Mal Brough - A Testing Man

A bloke I like a lot, but whose political judgement may be suspect, told me that Mal Brough is seen by his Liberal constituents as a bright and shining star for the party. Perhaps, in some eyes, he is a good politician (but perhaps I wont move to the Sunshine Coast just yet).

A little story - just because I like to tell them.

I know another bloke and he is a mate of mine. He was the CEO of a council on an Aboriginal community. Deeply dedicated and a thinker, but not flash as a diplomat. When Mal came to visit and hectored the people, this bloke I know stood up and slowly (Queenslander - they generally talk bit slow) gave Mal a tour of the appropriate way to deal with people.

Now Mal didn't enjoy being told so he used every bit of influence he had to get rid of this mate of mine. Funny thing was that my mate was going anyway but had to stay on because he was being told to go. Just the type of bloke he is.

Meanwhile there is yet another bloke and he was in gaol. Hit a number of people, very hard. Without a doubt this bloke is one of the most charismatic and intelligent young leaders in his community. A natural. My mate looked past the criminal bit and recognised the quality. He cooked up a scheme where carefully selected people visited the gaol and had long discussions with the bloke inside. Went on for some years.

When he came out of gaol this bloke was a changed man. He still has the position and role that he has always had as the leader of a major group. Now, though, he puts it to good use and he has some ideas on how to do this. He went to the coppers and suggested he could do better if he had a uniform and some training. Sharp intakes of breath all around but thanks to good sense he has been given a role. The place is operating well. Fights are finished and the war is indefinitely suspended.

Back to Mal and my mate the (now ex) CEO. As a man of principle with the level of honesty and integrity we allow our politicians to get away with, well Mal could only clam credit for the rehabilitation of the bloke who was in gaol couldn't he? And it wouldn't do to suggest that someone who had sat him on his arse in a public meeting could have been right all along.

My mate - he has gone fishing but he will turn up again somewhere, I hope. People like Mal, they have been around before and will be again.

Its just a test.

Stuffing Up Good Ideas - Mal's Masterclass

The media would have you believe that Ministers are the ones who think of all of the policy ideas and make all of the decisions. It's normally not the case but, in the case of the issue of leases of Aboriginal land, the Minister has done his bit.

This such a vexed and complex issue that it is trite to say so but, if you are a Minister with the ability to cut through the crap you can find a simple way through.

‘Traditional owners’ of land are those recognised under the law as having rights and responsibilities for that land. If you listen to the anthropologists and such you will find that there can be different types of responsibilities involving different obligations. A person may have obligations or rights in relation to an area of land but may not be, in some terms a ‘traditional owner’. They might still be described as a traditional owner – but that is often just to help out a dumb whitefella. Increasingly, the term is used by some to describe all Aboriginal people living in an area, particularly if they are pretty dark, but a Minister who is knowledgeable will go past all of that and simply say that a traditional owner is pretty much the same as a freehold title holder. It is a lot easier when you ignore all of the folderol.

Settlements and missions were created, often without regard to whose land was used, normally because they were ‘good’ places to establish such a place – access to water, food, fertile ground etc. The people with responsibility for that land were often ignored. Their rights were trampled and they could no longer properly exercise their responsibilities for that land.

Over time, the two lots of people - those who moved in and those who had specific rights and responsibilities - have worked out ways of getting along. As with all communities, some of the ways people have worked out have been productive for all but most have placed the interests of particular groups over others.

One difficulty now is that there are generations of people who might be called ‘guests’ or visitors. They have no legal rights or responsibilities. Of course they may have a deep attachment to the place in which they were born and raised, they may have worked hard to make it a better place but they are not 'traditional owners'. They have their 'own' land elsewhere.

The consequences of this situation can be dramatic and volatile. Houses can be maltreated and destroyed, public places can be trashed, kids will only go to school when ‘their’ clan group is there and fights over seemingly inconsequential disputes can grow out of hand – quickly.

A way of helping to sort out some of these issues is to find an area where Aboriginal law and mainstream law are in reasonable accord, that is, where the two deal with a similar issue by establishing rights and responsibilities for parties that do not offend either legal system. At the risk of over simplifying it, the two systems both deal with land and are based on the principle that you only use someone else’s land if they agree and, if you use someone’s land then you should pay an agreed consideration.

The idea of leases for houses or house blocks was originally developed to try to give ‘guests’ or very long term visitors some properly articulated rights and responsibilities. It also required that they pay an amount to the people who have recognised rights and responsibilities for that land. Thus we have a contract that can stand up under both legal systems.

It made sense to take this idea further to establish a ‘planning and development authority’ for the township. This would have a majority of people with traditional rights and responsibilities and a couple of ‘guest’ representatives on it along with, say, a couple of people with expertise in town planning or civil engineering – similar to town planning authorities everywhere but without the real estate agents.

So, we have a method of gradually sorting out long standing conflicts and of setting up a process where those people who care about a place have a way of making decisions about its future. At the very least we have an option that people might select if it makes sense to them. How has it all gone so bad?

It has been quite easy to stuff up really. First, you change the model to make it more efficient. Why have lots of these little authorities? Why not just have one or perhaps two? And you don’t really need traditional owners on there, just experts.

Then you make it all simple, straightforward and direct. All of those good things. You say ‘we will only deal with the owners because it is their decision’. You offer them lots of money so they can convince themselves that they are doing something good for the whole place. You insert tight timelines that have to do with your needs. You studiously keep out of the discussion anyone that people have usually turned to for advice. And you make sure that there is as much media attention as you can get so that everybody is on display.

To put the icing on the cake you generate enough angst so that the hand wringers and instant experts come out of the woodwork and confuse everyone.

Now we have a lose/lose situation. If Brough wins the traditional owners and others will be at each others throats. If he loses they will still be at each others throats. Good one!

And I wont start on how to bugger up a great idea for up-grading of town camps.

What is counted, counts?

One day there is every chance that I wont be able to remember my arguments well, even on pretty boring subjects, so I need to get some of these ideas and arguments down. So this may only make sense if you put yourself in the position of two people arguing in an old people's place.

I have been working on the review of a program over the last couple of months. Nothing all that special except that it is a social program that operates primarily in remote Indigenous communities and utilises community development strategies to achieve outcomes. At one level it should be possible to measure performance against some of the outcomes. You can find some things to count. Unfortunately, the things you can find to count are not the things that are most important.

In an earlier life I made decisions about this, and many other, programs. The pressure to find and use quantifiable performance indicators was substantial and, of course, we played the game. My staff and I found things we could count and reported against them. Had to be accountable.

Increasingly, quantifiable performance indicators and their associated targets, are becoming the way many funders justify their decisions. I am becoming concerned that they actually believe that they are doing the right thing. My difficulty with this is that, in my experience, this is not the way good decisions are made. (A couple of subjective statements there BTW). Rather, they are the way that decision makers cover their backsides and justify themselves when under scrutiny.

It is so much easier to answer a question by saying

'the target was x, we achieved y and it was less/more than expected because of a, b and c'

than to say

'we were aiming to increase pride and self esteem across the community so that people would have the chance to begin to deal more successfully with the issues that are destroying their lives. We don't know yet whether the program will be successful but it is our judgement, based partly on the experience of people expert in this field, that we are on the right track.'

The latter gets you chewed up - or at least that is what the parliamentary committee tried to do to me. We did have an excellent argument though where the issues received some coverage that they normally wouldn't - and I wasn't sacked.

Reducing it all to numbers has a tendency to ignore the complexity in people. You may be able to develop 'happiness indicators' and have a nice little quiz with 20 questions to help you but, if you are paid to make judgements, should you not be expected to have the capacity to do so, and to be accountable for those judgements? And isn't it better for the society that it be informed about the reasons people make decisions rather than argue about numbers? Is not this the way that we develop as a society?

But if we can't count it we will never know - or will we?

Sam the Man

There is always a dog or two around the place I live. Always has been. I am not too sure why. It may be that I enjoy the company of animals that, sometimes, enjoy mine without the imposition of too many conditions.

Sam and Jojo have been around for the last 4 years or so. Their predecessors died within a month of each other both gored by cattle. Too brave, too inexperienced and too good at getting through the fence.

Sam was bred on an Aboriginal community in the Western Desert. As a pup he was, quite simply, ugly. Almost hairless, big distended belly and so anti social that he kept separate from the other pups in the litter. Blue heeler was a major a part of his breeding but there could have been other bits as well.

The best parts of life for Sam have always been eating and chasing and he was completely indiscriminate about both. Sprinting around a paddock chasing a kite circling, through the bush after a pig or wallaby, on the road after cars (but that stopped a few years ago) or chasing me on the quad bike, always being very careful to ensure that Jojo was not in the lead - never ever.

Biting people is something that is apparently necessary when you are a dog with certain attitudes. When people leave and they shouldn't - even if they are the lovely lady who often feeds you. When people arrive, invited or not - how are you to know? And looking mean is always useful. The bans from the kennels who have looked after Sam mean that he has had to be looked after by people bribed to bring him food at home.

Territory is of the utmost importance and requires constant vigilance. Barking through the fence at possible interlopers requires considerable attention and, if they are silly enough to get too close, ripping up their face is a reasonable response to such a lack of discretion. Neighbourhood relations and vet bills are matters for others to consider.

Vicious? He always puts his teeth quickly and gently around my hand when I let him into the back of the ute - special things utes. He brought a 4 year old who had wandered off from her parents in the bush back to them with his mouth around her wrist - no marks and no crying.

Snakes have played a part in Sam's life. When he was a pup we were woken by an incredible racket and found Sam jammed between 2 pieces of corrugated iron screaming his head off. The other pup was dead and a western brown was leaving. Next night same thing but the western brown was many meters away. Awareness of snakes has been one of the real values of having him around.

I don't know how a snake was able to bite him high on the back of his neck, but it did. Took him a while to die and we thought that he was going to again be Sam the survivor. Not this time though.

Parked him on his favourite hill so that he can continue to keep an eye on the front gate, the fence, the cattle and the house. Not sure why Sam was special, but he was.

Bob Brown vs the Temperance Society

When you have a child - a small one - you can get away with saying 'Don't do that'. They listen, or at least they get scared enough at the tone of voice that they stop. Then they get older. They want to know why. So then you explain. Then they take liberties. They start to negotiate and you end up with something other than 'Don't do that'. If you are a good parent you still prevent the dangerous activity but you have, along the way, educated and you have worked out a compromise that achieves the actual purpose. Most importantly, you negotiate an agreement and they are more effective (not more efficient) than fear.

You can treat whole societies like small children. We do it all of the time. Don't murder that person, don't take that drug, don't beat your wife, don't mine that uranium, don't drink that alcohol, etc etc.

Prohibition has its place but, in my view, not as a first option. Prohibition is a very blunt instrument. There is no room in prohibition for the negotiation of arrangements that might avoid another greater harm, for the establishment of conditions that might mitigate the dangerous or anti-social effects or for allowing people to exercise their individual and community rights.

Back in the dim, dark past when I was of a certain age some people used to grow marijuana among their tomato plants. It apparently wasn't as potent as the stuff people use today but it did the job. Probably still would. But we banned it. A war on drugs was declared. The cost of prosecuting this war has been immense. The profit motive kicked in and that drug along with lots of its mates have been developed and refined and sold by those outside the law at a great profit. Massive societal damage has been caused and is continuing because, as a society we didn't negotiate, make that don't negotiate, effective arrangements that met all necessary purposes.

Just imagine if 40 years ago we had adopted a policy that the use of recreational drugs would be legal but controlled. A licensing system would have been put in place, standards set for quality and strength, taxes paid, usage monitored and controlled. Would more people have used these drugs? Possibly, but with any luck we would have been smart enough to maintain quality at a level that kept damage to a minimum. Rather than a net societal and economic cost there may even have been a net gain.

I am very well aware that prohibition is supported strongly by social policy makers because it is such a powerful tool. For instance, there are figures that suggest that, if you prohibit the use of alcohol, it is possible to achieve a 50% drop in use. These are the drinkers who drink because grog is readily available. Drinkers who have enough cash to buy ahead, enough brains to plan, those who are keen to drink, or addicted, or resent being told they can't or who don't agree that they shouldn't all continue and with gusto.

Uranium mining, now this is one that could raise a few eyebrows. I have always been ambivalent on this. The previous ALP policy on 3 mines was simply a typical Hawke developed compromise. Sort of half achieved something but really was a con job. Banning uranium mining sounds like a good idea. It is a very dangerous substance. The waste hangs around for a thousands of years bombs kill masses rather than the more usual hundreds. It is also useful and, perhaps, does less environmental damage than coal as a fuel for power stations.

But the real problem I have with a prohibition on uranium mining is that I can't get past the feeling that we want to ban it because we are scared of it, or perhaps more correctly, we are scared that we will not be able to develop sufficiently careful or enforceable controls. Or maybe it is that we are scared that the governments we elect wont control it. Terrible thing fear. Debilitating for individuals and for societies. Time, I think, to get over the fear and get on with sorting this one out.

I could go on about grades of murder but perhaps I have made enough of an argument to cause one.

United We Stand - Does Culture Divide?

This is a difficult one, and will probably get too long.

I have been committed to the principles of collective action all of my life. The ALP has rules on its books based on those principles requiring solidarity on the part of members who are endorsed by the Party.

Last night 3 ALP Members of the NT Legislative Assembly crossed the floor to vote against a Bill being put by the ALP Minister for Mines. In accordance with the rules and precedent in the ALP Barbara McCarthy, Karl Hampton and Alison Anderson should be expelled if they don't resign first. The Chief Minister has said they wont be disendorsed.

How did it get to this? The brief facts are:

• Xstrata have an underground mine at McArthur River, originally built underground due partly to the difficulties they would have in getting approval to go open cut;
• Xstrata apply to go open cut and to divert the McArthur River to do so;
• long approval process, consultations, EIS and negotiations;
• decision finally made but appealed by the NLC on behalf of some traditional owners;
• appeal upheld due to an interpretation placed on words in the Mining Act by the Supreme Court;
• NT Parliament moves to correct the deficiency and allow its original decision to stand.

There are over 1,000 people dependent on the mine for work. McArthur River Station, the site of the mine, is owned by the company but there are people who are accepted as traditional owners for that country. Some disagree with the diversion of the river.

The news of the success of the appeal was hailed as a massive victory for the traditional owners and the environment. The NLC was ecstatic and the Environment Centre more so. The mine owners talked about closure and shut down work on the extension. The media ran about saying the Minister for Mines was incompetent. Celebrations all round.

Unfortunately for the people who cared, the group of traditional owners who are opposed, no one mentioned the bleeding obvious - if it all fell over on a technical issue, what would happen if that issue was fixed?

Into this mix we then inject the emotion of a funeral for one of the leaders of the opposing group. The man was the brother of Barbara McCarthy, MLA.

We have a highly emotional situation, a technical legal issue (that sounds simple) and the capacity for key lobby groups to make hay. What does the Government decide to do? Introduce a Bill and take it through the Parliament on urgency in 2 days with 3 of the 6 Indigenous MLAs crossing the floor.

There may have been a worse way to handle this but you would need to go back to the days of the CLP to find it.

The real point, and I have wandered off this a bit, is that the ALP government did what it was advised to do and relied on an understanding of the rules and principles of the Party, the culture if you like, to bring all of its members along. This put the Indigenous MLAs in an impossible situation. They well understand the principles of collective action, they live by them. But their first responsibility is to their family and to other Indigenous people. Allegiance to the Party is down the line a bit.

Does this mean they can't be part of the ALP or any other group that depends on collective action? I don't think so but I do think that it means that the two have to sit down and understand together what they are doing and why. Then they need to work out a way of dealing with the problem because, if they fail, the Labor Government will gradually be destroyed and Aboriginal MLAs run the risk of becoming a weak 'third force' with a CLP government in constant power.


Oh, and the other thing I would do is find someone to go into the Department of Mines and start removing the incompetent fools who stuffed up the original advice on the decision and then proposed an insensitive way of solving the problem.

Oh Susannah

Susannah Janvin was 19 years old when she climbed on board the ship 'Comet' in Cork in 1841. She was on her own when she set off on a ship to the other side of the world and, unlike many others who came to Australia at that time, she was free.

Eighteen months after she made it to Australia Susannah married William Simpson. He was a convict serving 21 years for desertion from the British Army in Canada. They had 11 children. One of them was my great grandfather.

Susannah was born in Mountmelick, County Laois in Ireland in 1822. There is no record of her birth. There was a fire in the records office in Dublin that took out many of the records of that time. But there is also no record, anywhere, of Susannah's parents. Her marriage and death certificates don't show any names for her parents. Janvin is not an Irish name and we have been unable to find any record of Janvins anywhere in Ireland.

Janvin is possibly a French name. There are some Janvins in France and, at about the right time, in French Canada. Some of these moved to the USA and there are Janvins there now but, so far, there is no apparent connection with Susannah.

So, why were the Janvins in Ireland when Susannah was born? There are no records that I have found so far or French emigration to Ireland at that time although there were 1,100 French soldiers who went to Ireland in 1798 as part of the Rebellion. They were led by an officer named Humbert and succeeded in scaring the daylights out of the English for a few weeks. When they were beaten by tens of thousands of English soldiers, the French were swapped for English prisoners of war and were sent home. The Irish who fought with them were slaughtered - 30,000 of them. And some wonder why they have been so antsy for so long.

Back to the point though, did a French soldier get together with an Irish colleen? There was a strong contingent of women involved in the 1798 rebellion. Would not be beyond possibility that there was a marriage or at least a relationship and, if the women involved were tough enough to take on the English, they could be strong enough to keep the name of a child's father. Susannah could possibly be a daughter or granddaughter of such a relationship.

Then again there is William. He was busted for desertion in Canada and tried at Kingston on 16 January 1836. At the time he was 28. Some months later there was a mutiny in the same area. Many of the soldiers involved were executed. William, however, was long gone having been sent to Australia for 21 years. Now there were French Janvins in Canada. The British were there to fight them. Was there a 14 year old French Canadian girl who was the reason for the young-ish British soldier going AWOL? Did she somehow get herself to Ireland and, eventually, to Australia and link up again with her soldier who, by the way, was still unmarried at 35 years of age. Bit of a stretch, but the stuff of a good romantic saga.

Or were the Janvins the descendants of Huegenots. They were hounded out of Europe a fair bit earlier though and you would have to punt that, if some had settled in Ireland there would be some sort of records, somewhere, of someone. The name is not on any Huegenot list that I have found to date.

Susannah was my only ancestor on that side of the line who came here of her own free will. Surely she has a good story.

to burn or not to burn

The pressure is on again. It comes every year about this time in this part of the world. You have a block of land therefore you must burn it. A lot of people do it. It is the responsible thing to do say the Bushfires Council. You must reduce your fuel load early in the Dry so that it wont burn late in the Dry.

They tell me that the research is all in. Burning annually in the Top End is the way to go. Burn early though so that the burn is cool and doesn't do too much damage to the larger trees, gives the animals some chance of survival and, with a cool burn, there is less chance of it getting away and destroying someone elses's block - or taking out a touch more of yours than intended.

Aboriginal people did it. They still do in fact. Many plants require an annual burn to generate germination. Animals have learned to live with it and clearly many survive. Pastoralists need to to it to freshen up pasture and thus provide nutrient to their animals further into the Dry.

But what about the land. The soil pumps its nutrient into the plants that it hosts, the plants grow flat out during the Wet and in the early part of the Dry, seeding and getting ready to die off so that they will rot down and return some of the nutrients they have gathered and processed to the soil ready for the next stage of the cycle. What happens when we interrupt the cycle? Less nutrient goes back into the soil, more carbon into the atmosphere, less viable seed available for next year?

Aboriginal people burn for a number of reasons. It is a very effective means of chasing game out of the heavy scrub. Fire also brings on some bush foods or makes it easier to gather.

Is there another way of achieving the required purposes? We could slash the grass on the smaller blocks. Lot of work in this. We could try grazing in cells to manage the grass on larger holdings more effectively. We could make sure we have excellent firebreak networks so that wildfires can be stopped.

Research to date has looked at when to burn. Why not research on whether to burn? Is burning simply a lazy land manager's tool?

I have a slightly different problem but one shared by many in this area. We have gamba grass. This is an introduced grass from Africa. A wonderful grass that grows quickly in large clumps to 3 or 4 meters, loaded with nutrient and oils. It is a great stockfeed and is so efficient that, even when subjected to intense grazing pressure, it will shoot green at the end of the Dry season when there is bugger all moisture in the soil. Gamba burns hot and high. A gamba fire takes out everthing - trees and all. After the fire the gamba comes back bigger and brighter than before, shooting from the burn tussocks, faster than any of the native grasses. Given time gamba and fires will turn the savana woodland to savanna grassland - gamba grassland. We didn't sow this grass but we do have to manage it.

Don't think I will burn this year. Best get that tractor moving and sharpen the blades on the slasher. I have a lot of work to do.