Jane Simpson

The deserts of Australia are filling up with pest animals, camels, donkeys, horses. Like a plague of giant rabbits, the camels are eating out the mulga, the bean trees and trashing the waterholes. Here’s Susan(na) Nakamarra’s Nelson’s painting of her country, Ngapakunypa, north-west of Tennant Creek.

Susan Nakamarra Nelson, “Wild animals”, Julalikari Arts [1], Tennant Creek 2007.
Picture in private collection.
These days, wildernesses can’t stay pristine without some help – stopping the advance of cane toads, starlings, feral weeds, European carp…, managing fires, monitoring threatened species. It’s really about occupying the country. Deserts need people.
And people need money. No one in Australia today can survive outside the money economy – if they don’t have a job or are not on welfare, then they’ll rely on family members who do, or beg or steal. So, how to get money is a large problem for Indigenous people living in remote areas like the deserts of Central Australia and the tropical scrub of Arnhem Land and the Kimberly.
One potential source of jobs is in the Indigenous ranger programmes. Potentially, these could involve remote communities with younger people doing the physical work, and older people passing on their knowledge of the natural history of the area (Traditional/Indigenous Ecological Knowledge). Involving local communities who have a longterm relationship with the country concerned is a lot cheaper than bringing in outsiders, training them up, and helping them adjust to life out bush. Life in remote communities is becoming more environmentally friendly as solar technology is cutting down on the use of diesel generators.

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[ Update: 16/12/07 The Australian Press Council has upheld a limited right to privacy for children, and ruled that “The Australian” should not have published the name of a girl who got pregnant and had an abortion when she was twelve (Adjudication 1375). Since that’s the case, this ruling should apply to the names in the web version of the stories about her and the two other children (whose names I think should also not have been given, although the APC adjudication is silent about them). “The Australian”‘s response to the ruling (via Nick Cater 13/12/07)) does not say what they will do to correct the problem that the names are now widely available on the web. On 13/12/07 I e-mailed “The Australian” and Nick Cater (who represented the newspaper at the hearing) asking for them to remove the names of the three under-age children from the web versions of all the articles, the editorials and Simon Kearney’s response, as well as any photographs, and to ask Google to remove the earlier versions of the stories from the Google cache [which means that surfers would only get the later version without the identifications]. Only by doing that will the children’s right to privacy be maintained. As of today (16/12/07), “The Australian” has not responded, and still has not removed the names of the children from the web versions of the stories. ]
If your 12 year old daughter was pregnant, and the person who caused it was charged, she couldn’t be identified in a newspaper. But if no one was charged, then watch out! The Australian and the relevant Minister, Mal Brough, think it’s fine to publish her name and photograph. Worldwide, on the web, and in her home town.
And if your community council chief executive says he doesn’t see a problem with it, nor does The Australian.
One small caveat – someone has to give permission. But how do you get permission when the mother doesn’t want to talk? Ask her aunt. And, just by the by, they can ask her permission in fluent standard English – so what if she speaks Pintupi and her English isn’t very good. No need to ask if she needs an interpreter because hey a family member will do.
Linguists have written for yonks about gratuitious concurrence – when ‘yes’ doesn’t mean ‘yes I agree’, but rather ‘yes I am listening’ or ‘yes I am being polite’. Ethics committees have also agonised over informed consent. I’ve tried for many years to explain informed consent to Indigenous people I work with, in several languages, and I know I often don’t do a good job. It’s hard, it could get in the way of getting a great story, and so journalists might be tempted to take ‘yes’ as informed consent. That’s why we need laws to protect children.

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TS and I’ve been e-musing about the Intervention. Here’s something we agree on (and see below for where we disagree..)
PETITION [Feel free to distribute, modify etc.]
We call on the Australian Government to postpone the winding up of Community Development Employment Programs in the NT for the following reasons:
1. It jeopardises many organisations such as Language Centres and Arts Centres which provide community services and on-the-job training, and are gradually developing enterprises, as well as jeopardising small-scale tourism ventures which have been started in some communities.
2. There is no adequate safety-net in place. Most of the contracted Job Networks are clearly unable to provide, manage or supervise fair, efficient or effective access to substitutes such as the STEP training program or even Work for the Dole in the remote communities.
3. The abolition of meaningful work will have a devastating effect on the morale and social functioning of many remote communities, causing an increase in the kinds of social problems that led to the intervention in the first place.
We suggest that the entire project – its aims, methodology, strategy and structure – requires immediate independent review.

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All honour to Frances Killaly who made a complaint to the Australian Press Council about the use of pictures of random Aboriginal children in the Canberra Times and the Sydney Morning Herald to illustrate stories about abuse of children in Indigenous Australian communities. (The story was reported in the rival The Australian).
Dishonour to all the newspapers, (including The Australian) which continue to illustrate stories (mostly negative) with pictures of random Aboriginal kids as ’emotional wallpaper’ (evoking the ‘gag-me-with-a-spoon’ reaction that Will Owen had to the Australian‘s doggerel ad).
And absolutely totally completely all dishonour to their self-regulatory body, the Australian Press Council which found there was no case.

Adjudication No. 1369 (adjudicated September 2007)
“In dismissing complaints over the use of pictures of Aboriginal children in reports on the Prime Minister’s plan to address matters of child abuse in Northern territory communities, the Australian Press Council reaffirms that newspapers and magazines have a duty to inform the public of important issues and have the right to illustrate these issues with photographs. However, they need to take special care when those images deal with children in circumstances where a false inference can be drawn…..While acknowledging Ms Killaly’s genuine concerns the Council does not believe the publication of the pictures indicated the children had been abused.”

So what if the photographs aren’t of children who have anything to do with the problem? In a story about sex abuse??????

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