This weekend past I spent two nights at the Arunga Park speedway track in Alice Springs. I went mainly to take some shots of the wonderful young Aboriginal speedway bike rider, Sooty Pigram from Broome in Western Australia.
My interview and some shots of Sooty will be ready in a day or so – watch out for it as he has some great things to say.
In the meantime I just want to post a few of the shots of the action over the weekend. The meeting was largely restricted to bikes – so we had lots of solos and sidecars – and a few Quad bike & motorcross events thrown in for good measure.
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There are some days that you’d prefer to be digging a ditch than to be a public servant.
Particularly if you were one of the members of Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin’s FaHCSIA staff that turned up to the New South Wales Parliament House on the last Thursday of January to face a grilling from the Senate’s Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs inquiry into the Native Title Legislation Amendment Bill (No.2) 2009.
The Federal Government has copped considerable flack over its rather ordinary attempts to live up to its promises to deliver improved housing to Aboriginal people – most particularly in the in the Northern Territory where its SIHIP program has stumbled from crumbling pillar to poorly-designed post from the outset.
So there was considerable importance hanging on the efficacy of a new Bill that would, according to the October 2009 joint press release by Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin:
“…address the need for secure tenure arrangements in the delivery of these much needed projects in remote Indigenous communities. The amendments will also encourage State and Territory Governments to act quickly to address the urgent need for housing in Indigenous communities.”
From that most people would think that the Native Title Legislation Amendment Bill (No.2) 2009 would have broad application to housing projects in Aboriginal communities in all States and Territories.
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Rohan Clarke on Saibai Island with a Varied Honeyeater
I met Rohan Clarke some time ago and we most recently caught up again on Saibai and Boigu Islands in the Torres Strait where he was working with Dr John Ewen of the Institute of Zoology, London and a small team investigating the presence and nature of various avian pathogens in the bird population on these northernmost Australian islands.
Rohan is based at the faculty of Science at Monash University. The website at the faculty describes his work as follows:
Avian pathogens and bird migration in Torres Strait
(In collaboration with Dr John Ewen, Institute of Zoology, London)
This research focusses on community level patterns of transmission, prevalence and virulence of avian parasites, in particular avian malaria. Recent sampling has focussed on an important migratory pathway in northern Australia; the islands of the Torres Strait, with additional work in New Zealand systems.
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This week I found a bird that no-one has ever before recorded in Australia – the Lesser Paradise Kingfisher Tanysiptera hydrocharis. also known as the Aru or Little Paradise Kingfisher
As Sean Dooley pointed out on his excellent book of Australian birding miscellany Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola, getting a “first” is something that you don’t take lightly:
Even the most ardent anti-twitcher would find it hard to deny that the first time you see a bird is a pretty thrilling moment. No future encounter will have the same kind of buzz. So you can imagine the amplification of excitement in finding a first that no-one in the entire nation has seen.
…
It is still possible, however, that someone will discover a first for Australia. That is, a bird that may commonly occur in other countries, but until you clap eyes on it, nobody has ever seen one here. To see a first for Aus[tralia] gives a cachet that virtually nothing else in birdwatching can. there are no prizes other than the awe and respect of lesser mortals…but it is the dream of probably every twitcher, probably every birder.
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This is an expanded version of a piece that was published in Crikey on Monday 25th January.
Yesterday’s conclusion of the Tour Down Under (the Tour) cycling race in Adelaide was a triumph not only for the eventual winner, the German rider and now two-time winner of the Tour, Andre Greipel (see picture above), but also for South Australian Premier Mike Rann and the first-time commercial sponsor of the Tour, South Australian-based energy company Santos.
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This is a rough(ish) English translation of my article that appeared in the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais yesterday. Thanks to Carlos Arribas for permission to re-print it.
The Texan & Alberto Contador
The Texan recently said that Alberto Contador was surrounded by “yes-men”. He criticised him for not being able to retain almost any of his Tour de France team mates: “…even his roommate left him”.
The Texan also openly insinuated that the kid from Pinto was nothing short of the Spanish equivalent of a bogan.
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I caught up with David Winderlich, an independent member of the South Australian Legislative Council late last week in Adelaide.
The Northern Myth: I’m always interested in the etymology of people’s names – what is the origin of Winderlich?
David Winderlich: It is of German origin. I’m told that it is a derivation of “winter light.” Maybe we are in the dark winter of Rann’s reign over South Australia as the land of “bread and circuses” and the “state of suppression”.
David Winderlich, a shoe and a big bug
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In February 2009 Crikey wrote to South Australian Premier Mike Rann seeking details of his government’s payments to the American cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Dear Mr Parker,
I forward the following email previously sent to you on 3 and 6 February without response.
I advise that I am preparing a piece on this matter for publication tomorrow and again invite a response from the Premier, Mr Rann or yourself on his behalf.
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This guest post is a further update from Sue Stanton and her husband Abdelwahab on their travels through his home country of Tunisia and beyond.
Sue is a long-time friend of mine from the Top End of the NT and is a a fiercely proud member of the Kungarakan & Gurindji peoples from north of the NT. You can read Sue’s previous guest posts on the NT Intervention here, her views on the ‘branding’ of Aboriginal people and the (mis)use of the term ‘indigenous’ here and her most recent post – a postcard from Gafsa in Tunisia, here.
North Africa Report No. 2 – 4-8 January 2010
As I sit here writing my memoirs and poetry I’m encouraged and inspired by the late Susan Sontag, who stated:
“The writer’s first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth…and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation.”
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This is an expanded version of a piece that was published in the email edition of Crikey earlier today.
Bullroarers - "fake" or "authentic"
A recent decision by the Federal Court has exposed the conduct of one company in the “authentic Aboriginal art” industry that supplies much of the material sold to the tourist and souvenir market in Australia as having engaged in unlawful conduct.
In late December Justice John Mansfield found that the Adelaide-based Australian Dreamtime Creations Pty Ltd, (ADC) and the sole ADC Director, Tony Athaniou, had committed numerous breaches of the Trades Practices Act in relation to the production and sale of material purporting to be Aboriginal art.
Justice Mansfield found that since 1996 and particularly between 2007 and 2009, ADC had engaged in “misleading and deceptive conduct” in relation to representations on its website.
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