Xenia Girdler

Carved into a Ghost Gum outside a mandatory rehabilitation clinic are the names of two young lovers. This is an assumption - but this is also most likely a fact.
Late last year the NT Government overturned the mandatory treatment legislation for those identified with an alcohol problem. At the same time, they tightened the “three strikes you’re incarcerated” ruling. So, as a CEO of an alcohol support service in Alice Springs recently said to me “… you can now drink as much as you like but, break the law in anyway more than twice and we’ll lock you up. In Gaol”
The new prison just out of Darwin is so large they have busses to ferry people around the perimeter. The new prison isn’t big enough, however, to house all those now needing to serve a sentence. In fact, it was filled to over capacity before it even opened.

As the late, great Richie Haven laments in his “Live at the Cellar Door” album -
“Dig this ….”

Much luck, love and life to you, Kevin and Gracie, I truly hope you make it.

Sitting on a hill, rising up from the banks of Roper River is the remote East Arnhem community of Ngukurr, 70km inland from the Gulf of Capentaria -there are days when they sometimes feel a sea breeze. 

Ngukurr is home to around 2000 people. Like most communities in this part of Australia is suffers for its isolation.

There are 21 clans and 7 language groups in Ngukurr. Unrest is rife and the issues workers are faced with day in and day out rival that of the most impoverished developing country.

Here people are so generationally disenfranchised the lack of hope, choice and self-efficacy screams through me - like white-hot noise. And, it’s not about money. 

In June 2007 the Federal Government launched it’s Northern Territory Emergency Response - the Intervention as it came to be known. This initiative was to keep children and women safe and create opportunities for change. So, why is it, seven years later communities continue to stumble and fall? Millions and Millions has been spent. In some kind of blind frenzy, dollars have swirled about the heads of Aboriginal people - landing where the government of the day say it will. With limited consultation and even less involvement, people are simply “done-to”, over and over again.

Just before Christmas a colleague and I grabbed a ride on the GP plane and flew to Ngukurr to catch up with some students and visit the local health clinic. And on our way back to the airstrip, we also received a guided tour of town.

People’s access to the basics are limited. Employment opportunities are scarce - as is motivation. The community has two pools but they are rarely open because no one wants to patrol them. The day we flew in it was 46 degrees and humid almost beyond measure. The pools were closed until late afternoon when they managed to find a willing staff member. Just for an hour and a half.

As the tour of Ngukurr was drawing to a close, our guide swept his hand to the left and announced “…and here we have Rainbow Street”. I turned to see a collection of luridly painted bessar brick buildings. Small windows, no verandahs, no anything which I would consider a building in this harsh landscape might require. Our guide went on “…. these houses were built after the intervention. To ease the overcrowding. They were built at a cost of 795,000 each. 9.8 million dollars all up. And you know how many extra rooms were created in total? ” He paused for effect. “Eight”.

My colleague and I went silent - it wasn’t that I had nothing to say. I simply did not know where to start. The outrageous cost. The appalling design. The utter waste.

I commenced by asking (even though I was sure I knew the answer) if the community were consulted about the design and involved in the building. Of course they weren’t. But what I then discovered made me want to cry. A local company had, around the same time, built two houses in consultation with the people who were going to live there. The houses cost roughly 250k each to construct. They had verandahs - large and wide and faced the right way to remain cool in summer but catch the sunlight in the at-times bitterly cold dry season. They were designed and built to support the way people wanted to live. The General Business Manager took one look at these homes and ordered for them to be torn down. And they were - because they were not regulation.

So when I hear people talk about the money, money, money - I need to shout out. It’s not about the money. It’s about what the government chooses to spend the money on.  And I need to re-tell the story of Rainbow Street, Ngukurr. To anyone who cares to listen.

On November 18^th, 2014 RMIT University welcomed two more groups of Graduates into its alumni.  Twenty-two people in total. It is a small number and by comparison  to the Melbourne-based graduation at Etihad Stadium it is positively minute. But like most things in life, context is paramount.  These students live and work in the Northern Territory and form part of the work I have been doing for the last four years.  The courses were run in Katherine – the town I have written about often. The third largest in the NT but still less than 10,000 people. However these students were predominantly from other communities or towns in the NT because, still, after all these years, there are no other options for face-to-face training and education quite like what we offer. No other training provider takes the worker’s existing skills and knowledge into account when designing curriculum and no other training provider ensures the assessments reflect the unique nature of complex community care service provision. I have no answer why – but I do know it explains the thousands of kilometers travelled by our graduates each and every month to attend class. I also think it explains the enthusiasm with which they approached their study and the degree to which they applied themselves to ensure they passed and received their Testamur last month.

I plan to follow-up with our graduates now – I am curious to know what difference the study and resulting qualification has made to their lives, personally and professionally. Has their organisation noticed a difference in their performance. Has, most importantly, there been a change in terms of client outcomes.  Surely, if we can start to see inroads in these key areas my goals of providing hope an choice can be realised by changing the way education and training is provided to people living and working in remote Australia?

As the plane accelerated down the runway I began to miss Alice – the Central Desert Town. Unlike Katherine, my educational base for the past four years, Alice had drawn me in with her vibrant café’s, music, art and huddled-range-landscape. Ironically, however, this also makes the situation in Alice Springs  sadder and more difficult to fathom.

It was only after a couple of days of meandering – absorbing and observing I was able to feel and be intoxicated by the community spirit which supports and drives Alice Springs. It is passionate, protective, and feisty: the community welcoming. I was there during the annual Desert festival; the town was alive and dancing. Faces full of wonder and delight. The faces. Nodding, smiling, sipping bottled wine and dining on fine food – the dreadlocks and tattoos sitting comfortably with Hugo, Free People and the linen of a Country Road. However, what becomes silently deafening is the fact these faces are not, necessarily, white but certainly non-aboriginal.  Indian, Asian, African faces sit happy, proud and employed whilst the Aboriginal Population of Alice were the solemn onlookers and outcasts. Quiet and downcast , humbugging, sleeping on grassy patches under trees or the sandy dry beds of the Todd,  being turned away as they sold their plight or their artwork – sometimes one in the same – for a few dollars. As the Desert Parade made its noisy chaotic way down the main drag of town, Aboriginal children delighted whilst the older ones looked on – quiet and stoney-faced. They older ones didn’t care. White man’s folly – or something else. Alice is an easy town to fall in love with but a harder place to live in because of it.

The interest in the programs in Alice has taken me by surprise. I should know, by now, how things tend to work in this part of the world. You can never start to advertise too early – people ignore you. You also can’t start too late because people’s schedules are often arranged months in advance. The magic time, however, is a movable beast. People sit back and watch – wait to see if what you are proposing has been tried, worked and feedback is positive. Therefore – everything feels last-minute – no matter now organized you want to be. People in this part of the country need to meet you, suss you out, ask about you from other people and then make their mind up, in their own time. Nevertheless, eventhough our class numbers are still not constant or still, we have over 25 students enrolled across both the courses and organisations still ringing hoping to put there staff through this iteration too. 

Who are these students and where do they work? Our new students are made up of Aboriginal, Nepalese, Sri Lankan, Maori, Torres Straight Island and Non-Indigenous Australians. The age range is young to not-so-young. The experience in the room varies, the enthusiasm and interaction soars.  As a teacher it is rewarding, but as a person it is mind-blowing and humbling. Sometimes I still stop and wonder how on earth I have been able to pull this together and why these strangers come together and share their triumphs and struggles with each other and with me. These workers provide support to young people at risk; drugs, alcohol, violence, homelessness and death. Older people choosing mandatory treatment rather than gaol, older people choosing treatment to save themselves, their families, their communities. Men, women, teenagers, Families torn apart and clinging to anything they can find. Generationally traumatised and disenfranchised the students we are fortunate to meet are trying to put pieces together and build inner resilience. 

I am fortunate. Beyond words.

One year ago I started to write a blog. It commenced with much enthusiasm however I soon realised I didn’t understand or know what it was I wanted to convey. The entries were random observations, visual and written, of the people I met, things I saw and the impact this had on me. In one way the entries, though self-contained, were mutually inclusive as they reflected my self-awareness, ignorance and naivety.  Nevertheless, what I wanted to capture remained elusive. I had wanted to record my reactions and feelings from the beginning – but my written records  started when things were no longer new. To recall the emotional rollercoaster I had been on was no longer possible. The utter shame and disgrace I felt at how so many first-people of the country I call home, were living.  My intellectual horror when I realised the money which had been thrown over politicians shoulders had, without record or witness, fallen to no-aid and no-tangible purpose. No one, it seemed had ever bothered to turn around and really look at where these billions had and were landing. The day it dawned on me non-indigenous Australians had simply, easily written off an entire culture, an entire race. Generationally stunting their humanity by taking away hope and choice. 

I know these horrors now, so I am no longer shocked. Sometimes I cannot even get angry. It is too exhausting. And yet, I continue to travel and work in the Top End with unwavering enthusiasm and passion. Because the absence of hope and choice in a person’s life is wrong and I want to support systems to change the paradigm.

Today, as I sit on another plane, flying-ever-North, a new chapter commences – and I intend to capture it as it unfolds.  For three years I have based myself in Katherine – and seen three groups of students graduate from their chosen program. This flight is stopping short of Katherine – some 1300km South – in Alice Springs. The second largest town in the Northern Territory, with a population of 30,000 people, is a new educational base for me and my wonderful colleagues. 

What have I learned so far – and what do I take with me to this next adventure …

 We are not the expert on other people’s lives.

Listen. Watch and listen some more.

Only then might you be able to know which questions to ask rather than which answers to give.

And together you can explore the possibilities.

Today the Australian Government, announced further punitive measures for families who do not send their young children to school. Not all families. These are specific families. Especially targeted.

Truancy offices are sent out to herd Indigenous children living in remote communities not in school back into the classroom; money is withheld from their parents as punishment. These kids are often choosing to play with their friends or go out bush with their family rather than sitting at a desk  - enduring classes delivered in a language other than their own. School is, for most a grinding and preparation for the future. However, in this part of Australia primary school is a preparation for a high school which doesn’t exist. In reality, there are so few high school options in remote Australia these children are forced to fly thousands of kilometres from home, country, family to expensive private boarding schools. Or again, their family is financially punished.

Education should never be an either-or with punishment. We should never set learners up to fail.

And yet - we have the cruel audacity to blame and punish parents who do not force their children to enter into a system which, in its current form, will

never serve their needs.

A young male Aboriginal is more likely to go to gaol than finish school.

A young male Aboriginal school leaver is more likely to go to gaol than tertiary or further study.

Tomorrow I fly to Perth - the most isolated capital city in the world. The week will involve a presentation at an annual mental health conference and a chance to explore expanding my education and training model to rural and remote communities outside the Northern Territory. Let’s see - surely the possibilities are there for their taking? 

For the first time in the three years I have been travelling to Katherine I got to spend time with a Council of Elders; a group of women who were engaged, participatory and vocal. This group – Banatjarl – are the traditional custodians of Jawoyn Land. Aboriginal people do not believe they own the land – instead they belong to the land. The term Traditional Owners (which us Whites coined) is, in many ways, a misnomer. These women are old – and they fear for the future of their traditional ways because the young ones are not taking up their place in the Council. In fact, their fear is - the young ones are not doing anything.

I was invited to speak with the women at their council meeting – about what I do and how they might be able to work with me. Instead I spoke about how I might be able to work with them. I asked them to come and talk to me about what they wanted – and how I could take their goals and dreams and present them with possibilities. How together we might be able to provide the young ones with hope and opportunity – articulated by them – owned by them. It was an extraordinary day.  

It was so hot. 40 degrees in the shade – but not under the corrugated tin  where we were. I reckon it would have been close to 50. It was dry – there has not been rain there since April. The flies were buzzing and the large red ants made quick work of the fallen fruit and sandwiches. 

As the day rolled on television crews came and went – recording for posterity the annual “Banatjarl Talkfest”. The opportunity these women Leaders and Elders have to share their culture and purpose with white people – who are there to provide community services. As collegiate and supportive as the day was – on the surface – there was an underlying desperation and melancholy. An urgency driving the women’s need to tell “them stories” – not because we are not listening – but because they are scared we are not hearing.

And I sat there – and I heard – the tension. Tension between Traditional Way and Our White Modernity. It became so loud I was unable to hear anything else. Quite simply I became deafened. Inert.

I left that day – I had been there for 7 hours – with mind-moments and photographs; of women - some of whom may not be around when I visit next time. Because that is how things are here. In the Katherine morgue there are twelve bodies waiting to be buried. From one community alone. They have to wait because family members are in prison. As they wait – more die. Rarely of old age – because Aboriginal people are not allowed to get old in my country.