Another Country

Here we are at Mungoobada, a Garawa (Aboriginal) community on the Robinson River 150 km southwest of Borroloola. We are staying with Robyn’s cousin Lyn and husband John. Lyn is nursing in the community health clinic. John is teaching and selecting school students to study at Carey Grammar in Melbourne. It’s a fantastic opportunity for us to see the inside of an aboriginal community. Noah and Georgie are students for the day at the school. Lyn has just arrived home after a callout at 2am to attend to a woman in labour. The woman had not presented at any time at the clinic during her pregnancy and only requested help when in deep contractions. Lyn had arranged a medivac aeroplane that arrived at 8.30 this morning. There is such a shortage of doctors that the medivac aircraft had to wait until dawn before it took off from Nhulunbuy (Gove). The doctor arrived just in time, 20 minutes before the boy was born. Everybody is healthy and much relieved.

The more we travel across central and northern Australia, the more I appreciate that this is really another country. The secure, European lifestyle of Melbourne and tidy open spaces of Victoria are worlds away from the geographical and social topographies of the north.

In this part of the country, Indigenous Australia is front and centre. There are Aboriginal people sitting around the streets, waiting outside shops, sleeping or talking in parks. Passing time is a problem, grog and gambling are tragic time wasters. A couple of nights ago, we had a counter meal at the Borroloola pub, the pub without beer. The pub lost its licence from serving drunks. Apparently there were so many drunk people they were a hazard on the road outside that pub. The acting publican said that since losing it’s licence, the police had reported that domestic violence was down 90 percent and there were similar changes in health issues.

I’ve got to admit that the publican’s accusation that “you Southerners don’t know anything about Aboriginals” is not unfair. In Melbourne or country Victoria, we are unlikely to notice Indigenous people in our midst unless they are football or movie heroes.

The Robinson River community is peaceful and friendly. The houses are well maintained and new houses are being built. There are roughly 300 people; most of the adults are employed in jobs to service the community or business enterprises. The CDEP scheme is fundamental to most of this employment and the prospect of its demise is worrisome. The community is tightly run by an administrator. This paternalistic approach seems to be appropriate in this community, and possibly in many other, however, there is no one approach that suits all, contrary to the John Howard new policy.

We have also seen other examples of Aboriginal communities and enterprises that appear to be successful such as the Guluyambi Tour at Kakadu. However, as the publican was keen to point out, there are plenty of failures, examples of wasted tax payers money and opportunities.

As one of those ‘do gooder’ Southerners, I find the situation perplexing but not without hope. There are certainly no significant one-off solutions although the fact that the Federal Government is finally putting the issue up front is positive. Control of alcohol is fundamental. However, it looks like it’s another one-off election headline grabber rather than a well thought through plan for the long term.

Graeme