and
utilise alternatives to the detention of intoxicated persons in police cells.

4. The Operational Procedures Manual (OPM) should be amended to instruct officers to
consider arrest as a last resort and consider all alternatives before arresting a person,
particularly in cases of minor offences.

5. The OPM should be amended to reinforce the need to consider and utilise alternatives
to the detention of intoxicated persons in police cells.

6. The inappropriate arrest of Mulrunji reflects a lack of awareness of the legal bases upon which a person may be arrested without a warrant. The Police Commissioner should
consider whether this reflects upon police training generally or a need for further training of Senior Sergeant Hurley or other officers who gave evidence at this inquest.

7. The decision to arrest Mulrunji also reflects a lack of awareness of the alternatives to
arrest and confusion about their availability in the case of intoxicated persons. The
Police Commissioner should consider whether this reflects upon police training 27. The involvement in the investigation of Mulrunji’s death of officers from Townsville and Palm Island was inappropriate and undermined the integrity of the investigation.

8. The decision to arrest Mulrunji and the evidence of Senior Sergeant Hurley discloses a
lack of awareness of, and a failure to take into account, the recommendations of the
RCIADIC relating to the arrest of Aboriginal people for drunkenness and public order
offences. The Police Commissioner should consider whether this reflects upon police
training generally or a need for further training of Senior Sergeant Hurley and the other
officers who gave evidence at this inquest.

9. The Police Commission should give particular attention to the training of officers
working in Aboriginal communities. Such training should be provided prior to any
service in Aboriginal communities and should deal specifically with the
recommendations of the RCIADIC and how these are relevant to policing and the
exercise of discretion to arrest. Training should include ‘experiential training’ based on
the Kowanyama trial, as identified in the Cape York Justice Study.

10. Immediate attention should be given by the Queensland Government to the proper
funding and support of the Community Justice Group on Palm Island.

DIVERSIONARY CENTRES AND COMMUNITY PATROLS

11. Urgent attention should be given by the Queensland Government to the establishment of a diversionary centre on Palm Island to provide an alternative to police custody for people who come to the attention of police while intoxicated.

12. Such a centre should be established following consultation with the Palm Island
community and its design and operation must be responsive to local conditions and
needs.

13. The establishment of a diversionary centre should be accompanied by the development of a protocol with the Queensland Police Service, in conjunction with the Palm Island community, as to its use as an alternative to detention.

14. The establishment of a diversionary centre should also be accompanied by training of
police officers working on Palm Island as to the use of the centre as an alternative to
detention.

15. Urgent attention should be given by the Queensland Government to the establishment of a community patrol on Palm Island.

16. The structure and functions of such a community patrol should be developed following consultation with the Palm Island community.

17. It is vital that any community patrol that is implemented on Palm Island is adequately supported and funded to ensure its success.

ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING OF HEALTH

18. There was no assessment of Mulrunji’s health upon being received into police custody at the Palm Island Watchhouse. There was no adequate reason for this failure.

19. The OPM should be amended to fortify the direction given to police in relation to the
conduct of a thorough initial health assessment of any person brought into police
custody. In particular, the OPM should note that where a person taken into custody is
unable initially to be properly assessed because they are violent, aggressive or non-
cooperative, consideration must be given to conducting an assessment by another
means (such as through the cell door) or having another officer conduct the assessment.
In the event that an assessment still cannot be conducted, further attempts must be made
at the earliest available opportunity.

20. The OPM should be urgently reviewed with a view to providing a much greater level of practical guidance to officers on how to conduct health assessments and checks of
persons in their custody.

21. Pending such review, the OPM should be immediately amended to incorporate the
Medical Checklist currently used by Victorian Police. Queensland police should receive
training in the use of that checklist and commence using it immediately.

22. The failure to properly assess Mulrunji’s health suggests a lack of appropriate training for officers in the conduct of health assessments of people in custody. The Police
Commissioner should urgently consider increased and improved training of police
officers in relation to health assessments, particularly for officers in charge of watchhouses who should receive more intensive and specialised training.

23. The content and scope of such training should take into account the RCIADIC
recommendations, in particular:

• Such training should include information as to the general health status of the
Aboriginal population, the dangers and misconceptions associated with
intoxication, the dangers associated with detaining unconscious or semi-rousable
persons and the specific action to be taken by officers in relation to those matters;
and

• In designing and delivering such training programs, custodial authorities should
seek the advice and assistance of Aboriginal Health Services and Aboriginal Legal
Services.

SUPERVISION, MONITORING AND CARE IN CUSTODY

24. The Police Commissioner should consider the need for greater training in relation to
monitoring equipment of officers who are in positions that may require them to have
responsibility for people held in custody,

25. Theoretical and practical training in first aid and resuscitation should be mandatory for all officers who are in charge of a police watchhouse. Wathchhouses should be
resourced with appropriate equipment to enable first aid and resuscitation to be
provided whilst maintaining proper workplace health and safety standards and
protection for police officers.

26. People in custody should not be left unmonitored under any circumstances. The Police Commissioner should conduct an urgent review to ensure that this practice is not
undertaken elsewhere in Queensland and that staffing levels are adequate to ensure that
persons kept in custody are never left unmonitored.


INVESTIGATION OF MULRUNJI’S DEATH

27. The involvement in the investigation of Mulrunji’s death of officers from Townsville
and Palm Island was inappropriate and undermined the integrity of the investigation.

28. In all deaths in custody, officers investigating the death should be selected from a
region other than that in which the death occurred. The OPM should be amended to
require this.

29. The OPM should be amended to require the appointment of the officer in charge of.

30. The OPM should be amended to make explicit the need to consider, when selecting
officers for involvement in an investigation of a death in custody, the impartiality and
the appearance of impartiality in the conduct of the investigation.

31. The involvement in the investigation of Mulrunji’s death of officers who knew Senior Sergeant Hurley personally, or were friends with him, was inappropriate and
compromised the integrity of the investigation.

32. The OPM should be amended to explicitly require officers involved in an investigation into a death in custody to disclose any relationship with an officer involved in, or a witness to, that death.

33. The investigation’s appearance of impartiality was further undermined by the following conduct:-

• It was inappropriate for Hurley to meet the investigating officers at the airport upon
their arrival;

• It was inappropriate for Hurley to drive the investigators to the scene of Mulrunji’s
arrest; and

• It was completely unacceptable for investigators to eat dinner at Hurley’s house
while the investigation was being conducted.

34. The OPM should be amended to more clearly state the need for officers involved in an investigation to consider the impartiality and the perception of impartiality in the
conduct of the investigation at all times.

35. The discussion by Senior Sergeant Hurley of the death of Mulrunji with Sergeant Leafe and Police Liaison Officer Bengaroo prior to being interviewed was inappropriate and contrary to the OPM. It had the potential to undermine the integrity of the investigation and undermine the appearance of integrity of the investigation.

36. The OPM should be amended to require the officer in charge of an investigation of a
death in custody to instruct officers involved in, or witness to, the death not to discuss
the matter with other witnesses prior to being interviewed.

37. Consideration should be given by the Police Commissioner to the training officers
receive to ensure they are aware of their obligations under the OPM if involved in
deaths in custody. In particular the Commissioner should ensure that officers strictly
comply with section 16.24 (vi) to (viii) of the OPM and immediately arrange for the
next of kin to be notified where a death in custody occurs.

38. The CMC should be actively involved in all investigations into deaths in custody from the outset. Consideration should be given to having a senior officer of the CMC
involved in all investigations into deaths in custody.

39. Difficulties in cross-cultural communication between police and Aboriginal witnesses may have impaired the effectiveness of the investigation of this matter by police. Significant attention should be given by the Police Commissioner to the training of officers, particularly those who are working in or near large Indigenous communities
such as Palm Island in relation to communication with Indigenous people and the use of
support persons and interpreters. This is a matter that is fundamental to the effective
and fair administration of justice in Queensland.

40. The OPM should be amended to include, as an appendix, Chapter 9 of the Supreme
Court of Queensland Equal Treatment Benchbook on ‘Indigenous Language and
Communication’. The OPM should direct officers to follow and apply the contents of
that chapter to the greatest extent possible.

An adventure on the journey of life.

Miss Eagle's good friend, Jim Phillips of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, was diagnosed yesterday with bowel cancer. Miss Eagle asks for prayers for Jim - particularly as his work, business, and family life have to be sorted out to enable him to seek treatment interstate.

In the Territory there is a saying: Get a pain, catch a plane. So next Thursday Jim is on a plane to Brisbane.

Tennant Creek (pop. 4,000) and Alice Springs (pop. 25,000 and five hours away) is not the place to deal with something as serious as this. Jim's dearly beloved, Sylvia, keeps the admin part of the business going. An excellent supervisor keeps the real work going. We need prayer so that Sylvia can be relieved of her admin duties - which are vital to the sustainability of the business - to be with Jim in Brisbane.

Jim and Sylvia walk and work closely with God day by day in every way.

Please be with them as they journey with Him on this adventure too.

Keep McArthur wild, free, and clean

This report this morning is quite disturbing. This concerns me greatly. I lived at McArthur River Station in 1977 while on a working holiday with my family. This began my love for the river. When I left I promised one day that I would return. 1977 was the year that saw the stealthy declaration of the Borroloola Town Plan by the CLP Government to protect the interest of Mount Isa Mines (MIM) and any future involvement of the river in mine-related activity against the interests of traditional owners – particularly because at that stage a slurry pipeline was being discussed to get the product to port. My husband and I had a close friendship with a Gurdanji traditional owner. At this time the Aboriginal Development Corporation (ADC) was negotiating the purchase of McArthur River Station, on which the Xstrada mine is situated, from Mount Isa Mines. Then one morning people found out that all this effort was for nought. The Northern Territory Government had intervened to protect the interests of MIM.

I kept my promise of 1977. My husband was dead. My children had grown and flown the coop. Sixteen years later, a job came up in Tennant Creek working for the local Member of Parliament in the seat of Barkly. The seat of Barkly covers McArthur River Station, the McArthur River, and Borroloola. I applied. I got the job. I came back. I lived in Tennant Creek from 1993 to 1997. This period covered the gearing up of McArthur River Mine by Mount Isa Mines (MIM) from its previous status as a pilot project. I was used to dealing with MIM because, in the interim, I had spent nearly a decade living and working in Mount Isa. When I consider the agreements made with local aboriginal people by Mount Isa Mines, I don’t believe that the mine has delivered for the interests of local aboriginal people.

For thirty years, I have been concerned with the impact of mining on the pristine McArthur. Now it has become an eventuality.

There is the distinct possibility of a fightback by Xstrada following the NT Govt’s decision against Xstrada’s EIS statement. If this fightback comes about, it will receive strong support from the mining community and will be run by a professional public relations company. Business interests will seek to dominate against the interests of aboriginal people and against the welfare of the local environment.

Human beings know better than this. No amount of dollars - whether it is in the pockets of Australians or the Swiss, in the pockets of corporations or government - can replace the dugong and the turtle (which I have eaten, prepared by an aboriginal clan, beside the McArthur River) if they and their habitat, along with with the barramundi for which Borroloola is famous, are destroyed.