Black and White Issue

The Federal Government dropped something of a bombshell last week and announced that it would be taking over the administration of the indigenous land currently in the charge of the Government of the Northern Territory.

The reason was a shocking report detailing endemic child abuse in Aboriginal communities, fuelled by alcohol and substance abuse, and the lack of any action by the local administration. Police stations, for example, had been built by the Federal Government but left un-staffed. New measures will include an influx of police and soldiers, an end to the permit system that restricts entry by non-indigenous people, and health checks, primarily for STDs, for those aged under 16.

It’s hard to see, in the face of the evidence of abuse, how this move could have copped such a bad press, and it continues to do so, with accusations of paternalism and a land-grab, and claims that the health checks could lead to another “stolen generation”, a reference to the formerly widespread practice of removing Aboriginal children from the parents and sending them to live with white families.

No one other than the Federal Government has come up a plan for dealing with the problem though and it has won the support of at least one Aboriginal leader, Noel Pearson, the director of the Cape York Institute. This interview
is highly recommended.

Controversial Cleric or Just A Boofhead?

Politics here can be quite colourful. We start in October last year with Australia’s senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali who compared scantily-clad women to “uncovered meat”, the inference, later denied, being that they had only themselves to blame if they were molested by men. This provoked a storm of protest from all sections of society.

Fast forward to this week when the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, warned members of the NSW State Government that they faced consequences in their religious life if they supported a bill to extend stem cell research. More outrage, including from NSW Cabinet Minister Nathan Rees who compared the cardinal to “that serial boofhead, Sheik Alhilali.”

Another Cabinet Minister and Catholic, Frank Sartor, said the remarks were reminiscent of the Dark Ages and added: “I’m very sceptical about people who claim to speak in the name of God….because if you look at history, people have been burnt in oil in the name of God.”

No word from the controversial cardinal as to whether that’s what he has in store for Frank and any other MPs voting the wrong way, but I can tell you that a “boofhead” is defined as a fool by my Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (yes, really), probably based on “bufflehead”, buffle being an obsolete word for buffalo.

Australia 31, Wales 0

The singing of the anthems in the SunCorp Stadium, Brisbane, on Saturday night. After that, it all went wrong. Both teams and the ref were booed off at half-time for being useless. In the second half, Australia got better but Wales didn't. There's not much else to say, really.

Game Of Two Halves

Off to Brisbane at the weekend to see Wales play the Wallabies in the Second Test. For those who don’t follow these things, we’re talking pointy ball and 15-a-side.

Having been derided in the Australian press as a third-rate side, with most of the best players staying home in Wales, there was a stunned silence when Wales went 17-0 ahead in the First Test last Saturday. I watched the game with neighbour John who, at this stage generously remarked: “Well, good on ya.”

I said that they’d messed it up before and could no doubt mess it up again and, sure enough, things went awry but, with 90 seconds to go, Wales were one point ahead when they kicked the ball away and Australia scored a converted try, leaving John and I staring at the screen in disbelief.

We’ve heard little about third-rate sides since, and it’s all set up nicely for Saturday’s re-match in the SunCorp stadium, or, as I should say, the cauldron of the Suncorp Stadium. Mind you, I reckon both sides would get pasted by the All Blacks.

Here Comes The Rain

See. I told you...Farmers Rejoice...and young sheepdogs who have never seen rain are puzzling over puddles.

More Water

Water is much on our minds in this party of the world, and not just because it rained heavily on our metal roof all night. Many of Australia’s major cities are still drifting toward a crisis as supplies diminish in the face of the country’s longest drought, thoughtless development, political inertia, and a political reluctance to stop people doing exactly what they want, which includes watering their lawns and washing their cars.

Most of rural New South Wales is in a worse state, residents worrying not so much about washing the dust off their SUVs, but about feeding their cattle and trying to grow their crops. Lawns? There’s no grass left in many places.

In and around Coffs Harbour, we can afford to feel smug because of climate, topography and the foresight of the local council, which has a nice, full reservoir up in the hills, topped up with supplies from local rivers, and has invested in water recycling.

In fact, one of the estate agents in town reports that the most frequently offered reason for moving here is a secure water supply. I feel it’s time we started keeping quiet about it.

Remember the UK’s short-lived Drought Minister? Well, no sooner had the Government unveiled its plan to save one of the country’s major river systems, the Murray-Darling, and the farmers that depend on it, than it started raining, not enough to solve the problem, but enough to make some think that the tide may have turned.

Drought is inseparable from the global warming debate, which has now made it to the top of the political agenda, though internationally, Australia has something of a bit part. If the country was shut down – power turned off, traffic stopped, no flights etc – then China would make up for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in a mere eight months. However, there’s a strong feeling that because Australians are the highest per capita emitters, we have a moral duty to do more.

I find this comforting, and hope that the high moral tone continues when the taps run dry in Sydney and Adelaide. But don’t count on it.

Presidential Power

I was walking along the beach with Carl and John, looking for a spot to surf, when I was voted on to the committee of Coffs Harbour’s Short Sharp Film Festival. It’s still not clear to me exactly what I’m doing there but I appear to have agreed, so that’s that.

I have discovered that we need to tread carefully as there appears to be a question mark over the organisation of the previous film festival, which could be fatal in a small town, so we have to appear serious and responsible at all times. John, who is also on the committee, interprets this as being given black Armani suits to wear on the night, but he may be disappointed.

Carl is key to all this, of course. When I suggested he might want to run my membership past the other committee members first, he just said: “Nah, I’m the President.” Then we went surfing.

That was pretty much his last act as President, as he's since been re-titled “chair”. He says he’s used to being sat upon. It’s also sadly removed the opportunity for John and I to say, a la The West Wing, “we serve at the pleasure of the President.”

Hello, Possums

Sitting outside Coffs Harbour council chambers in the dark the other night, waiting for Sara to finish work, something moved in the bushes at the bottom of the steps. A large possum emerged, with head-lamp eyes and a huge, erect bottle-brush tail, and stalked confidently across the road to the park. He was followed shortly after by a female with a young possum clinging to her back. They didn’t brave the road, though, and on seeing me, scrambled up a palm tree.

I’ve seen possums twice before – two fighting on the roof of a bed-and-breakfast in Bangalow and one peering at me out of tree one night in Canberra.

Pub With No Beer

Sara and I had a post-Easter trip to The Pub With No Beer, which is at Taylors Arm, about an hour-and-a-half's drive from Coffs Harbour. The pub is named after a song which was a big hit for the late Australian Country singer, Slim Dusty, and did once, allegedly, run out of beer, although the song refers to another pub altogether. Apparently.

They've solved the beer problem now by building a small brewery out the back, run by a bloke called Murray. The only remaining problem was that despite accepting our overnight booking, they were mostly closed. We were wandering out of our room looking forward to supper at 6pm when the barman approached and said: "Glad I've found you because the locals have all gone home and I'm shutting early. Do you want to come and eat? The chef's left you some risotto."

Luckily, it was excellent, as was the beer, and it gave us just enough time to admire the collection of photos and song lyrics ("you have to drink the froth to get the beer" - how true) before we wandered back to our room clutching a stubbie of Murray's Sassy Blonde and a glass of unidentified Chardonnay. That was 7pm. It is very dark in Taylors Arm at night and, apart from the insects, very quiet indeed. But it is a beautiful spot.

Wildlife Bulletin

First, the sad news that Lori, the lorikeet with no tail feathers taken in by Carl, has died. His adopted father found him on Saturday morning, still clinging to the side of the cage, upside down. He spent a lot of time like that. Carl reckons that as he was the runt of the nest, his Darwinian clock was ticking loudly and ominously. And then stopped.

More happily, John and I were surfing on Sunday and were treated to a swim-past by a pod of dolphins only a couple of metres away. They then put on a fine display of surfing (much better than us), also very near-by, and finally started shooting out of the back of the waves (we can’t do that at all), including a mother and calf. We felt very privileged.

Now to Western Australia, where a young female surfer was savaged by a sea-lion while being towed on her board by her father’s boat. She survived and there’s not much more to be said really, except that if you go in the ocean, these things will happen.

Forget Mains Water, Get Me Fibre Optics

Broadband is a big issue here at present. The general mood is that we’re way behind other developed nations in rolling out high-speed services and this is a bad thing. I’m not so sure it is and, anyway, there’s a good reason for it.

As I’ve remarked before, Australia is big, really big, and really empty. There are 20 million of us knocking around, enough for an attractive infrastructure market if we were all huddled together in one corner of the continent, but we’re not. Far from it, there’s a strong feeling held by many that they don’t want to be near anyone else and many people buy properties miles from anywhere or anything.

The odd thing is that while they’re prepared to accept that these properties are on a dirt road and don’t have mains water, postal deliveries, buses, shops, a doctor, a school or refuse collection (and for a very good reasons), once they discover that they can’t get an internet service that enables them to download the whole of The Lord of The Rings on DVD, with director’s commentary, in ten minutes, they’re horrified. And they certainly don’t want to pay any more than they did when they lived in the city.

I’m sure you can do most things at lightening speed in the cities. For the record, in Sandy Beach (pop, around a few hundred, who knows?) we have ADSL at 256 kb/sec. Anything faster, and you pay through the nose and your download limit plummets. In time, we may get ADSL2, which will be faster for less money. (I don’t understand why).

My point is that, considering where we live, which is 20 minutes drive from the region’s biggest town (pop. 60,000), and six hours’ drive from Brisbane, that’s not a bad service. And, unless you’re running an internet-based business, who really needs anything faster anyway? Most of us don’t. Most of us don’t play games and most of us don’t download movies and our lives wouldn’t be any better if we did. Offer me the choice between high-speed down-loads and an empty beach and I know which I’d choose. In fact, I have.

Flying Like a Brick

Remember that young lorikeet that Carl rescued after a storm? It looks like Lori, as he is known, is with us for life.

Carl’s original plan was to keep him until his tail feathers grew back but further research has revealed that some young lorikeets never do grow tail feathers. They inevitably end up on the ground after an attempt to fly, where they get eaten by dogs, cats, snakes and other exotic local wildlife.

Lori was clearly waiting for this fate when found by Carl. Since then, he’s demonstrated his low rating on the Darwinian scale by escaping from his cage, climbing the nearest tree, and then plummeting to the ground, so far without damage. He always will fly like a brick, it seems, so had better resign himself to living with Carl and being supplied with flowers from our gravilias. Parrots of all kinds love the nectar.

Mower Meets Meter

Been a quiet time on this blog and I’m not sure why. Possibly because of my policy of not blogging unless I really want to say something or possibly because I wanted to avoid a series of entries like “not much happened today, really.” I suppose the two are the much the same thing. Anyway, last night, I destroyed our water meter with the motor mower.

Some cultural pointers are needed here to avoid me appearing a complete idiot, I feel. Water meters in Australia are outside your house, usually on the horizontal part of an inverted U of the water pipe sticking up above the ground. The stop-cock is also on this flimsy pipe so any passer-by can turn off your water if they wish, as a jolly prank, though they seem not to.

Ours emerges from a lush bed of buffalo grass and I still maintain the mower blades were nowhere near when the meter disintegrated in a shower of plastic, metal and dials, all hoisted into the air by a jet of water. The mower is fine, thanks.

The interesting thing about this is that a very friendly bloke from Coffs Harbour Water rolled up in a ute around three-quarters of an hour after my call and just as I finished the lawn, fitted a new meter in five minutes and left with the bits of the old one in a bag. This bearing in mind that, in UK terms, we live in the back of beyond. I then had a much-needed shower. Truly this is the lucky country.

Chillies

The latest crop from our garden. You wouldn't think caterpillars could eat them without dire consequences, but they apparently do.

Sydney – Wildlife

Next to the splendid Sydney Aquarium in Darling Harbour is the newly-opened Wildlife World. We gave it a go and emerged slightly disappointed because the vast majority of insects, mammals, marsupials and reptiles within could all be seen or heard within a kilometre of our house. That includes the lethal red-bellied black snake and the brown snake. Useful to know what they look like as, so far, we haven’t seen them. But they are there…..

Sydney – Water

It’s always a bit of shock arriving in Sydney after the rural calm of Sandy Beach, what with the crowds, the tall buildings and the traffic (OK, I’ll take the straw out of my hair, now). It makes quite an impact at first but then I found myself thinking how precarious it all was. Every time I turned on a tap, I remembered that the city’s water reserves were down to 35 per cent and there’s no sign of substantial rain. In fact, 92 per cent of New South Wales is now in drought and yet, with the exception of the announcement of the building of a controversial desalination plant, there’s no sign of any action to ensure the city’s water supplies.

Sydney – Voices

We went to Sydney last weekend. As I emerged from the shower in the hotel bathroom, I heard Mike’s voice above my head. This was quite disturbing, as he’s in London, until I realised that Sara had turned on the television, tuned to BBC World, Mike was reading the news, and there was a speaker in the ceiling. Come to think of it, it’s still disturbing that friends on the other side of the world can make themselves heard in your bathroom.

Night Visitor

Found in our back garden one evening....they make a very loud noise when they start croaking in a drain pipe.

Dear Pom

In a victory for common sense, the Advertising Standards Board has ruled that the word “Pom” is not offensive and is more an affectionate term, on a par with “Kiwi” and “Aussie” (see earlier post). Unless, of course, it’s combined with words like “whingeing” or “b**tard.” Then they might think again.

British People Against Discrimination, who brought the complaint are reportedly disappointed, though you would have thought that England losing the Ashes in three straight Tests would have disappointed them more. Those car ads enjoining Aussies to “tonk a Pom” will have to be updated because that’s exactly what’s happened.

Now, by all the rules of blogging, I should include a link to the Sydney Morning Herald story, but I’m not. For one thing, you don’t really need to know any more. For another, obsessively peppering posts with links just says to me that you see your post as a signpost or a gateway, rather than a worthwhile destination. If everything on the web is just pointing the way to something else, then where’s the substance?

Relax.....

It's always interesting to see what Australian news items make it in the international media and to see how others view the country. BBC News Online had this today and it's about a piece of research that shows that more people in the UK are more likely than in Australia to have heart attacks when watching sport.

No surprise, really. I recall hearing a Kiwi comedienne talking about watching the Socceroos exit the World Cup with a bunch of Aussies. After weeks of hysteria, their demise was greeted with a shrug and "Oh well, there you go." Everything is more relaxed here and it's probably due to a combination of sunshine, space (there's only 20 million of us), and the knowledge that there's always another beer, barbecue or beach just round the corner.

Of course, that doesn't apply to those actually competing, as the England cricket team knows to its cost. I'm grateful to The Guardian for reminding them that "it ain't over til the fat boy spins." Of course, the writer was referring to Shane Warne.