Over its four years, Rural Weekly NT emphasised news and views from the pastoral, mining, agriculture, land management and conservation sectors. Politically, it covered the 2016 election loss of former Chief Minister Adam Giles and the rise of Labor’s Michael Gunner. But other issues also rose to the fore, matters deeply affecting those in the bush, including health services, especially mental health and youth suicide, as well as the wind-down of the Inpex project, the impacts of climate change and the potential hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) of the Territory’s gas reserves.
Everyone has others one is obligated to (has to care for) and others who care for one. No man or woman is an Island. ‘Skin’ classification guides the nature and intensity of relationships. A feature of the system that appeals to many ‘westerners’ is “mother in law avoidance” In former stricter times it was absolutely forbidden for one’s mother-in-law to be addressed or to be in the same room. It still happens that someone might wait outside a shop because “there is no room”.
In his life and in his music -- most memorably as a member of Sydney bands The Original Battersea Heroes, later The Heroes, [1967-1973], then the band for which he is best known, Uncle Bob's Band [1973-77], followed by a brief foray with The Works [1978-79] -- Bob McGowan instinctively shunned the artificial and reveled in the real.
We'll never know with any certainty just how many crops were grown in the NT from the late 1970s through to the late 1990s but through my research over the past couple of years I’ve located reports - sourced from court reports, personal reports, NT Police material and of course contemporaneous media accounts – that indicate the Northern Territory was a hot-spot for cannabis cultivation during that period.
A look at all things northern... and some of the myths behind them.
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Literary journals are an important component of Australia's literary culture and can help to foster a range of Indigenous, non-indigenous and multicultural voices. However, the Northern Territory has no such platform, and its lack is a significant shortfall in the artistic lives of Territorians.
'I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’: Peter Finch as Howard Beale, Network
“The government comes, has a look and goes back to their air-conditioned office”: Miriam Charlie. Residents in the four town camps - Mara, Yanyula, Garawa 1, and Garawa 2 - face overcrowding, insecure tenancy, water contamination, and failing health hardware. The recently released Town Camps Review classifies 34 per cent of Borroloola houses in “very poor” condition, and another 25 per cent in “poor” condition.
"Lupo was a very large bull mastiff looking dog that was white, except when as kids one time decided to dye him blue or purple with gentian violet ... Maybe he was the Boundless Possible dog": Scott McConnell MLA
The joy she felt in discovering plants unknown to her, or in teaching others about plants unknown to them, was a joy that would resonate in everyone around her. Jessica developed her love for nature at an early age. As a botanist, she trudged through paths less traveled in order to shine light on plants that would have otherwise been overlooked. She truly was a gift to Mother Earth.
Notwithstanding my earlier invocation of this affair as an example of the application of the Loftus Rule, i.e. a SNAFU of magnificent proportions, it is now clear we've never seen a shemozzle like this before in the NT or elsewhere. Hopefully we won't ever see its like again ...