May 10:
“…muster up a mob of feral camels …”
My predecessor, a 25-year-old white girl, was married with a baby to a part-Aboriginal bloke. He worked elsewhere on the Pitjantjatjara lands while she occupied the C.D.O’s position here, very much alone and very vulnerable. One of the men, who had a long criminal record, exploited her ruthlessly, telling her he was her husband’s tribal brother and was therefore obligated in looking after her welfare and that of the child. He demanded small sums of money from her in return for keeping her safe, or so he said. Feeling her vulnerabilitity most keenly, she obliged, even though it was illegal to use community funds for such purposes. Every week his money demands grew higher and higher until he was asking her to misappropriate one hundred dollars or more. Finally, she rejected him, saying the payments would have to cease or she would get into serious trouble with the accountants. So late one night the Aboriginal man, when drunk or drugged or both, staged an assault on her house, hurling rocks at her walls and roof, stalking around in the dark screaming that he was going to break in and kill her and her baby. She rang the police. There was no response. They turned up at daylight. They accosted the drunken man, handcuffed him and transported him off to the lock-up. He was ultimately charged and gaoled for eight months. The terrified woman escaped in her car with the child, leaving behind all her belongings. Not an uncommon occurrence.
In an attempt to cultivate self-employment among the men, I suggested they go out bush on their horses and motorbikes to muster up a mob of feral camels (of which we had an abundance), and hold them in a bush yard temporarily until I could arrange for a camel buyer to send down a stock truck from Alice Springs.
They agreed quite happily when they learnt how much money they would be paid per camel. After a week or so old Pop told me they had a yard full of wild camels. I told them to organise some bush feed for the animals and to install a drinking trough to hold them until the stock truck arrived.
In a few day’s time I asked Pop how the camels were faring. He just shrugged his shoulders, looking guilty.
I drove out to the camel yard to find the animals had not been fed or watered since they had been yarded. While I was looking them over, a big bull leaned against the sapling fence and easily knocked it down. All the camels broke loose and went bush searching for a feed. You couldn’t stop them. They were famished and very thirsty, too.
I advised Pop to keep the mob roughly mustered into a managable group until the truck arrived to take delivery. He said he would do so and instruct his men accordingly. But they did nothing.
When the stock truck arrived, all the camels were gone and so had all the shame-faced men responsible for them. The driver was really pissed off, saying they had lost money on time and fuel in bringing the truck down from the Alice and now he was forced to do the return trip empty.
Some weeks later when I tried to rejuvenate interest in the camel scheme, the Aboriginal stockmen sat around complaining that they wanted new motorbikes before they started. The old ones were not good enough.
“We fellas can’t work without new motorbikes,” they whinged (complained) over and over.
So the idea was dropped.
When the Aboriginal council meet – which is done with irritating regularity and usually out of boredom – I am the only white person present. Usually present are a token Aboriginal woman and a token full-blood. I’m obviously the token white fella. When they discuss anything they don’t want me to know about, they stop talking English and break into Pitjantjatjara so I won’t know anything. So now I take with me a “secretarial assistant,” a young, fairly well educated part-Aboriginal girl who can speak, write and understand both languages. When the secretive Pitjantjatjara stuff starts, she takes over the notes, taking everything down. Later she translates it into English. Now I really know what’s going on, and the men don’t know that I know. Ah, democracy, where art thou?
If urgent works need doing around the settlement, such as plumbing, carpentry, electricity, etc., the councillors always elect to ask their white friend, “Shorty Wilson,” to do it, even though he is not qualified in anything but exploitation, misrepresentation and fraud. But Shorty’s a good bloke because they can always drop into his place for a free beer and a smoke. Maybe other stuff, too. So Shorty gets paid huge fees to undertake essential works in the community. Sometimes he half does the job and leaves and forgets to finish it (or doesn’t know how to finish it). Sometimes he completes the job (to all outward appearances), then everyone’s surprised when something goes wrong with his work and he has to be called back to fix it again (always for an additional fee, of course). One time he put in a silly bid for a half trashed house. I think it was $50. Of course, the male councillors collectively accepted his offer. He somehow “conned” a few of the men – all councillors – to dismantle the house for him. If someone like myself – a community development officer – attempts to intervene, I am quickly told that I am their employee and must do as they want, not what I want – so get back in your box, Charlie, and stay there. Then they loaded it on to one of his trucks and I heard he had sold the dismantled house to another Aboriginal community for $15,000. Then he put in a bid to that community to erect the house for them ($20,000), plus additional materials ($10,000). Of course, his offers were accepted. Their accountants were instructed to pay the full amount to Shorty in advance. The last I heard, all the bits and pieces were still lying on the ground and Shorty hadn’t turned up to do any work on the construction. This is what the politicians and city do-gooders call “self-determination.” Or “economic independence.” This whole thing is a bloody farce! It’s really no wonder that decent people don’t stay in these places. Only the crooks are equipped to survive.
