DEAR News Of The Area,

I HAVE noted over the last few months there has been any number of comments from the general public in relation to the upcoming referendum.

Unless I have missed something, not one of the mostly Yes submissions have been from people that have either never been to or lived in an Indigenous community.

Between May 1998 and December 2010 I held the position of Engineer with the Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council, and lived in the community for six months each year (there is very little in the way of useful works that can be undertaken in the wet).

The area is roughly 600 km north west of Cairns, and about 25km from the Gulf.

It has a population of around 1100, of whom about 1000 are local.

There are three clans (Kokoberra, Yir Yoront and Kunjen) who each have cultural and language differences.

It may be of interest to note that in all the time I spent there, I neither experienced nor heard of anything remotely like a welcome to country.

I got to know a large proportion of the locals, and can state that with the odd exception which happens in all societies, you were accepted for what you were, not for where you came from.

The only downside to all this was the way local wishes and initiatives were largely ignored.

The local elders group met regularly, and often produced worthwhile initiatives.

The process then went to the Northern Land Council (NLC) for approval.

On one occasion, the initiative was echoed by Pormpuraaw, Aurukun and Mapoon Councils.

While the NLC gave provisional approval, the initiative was denied because it echoed some of the initiatives being run by Noel Pearson.

Herein lies the problem.

There are already voices, at least in the nineteen Queensland communities, it is just that they are being ignored.

There are a large number of Government bodies supposedly involved in all sorts of initiatives, who regularly sent representatives to Kowanyama, all armed with clip boards and tick box paper, who ticked boxes, and then go back by charter flight to either Cairns or Brisbane.

They can have no real concept of the problems.

To illustrate, prior to the implementation of the Alcohol Management Plans in Queensland, Tony Fitzgerald on a fact
finding mission, flew in to Kowanyama, and from the time he left the Government plane till the time he reboarded was precisely 45 minutes.

In that time he gained a total picture of the situation.

There are other problems like the type of housing provided (which does not suit the climate, an in at least two cases got some developer mates of the QLD government out of a bind), the lack of maintenance funding (Council had to spend $80,000 of its own funds on repairs to the number two bore because apparently maintenance of essential water supply doesn’t fit some obscure criteria), and many other areas in similar vein.

It can’t be lack of funds – at one stage in 2009, the Qld Government had two people employed in Cairns whose sole job was to provide spin to the relevant minister should any problem emerge from the communities.

In short, all the Yes proposal will achieve is to give another very expensive layer run by elites when all that is required is to achieve full accountability of the existing systems, and to listen to the voices that already exist.

And for anyone remotely involved in decision making, go and live there.

Regards,
Peter KITCHING,
Coffs Harbour.