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A . N . U . L I B R A R Y

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This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991.

This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press.

This project aims to make past scholarly works published by The Australian National University available to

a global audience under its open-access policy.

Service delivery to Outstations

edited by P. Love day

The Australian National University North Australia Research UnitMonograph

Darwin 1982

First published in Australia 1982.Printed in Australia by the Australian National University

@ North Australia Research Unit

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher Winnellie, N.T. 5798, Australia.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Service delivery to outstations

ISBN 0 86784 160 5[1] Aborigines, Australian - Australia,Northern - Public welfare. I. Loveday, P.(Peter), 1925 -. II. Australian National University. North Australia Research Unit.(Series: Monograph (Australian National University. North Australia Research Unit)).

362.8149915

OrdersNorthern Territory: North Australia Research Unit,PO Box 39448, Winnellie, 5798.Australia (other than N.T.): ANU Press, PO Box 4,Canberra ACT 2600.United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East and Africa:Eurospan, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU,England.North America: Books Australia, 15601 SW 83rd Avenue, Miami, Fla, USA.Japan: United Publishers Services Ltd, Tokyo.

CONTENTS

Authors

Acknowledgements

Map

Peter Loveday Introduction

Dan Gillespie John Hunter and Maningrida, a Chorus of Alarm Bells

Ian McLeod Maningrida, Law and Welfare Services

Dave Bond A History of Outstation Mechanical Repairs at Maningrida

Elizabeth Bryan and Janice Reid

Communications for Development,Observations from Northeast Arnhem Land

Bruce Walker Water and Related Services to Remote Communities

Bruce Sommer Bilingual Education and the Outstation MovementGeoff Bagshaw Whose Store at Jimarda?

Rolf Gerritsen Outstations, Differing Interpretations and Policy Implications

Elspeth A. Young Outstations, 1981: The Wider Setting

Diane Bell

Consolidated BibliographyOutstations: Reflections from the Centre

Appendix Aboriginal Population in the Northern Territory 1981

V

AUTHORS

Ms Elizabeth Bryan, an economist, was a Director of the Implementation and Management Group Pty Ltd (Sydney) when it was commissioned by Telecom Australia to conduct a study of the remote area telecommunications needs of the Northern Territory and directed the research and preparation of the report.

Dr Janice Reid is senior lecturer in medical anthropology at the Commonwealth Institute of Health, Sydney University, and was commissioned by IMG (with Drs Elspeth Young and Michael Heppell) to investigate Aboriginal communication needs in the Northern Territory. This paper also draws on her own research at Yirrkala in 1974-7 5, 1978 and 1 9 7 9. The latter research was funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), National Health and Medical Research Council, and Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Dr Rolf Gerritsen, a political scientist on secondment from the Department of Economic History, RSSS, Australian National University to the North Australia Research Unit, has done extensive field work in Ghana and Papua New Guinea.

Dr Bruce W. Walker is a senior lecturer in the Appropriate Technology Section of the Community College of Central Australia.

Mr David Bond is the executive officer of the Bawinanga Outstation Resource Association, Maningrida, and was employed before that as the mechanic at Maningrida.

Mr Dan Gillespie, Project Officer, Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Dr Bruce Sommer, Senior Education Advisor (Linguistics), Bilingual Programme, Professional Services Branch, NT Department of Education.

Mr Ian McLeod, graduate in law from the University of Sydney and New South Wales, and research assistant at NARU has had professional legal experience in Aboriginal affairs in New South Wales and the Northern Territory.

Dr Elspeth A. Young has wide research experience in Papua New Guinea and in Aboriginal communities in Central and Northern Australia. She is a Research Fellow in the North Australia Research Unit.

Dr Diane Bell is an anthropologist who has worked extensively in the Northern Territory on land claims and customary law. Her writing is focussed on the changing role and status of women in Central Australia.

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

- from Geoff Bagshaw

The field work on which this paper is based was conducted over the period September 1979 to March 1981 under the auspices of a University Research Grant awarded by the University of Adelaide. Additional assistance was received from the Council of the University in the form of the Mountford Award for postgraduate research in Australian anthropology. He is much indebted to the Maningrida Progress Association for permitting unrestricted access to records and accounts.

- from Elizabeth Bryan and Jan Reid

Janice Reid is very grateful to the Dhanbul Council of Yirrkala for its support and help during research trips to the community. Particular thanks go to Mr Gawirrin Gumana, who was Chairman at the time the study on telecommunications was conducted, Mr Jonetani Rika and staff of the Community Development Office, and staff of the Yirrkala Health Centre, School, Art and Crafts Store, and General Store. Discussions with staff of the government departments based in Nhulunbuy, particularly Mr Barry Lamshed of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, who also provided valuable help with the field work, and Dr Max Chalmers of the Department of Health and Mr Joe Alton of Community Development were also most useful and greatly appreciated. We are also grateful to Mr Ken Wallis, Darwin and the staff of Telecom in Melbourne for their assistance.

The authors would also like to thank Dr David Evans, Managing Director of IMG, the staff on the Sydney office and consultants to the communications project for their support and valuable contributions.

- from Dan GillespieI wish to thank: John Hunter for submitting to my close personal scrutiny in the

present and for inspiring me in the past; Chris Haynes of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Darwin, for access to personal files and other background information; the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Darwin, for access to files for background material; the Aboriginal people of Maningrida and its environs for subjecting themselves to yet another public examination of their affairs, and for giving me some rudimentary lessons in service delivery to remote communities; Dr Betty Meehan and Dr Rhys Jones of the Australian National university for a timely arrival in 1972 and for subsequent advice and encouragement; the North Australia Research Unit of the Australian National University for inviting me to join these discussions; the Director of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Canberra for permitting me to join these discussions and Kathryn Swift who typed this paper.

Melville Is KopangaPularumpi Elcho IsJimarda Galiwinku

BathurstYirrkalaNguiu MilingimbiManingrida

DarwinBaniyala

Groote Eylandt AnguruguBulman• Daly R

Bamyili NumbulwarPt KeatsBeswickKatherine

Ngukurr

Borroloola

• DagaruguLajamanu

Tennant Creek

• Yuendumu

0 Papunya

• Alice Springs

• Docker R 400km

Northern Territory Places mentioned in the text

xi

INTRODUCTION

The chapters which follow were prepared for a conference on service delivery to remote communities held in Darwin in December 1981 under the auspices of the North Australia Reseach Unit. Those presented here were particularly concerned with one special kind of remote community - Aboriginal outstations or, as they are often described at present, homeland centres. These are located principally in the Northern Territory. The most recent statistics on outstations, gathered by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, show that three quarters of all the outstation communities in Australia are in the Northern Territory - with which the following papers are concerned - and that nearly 8,000 out of a total Territory population of about 29,000 Aborigines live in them (see appendix for details). The population in outstations is not, however, 'stable' in the sense that the population of a small country town is stable. The people living at an outstation move back and forth between the outstations for long periods. A given site may be unoccupied for months or a year or more at a time. But it still remains as an outstation to be re-occupied for more or less extended periods - increasingly more extended periods - by people for whom it offers a release from settlement life and a chance to return to more traditional ways, including dietary ways.

Aborigines began to set up outstations from the late sixties and early seventies. There had been outstations before the outstation movement, as it was soon called, took shape, that is small groups living a traditional life who had never been drawn into the various kinds of settlement created by white society - the administrative, mission and pastoral congregations. Settlements were and are much larger, more heterogeneous socially and much less mobile aggregations of people than Aborigines have been traditionally accustomed to; they are also the principal stage outside the larger white towns and cities on which the contact between the dominant white culture and the Aboriginal culture is played out.

For most Aborigines this contact is painful, personally disturbing and socially disorienting. It is widely believed that it is at the root of disorders, social and personal, which manifest themselves in many settlements and are the despair of white administrators and white employees of and sympathisers with Aborigines.

For many Aborigines, it is widely believed, the appropriate response has been to go 'back to the bush' to escape the social pressure of the communities, to return to the traditional life, to re-establish custodial relations with traditional land (particularly important if a mining company is thought to be interested in it), to improve the health of the group by a return to traditional nutrition (especially protein) and to escape from alcohol and petrol sniffing. The chapters by Dan Gillespie and Ian McLeod deal with these questions as they were experienced in one area, centred on Maningrida, Gillespie's referring to events early in the outstation movement, McLeod's to social problems, as seen through the court system today.

The rejection of settlement life in these outstations - over two hundred have been recorded in the Territory - is not, of course, complete. People still want some basic European foods - tea, flour, sugar, tinned goods; they need fuel for their Toyotas and repair facilities; they expect a variety of social services from educational, health and medical services to the provision of social security cheques and banking facilities. They therefore maintain their connections with the settlements from which they have removed themselves. They not only expect settlement personnel - especially administration staff - to make arrangements that will meet their needs, they also return to settlements frequently for short or long periods, especially in the Wet season in the Top End.

xii

Some aspects of these continuing relations between outstations and parent settlements are dealt with in the chapters by Dave Bond on mechanical services, Elizabeth Bryan and Dr Jan Reid on communications and Dr Bruce Walker on water. Dr Bruce Sommer's paper on bilingual education touches on one of the more intractable problems confronting an administrative department with responsibilities for teaching at a distance. Not the least of these problems is to maintain connections with remote places.

But there is much more to the maintenance of these connections than ensuring the supply of basic material goods and administrative services to outstations whose inhabitants have become accustomed to them in settlement life; more too than the difficulties of adapting traditional and non-traditional ways of life to one another.This is brought out in the following chapter. Geoff Bagshaw's paper shows how the servicing and management of a food store at an outstation became the focus of local politics. This is the subject of Rolf Gerritsen's more general paper, a paper which offers what Dr Rolf Gerritsen calls a revisionist theory of the outstation movement. The revisionism consists not in denying the importance of the various reasons people have given for the setting up of outstations but in emphasising the importance of leadership and politics in the process. For many people in outstations - wives, families and old folk - outstations do offer an escape from alcohol, fights, petrol sniffing, social tension and a promise of more customary foods. But these things by themselves, even when reinforced by the desire to return to one's own 'country' to maintain it and one's claims to it, are not enough. Social groups of these kinds need leadership and this is frequently provided by what Gerritsen calls 'prominent men'. In other instances prominent women are also important leaders of outstation groups, though Gerritsen did not identify women among leaders in the Katherine region. As Gerritsen develops his argument, it is essential to see this local community leadership in the context of the wider politics of the settlement. Like mechanical and other servicing of outstations, the political servicing links them back to and maintains them in constantly changing dynamic relations with the parent settlement and to a larger political scene beyond that. Power in this context as elsewhere has to be legitimised and justified and, Gerritsen argues, some of the explanations of outstations do double duty, not only as explanations - only partial explanations in his view - but also as ideology for the leaders, justifying their claims to power and to the resources necessary to its exercise.

The papers mentioned so far are all concerned with Top End communities, especially those around Maningrida. The 'balance' is restored in the two concluding papers by Dr Young and Dr Bell who attended the discussions but wrote afterwards, each drawing on their own first hand knowledge of communities in the Centre. Elspeth Young draws on the most up-to-date figures available to describe services of various kinds in outstations throughout the Northern Territory. These figures highlight differences between outstations in the Centre and in the Top End. Bell stresses the importance of land to people moving to the outstations and argues that it is essential to base analysis and administration on the case histories of individual communities and on long term analysis if crisis management is to be avoided and the special characteristics of each place understood within the general homelands movement. She accepts the importance of local politics in community life but has some reservations about Gerritsen's description of this aspect and argues that a rounded analysis must give more weight to historical and socio-cultural elements of community life.

DAN GILLESPIEJOHN HUNTER AND MANINGRIDA - A CHORUS OF ALARM BELLS

The growth of 'apathy' and 'laziness' and the 'lack of cooperation' and the 'irresponsible' attitudes should have set the alarm bells clanging - together with increasing reference to the need for 'good'balandas to work on the settlement .... So it is with regret that Ileave, encumbered with some sense of personal failure.

(Hunter, 1973b, 1)

As I recall John Hunter left Maningrida the very day that the Maningrida Mirage printed a front page article entitled 'A Confession' - from which the quote above is taken. His leave-taking of that extraordinary community upon which he had lavished volumes of physical and intellectual energy was typically taciturn on his part though reservedly spectacular on the part of some Aboriginal people.

After I had taken my leave of him on the airstrip I cried a bit - as many Aboriginal people did. Had he known he may have perceived a certain irony in the fact that I was constrained to conceal my manly grief behind the still unfinished Maningrida airport toilets which had been ponderously laboured over for countless previous months by the now defunct Mobile Works Force - one of the more curious methods of service delivery to have ever been endured by remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and a figurative wind-mill at which Hunter had taken more than one passing tilt (Maningrida Mirage vol. 40, 10 July, 1970).

All that of course is quite a while past and I suspect that if either Hunter or myself were to walk back into Maningrida tomorrow we might both wonder if indeed it happened in another country, as well as another time. What I attempt here is to draw a small portrait of Hunter as a part of the process by which Maningrida ceased to be a 'settlement' in the pre-1972 (i.e. Welfare Branch) definition of the word and came to be an emerging community of struggle and stress and strife - and (not in the least coincidentally) one of the most interesting places to be in the Northern Territory in the 1970s .

You might well ask what all this has to do with the delivery of services to Aboriginal communities. I believe that it has everything to do with it. John Hunter and Maningrida provide us with a case study of how Europeans may become vital to the complex fabric of remote Aboriginal communities, how they mould in some important ways the hopes and expectations of the communities and the directions they take. We are also provided with an insight into what happens to these communities when these special balandas* leave.

It might be also valuable at some other time to try to look at what the whole process does to the special balandas - but we are here engaged on other matters.

Top End Aboriginal word for Europeans

2

When I first went to Maningrida in 1970 as a wide-eyed Welfare Branch teacher, Hunter was Superintendent. He had been there off and on since 1963. For the interested observer a number of things were quickly apparent:

- though shy and retiring Hunter had a strong personality, a fine wit and a huge capacity for work of all kinds

- the Aboriginal people of Maningrida looked on him with respect and affection

- the European population's reaction to him varied from considerable respect to an intense dislike - this latter emotion being mostly generated by Hunter's support in word and deed for Aboriginal people's right to basic equalities. The dislike was usually expressed in quite colourful and profoundly racist language.

At that time there were about 1,200 Aboriginal people in Maningrida and 50 balandas. Aboriginal people were generally employed by the Welfare Branch on a series of progressively indexed wages known as the Training Allowance, though some were earning award wages working on the Northern Territory Administration's forestry project whose interactions with Aboriginal people have been discussed elsewhere (Haynes, 1978; H of R 1978) .

On the surface Maningrida looked like a reasonably cheerful efficient Welfare Branch settlement. The hospital worked, kids generally went to school, the kitchen remorselessly turned out remarkable indigenous versions of the great soup kitchen staples, the Forestry project from time to time produced some timber and the V.B. Perkins barge and the Connair plane came and went. Services were indeed being delivered. It was only when one got to know the situation a little better and heard the tales of colleagues who had worked on other Aboriginal settlements and missions (as remote Aboriginal communities were called before those words were banished to well deserved external lexical darkness by the stroke of a pen) that one realised that a great deal of what took place at Maningrida occurred because of John Hunter - because of a mixture of his leadership, cajoling - even bullying- and his own indefatigable labour.

It was this driving energy that earned John Hunter his high place in Aboriginal estimation at Maningrida. This is not to say that he did not earn Aboriginal peoples' respect through his personal relationships with them but it reflected what I came to perceive as a distinctly pragmatic appraisal of Europeans by Aboriginals in this type of situation - those who performed and delivered were allotted a place in the order of things that brought them into day to day conversation and made the way they behaved and thought important to Aboriginal people. Those who did not perform or indeed created problems were ignored or sent to a kind of flexible Coventry from which they escaped when contact was either unavoidable or expedient for Aboriginal people.

I do not mean to imply that there were not other balandas whom Aboriginal people regarded as special - simply that Hunter stood apart from all of them. I said that Maningrida in those days had the superficial appearance of a reasonably cheerful and efficient place. One did not need a seer's perception however to see that the community was in major structural trouble - trouble that bubbled uneasily below the surface, from time to time broke out in the form of inter-Aboriginal violence but was generally kept contained - again largely through the efforts or advice of Hunter. Being in structural trouble made Maningrida no different from many other remote communities in the NT - it was all a matter of degree. What made Maningrida somewhat unique was that it had a Superintendent who knew what was going on.

3

What was the nature of Maningrida's problems in 1970/71?

A thin slice from the volumes of the Maningrida Mirage of the period might give us some insight.

A report was carried in volume 23 (15 March 1970) that a visiting Canberra personality had expressed the view that local organisations such as Progress Associations could grow too big and too autonomous and go against the aims of government for such communities.

The community store advised that it could provide airconditioners, lawn mowers and tape recorders among other things on request.

The Boy Scouts were in full swing and a Girl Guides troop was proposed.

The Village Council talked about destroying excess dogs, confiscating weapons from fights, paying for Council uniforms, promised wife business and trouble after beer ration.

Two volumes later (26 March 1970) the school Parents and Friends Association mused about how to spend its large funds and how to attract someone else to meetings apart from European teachers.

Church notes mused on the meaning of Easter.

One of the foresters contributed a one page collage of strained occupational one line puns entitled 'What is a sawmiller'?

The school announced the election of prefects and expressed satisfaction at the discipline they had exerted over the school children during a march to the beach while the teachers were engaged in a meeting.

Clearly a major part of the trouble was the powerlessness of the Aboriginal people to influence the affairs of the place - a powerlessness in particular to control the nature of services and the methodology of their delivery, for such matters rested absolutely with the European agencies such as the administration (represented by people like Hunter), the hospital, the Forestry project, the Church and the school (represented by people like me) and those agencies' distant masters. Lest I be accused of adopting a holier than thou attitude let me now admit that for quite some time I was right in the forefront of those engaged in Europocentric irrelevant service delivery - when I look back at some the things I was prepared to commit to public paper in those days I shudder with shame.

Powerlessness and irrelevance are fuel enough for simmering trouble but Maningrida had an extra dimension of complexity that ensured that ultimately there would be some unloading of social pressure. Hiatt (1965, 10) quotes from a Welfare Branch document of 1957.

The concept of the settlement was not that of a compound into which all the natives of the area would move. On the contrary, the natives were to be left in their tribal areas with a minimum disruption, (sic) initially, of their tribal patterns.

4

As Hiatt wryly notes the concept was never realised. Clanspeople from east, west and south were attracted or induced to come into Maningrida in 1957 for rations, tobacco, employment and trade. Rudimentary housing began to be established and the die was cast- Groups who harboured long standing suspicions or open hostility towards each other were not/ cheek to jowl, off their country and dependent on European infrastructures for their well being. As early as 1958 there was a major push by the Gidjingali from the Blyth River to assert their ownership of Maningrida over the landowners, the beleaguered, unfortunate Gunavidji. The rather ingenious strategem drew its authority partly from Gidjingali association with government officials and partly from the fact that Gidjingali men had played in the Wanderers Australian Rules team that had won the Darwin premiership that year (Hiatt, 1965, 151f) .

Hiatt optimistically concludes that by 1960 people understood that Maningrida was for the benefit of all and that all were expected to live in harmony. In the Maningrida that John Hunter ran in 1970/71 however, public events such as the open air picture show at the school were still being regularly disrupted by the staccato rattle of shovel nosed spears scuttling across the corrugated iron roofs of the old classrooms.

Hunter attempted to grapple with the intractable problems of the community by persisting through weary meetings and non-meetings of the conscripted/elected Village Council and by promoting independent organisations such as the Progress Association. The records of Council meetings which were published sporadically in the Maningrida Mirage, while often containing repetitive sabre rattlings from various strugglers for power, at times contained eloquent statements of Aboriginal perceptions of the sad helplessness of the situation.

President: The children are learning fast. The old people shouldchange a little bit.Councillor Balaya: There is trouble all over the world. We oldpeople haven't been to school and we don't understand these new customs.Councillor Madarma: The Councillors must keep on trying stop trouble.

(Maningrida Mirage, vol. 43, 31 July 1970)

A village council based on a neat European system of a certain number of councillors for each socalled tribe was doomed to failure. It took no cognizance of Aboriginal politics or social structure and it generally brought to the fore those men who liked to talk and associate with European power structures - the real Aboriginal power brokers said little but listened and watched a lot.

The Maningrida Progress Association, with Hunter's active encouragement came to represent the only element of independent free trade in the community. It slowly built itself under the guidance of manager Glen Bagshaw into an edifice that government would not interfere with and indeed was often happy to deal with. Although excellent and highly valued by the Aboriginal people it was at this stage very much a European organisation.

Major changes were mooted in mid 1972 when the Welfare Branch asked for Aboriginal communities to submit 5 year plans for development. The Maningrida Mirage (vol. 141,June 1972) reported that a number of persons, Hunter and myself among them, had been asked to develop plans in particular social developmental areas - none of the participants were Aboriginal. There had always been a few small groups of Aboriginal people who remained most of the time on their country away from Maningrida and many others who maintained regular contact with their clan estates. As early as 1969 a visiting Welfare Branch officer reported intense discussion occurring at Maningrida about returning to the homelands. What was to become known as the outstation movement took its first shaky steps in 1972 - and Hunter was in the thick of it. The first attempts at re-establishment on

5

traditional lands were greeted with derision by many of the Europeans in the community - 'Wait until the mossies and the bloody Wet Season - they'll be back!' They weren't.

A crucial event in 1972 for the outstation movement, for Hunter and for a number of other balandas at Maningrida was the arrival of Betty Meehan and Rhys Jones to carry out ethno-archaeological work in the estate of the Gidjingali speaking Anbarra at the mouth of the Blyth River. When they arrived in the field over 200 people were gathered for a Kunapippi ceremony. Many of them decided to stay and the Mirage (vol. 157, 6 October1972) carries a story by Rhys Jones on a large meeting at Kopanga attended by the Anbarra leaders and John Hunter at which the existence of the Blyth River outstations was formalised.

The enthusiasm and insights which Meehan and Jones brought to the consideration of Aboriginal desires and aspirations inspired all of us at Maningrida who cared and were worried and stumbling around in the dark.

The Blyth River example was also an inspiration to many other Aboriginal groups who wanted to leave the tension of Maningrida and re-occupy their lands but were worried about the amount of support they could expect. The minute some support was offered the Aboriginal people began to vote with their feet.

Most of the support for these embryonic communities was provided by Hunter or those he could cajole into carrying supplies, assisting with relocation and so on. Officially, support was discouraged and this attitude did not readily change with the change of federal government in December 1972. Hunter persisted and wrote a number of far-sighted reports (1973a) on the direction the outstation movement might take. Eventually the policy changed to one of support for infrastructure and service delivery to outstations and by late 1973 almost 400 Aboriginal people had left Maningrida for the bush.

The election of the Labor government of 1972 coupled with the demographic change brought about by the movement away from Maningrida was to result in 1974 in some events which would ensure that Maningrida would never be quite the same again.

Hunter left Maningrida in December 1973. He was naturally hard to follow - 'it will always be "his" Maningrida and "his" people' - the Mirage editorialised (vol. 217, 14December 1973). Two or three Superintendents or Community Advisers attempted the thankless task but things were beginning to crack. The Mirage (vol. 218, 28 December1973) reports three incidents of sabotage to the community's water and power supplies.The Council began to discuss how to stop the tide of European visitors and residents.

The increase in the European population was a direct result of the injection of funds provided by the new Labor government. Along with the expansion of health, forestry, education and administration staffs, new European residents arrived to work for such organisations as the Housing Association which grew exponentially. The payment of award wages meant more disposable income, more buying power, more staff to deliver the services required - and all the while the drift to the bush continued. By June of 1974 the European population of Maningrida was 250 men, women and children, the Aboriginal population around 600 and the Dry Season weekends you might be sometimes hard pressed to find 150 Aboriginal people staying in town if transport was available to take them away for a little hunting and a little peace.

John Hunter continued to visit Maningrida from time to time in his capacity as Projects Officer with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs - which had replaced the Welfare Branch of the Northern Territory Administration. Hunter was present at a Council meeting in June 1974 at which the Council personally appealed to the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to cease the development, to roll back the tide of balandas and to help them gain control of the helter-skelter affairs of the community.

6

The next morning Hunter called a staff meeting of Department of Aboriginal Affairs personnel and summarily stood them down from duty and told them to prepare to leave. In a newspaper account he said he felt that something dramatic had to be done to stop Aboriginal people being smothered and to help them regain their confidence (NT News, 11July 1974).

Various Council members took over the running of the community. The Council, in a letter to the Prime Minister, asked that the government staff be removed as they were redundant. Hunter was recalled to Darwin and dispatched on a bush assignment. His suspension order on the staff was countermanded. The Aboriginal population went on strike.

Using their own funds twelve Maningrida councillors flew to Darwin and occupied the office of the Director of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. They had but one simple demand - 'Give Hunter back to us!' (NT News 2 July 1974). The Department of Aboriginal Affairs acceded to the Councillors' request and on 5 July 1974 they marched triumphantly with Hunter in their midst from the Maningrida airstrip back into the town. Some European residents were extremely bitter at this turn of events but a major change in the community's mood had taken place. The majority of the DAA staff were slowly withdrawn and in late August the Council removed from all the European forestry workers and their dependents their permits to live in Maningrida. Some major steps had been taken towards breaking the European stranglehold on how a complex Aboriginal community received and distributed its services. Some of these gains were inevitably lost but many Aboriginal people had learnt an excellent lesson in how to achieve a community goal through singleminded purposefulness.

Hunter told me afterwards that he thought the dust had gone up and that it had fallen back ultimately into the same place. In the one sense he was right for similar problems were to begin building up towards the next major community crisis in the late 1970s, but what had also been achieved was a change in the attitude of the European agencies of service delivery. Even though that change probably grew out of fear, it was in the main irreversible.

What lesson lies there in all the heat and laughter and hate and admiration that was generated in Maningrida during the Hunter period for those who want to see Aboriginal people achieve the same standards of control of community services and community lifestyle that most Australians accept as a right?

Despite the long overdue advances towards self-determination in the Territory there are still many Aboriginal communities whose service delivery infrastructures are fundamentally controlled by Europeans and there are also some balandas whom Aboriginal people regard as important - because they perform the duties they are paid for to their Aboriginal client's satisfaction - it is often as simple and as brutal as that.

In these times of rapid development perhaps there is a lesson for those concerned black and white Territorians who care to delve into the story of John Hunter and Maningrida and its Aboriginal citizens.

An Epilogue

Trying to write this short sketch about Hunter has been difficult for in trying to piece together my potted version of his time at Maningrida I repeatedly came uneasily face to face with my own experiences there.

I have felt for some time that Joseph Conrad would have loved Maningrida and felt at home there in the early 1970s. Those balandas who are about to take up the role of agents of service delivery in Aboriginal communities could do a lot worse than to read and comprehend Heart of Darkness. Perhaps there are elements of the special balanda in that

7

faulted genius who dies as Marlow bears him down river - away from his remote community.

But then, you see, I can't choose. He won't be forgotten. Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch dance in his honour; he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter misgivings (Conrad, 1902, 130).

8

IAN McLEOD

MANINGRIDA: LAW AND WELFARE SERVICES

This township must be one of the most depressing places in the Northern Territory. It's a filthy, horrible eye-sore full of constructions of wire-mesh designed to keep people out of petrol supplies ...

The Presiding Magistrate at the November 1981 sittings of the Maningrida Court.

Attending court day at Maningrida is like being subjected to a three-dimensional version of those problems set by examiners testing every conceivable issue raised in a course. It is more than solving legal, social and welfare problems though; it is a grim picture of the ineffectiveness of current sentencing policy and after-care treatment in a community where petrol sniffing has become an unsolved long term problem. Accessible only by air and sea in the Wet, Maningrida's geographic isolation places a severe burden on welfare and corrective services field officers who follow up court-related matters. Supervision of bonds is almost impossible and the re-appearance of so many offenders on bonds provides a sentencing dilemma for the visiting magistrate who has to impose a recognisance knowing there is little likelihood of it being kept.

Up to and including 17 November, the date of the most recent sittings, the court at Maningrida had sat on 6 occasions in 1981. The longest gap between sittings was 4 months from June to October. There were several reasons for the court not being held in this period; relatively small lists, staff shortages at Northern Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service (NAALAS) making it difficult for a legal aid solicitor to attend, and extra work demands on the magistracy with a change of area to include Lajamanu and Tennant Creek in the region serviced by Top End magistrates.

The incidence of petrol sniffing related offences being brought to court in this period and the number of juveniles in this group is as follows:

Number ofDate of Court Petrol Sniffing Number of Juveniles

1981 Offenders

17/ 2 9 317/ 3 5 419/ 5 2 130/ 6 19 920/10 27 2517/11 4 2

66 44

Figures relate to offender's first appearance in court - not date of sentence.

The offences invariably before the court were the petrol sniffing related break, enter and steal (usually for food or petrol) and larceny of petrol. Petrol sniffing per se is not an offence. From this table the average number of offenders appearing on petrol sniffing matters is 11 per sitting. This figure does not accurately reflect the amount of petrol

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sniffing caused offences in the Maningrida community. Allowances have to be made for undetected crime such as theft, where the owner is not aware of the loss, particularly in cases of petrol stolen from vehicle tanks. Some Europeans in the Maningrida community do not bother reporting thefts where the loss is small or when they do not see any point in the court sentencing process. The offenders who do finally appear in court are usually part of a group who watch the offender perpetrate the crime and share in the spoils. If the doctrine of common purpose or alternatively, receiving, were applied to these group members, the court figures would be swollen considerably. The court appearances are the symptom of the petrol sniffing problem in Maningrida but they are not the best guide of the extent of the problem. The police aide in Maningrida, selected from within the community, has a list of some 174 names of petrol sniffers in the community. As inflated as this number may appear, a stroll around the town at night will confirm that this number is probably not far off the mark. At night sniffers, soft drink cans of petrol to their noses, roam around the wooded area adjacent to the community hall. Age is not easy to guess, but the younger sniffers wre certainly less than 10 and several of the older sniffers appeared in excess of 20. Girl sniffers were also present.

In its remote community setting Maningrida presents the most concrete and devastating examples of social problems becoming legal problems and the start of what in some cases is the apparently never-ending cycle of petrol sniffing, offence, court appearance, sentence, release and further offence. Since October 24, the police at Maningrida have not made any arrests in respect of petrol sniffing matters. There is no ready explanation for why this should be. Petrol sniffers are still out at night in considerable numbers. The tentative explanation was that following the alleged burning of a house by a young petrol sniffer others have been loathe to break and enter or steal. Alternatively, it has been suggested that petrol is being given to sniffers by someone within the community as a means of preventing break-ins.

Against this background, the sporadic visit of the court is but a brief, inconsequential interlude in the delinquency within the community. The magistrate, court reporter, prosecutor, legal aid solicitor and field officer fly in together from Darwin.It is certainly not an original criticism that defence solicitors are identified more with the court process than with the particular clients they represent when this takes place. Unfortunately, Aboriginal Legal Aid agencies are still a long way from the ideal of being able to send solicitors out to the remote communities at least a day before court so that detailed instructions can be taken. Up until two weeks ago, NAALAS was in the crisis position of having only one solicitor available in Darwin for Darwin Courts and those outside the Darwin area. Until the Legal Aid solicitor's practice of arriving in a community with the magistrate and prosecutor is dispensed with, courts in remote areas will be subject to delays to enable the taking of instruction prior to court. As well, communities cannot be expected to fully accept the solicitor as their representative when he travels in such close contact with his courtroom antagonists.

The Corrective Services' Field Officer flew in by separate charter plane and gave a report to the court regarding one probationer's alleged breach of bond. The breach could not be sustained. The magistrate at the previous sittings had placed the defendant on a bond with certain conditions concerning the probationer's attendance at a business camp. The conditions did not spell out any time period and when police found the defendant back in Maningrida a short period after the court day they charged him with breaching his bond. The vague condition without any time element led the current magistrate to the finding that the bond had not been breached. I suspect in remote court sittings that magistrates' notes detailing the sentence imposed and the precise conditions pertaining to bonds are not as accurately recorded in all cases as perhaps they are in other courts. There is also always room for confusion when a magistrate comes into a matter where he was not originally involved. That confusion is more apparent when there is a new solicitor and new prosecutor, no-one having an accurate picture of what occurred at the earlier proceeding.

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The magistrate at the last Maningrida sittings has had more experience at that court than any other magistrate in the Top End. The futility of placing offenders on bonds was recognised in one instance when the prospect of supervision was canvassed. The magistrate remarked that 'parents have no control ... (the) Council has no control (and the) ... government has no control'. The inevitability of another failure seemed to be occupying the magistrate as he suggested in respect of one probationer 'it would be useful for the (Corrective Services) Field Officer to keep an advisory eye on him if he can fit another person in (with his caseload)'. In the juvenile cases bonds were subject to the young person's accepting the supervision of the Director of Child Welfare or his delegate, invariably the Remote Area Team Careworker in Maningrida. This supervision cannot be given without a vehicle. There are advantages in bringing a vehicle, getting around town, travelling to outstations if need be, and just being seen in the community - an underrated supportive factor. Without access to a vehicle when arriving in communities the visiting governmental officer is confined to a narrow area within the confines of the town.

Adequate supervision of juveniles in communities like Maningrida goes beyond supervision in relation to bonds. The petrol sniffers in the streets of the town through the night suggests that parental control is slight. Indeed, one European in Maningrida, a mechanic, became so disillusioned at having his house broken into by the same young offender, that he refused to fix the Toyota belonging to the youth's father until the father exercised some control over his son. The son was promptly beaten; the thefts stopped for a short time but started again, presumably as parental control relaxed. Given this background, supervision by outside agencies such as field officers would not alter the overall picture of the community.

The Remote Area Team of the welfare division of the Department of Community Development can be seen as either a community developer in the wider sense or a service deliverer. Unfortunately, one-monthly visits do not really offer much hope for effective community development work. Social problems manifesting themselves as legal problems like offences related to petrol sniffing, can only be tackled on a project basis rather than through the one at a time efforts of one agency. But the inertial problem of launching any program is to define responsibility for its initiation, and who will be accountable for it, particularly if it is unsuccessful.

Petrol sniffing at Maningrida touches several departments' areas of operation. The Education Department is affected because most of the sniffers at Maningrida are truar.t. Instruction in the deleterious aspects of sniffing is appropriate for the local schocl.The Community Welfare Division has been affected, firstly by careworkers devoting an ever-increasing part of their time toward the preparation of pre-sentence reports on sniffers. Secondly, discussions with parents and Council in attempting to foster lor.ger term solutions become almost cyclical on each visit with the same issues being canvassed. The Health Department is concerned with the effects of chronic petrol sniffing on the person and with prevention of physical and mental degeneration. The magistracy, who face the endlessly revolving door at Maningrida, would like to prevent petrol sniffing. A sniffer dominated list, month after month, at Maningrida can easily lead to disillusionment and doubt about the effectiveness and worth of any sentencing policy.Where custodial sentences are enforced the likely result is that there may be a temporary respite in thefts perpetrated by that offender. The absence of a juvenile detention centre in Darwin has meant that juveniles are either sent to Berrimah or Giles House in Alice Springs. Two Maningrida juveniles are now in Giles House and several are in Berrimah. Finally, the Council has an interest in controlling petrol sniffing, but *.he level of concern is hard to determine. During the recent visit by an officer of the Corrective Services Division to discuss the possibility of the Council supervising Community Service Orders, the Council felt they would be unable to supervise those orders. There are a number of bodies with an interest in prevention of petrol sniffing, but 10 agency has sole responsibility. In fact, the question who has the responsibility, if any exists, cannot be answered. It is not hard to see how the door starts revolving in such a situation.

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In Maningrida where a number of clans have been forced to co-exist there are problems in deriving authority from the Council. The only reinforcement of traditional values and authority is found in the outstations, set up by clans or families and serviced by the Outstation Resource Centre. No offenders on the Maningrida court list reside at outstations, but the continual movement of outstation people back to the settlement in the wet season makes it likely that an outstation juvenile will be captured by the attractions of settlement life.

The fluctuating population of the outstation and the concomitant change in the settlement's population, has made it difficult to gain accurate statistics. DAA takes an annual profile of the populations of outstations and the town, but the figures change almost before compilation. Police take a rough check on the population of the town and the Outstation Resource Centre (ORC) has an idea how many people are on various outstations, but the movements are often so sudden that accurate population tables are nearly impossible. The movement from outstations back to the settlement can take place because of a change in water supply, sickness, which usually spreads rapidly through a camp, and food shortages in the wet. The ORC is attempting to fly in food to all the outstations this wet and knowledge of the number of people on the outstations would be of a considerable advantage in planning this operation.

Almost in desperation the magistrate who sits regularly at Maningrida has resorted to sentencing variations which have no legal basis. In the past juveniles have been placed on Community Services Orders, although no legislation exists enabling this option ot be used for juveniles. The Orders were not successfully completed because the Council, which had not initially been consulted, had not supervised the juveniles. At the last sittings, an inquiry was made from the bench whether Maningrida was gazetted as a 28-day prison, the implication being that had it been declared some of those defendants appearing on the list would have been held under this provision. Given the Council's present perception about their own inadequacy for supervising Community Service Orders, that option will not be available until more consultation about the Orders takes place.

The possibility of having a house in the town set aside for juveniles and staffed by house parents is also under discussion. The idea is not unlike the Papunya approach in 1978 when two houses were to be used for housing problem juveniles. That plan did not come to fruition as the Community Council reconsidered their initial proposal.

In the challenging but equally demoralising area of searching for other sentencing options community involvement is essential but, given community tensions and council docility, a concerted community approach at arresting what is eventually a juvenile delinquency problem is unlikely.

It may be that the only approach is for a department to suggest options to the Council, for the Council to choose and sanction an option, and then for the department to undertake the proposed program. The threshold question of who stops the revolving door and attacks petrol sniffing at Maningrida is the most difficult of all the questions.

Postscript (by the editor)

After this paper was written a report, commissioned by the Minister for Community Development, was released to the press and headlined in Darwin 'Maningrida Petrol Shock' (NT News 23 January 1982). The Rev. Jim Downing, Coordinator of Community Development in the Aboriginal Advisory and Development Services of the Uniting Church, thought the report did not put the problem in perspective and that

Its wide release does little to bring about positive attempts to solve the underlying problems, or to improve relationships between the department and the Maningrida community, or the community and the

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w id e r A u s t r a l ia n s o c i e t y . I t i s g o o d , h o w e v e r , t h a t th e G overnm ent i s c o n c e r n e d and a l l s e c t i o n s o f th e com m unity s h o u ld c o o p e r a te in f i r s t a s s e s s i n g , th e n h e lp in g A b o r ig in a l c o m m u n itie s th e m s e lv e s t o cop e w ith a g ro w in g p rob lem (NT N ew s, 3 March 1982 ) .

A n o th er co m m en ta to r , who knows M a n in g r id a w e l l , a g r e e d t h a t p e t r o l s n i f f e r s e x i s t , b u t e m p h a s ise d t h a t th e f i g u r e s g iv e n in th e r e p o r t w ere e x a g g e r a te d and in a c c u r a t e .

At M a n in g r id a th e com m unity l e a d e r s a r e u p s e t a n d , in some c a s e s , a n g ry a b o u t th e r e p o r t . The fo r e m o s t r e a s o n i s t h a t th e y had no o p p o r t u n i t y t o h ea r o r comment on th e r e p o r t b e f o r e i t was r u sh ed t o p r e s s . T h is h a s f u r t h e r a l i e n a t e d th e d e p a r tm e n t 's f i e l d s t a f f from t h e i r c l i e n t s who a r e now te m p ted to th in k o f them more a s s p i e s from w h ite A u s t r a l ia o u t t o p u t them to shame th a n a s p a r t n e r s in p rob lem s o l v i n g . T h ere i s a l s o c o n c e r n a t b l a t a n t l y e x a g g e r a te d and in a c c u r a t e f i g u r e s q u o te d in th e r e p o r t . . .R e g u la r s n i f f e r s a r e now e s t im a t e d a t a b o u t 30 or 40 w it h p e r h a p s a s many a g a in o c c a s i o n a l u s e r s (D arw in S t a r , 26 F e b r u a r y 1 9 8 2 ) .

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DAVE BONDA HISTORY OF OUTSTATION MECHANICAL REPAIRS AT MANINGRIDA

During the early 1970s people living in Maningrida started returning to their home country and in doing so needed some support for their small community from Maningrida.The kind of support they looked for was the supply of some of the white man's food and some of his technology.

This technology included things such as trucks, boats, and at later stages, radios and water pumping equipment. In the early days most of these things were obtained in one way or another from funds put aside by the federal government, direct funding or in the form of mining royalties. Later on with the income of these communities rising, people began to purchase equipment from their own funds. All this equipment had to be maintained if the people were to make full use of it.

In the early days these repairs were carried out by the government mechanics at Maningrida. These men were employed by the Welfare Branch to maintain the government vehicles and plant at Maningrida. It was quite understandable that they would be asked by the local people to help in maintaining private vehicles when these became more numerous. As the number of private vehicles increased the greater the workload of these government mechanics became, which made it very difficult for bush people to get their vehicles repaired in a reasonable time, if at all. The government mechanics were also bound to repair government equipment first and were discouraged by the Welfare Branch from doing these other repairs unless they did them in their own time.

When the Welfare Branch became DAA and started handing over control of the larger communities like Maningrida to the local people, local councils started employing their own mechanics, paid by the Council, to work on the Council equipment and to assist in maintaining the private vehicles. This was a great change in two respects: it meant thatthe people could choose the man to work for them and that they had a certain amount of power over what work he did. This was a big improvement, but it still did not help people in the bush very much because the Town Council had a lot of equipment to maintain and the mechanic was expected to train people as well.

The bush people started to ask for their own mechanic to service their vehicles and equipment to be employed by an association made up of members of the small bush communities. This was done in 1975, when I was employed by the Maningrida Council attached to the Outstation Resource Centre. At this stage we still had to use the Council garage and facilities but later we did take over an old store building and used this as a workshop. This was a big improvement for the people in the bush: they had their ownworkshop and did not have to take second place to the local people of Maningrida when trying to get their repairs carried out. They could also come and spend time at the workshop assisting with the repairs to their vehicles or just sitting and talking while repairs were being carried out.

Ownership and Responsibility for Maintaining Community Vehicles

Vehicles in bush communities are usually used on a family group or clan basis with responsibility for the vehicle resting with the clan leader. These men are usually the older men and most cannot drive so the driving and operation of the vehicle is done by a close male relative: son, nephew, brother. This system works well most of the time, aslong as the driver can be controlled by the leader. It starts to fall down when the driver has a family of his own and so has other pressures on him for use of the vehicle. Things still go along well until something happens to the vehicle and it needs repair, and the repairs are to be paid for. If the owner of the vehicle considers that he has not had

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the use of the vehicle he thinks he should have had, he is likely to say, 'you drove the vehicle and had most use of it, so you should pay for it1. The driver, who in many instances cannot refuse to help someone else, says, 'you own the vehicle so you pay'.This can go on for some time leaving the community without transport. This also causes trouble for the unsuspecting mechanic who may repair the vehicle on credit and then find it very difficult to get payment. To a white mechanic these squabbles may seem stupid when, as far as he can see, the vehicle is used for community use and therefore should be maintained by the community.

Vehicle Use in Small Aboriginal Communities in Maningrida

Vehicles and boats in these small communities are used for basic transport and for hunting, all the work being on bush roads or travelling across country. The vehicles always carry very heavy loads and in most cases they are overloaded. To a white person a truck of one year old, looking as though it is ready to be scrapped, may seem wasted, but if the life of the vehicle is worked out in kilos per kilometre, or persons per kilometre, things take on a different appearance. A vehicle one year old may have spent its whole life overloaded and being driven to its limit. It may have been bogged in deep mud, sand or salt mud numerous times or flogged over rough country chasing kangaroos or buffalo.

The view taken by the people is that a vehicle is transport, and it should be used to get from one place to another. If it gets bashed around and looks rough that does not matter as long as it goes well.

This form of use and attitude has its consequences for the mechanic of course, and the vast proportion of work carried out by him is to braking systems, steering gear and transmissions. Engines these days are so well designed and constructed that unless they are damaged by lack of water or oil they will always outlast the rest of the vehicle when used by small Aboriginal communities in remote areas.

Pressures Under which Mechanics Operate

The work of servicing vehicles that are used under these conditions, apart from being never ending, has its own problems. The mechanic is working for an Aboriginal committee with direct responsibility to them. He is working for wages paid by that committee, and is expected to perform the way they want him to. This may bring problems of its own: members of the committee, although not living in the bush, may want their work carried out first, or a committee member whose relation in the bush needs some repairs done may want to jump the queue. These things can usually be handled with a little tact and patience.A more difficult thing to handle is the apparent lack of care taken in the operation of these vehicles. The mechanic may have just finished repairing something, making a first class job of it, when in a few days it comes back again for repair because someone has apparently been careless and damaged it again. When this happens time and again it is very easy for the mechanic's morale to become low and for him to become dispirited with never being able to make any headway in the amount of work he has outstanding. When this happens it is very difficult for him to raise his morale and get back on top of things again.

The mechanic is also expected to train people in the trade. This is very difficult to do when there are no facilities for training apart from the workshop where the work has to be carried out. The training can only be carried out on a one to one basis and then only in the work situation with little attention to the theoretical part of the job.There are still far too few Aboriginal men with the academic qualifications to take on a full time apprenticeship and carry it through to the end and become fully qualified tradesmen. So that there are a lot of men with practical knowledge who can do a limited

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amount but will not be able to progress past that point because the lack of theoretical knowledge will hold them back. This adds to the skilled man's frustrations because he has to keep trying to impart knowledge knowing that the theory is not understood. This can be very frustrating because the same questions are asked by the same men over and over again, and when shown how to do the job it is quickly forgotten because it is not understood. A lot of the work can be carried out by learning by rote of course, but for proper understanding and to be able to diagnose successfully, the principles have to be understood.

Difficulties in the supply of spare parts and in getting the correct spare parts are another cause for much frustration and anger. Parts may take weeks to come and then have to be sent back because they were not correct. With all the extra paper work involved, and explanations to the vehicle owners why they have to wait so long, this can become very trying, especially when people do not fully understand the reasons and tend to blame the only person they can see and talk to about it, the mechanic.

The mechanic working for an Aboriginal community has to be adaptable and prepared to have a go at repairing almost anything. If he cannot repair everything i.e. tape recorders, shotguns, two-way radios, as well as trucks, tractors, motorbikes, pumps and windmills, he will find that his reputation will very quickly be questioned. He will be asked to give advice on almost everything from Astronomy to Soil Conservation. All this can make the job very rewarding but also very trying at times. Many white mechanics do not last very long in these communities because of all these things, things they would not be expected to do if they were living in a small white community.

Some Suggestions to bring the Services to Communities to a Higher Standard

Because of the lack of expertise in the black community the Aborigines will have to employ white mechanics for some time to come. Much more involvement by Aboriginal people in selecting the man will help to get someone who is going to be sympathetic to their wants. A lot more effort is needed from the Education Department in turning out people who can take up an apprenticeship and have the academic training to see it through. This would enable Aboriginal men to become fully qualified and skilled in the trade. They would then be able to do a much better job of helping their people than a white mechanic because of their shared cultural background and their understanding of the wants of the people who own the equipment.

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ELIZABETH BRYAN AND JANICE REID

COMMUNICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT: OBSERVATIONS FROM NORTHEAST ARNHEM LAND

INTRODUCTION

In 1980 Telecom Australia released a four volume report on telecommunications for the remote areas of the Northern Territory. The report, prepared by the Implementation and Management Group Pty Ltd, Sydney, (IMG), surveyed the immediate and long-term telecommunications needs and demands of people living outside the main towns of the Northern Territory and discussed strategies for planning and providing services. The study covered such topics as characteristics of the potential client populations, estimated costs, demands and revenue, technology options, policy issues and planning guidelines. It gave particular emphasis to the special requirements of the Aborigines, who constitute over 80 per cent of the population of approximately 20,000 people living in the remote areas of the Northern Territory.*

The IMG study found that 68 per cent of the demand for services and 70 per cent of the estimated potential subscribers came from Aboriginal communities, homeland centres (also referred to as outstations), representative organizations and enterprises. At present many of these groups have access only to congested and unreliable high frequency (HF) radio networks. The communities visited during the study frequently expressed severe frustration with existing communication capacities and evinced a strong interest in telephones and, to a lesser extent, television and broadcast radio. For the latter particularly, local content and local control were issues of common concern.

The report recommended that telephones be provided as a matter of priority to established communities but that, subject to review, HF radio networks be maintained as well. These would enable mobile services in the bush to communicate with base stations, allow small communities to take transceivers with them when they move, and provide social contact and information for homeland centre communities during the 'galah' sessions. Homeland centres, the report concluded, would be best served by a UHF-CB system which enables residents to talk to each other and to their resource centre. Such a system should use rugged and durable terminals, capable of being moved. Interconnection into the STD network and assistance with calls and billing services would be possible through the resource centre.

The study found, not unexpectedly, that although their need was at least as great, the ability of Aborigines tp pay for telephone services is considerably less than that of mining and (non-Aboriginal) pastoral companies. It was strongly argued, though, that the issues of welfare and equity, and Telecom's social obligations to the entire Australian community (as specified in the Telecommunications Act), should be major considerations in setting priorities, planning services, determining tariffs and, where necessary, providing subsidies. Further, the report argued that,

* The IMG study provided a compilation or review of existing geographic, demographic, service and social data on the Aboriginal population of the Territory and included a supplementary report (Volume IV, Appendix 9, 'Aborigines in the Northern Territory') based on a report prepared by Dr Michael Heppell, an anthropologist, and Dr Elspeth Young, a human geographer, who undertook fieldwork as consultants to the project. In August 1980, Telecom released its own study, Remote Area Telecommunications Study, National Report.This report is modelled on the IMG report and reached similar conclusions.

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Telecom will have to make a firm and total commitment to a consultative and participatory approach to planning that is capable of understanding and positively responding to the needs and decision processes of a culture significantly different to that of other groups with which the organisation has dealt previously (IMG, 1980: 99;original emphasis).

To facilitate the development of appropriate technologies and networks the report recommended that special units be set up to consult with Aborigines and explore possibilities at Telecom's headquarters (Melbourne) and in the Darwin office.Subsequently Telecom has stated that it hopes, subject to the availability of the necessary technologies, to provide STD telephones to remote areas in the five year period 1985-1990 on request. Although planning is still continuing, for Aborigines this will amost certainly mean that stable communities which are accessible to service personnel and have the infrastructure which requires and can support telephones will be eligible for telephone installation.

Neither of the two technological systems which are being considered for the provision of telephone services, the Digital Radio Concentrator System (DRCS) or domestic satellite, will be available until 1984-85. Before 1985 Telecom will extend telephone services to a few locations using present technologies, e.g. to sites of new mining ventures. It is of interest that the estimated costs of a satisfactory remote telephone and telex network were considerably less using the Digital Radio Concentrator System (DRCS) than hiring space on an international or domestic satellite. For television and broadcast radio, though, which require only a ground station to receive (as opposed to receive and transmit) a signal, the use of a satellite was found to be economically and technologically feasible. In fact Nhulunbuy, Yirrkala, Elcho Island and Groote Eylandt all now receive television programs from Sydney (ABC) beamed via satellite.

The general principles set out in the IMG Report provide a comprehensive guide for planning and systems design. But the upgrading of remote communications systems, as the Report recognised, will also require specific and current data on the different communities and their needs.

This paper presents some local-level observations on the communication needs and relevant characteristics of Yirrkala and its homeland centres in northeast Arnhem Land.It is confined to two-way voice communication - radios and telephones - and does not consider, except in passing, broadcast radio and television. We examine the local and regional links on which development and the viability of the communities depend, the communication needs which these links have generated and some of the attributes of any system which would meet these needs.

NORTHEAST ARNHEM LAND: PEOPLE AND COUNTRY

To understand the connotations of the term 'remote' one need only fly over northeast Arnhem Land. For thousands of square kilometres the only visible signs of human life are ascending ribbons of smoke from the fires of small homeland centre communities, or the occasional coastal patchworks of houses and roads marking larger coastal settlements.

These settlements - Milingimbi, Ramingining, Galiwin'ku, Gapuwiyak, and Yirrkala - scattered mostly along the coast, are resource centres or places of residence for the Yolngu and for the European staff and their families who provide essential services such as education, health care and store management. The affiliated populations of the settlements vary from 200 to 1200. The communities and their homeland centres look generally to Nhulunbuy as their administrative base and source of key services (Groote Eylandt and Numbulwar also rely on Nhulunbuy for services). The regional offices of many

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of the government departments (Health, Aboriginal Affairs, Police and so forth) were based at Nhulunbuy in the early 1970s when the town was first built in association with the development of the bauxite mining venture of Nabalco Pty Ltd and have since been maintained to service the northeast region.

The communication needs of Aborigines living in Eastern Arnhem Land today are largely determined by the nature of their life-style - one which is a unique combination of Aboriginal and acquired elements. The material trappings of European society, wage labour, processed food, European style housing and social services have become recognisable elements of settlement and homeland centre life. But the distinctive Aboriginal values, beliefs and social organization are a continuing and pervasive force within all Aboriginal communities in the region. At present there is every indication that these elements will continue to constitute the core of social life in coming decades.

Yolngu* Social Organisation

Yolngu society is based on far-reaching ties of birth and marriage. These relationships determine people's rights and duties towards one another, and sources of help and support. Aspects of life regulated by kinship ties include marriage, the care and teaching of the children, personal responsibilities, the organisation of religious ceremonies, mutual help in economic ventures, emotional support, care of the land and the maintenance and transmission of oral literature and religious knowledge.

Each person is born into a given lineage of a clan and moiety - that of his or her father - and marries someone of another clan and moiety. These marriages are usually contractual relationships between families and perpetuate a series of duties, obligations and ties of affection and blood between certain groups of clans. In general terms, a clan is a corporate, land-owning group, the members of which speak a distinctive language or dialect. Twenty-two such groups are represented today in Yirrkala alone. The members of others live on or near other settlements. Each clan recognises the autonomy of others and respects its rights in land and its ownership of sacred sites, myths, rituals, sacred objects and paintings which constitute charter to that land. Individuals do, of course, have recognised interests and duties towards other clans (those of their mother and grandparents especially) but primary membership and clan autonomy are basic principles.

The groups of related people who lived on the tracts of land belonging to each clan were, in pre-contact times, probably no more than 60 persons strong. With an intimate knowledge of the seasonal fluctuations and cycles of various plant and animal species they moved between familiar camping sites, harvesting the available resources and then moving on to other known sites on their land (or, with permission, on the land of affiliated groups). Around the area where Nhulunbuy stands today, for instance, older people recall that several groups would gather in the dry season at 'town lagoon' to collect the corns of the waterlily, travel by rigged dug-out canoe to offshore islands to collect seagull

♦'Yolngu' (sometimes spelled 'Yulngu')means 'Aboriginal person' in the languages of northeast Arnhem Land. The word is now also in wide use throughout the Top End.

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and turtle eggs when in season, walk down the coast to the oyster beds and estuarine swamps where mudcrabs abound, and procure wild honey, fish, game animals and birds, and fruits and vegetables in the bush adjacent to the coast. Quite large areas were traversed - quickly if only adults were in the travelling parties or at a relaxed pace if children were along.

When movement was easiest (in the Dry Season) and various food crops were ripe which would sustain large groups of people, several related clans would gather at pre-ordained sites to conduct the large religious ceremonies which marked deaths, the circumcisions of young boys and phases in the initiation or religious education of older boys and young men. These gatherings of several hundred people provided a forum for the exchange of news, the discussion of political and ritual issues, the arrangement of marriages, the resolution of conflicts, and re-affirmation of commitments between individuals and clans.

Whether people were dispersed or living in large groups, news of clan and family and information of a sacred or political nature was a matter of intense interest and importance. It was transmitted by mouth, message stick, the transfer of religious objects, or gleaned by inference. (Body sensations, dreams, spiritual and natural signs are often taken as indications of sickness, trouble or death elsewhere). The movement of- nearby groups was monitored by observing smoke from camp or bushfires. For the Yolngu, one of the main requirements of social security was (and is) the rapid and correct transmission of information.

Social Change

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in this area of Australia in the 1920s and 1930s, the only visitors to the shores of Arnhem Land were people of Malay descent from the Celebes (now Sulawesi) and occasional early explorers (such as Matthew Flinders in 1803) and Japanese traders. The Malay traders, now commonly called Macassans, probably started travelling to the area by sea in the early 1700s to harvest trepang (seaslug), tortoise shell, pearl shell, sandalwood and timber. Elements of the material culture (tobacco, metal, cloth, sailing canoes) and language of the Macassans were adopted by Aborigines and can still be distinguished today.

The arrival of Europeans had a much more profound impact on Aboriginal society. As Methodist missions were established (between the 1920s and 1940s) - groups of people formerly scattered over 40,000 sq. km. of eastern Arnhem Land began to congregate in the vicinity of each mission. They were initially attracted by the provision of medical care and bulk foodstuffs (such as flour, sugar, tea) and tobacco and, perhaps, by the novelty of the newcomers and their material trappings. As the decades passed, settlements of a few hundred people grew in size with in-migration and a rising birthrate until, in the late 1960s, the population of the main settlements was close to 1,000 Aborigines with a European staff of between 50 and 100 people. Some family and clan groups (such as the Djapu leader, Wonggu, and his wives and children) never left their lands. The missionary (Rev. Shepherdson) who established a mission at Galiwin'ku encouraged people to stay on their own lands and facilitated this by the provision of goods and services in his own single engine aircraft.

In 1968 an area was excised from the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve in an agreement between Nabalco and the Australian government as a bauxite mining lease. Following an unsuccessful suit for land rights by the Yirrkala people affected, a mine, processing plant and town of about 4,000 people were established on the peninsula between Melville Bay and the Gulf of Carpentaria on the northeastern tip of the region. Arrangements were made to pay royalties to the Aboriginal groups affected by this development.

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In the early 1970s the homeland movement in the region, as elsewhere in Australia, gained momentum. With the introduction of a policy of self-determination, the greater availability of funds for Aboriginal initiatives and the Federal government's assurance of support, the invisible walls which had bound Aboriginals to settlements were broken down. Many moved out of the settlements to 'go home' . The homeland centre movement was a response to the stresses and conflicts of settlement life, the alcoholism, the waywardness of the young, the sickness (the typical diseases of poverty and crowding), the fear that mining posed threats to reserves and unalienated crown lands, and simply homesickness. By 1980 there were 52 homeland centres in eastern Arnhem Land alone. Yirrkala is resource centre for 15 homeland centres. Not all have been continuously occupied but all are 'home' to certain groups of people who belong to the land on which they are sited and many are now well established as small permanent settlements.

For homeland centres and settlements the transmission of information about land, clan, family, religious and other traditional matters remains as important as it ever was. But two added dimensions make efficient communications even more important; first, the need for essential goods and services, and second, the difficulty of expressing and exploring complex issues in writing (especially when some people are not literate) and in English, a second language to everyone. Yolngu society is an intensely verbal society which relies on detailed and subtle description, allusion and oratory to assess situations and to reach sound and consensual decisions.

Yirrkala

Yirrkala was founded in 1935 by the Methodist Overseas Mission, four years after the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve was proclaimed. It remained relatively isolated from the rest of the Northern Territory until Nabalco's operations in the area started. An agreement was reached that royalties would be payable on all bauxite mined to the Aboriginals Benefit Trust Account. The ABTA returns to Yirrkala clans 30 per cent of the total and the remaining 70 per cent is distributed to groups elsewhere in the Northern Territory. The total annual royalty payments have varied since they commenced in 1972 but are now of the order of $1,000,000 annually.

In 1981 the affiliated population of Yirrkala was 1,050 Aborigines and 90 Europeans. Of these people approximately 350 Aborigines were living on nine homeland centres. These latter figures fluctuate throughout the year. Although 23 km from Nhulunbuy and the facilities it offers, Yirrkala is, like Milingimbi, Galiwin'ku and other communities, a small self-contained town. Clustered in one area of the settlement are the offices of Community Development and the Dhanbul Association (and Council), the Yirrkala Arts and Crafts shop and the main store. A short distance away is a modern health centre, opened in 1975, the pre-school, a fast food outlet, an oval and basketball court and school offices. On the edge of the settlement are the new and well-equipped primary and post-primary school buildings. The Dhanbul Community Association is an all-Aboriginal incorporated and elected body which oversees the disbursement of royalties and other funds, considers and instigates action on town management matters, and acts on requests for permits to visit and a range of other community issues.

Employment opportunities are not as limited at Yirrkala as in more remote settlements. A small number of Aborigines work in government offices in Nhulunbuy (three in late 1981). Yirrkala Business Enterprises (YBE) undertakes contract work (heavy earth-moving, town garbage run, lawn mowing) for Nabalco and government departments and, in 1981, was running Galupa Seafoods (with its two fishing boats), a bus service, a rental car franchise, a concrete batching plant, and the unloading and transport of goods for the barges. A number of Europeans are employed by YBE but in late 1981 moves were being made to recruit a training officer to increase Yolngu employment. Men and women are employed at Yirrkala in administrative and community development work, as security 'orderlies', in plumbing, painting, carpentry, general maintenance, hygiene, the store, the health centre and the school. In all about 100 Aboriginal people are in full-time employment.

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Several educational institutions serve the Yirrkala population. A pre-school and primary and post-primary schools are all situated in the settlement. Their Aboriginal and European staff not only teach children but are engaged in adult education and literacy work and provide teacher training and support for homeland centre schools. In late 1980 there were 220 children enrolled at school, of whom a small proportion were resident and attending school in homeland centres. About two-thirds of these children are regular attenders.

The Arnhem Land Progress Association general store is a major non-profit enterprise which, despite competition with Woolworths in Nhulunbuy, has an estimated $580,000 turnover (1981-82 financial year). The art and craft store in also very active and a major source of revenue for community members, who make and sell woven goods, bark paintings and carvings. By 1981 its annual turnover was approximately $150,000, generated by craft purchased from homeland centre and settlement residents for sale through the store to visitors or to galleries and shops 'down south' and overseas.

The health centre, since early 1981, has been staffed solely by about six Aboriginal health workers. Health workers carry out almost all medical procedures, are on duty at night and on weekends, and refer patients to Nhulunbuy Hospital when necessary. At fortnightly intervals health workers or a health worker and the medical officer make medical flights to homeland centres and carry out mother and baby care, immunisations, patient monitoring and so forth.

Homeland Centres

Yirrkala is resource centre for 15 homeland centres. These are scattered throughout northeast Arnhem Land and may be as little as 20 kms or as much as 130 kms away from the settlement. Not all are occupied at any given time. Some have had people continuously in residence since they were established, others have been vacated for longer or shorter periods. Individuals have various reasons for leaving homeland centres to return to Yirrkala: the death of a venerated and elderly leader which requires that the land bevacated until it can be ceremonially 'opened' again; the sickness of a family member whomrelatives feel needs to be near Nhulunbuy Hospital and immediate medical care; the onset of the Wet which renders some airstrips and all roads unserviceable and therefore hinders the provision of supplies and services; the lack of a school and wish to have children educated; dissatisfaction with homeland centre life (particularly among some of the young) and a wish to return to town or settlement; a salaried job at Yirrkala or inNhulunbuy; a visit to see relatives; a call to attend a ceremony at Yirrkala or anotherhomeland centre; the failure of a radio and so on. There is no concept that a homeland centre ceases to exist because its residents are away. People always talk about returning (and setting up new homeland centres on their own land) and do so when circumstances permit. If a homeland centre is particularly close to Yirrkala, people can and do visit on weekends, relaxing, hunting, working and 'recharging' before another week begins. This is particularly true of those who are in regular employment on the settlement.

The homeland centres are assisted and advised by the staff of the Community Development Office at Yirrkala. The Community Development Office has a comprehensive set of responsibilities and functions. It arranges, among other things:

a) the transmission of food and material goods to the settlement store and the packing of goods and transport by MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) single engine plane on its regular runs;

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b) the banking of all the community's funds, both for individuals and the community as a whole, the payment of debtors (e.g. the store), the crediting of accounts with transfer payments, salaries and money earned through art and craft manufacture;

c) the organisation of the regular medical flights to homeland centres by doctor and/or Aboriginal health workers and the evacuation of the seriously ill;

d) the repair of vehicles and machinery and the transport of either the mechanic or needed spare parts (or both);

e) the regular visits of the art and craft adviser to buy bark paintings and carvings;

f) the regular visits by vehicle (when possible) of the homeland centre teacher who supervises the homeland centre schools and trains and supports the Aboriginal teaching assistants who run them;

g) the sending of information about movements of people between communities, deaths (and the call for people from as far away as Milingimbi and Groote Eylandt to come to the funeral), general events in the settlement or region, the visits of dignitaries and government officials and so forth;

h) support in emergencies - in particular when a cyclone threatens or when, as happened in 1979, it passes through homeland centres.

The Community Development staff are also responsible for assessing, in conjunction with government officers, the eligibility of individuals for transfer payments. In a population of 1,000 approximately 80 pensions (old age, invalid, widows and supporting mothers) were being paid in 1980, in addition to customary child endowment payments.

The principal and stated aim of homeland centre dwellers is not that they should be self-supporting above all else or that they should return to a 'traditional' lifestyle, but that the lifestyle they create should be one which evolves slowly under their own control and is a judicious and acceptable combination of European and Aboriginal elements. In one homeland centre leader's words:

...Some Aborigines (want to) live the Aboriginal way of living. Some want the European way. Some live like Aborigines and only use European cloth, tape recorder, radio set, tobacco, sugar, flour ... (But those are) only for use and not to be like Europeans. My people can go to town and learn something from the White Man's side - and learn in school - but still be Aborigines and not Europeans.

COMMUNICATION NEEDS

The content of communications in this region fall into two general categories - administrative and social. The term 'social' is used in the widest sense to include all facets of the social and family life of residents. In the following discussion administrative and social communication needs are examined both for homeland centres and for the settlement (see also Dr Elspeth Young's case studies of Numbulwar, Willowra and Yuendumu, IMG, 1980, vol 4, annex A, for a wider perspective).

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Existing Telecommunications

The existing telecommunications services in the Northern Territory consist of trunk systems linking main towns (with a VHF troposcatter system across the Top End), three HF radio telephone networks which interconnect with the national network, and 10 networks which do not (Royal Flying Doctor Service, School of the Air, Aboriginal Councils, missions, NT Government, Health and Police). The remote areas are served by Telecom's HF Radio Telephone System and the private HF networks. The former is severely congested with long waits for calls. The latter are operated at certain fixed times of the day ('skeds') and reception is unreliable. In Nhulunbuy only the Departments of Health, Police,Customs, and Transport and Works have their own radios. The Essential Services Group in Transport and Works which is responsible for water, sewerage, power and the like has an officer and radio on each settlement. The Department of Education has a radio network and transceivers in most settlements but contact is presently with Darwin. In late 1981 the Department of Education was planning to set up a Nhulunbuy office which would probably control the network in the region. Health (on frequencies 5140 kHz and 7952 kHz) conducts daily 'skeds' with its staff at settlement health centres (except that at Yirrkala, which has a telephone) and occasionally transmits messages for other departments at Nhulunbuy. Its patrolling vehicles and ambulance can communicate with base stations using portable equipment. The Uniting Church of North Australia (UCNA) network (frequency 5940 kHz) which includes all former Uniting Church missions in Arnhem Land facilitates communication between staff in the field and with the Darwin office. The Councils can transmit telegrams during allotted 'skeds' on frequencies 6840 and 4010 kHz (VJY Darwin; OTC network).

Of the northeast Arnhem Land settlements, Milingimbi, Ramingining and Yirrkala (with Alyangula on Groote Eylandt) have STD telephones linked by the troposcatter system into the national network. Galiwin'ku has two-way radio with the facility to be switched into the STD network, usually during 'skeds'. (This means that if a department in Nhulunbuy without its own radio net, such as Community Development, wants to contact Galiwin'ku, the officer can ring VJY Darwin and be relayed through its single side band radio to the Galiwin'ku office - an indirect but moderately effective arrangement). Telecom proposes to extend the STD system in the near future to Angurugu, which presently only has radio, as does Umbakumba, also on Groote Eylandt. Gapuwiyak (and Numbulwar to the south) have radiotelephones. Galiwin'ku has very recently had a radiotelephone installed but there are long delays for calls and so the relay through VJY is still used.

Yirrkala itself has three radio transmitters, the Council set located in the Dhanbul Council offices (8ET) and operating both on the homeland centre frequency (2784 kHz) and VJY frequencies, and the two UCNA sets, both the responsibility of the Community Development Office which serves Yirrkala homeland centres: a portable set for patrollingvehicles (5SAM) installed with the homeland centre frequency (2784 kHz) and a fixed set in the Office (8UN Yirrkala) without. Both sets have the UCNA frequency 5940 kHz.

Administrative communications needs: homeland centres

The Resource Centre (i.e. Community Development Office at Yirrkala) speaks to homeland centres daily by two-way radio and acts as a funnel through which all homeland centre requests are channelled to service agencies, either on the settlement or in Nhulunbuy or Darwin and requests to homeland centres (such as permission for visits by officials) are channelled to homeland centres. Staff see their office as a buffer between these small remote communities and the multiplicity of individuals and departments who have business with homeland centres or provide services. This process saves homeland centres being flooded by a constant barrage of information and queries and thus being subject to the same pressures which, in part, they sought to avoid in returning to their lands.

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The Department of Aboriginal Affairs officer, who knew homeland centre communities well, was of the opinion that homeland centres want to preserve their 'privacy and isolation'. The regional medical director considered it would be a 'disaster' if phones were installed because it would foster the same pressures and dependence as settlement dwellers experience. The leader of one homeland centre (also the Council chairman) expressed strong reservations about 'too many callers' and the additional expense if telephones were installed and said he wanted any innovation which permitted unlimited traffic to come 'very slowly'.

On the other hand the Aboriginal health workers at Yirrkala wanted to be able to contact homeland centres directly. The Yirrkala Health Centre staff felt strongly that their facility should have its own radio and its own homeland centre 'skeds'. By this means they could talk directly in their own language(s) with homeland centres about the care and evacuation of the sick and the progress of patients already in hospital. Ideally a health worker at each homeland centre would be the point of first patient contact and report to the staff at Yirrkala or Nhulunbuy. Since illness is a major fear on homeland centres (one ceased to function for two years because the senior woman was old and often sick and her family wanted to be near medical help) such an arrangement would enhance their stability. It would also promote learning and independence by enabling health workers to discuss a case and decide whether the patient could be treated on the spot or should be evacuated. (At present patients are often evacuated by plane for what is found, on examination, to be a minor condition.) Health care for the homeland centres is one of the most critical communications concerns in the region. Until quick and clear voice access between homeland centres and health personnel is available, ongoing management of the sick at home, health manpower development and the ability to identify a real emergency will remain serious problems.

In the light of the description of some of the functions of the Yirrkala Community Development office given above some of the more specific expressed communication needs can be appreciated. Complaints fell into the following categories:

(1) Clarity: Aboriginal leaders and non-Aboriginal staff alike complain of the quality oftransmissions and their frequent inability to hear, to understand or to transmit a message to outstations. The Health Department and Yirrkala Town Council in particular complained of the difficulties in talking to or raising communities at various times of the day or when atmospheric conditions are poor.

The noise in the Town Council office and poor reception on its radio impedes communications with homeland centres so severely that, in 1979, the Community Development Office, through the Uniting Church, asked the Postal and Telecommunications Department for permission to install the homeland centre frequency on the newer Uniting Church radio in its own office. (It was already available on the CDO's mobile unit). This was refused on the grounds that the Council should service its unit (or buy another) and that the Council and UCNA could not assume responsibility for each other's activities (UCNA, CDO, PTD correspondence, 1979). Homeland centre 'skeds' remain frustrating and reception unpredictable.

(2) Day and night emergency capabilities: While the present system of controlled,scheduled communication seems favoured all agreed that the ability to raise help in an emergency (such as an acute illness) is vital and should be possible at any time. At present homeland centres contact Yirrkala during the 'sked' for help in an emergency. At other times, particularly at night, if they can get through (which is often not possible) they can contact the Telecom Outpost Radio Network Station in Darwin (VJY). Darwin contacts Nhulunbuy by telephone to arrange an evacuation (at daylight if the call is at night). (Some thought was given to installing the Health frequency on homeland centre radios for emergency use but this suggestion was not implemented, in part because it was feared the frequency would be abused, i.e. used for 'chatter'.) This system is only marginally acceptable, partly because it may be difficult to get through, and partly

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because the operators in Darwin are said to 'grill' callers about the urgency of the situation, to make no allowances for limited English and to 'intimidate' Aboriginal callers. Given initial nervousness in using the emergency frequency at all and lack of confidence with the equipment, such an encounter greatly inhibits emergency calls. Were it possible for the callers to obtain a doctor, sister or health worker closer to hand such needs could be met promptly and with less general anxiety.

(3) Expense: A major doubt expressed with respect to homeland centre communication wasthe ability of the users to pay for sophisticated communication equipment, its use and its maintenance. The incomes of these communities are generally adequate for subsistence needs and the purchase (usually with the help of grants) of such necessary items as two-way radios, vehicles, tractors and so forth. The cost of, for instance, a telephone (and the logistics of billing) were generally seen as serious problems unless subsidies were provided.(4) Accessibility (time on system and availability); The homeland centre frequency (2784kHz) is shared by well over 200 homeland centre communities and their resource centres throughout Arnhem Land. Effective access to a communications network is limited by congestion and demand, making it difficult for any but the most perfunctory messages to be sent. This not only impedes effective homeland centre self-management, and community and economic development, but can cause misunderstanding and distress. One Aboriginal leader explained it thus: 'If there has been a death, or if there is serious fighting betweensome people, we have to hold a discussion and find out what has happened, who did what, where, for what reasons, whether they were drunk ... It's easy for people to get the wrong interpretation and so you have to be very careful what you say. It can even happen that people think they hear over the radio that a certain person has died and travel from the homeland centre to the settlement for no reason'. This statement reflects the widespread feeling that clarity of reception and time to speak (accessibility) are necessary if the normal processes of informal exchange, arbitration and dispute settlement are to proceed fruitfully over a distance. The staff strongly advocated a separate frequency for each resource centre and its affiliated homeland centres. Submissions for separate frequencies by Yirrkala, Milingimbi and Gapuwiyak were still under review in late 1981. At that time Ramingining and its homeland centres were also experimenting most satisfactorily with inexpensive UNF-CB sets (approximately $320 per set compared with over $1,000 for HF radios). This system is clear and does not suffer from interference from the traffic of other communities. Though the range is short, the system requires very little precise engineering. The durability of the sets in northern conditions is unknown. Thought was being given to installing repeaters to extend the range of the system to the most distant homeland centre (approximately 50 kilometres).

(5) Durability and Low Maintenance: Homeland centres radios are generally housed in asmall shelter or a house and cared for well. Communities value them highly as their life-line to the resource centre. Nevertheless, the elements (high humidity, winds and rain), constant daily use, occasional moves and carelessness can and do exact a toll on electronic equipment. When radios cease to function in the Wet people are cut off from all avenues of help and sustenance. A plane must be sent to collect the radio (or bring the means of repairing it) or it must be brought in by road. Either avenue is costly, inconvenient, disruptive to community life, and worrying. Homeland centres may even disband altogether for want of a functioning radio. Thus there is a pressing need for units which are durable and require only simple maintenance which could be taught easily to a lay person.

(6) Simplicity: Associated with this need is that of simplicity of operation. The HealthDepartment has briefly experimented in the past with leaving its own units in homeland centres but found that the complexity of the units, with their multiple components and difficulties of operation, rendered them of little use. The lack of experience of homeland centre dwellers with complex technologies and the low literacy and numeracy rates of the population make it important that a unit be easily mastered by any adult person, whether literate or not.

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(7) Ready Energy Source: Complications arise with radios powered by batteries - batteriesmay go flat or be appropriated when needed for other purposes. It was agreed that solar powered units were the most viable on homeland centres and reduced the dependence on expensive and inconvenient external power sources. By late 1981 Milingimbi, Gapuwiyak, Ramingining and Galiwin'ku all had very successful solar electric generators (battery chargers) on their homeland centres and Yirrkala's homeland centres were shortly to be supplied.

Administrative communications needs: settlement

The individuals most concerned with the quality and attributes of communication links between town and settlements in northeast Arnhem Land are the staff of the various institutions and departments concerned with essential services and commercial enterprises (see also, in this regard, IMG 1980, vol. 4, 3.1-3.4). Yirrkala has been linked in tothe STD telephone network since the mid-1970s and phones at the main community offices (and one public phone) provide access throughout Australia and overseas. But most other settlements in northeast Arnhem Land (except Milingimbi and Ramingining) possess only two-way radios or radio telephone. Staff and residents are most vocal about the shortcomings of these technologies. Their complaints translate into several 'wants'.

(1) Clarity: health authorities, settlement staff, police and others find that in the wetseason (when storms are prevalent) and during much of the day, interference (static) on the radio is such that it is very difficult and frustrating to speak. One government officer said there was a 50/50 chance of getting through to a settlement without prohibitive interference at any given time.

(2) Instant access: While reception on the STD telephones at Milingimbi and Raminginingis said to be good, and while (less clear) radio-telephones are available at Gapuwiyak (and Numbulwar) the wait to use these is often several hours long: users must queue forcalls. Similarly the traffic on the radios at the scheduled times (particularly during the 'galah' sessions when people exchange news and make arrangements of various sorts throughout the region) is such that long waits are often necessary. The problem of access is partly one of the shortage of units and lines, and partly one of heavy 'sked' traffic.

(3) Unlimited time: An officer of the Department of Employment and Youth Affairs inNhulunbuy shared the feelings of several other government staff when he complained that he is allowed only five minutes per 'sked' to contract all of his business with settlements, to pass messages and to receive information. His responsibilities encompass vocational training, employment programs, assessment of eligibility for benefits, recruitment of staff for settlements and so forth. Time limitations mean that only the barest of information can be passed or obtained and elaboration and discussion is impossible.

(4) Privacy: The public nature of communications between Nhulunbuy and settlements andbetween settlements themselves was constantly lamented. The aero-medical nursing sisters and others use 'veiled speech' and 'innuendo' when transmitting sensitive medical and personal information. The community development officers in the settlements have a regular Sunday afternoon 'sked' to discuss sensitive problems and community directions, not only because the radio is freer then, but because they can assume few people will be listening in. Aboriginal leaders say they are exceptionally guarded and thoughtful about sending information related to illness, deaths or conflict since it may cause distress or inflame a situation which calls for private discussion, planning and conciliation. Sacred or secret information relating to religious matters cannot be discussed at all by radio.It must be noted, though, that some transmissions are a form of local news service and people want them to be broadcast publicly. Without this avenue of information and in the absence of a local (or other) Aboriginal broadcast radio network in the area, communities are effectively starved of news of events which concern them.

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(5) Immediate response 2-way voice communication Radio operators find it inhibiting to have to wait until a person has spoken and completed a message before responding. While this is adequate for sending, as one person called them, 'primitive' messages, it does not allow conversation or immediate response. For staff and residents in isolated communities, such as nursing sisters for whom radio is the sole form of professional and social communication with the outside world, this is both frustrating and demoralising. Verbal interactions become formalised and structured in a way that inhibits interpersonal exchange and support.

(6) Emergency capabilities: Several agencies (police, emergency services, health,Aboiginal community development) expressed concern about their capacity to maintain essential services and communications in the event of a disaster, in particular, a cyclone. ('It worries us sick', said one officer, 'Most homeland centres could be wiped off the bloody earth and we wouldn't know'.) The area is usually placed on cyclone alert several times each wet season. At such times climatic conditions preclude clear (and sometimes any) communications with outlying settlements and rain may render roads and airstrips unserviceable. There is clearly a need either for a communication system which can withstand a cyclone, or a back-up system which could be used immediately afterwards.As the police pointed out, even Yirrkala and Nhulunbuy, 23 km away, might be cut off from each other after a cyclone. The police and emergency services are relying on a magnabase aerial and vehicle radio to bridge any severe breakdown, but other agencies are not so equipped.

(7) Conference capability: In Darwin and in the Region individuals with development andadministrative responsibilities (e.g. the UCNA, the Department of Health) discuss issues with several (widely scattered) people at once. At present travel to meetings across the Top End is frequent, costly and inconvenient. (Since Connair ceased to operate acrosss Arnhem Land three small companies (MAF, Arnhem Air Charters and Air North) have provided services out of Darwin and Nhulunbuy on the regular public transport routes. Travel and connections are now even less straightforward.) On some issues decisions could be reached more efficiently by telephone discussion if the conference mode were available and clarity and access not a problem. One of the officers in Nhulunbuy said they frequently have to charter planes to fly to major communities such as Galiwin'ku and Ramingining to discuss business which could be resolved by phone in minutes. The inability to talk and act quickly frustrates community programs and development. For homeland centres in particular cross-fertilization and mutual self-help are vital bases for development, and would be greatly facilitated by regular conferences.

Administrative communications needs: mobile units

Finally, certain administrative services (such as the Police, Health, Education and Community Development) have intermittent or regular mobile patrols throughout the region. Very few cars or boats have effective (or any) radios and several departments expressed a need for rapid, long-distance communication between their mobile vehicles and boats and base. These would not constitute a major network in themselves - rather, they could be activated when needed. The difficulties experienced are considerable and various methods such as CB radios and 'walkie-talkies' (all unsatisfactory in various ways), have been devised to circumvent them.

The police at Nhulunbuy, for instance, have 4-wheel drive vehicles and a rescue boat equipped with HF (allowing a maximum distance of about 1500 km depending on the time of day) and VHF (limited to 30-40 kms - although it may allow much longer distances in freak conditions) equipment. (UHF transceivers are to be installed, probably in 1982 and, with them, the capacity to answer the telephone and talk to base from vehicles.) However the range and terrain over which these can operate are limited and the requirements of certain crucial situations are simply not met. In sea and land searches, for instance, distances may become too great, and atmospheric conditions and topographic characteristics such that contact between search parties and base is impossible.

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In 1979 a Nhulunbuy resident was lost at sea near Buckingham Bay, about 50 km to the northwest of Nhulunbuy. When he was reported missing, two days after his disappearance, an aircraft was sent into the area to search but had to turn back because of a storm. On the third day the aircraft found his dinghy on a beach but a patrol boat could not locate him. It was assumed he had begun to walk inland through uninhabited and isolated bush and so two search parties were landed (at Melville Bay and Cape Wilberforce). The parties walked inland through 'featureless scrub' hoping to intercept the man. He was spotted the next day by air and contacted by ground parties. Throughout the operation a chartered aircraft was kept in the air above the ground parties eguipped with VHF radio which enabled it to direct the ground parties and to communicate with Nhulunbuy base through Gove Flight Services at the airport. Direct contact with base and between ground parties was not possible in the absence of a clear line of sight. Not only was the cost of the operation high, but communications were indirect and slow. Had the search been much further from Nhulunbuy communication to base would have been impossible.

Aboriginal homeland centre dwellers move frequently by vehicle between homeland centres and settlements. Once they have departed the only indication that they may be in trouble is that they have not arrived at their destination (which presumes that they have always radioed ahead or that their own homeland centre enquires after them to see if they have arrived). Not only does this mean they may be stranded on an isolated track, bogged or with perhaps a vehicle breakdown or accident but that, if it is raining and word cannot be sent of their distress, the vehicle may be left for days, weeks or months until roads dry out and are passable again. It was pointed out most forcibly, though, by several people that conditions are so severe and roads so poor that any radio in a vehicle would have to be virtually indestructible and need very little maintenance (even at the cost of quality of reception) .

In essence expressed needs with respect to communications when travelling were that they should be mobile, indestructible, portable (compact), capable of operating over long distances (up to about 200 kms) such that a settlement or other mobile units could always be contacted, and easily maintained.

Social communications needs

Since a major focus of an individual's concern and his major source of help, security and support is his family and relatives, it is to be expected that he should want to be as fully informed as possible about their health, whereabouts, religious activities, problems, marriages, deaths, births and so forth. Members of a person's extended family or tribe may be scattered. People of the Galpu, Gumatj and closely related clans live in Yirrkala and Galiwin'ku 150 kms apart. At any given time it is likely that some individuals will also be in hospital, in secondary school or at training courses or living for other reasons in or around the major towns or cities from several hundred kilometres to several thousand kilometres away. Not only does the lack of access to information cause anxiety and distress, but it can be sufficient reason for parents to refuse to let their children attend secondary school in the main towns or to give permission for family members to go to hospital.

The 3000 Yolngu speakers whose lands constitute most of northeast Arnhem Land have a common religious heritage which is celebrated in ceremonies which can bring people from all five settlements and their homeland centres. The timing and organisation of large ceremonial gatherings often requires that word be sent, replies received and considered, a decision made and the decision promulgated throughout the region. The film Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka'wuy (Ian Dunlop, Film Australia 1978) shows an elderly clan leader of eastern Arnhem Land contacting other homeland centres some distance away by radio and singing, with accompaniment of clapsticks, the sacred song which must traditionall/ precede the announcement of death and which will bring the relevant relatives to the homeland centres for the funeral. Often, of course, the administrative-social distinction

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becomes an artifical one, for plans must then be made for Missionary Aviation Fellowship charters and with the store in the resource settlement for additional food to sustain the participants and visitors.

The highly visible ceremonies, though, are only an intermittent segment of the total flow of social information. This is a kin- and land-based society. The welfare and activities of people are of concern to a wide range of others. In the absence of information, and particularly when there is suspicion of trouble or sickness, relatives worry. If accurate and reliable information cannot be obtained, their anxiety is such that people will leave home and jobs and actually go and assess a situation for themselves. This can involve travelling from as far away as Canberra or Sydney if individuals are visiting or working down south.

With a responsive, clear and accessible communications system some of the needs and concerns which once could only be met by travel from place to place can be met on the airwaves. It is for this reason that ownership of and access to transceivers in Arnhem Land and the Centre has, in the past few years, led to an unprecedented and distinctive pattern of Aboriginal usage and has the potential of becoming uniquely Aboriginal throughout this region.

CONCLUSION

It is important to note that the communication needs delineated in this regional study are needs which were expressed by (or elicited from) individuals and organisations in the region in late 1979. Their felt needs clearly reflect the existing communications technology and the most pressing problems as they existed at that time. Small communities, for instance, which have a two-way radio simply wanted greater clarity, access and emergency capabilities. Their complaints arose from communication experiences and problems over the past few years - problems which were understood, were felt and were very real to those whose lives were touched by them. On the other hand no-one, not even the senior officers of departments in Darwin, spontaneously advocated, for instance, on-line data transmission. Homeland centre health workers and residents might be delighted to have the capacity to send a telex, or the ability to link up a patient and transmit his or her vital signs to a central emergency facility in Nhulunbuy Hospital and receive clear instructions for care as happens in some remote American (for instance, Navajo) communities (see also AID 1980, 30). On the other hand, no-one mentioned this possibility and it is not possible to say whether such technology would be an albatross or asset to a homeland centre. In short, people in the region, like people anywhere, do not have the ability or desire to crystal-gaze.

What then can be the basis for forward planning in remote communications for Aborigines of the region? In our opinion, and that of many of the Aborigines, service staff and social scientists we interviewed, any communications technology and network established in the near future, must, to be acceptable and useful to Aborigines have three basic attributes; it must be based on on-going consultation, be flexible, and be controlled by the users. These are each discussed in more detail below.

Consultation

The history of Aboriginal affairs is littered with the costly debris of projects devised in all good will by Europeans for Aboriginal communities to alleviate various social 'problems'. To Aborigines these failures reflect only one reality - the projects were not devised, approved, initiated or requested by them. They are the artifacts of European perceptions of the 'Aboriginal problem' and its 'solutions'.

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As a community or group, Aborigines will not take the ball and run with it if they are unwilling team members in the first place. But, in addition, the principle of individual thought and opinion is basic to the processes of Yolngu decision-making and to personal commitment to any undertaking. Each mature person is expected to, and dees, critically assess the advantages and possible pitfalls of any proposed course of action. For an action which involves a group of people to be initiated and sustained all nust concur with its advisability, or at least agree to co-operate. The word of one dissenting individual is sufficient for a proposal to be rejected or held in abeyance.

Given the importance of these two closely related principles - group consensis and group commitment - it is clear that any innovation, including communications technology, risks failure if it is not firmly grounded in ongoing consultation. In practical terms this means the permanent deployment of staff to discussion, explanation, educatior. and listening in Aboriginal communities well ahead of any planning deadlines, and the acceptance that decisions may take days, weeks or months to be reached if the rights of large numbers of people to participate are honoured.

Flexibility

One of the truisms of anthropological studies of change in Aboriginal society is that Aborigines readily and creatively accept and use the material offerings of European society but much less readily brook change in the set of beliefs and customs which are fundamental to their concept of themselves as a people. Selected electronic and technological equipment has, when introduced to Aboriginal communities, been enthusiastically adopted. Radios, which at present beam unfamiliar programs in English and often suffer poor reception, are not widely used. On the other hand, cassettes and tape recorders, which enable listeners to be selective about the music they play, to send spoken messages to relatives elsewhere, to record ceremonies for people who could not attend or just for posterity, have created something of a revolution in remote areas. It is not the technology itself, but the felt needs it can meet, which determine its acceptability.

The 'radio revolution' in Arnhem Land was well described by a senior officer who was familiar with the homeland centres around Maningrida and the process of their establishment:

I was simply amazed at the facility with which Aboriginal people took to the SSB low frequency network which has now been widely established throughout Arnhem Land. It is obviously regarded as very important (by Aborigines); equipment is well cared for and a whole range of community members quickly become adept at its use, for reasons varying from ceremonial logistes to broken arms.

The likely reception of other introductions is difficult to predict, partly because, as mentioned, it is not easy for people to articulate wishes and assess the advantages and disadvantages of hypothetical innovations. Television at Yirrkala, for instance, has elicited various reactions. Programs which contain action and interest (including cartoons and 'Countdown' - much watched by the young) are appreciated and are particularly valued by those whose English is limited. Television has thus replaced the Friday night films which used to be a major weekly event.

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Technological innovation is a two-edged blade: it has the potential to facilitatechange and development but it also has the potential to precipitate changes which are neither wanted nor anticipated. For this reason planning must be seen as a process which monitors the impact of innovations and takes into account evaluative findings. This means that it must be possible to establish the basis for future communication systems without making the installation of these mandatory (or inevitable). This is crucial in the case of homeland centres. It is unlikely that homeland centre development will be uniform.Some communities may become like small permanently inhabited, isolated settlements with many of the requisite amenities. Others may be rarely inhabited, or may be shifted for various political or social reasons. Some may have a small core of older residents and children, while young people commute on weekends and holidays, working the rest of the time in towns or settlements. The possible patterns are only now beginning to evolve and may not solidify for many years. Any service facility (including a communications network) must be able to adjust to this flux and to new, as yet unanticipated, residential, economic and social changes, in the region. To quote the Supplementary Report 'The planning and installation of communication networks ... should be carried out from the perspective that almost anything might be subject to change' (IMG 1980, vol. 4,2.40-41. See also 2.40-41 on the diversity of homeland centres and possible futures).

An associated problem is the infrastructure and the expertise needed to maintain complex and sophisticated equipment. The provision of both of these can sabotage homeland centres by bringing in the very people, facilities and dependence they were set up to escape. One community development officer expressed it thus:

The more complex technology becomes in a homeland centre ... the more communities are forced to rely on the backup expertise of Europeans, which in many cases is not available, is sporadic or is deliberately withheld. Outstation communities succeed ... as Aboriginal communities because they are devoid of the mechanic or diesel fitter who has to be there to maintain the expensive generator and whose wife wants a nurse and whose child wants a teacher ...

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs in its report, Present Conditions of Yirrkala People (1974) made a similar point (96-97).

In late 1981 Telecom was hoping to connect all resource centres into the STD network with dial telephones in the period 1985-1990. However, because its rural program had been prolonged by at least two years because of financial restrictions it seemed likely that the remote program would also be delayed. It was expected that homeland centre business would continue to be funnelled through the resource centres and that private radio networks would be maintained. Telecom, however, was intending to monitor changes, provide an advisory service and be 'in tune' with developments if and when the next step of expansion to homeland centres (perhaps in the 1990s or later) is taken. This plan will overcome many of the problems of communication between regions but leaves unresolved the serious problems of interference, congestion and access which beset homeland centres and their resource staff. These private HF networks are bound by the rules and decisions of the Department of Communications which allocates frequencies (quite scarce commodities), and gives or withholds permission to operate radios, and by the quality and maintenance of their sets, which is their own responsibility.

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User Control

The web of transceivers which links homeland centres to each other and to Yirrkala (or other settlements) is, by unanimous assent, an imperfect system. Its singular advantage is that (with the exceptions of licence fees and time restrictions) homeland centres are free to use the sets and airwaves as they wish. Homeland centres talk not only to the resource centre but to each other. Gangan, inland and well to the south of Yirrkala, often relays messages from homeland centres which cannot raise Yirrkala or VJY Darwin. During the 1978 cyclone alert when storms and high tides threatened and Yirrkala was out of touch, Gangan checked with Baniyala, a coastal homeland centre to the south, every half hour. This degree of network control and the opportunities for mutual self-help it offers are aspects of homeland centre autonomy and development which should be encouraged.

In communicating with the outside world, though, homeland centres are both limited and protected by the Community Development Office. The staff interviewed said that the time may come when some homeland centres want to act autonomously in relation to service departments and communicate directly with people outside the region. But when this time comes these communities will undoubtedly still want maximum control over their network. This not only means time and content, but the ablity to move, maintain, operate and repair transceivers themselves, and not be subject to the inhibiting restrictions of an unnecessarily complex and fickle system owned, serviced and controlled by outsiders (see AID 1980, 18, 24). For this reason alone a system and its components should be especially designed for the climate, terrain, distances and social environment in which it will be used, equipment should be uniform, clear maintenance protocols supplied, spare parts locally available, homeland centre residents trained in use and repair and power supplies reliable.

The remote Aboriginal communities of Eastern Arnhem Land are among the most viable, progressive and aggressively Aboriginal in Australia today. However, the opportunity for them to have a significant hand in shaping their own future is only a decade old. Their approach is essentially experimental and critical. They are acutely aware that decisions taken now may or may not bear fruit later on and are tentative in the new directions they embrace. Any approach to the establishment of new telecommunications networks must also be tentative, critical and evaluative, and responsive to new needs and problems as they arise. Consultation, flexibility and user control are, collectively, a sine qua non of a remote regions telecommunications system which is both technologically sound and congruent with Aboriginal culture and aspirations.

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BRUCE W. WALKER

WATER AND RELATED SERVICES TO REMOTE COMMUNITIES

Water is the prime physiological need of man - without it survival is impossible - and it has always had a significant role in the mythology of old cultures. In the Top End of the Northern Territory Aborigines owe their being to spirits associated with water holes and water sources. In Central Australia an understanding of the location of water in relation to geographical phenomena formed part of traditional culture and was essential to survival. Aborigines developed intricate practices regarding the use and maintenance of water holes, practices which are not as widely used today because of the changed circumstances and alternative supplies available to them. In general, settlements are created around good and reliable supplies of water. The delivery of services related to water is paramount to the success of settlements. An analysis of physical needs in remote Aboriginal outstations reveals a hierarchy of needs starting with water, followed by food, energy and shelter, with communications entering either before or after the need for shelter depending on locations. Water has always been a major concern in Central Australia, but its importance has been highlighted in the last couple of years for a number of reasons.

The changing pattern of settlement in the Northern Territory, following the provision for Aboriginal land rights and the expansion in mining and pastoral development, has sensitised us to the importance of water in the right quantity and of the desired quality. In the past, Aboriginal communities have settled near existing water sources, soakages or bores. In recent years this water centred pattern has changed as communities granted pastoral excisions and small parcels of land have used location as a basis for settlement rather than availability of water. In other instances, people have returned to traditional areas where water supplies may have been sufficient to support a small mobile community but insufficient to support the outstation development envisaged by the people. In these situations it is often not possible to find a potable water supply within easy distance of the nominated location. The problem is not limited to Aboriginal groups, rather it is highlighted by them. The development of the NT is very much a location centred activity. Mining sites are located before water supplies and it is not unreasonable to expect that several development companies will experience difficulties with water supply and quality similar to those experienced by Aboriginal communities. Secondly, health is a function of the volume and quality of water that is available: water is used not only for bodily sustenance but also in health care and the prevention of illness.

Improved water supply and sanitation systems were major elements of the public health measures that drastically cut death rates and improved health levels in the industrialised countries. Though it is not generally appreciated, these measures have been considerably more important than curative medicine in contributing to good health, long life expectancy and low infant mortality (Darrow, Keller and Pam 1981 ) .

A note of caution is also necessary. Water is not the only requirement for good hygiene - education in its use and abuse is also significant. If a significant gain is to be achieved in health care a total water supply system has to be envisaged. Such a system would include water supply and treatment, user facilities, disposal of waste, sanitation and so on. It achieves nothing to set up just one small part of the system. The final reason for emphasising the problems associated with the delivery of water related services is that we are now well into the United Nations World Water decade which is more correctly known as the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade. To date very

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little attention has been drawn to the decade in Australia and the Northern Territory. In considering water supply systems for remote communities the following questions must be addressed by both planners and users of the system.

- What criteria and values apply to the supply?

- Whose needs are we attempting to satisfy with the supply?

- How is the water utilised in the community?

- What is the appropriate level of technology required to deliver the benefitsexpected or desired?

- Is the community involved?

These questions may be examined in more detail.

What Criteria and Values Apply to the Supply?

A major factor inhibiting the provision of water to remote communities is the quality of the water supply. In most situations water can be found but the quality of that supply is often less than desirable. The water quality discussed here relates to drinking water. Other criteria have been determined for stock and agricultural purposes.

The Northern Territory Department of Health uses as its standard point of reference 'Desirable Quality for Drinking Water in Australia' prepared jointly by the Australian Water Resources Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council 1980. This document is largely based on the World Health Organisation criteria and is applicable to any water supply in Australia.

To ensure that those in need of improved water supply and sanitation have a system which meets these high standards would be extremely and often prohibitively expensive. At the level of technology and cost involved for remote communities, it is difficult to envisage adequate centralised water supply, drainage and sewerage systems in each community. Worse still, there is no guarantee that if in fact these high standards were achieved it would produce the benefits expected. The derivation of water quality criteria has at least three components. First and foremost is the social and cultural background in which they are conceived. Western water quality criteria have tightened as density in urban areas has increased and as industrial and agricultural pollution has increased.

Secondly, standards have increased as our ability to test and measure water quality has been facilitated by improved laboratory equipment. They have also increased with our ability to find causal relationships between substances found in water and certain medical conditions. The process of refinement continues: new substances found to create healthrisks cause the restriction of water supplies containing the offending substance.

Thirdly, standards have increased with our ability to produce equipment capable of effecting a desirable change in water supplies. Standards are meaningless if the equipment necessary to achieve the criteria is not available or usable in a particular set of circumstances. An example provided later in this paper indicates some of the problems associated with the use of criteria based on values which are remote from those of theuser .

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Whose Needs are we attempting to satisfy with the supply?

Bradshaw (1974) suggests that for any one situation there are least four types or categories of needs which may be defined.

- The normative need is what the expert or professional administrator or social scientist defines as need in any given situation. It is generally a desirable standard relative to the value orientation of the expert. Normative needs change in time, both as a result of development in knowledge and the changing values of society.

- The 'felt' need is equated with want and is often the only determinant used in community development practice. It is, by itself, an inadequate measure of 'real' need because it is limited to, and by the perceptions of, the individual which may involve fleeting fantasies and aspirations.

- The expressed need or demand is 'felt' need turned into action. Needs are common to all men, but the patterns of physically expressing those needs are valuable indications of what real needs do exist.

- The comparative need is found by studying the characteristics of those in receipt of a service. If people with similar characteristics are not in receipt of a similar service, then they are in need.

Given these categories it is easy to see how different interpretations can be placed on definition of needs. Although the need for a reliable water supply is rarely questionable, the level and type of service delivery is highly debatable in some situations. It is difficult for external agencies to have an appreciation of the effect of a particular service on the total local community. For example, the design of a water treatment facility to convert water of marginal quality to acceptable quality according to WHO criteria is more likely to place greater strains on the community than the derived benefit warrants. For most equipment, a power source and operator have to be found, a service infrastructure has to be provided, somebody has to be blamed when it breaks down, and part of the budget has to be allocated each year for the ongoing maintenance and operation of the equipment in which residents often see little value.

Further complications arise from the levels of need within the remote community. Personnel attached to vaiious service delivery programs are often resident in the community. These people also make demands of the systems within the settlement and they are often totally different from the demands of the permanent residents. Aboriginal people are no doubt in difficulties because they desire benefits from various services and yet dislike the clashes arising from the demands generated by the infrastructure required to support the service delivery. For example, the presence of a school generally changes the water and power demand, particularly if a teacher is resident. It may be that a point is rapidly approaching where Aboriginal people in remote communities, realising the interdependence of these factors, will trade off services not because they do not desire the benefits derived from the service but because of the demands the service infrastructure places on the settlement. In this instance people may forego benefits in order to save further complications in their community lifestyle. Needs are being redefined as their relationship within the total settlement framework becomes obvious.

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How is the water utilised in the remote community?

Water in remote communities is used for a number of purposes: drinking, cooling,washing (both personal and clothes, blankets), agriculture (gardens), for cooling generators. Some is heated for use in washing. In outstation communities the principal use of water is for drinking, both by humans and animals, for cooking and a small amount for washing and personal hygiene. The experience of those involved in servicing Docker River and Papunya outstations suggests the consumption of water in outstations is between 2 and 4 litres per day per person to cover the functions listed above (DAA, 1981b . These amounts were assessed on those communities where water was carted in 200 litre druns. In some outstations there may be a windmill and storage tank with a supply line down to the camp area or in other cases a handpump at the bore and some means of batch delivery via buckets or drums. These water-supply technologies represent systems which are theoretically easily maintained by the user and minimise the impact of the service on the community.

There is a dramatic increase in the level of technology required and the potential for community involvement between the level of supply described and the introduction of water-related technologies for water borne sewerage systems, water quality treatment systems, provision of hot water and so forth. Each system requires a reticulation network and service which further complicate the operation of the settlement. These more complex systems also provide dubious benefits. This is not to say they are not desirable but that in the present context the benefit is questionable.

Diagram 1 (below) indicates the relationship between health benefits and the volume of water use per day. Survival is around 2 litres/head/day, a figure which has been found in some Central Australian outstations. There is a significant improvement in health when usage is raised to 20 litres/head/day. A further significant improvement occurs between 20 and 100 litres/head/day. Communities have to weigh the benefits derived against the monetary cost and change in lifestyle required for higher usage. It is obvious that disposal of 98 litres/head/day is going to create enormous problems for remote conmunities without an agricultural base to consume part of the excess. Disposal technology in most remote Aboriginal communities is based on a traditional survival level of existence.Should you go beyond that level you have to develop (not impose) new or modified disposal technologies for the excess.

Usage levels associated with sewerage systems, washing facilities and agricultural practices generally presuppose a level of development including semi-permanent or permanent housing with connections to a grid network for supply and disposal. This level of activity is generally not present in an outstation. Another factor of interest, is the distance of the water supply point from the living space of the individual. Recent studies in Peru have shown that water use in rural villages did not increase above the low levels of intake exhibited by some remote Aboriginal outstations until the supply was brought within six metres of the dwelling (DAA, 1981b). While this may be so, there are a number of examples on outstations of Docker River and Papunya where people have deliberately positioned their living spaces at least 200 metres away from that existing water source and in one instance 700 metres. On each occasion people would appear to prefer, no doubt for very good reasons, to carry their water over these distances rather than live in close proximity to the supply.

What is the appropriate level of technology required to deliver the benefits expected or desired?

Supplying water at any level requires technology; be it cupping your hand, shaping a leaf or sophisticated pumping, treatment and storage technology. The use of any one of these techniques is commensurate with the benefit derived. It is also related to the

L

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ability of the user to maintain, operate and administer the technology. Water supply systems must yield positive benefits for the users otherwise they will be neglected. It is well to remember the interdependence of the various elements which comprise a settlement - no system can be introduced in isolation. The flow-on from the introduction of various levels of water supply in communities is quite dramatic, particularly if people outside the community are the real planners. Often the collective experience of external agencies is used to envisage the ultimate and extreme uses to which the system may be put and in so doing the final system is so intricate that the community has no chance of being involved at any stage.

Technology has an effect on the natural environment, the built environment, the social environment and on individuals. While planning is often able to compensate these effects it very often loses sight of the time taken for residents of the community to internalise the changes and make the necessary modifications in their lifestyle. A system is designed and installed and expected to provide a service to the community. The system only provides this service at the point of user interaction. If people do not interact with it no service is provided. On the other hand if they interact in a way for which the system is not designed the benefit is likewise not derived. The problem in this situation is to maintain a balance between the rapid advance of technology and the development of the other aspects of the settlement. This may involve the postponement of the introduction of certain technologies. While this is an argument against the imposition of sophisticated water management technologies it does not mean it is not possible to impose solutions. However, there is a history over the last 50 years which indicates the acceptance and rejection of various aspects of imposed technology in remote communities which we would be wise to study. In most cases the software which accompanies the technological hardware has not been present when the hardware was introduced. This software consists of the knowledge, know-how, experience, attitudes and education required to cope with the hardware and is often forgotten because it is not tangible or visible to the eye .

Is the community involved?

Literature on water supply and sanitation in communities in developing countries (Saunders and Warford, 1979; Wagner and Lanoix, 1969) indicates that a water supply or sanitation project that is imposed on a community, without community involvement in determining the need for and nature of the system, or without an effort to train some community members to do maintenance and repair, is very likely to fail. The reasons for most failures may be attributed to the fact that the community has not accepted the social responsibility for the task of maintaining the system. An effective water supply system is not simply a technological object but a mix of the technology, the societal values, the service infrastructure and the individuals in the community. Technology is generally conceived in and designed for a particular society and a particular set of circumstances. As such one should not be surprised if it fails to produce the intended results in different circumstances. Involving the community is the most difficult part in the delivery of a water supply system to remote settlements. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that urban based planners are trained for planning large community services rather than small individual services. The transition in scale is often difficult for the planner to make. These differences add to the difficulty of achieving meaningful communication and community involvement.

The discussion of these five questions may be illustrated by the following examples, one relating to water supply and the other to water quality.

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Handpumps

The development of a handpump was the first project in the DAA funded Appropriate Technology Programme at the Community College of Central Australia. It was developed in response to a request from the Papunya outstation resources group. They expressed a need which amounted to a simple, low cost, low maintenance device to enable them to recover water from deep bores. A number of proposed outstation sites had been provided with bores under the Government drilling program and the communities involved were waiting for water pumping equipment before they moved to the new outstations. Some groups had alrecdy moved to their new outstation and were carting water from their nearest supply. Each of these communities faced programming delays of 18 months to 2 years before the bores could be equipped. Some were not likely to be equipped permanently for various reasons; however, people did have cause to visit the bores on hunting trips or as travellers on their way to visit other settlements. The handpump was designed not as a long term option but as a measure to allow the people (predominantly Pintubi) to return to their nominated area immediately a bore had been sunk and quality tested. In this way their motivation to move could be maintained. It was also designed as part of an ongoing appropriate technology program to help establish a self-sustaining and expanding reservoir of skills and knowledge in the communities of that area.

During the course of discussion of the problem it became clear that without the usual pumping gear the present alternative for retrieving water from the bores was a can of some sort of a length of string. Using that same concept it was explained to Aborigines that there were similarities between the can and string technique and a 2 inch water pipe containing one column of water. This conceptual link between their existing technology and the proposed solution using traditional positive displacement pumping equipment appears to have been a contributing factor in their understanding of the in-ground equipment. Following the installation of the in-ground components a lever mechanism was developed for the lifting action. Within 5 days of completing the first pump at Yiyilingi, west of Papunya, a new outstation had been established. The Papunya resource group then installed the inground components for 3 more handpumps (a task which took them 2 1/2 days), and were keen to assemble the lever mechanism themselves at Papunya. During the Christmas period 1980 the pumprods on 2 of the handpumps loosened and the outstation resource group pulled the bore, fixed the problem and re-installed the mechanism completely unaided. The important point is not that they were able to fix the equipment but that they were prepared to tackle it on their own initiative and without requesting assistance. The group have since installed new pumps on their own initiative, including the welding of the lifting mechanism (see photographs below).

The important points to note in this example are that:

- The community was involved or aware of what was happening at all stages.

- The handpump was installed with the community or their representatives and not for the community.

- The handpump was offered as a short term option to enable people to establish themselves and give them time to consider what permanent development they desired.

- The handpump was installed for a fraction of the cost which could have been spent ($400 against $48,000 for a windmill and tank) to satisfy the same demand.

- The method of presentation of the option or the level of technology in the option was sufficient to encourage the outstation resource group to work on the pumps and maintain them. In other words, some degree of self-sufficiency and independence was established.

- In a couple of cases people have now moved further west to Kintore Range where 2 more

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handpumps were installed. This could have been a costly exercise if the original bores had been equipped with a windmill and tank.

Nitrates: a water quality problem

In remote communities and outstations it is often not possible to physically or economically locate water supplies which conform to the guidelines established for drinking water quality. In one third of cases in the southern region of the Northern Territory the barrier to achieving an acceptable supply is the nitrate content of the water where it exceeds the desirable level of 45mg/1. The formation of some proposed outstations was restricted because water supplies could not be found which satisfied the quality criteria.

The Appropriate Technology Section of the Community College of Central Australia was asked by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to investigate the problem with a view to determining what technologies were available and appropriate for the removal of nitrate from drinking water supplies in remote communities. Consideration was given to the hydrogeological, health and technological aspects of the problem. In situations where the only source of water has a high nitrate content it is necessary to examine the water quality guidelines and evidence pertaining to them in order to determine the magnitude of the risk and the likely effects of working responsibly outside the guidelines. The complexity of the problem is evident from the details which follow.

Health Aspects: nitrates become toxic only under conditions in which they are, or may be,reduced to nitrites. Nitrite reacts directly with haemoglobin to produce methaemoglobin, with consequent impairment of the oxygen transport of the blood. This condition is known as methaemoglobinaemia. While the metabolism of ingested nitrate is not fully understood, it appears there is a relationship between diet, stomach chemistry and the production of methaemoglobin. It has been well documented that water supplies in some countries containing high levels of nitrate have been responsible for many cases of infantile methaemoglobinaemia and death. A large number of studies have been carried out on the levels of nitrate in water giving rise to methaemoglobinaemia, but there are conflicting conclusions regarding the threshold level for an effect. There is no consistency of cases of methaemoglobinaemia occurring in infants consuming up to twice the recommended maximum level (WHO 1981). However, although clinical manifestations of infantile methaemoglobinaemia may not be apparent at these levels, increases in the levels of methaemoglobin in the blood do occur which are undesirable.

There are several areas in Australia where high nitrate underground water is the only source of water available and yet there are no reported cases of methaemoglobinaemia in South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia or the Northern Territory. A number of Central Australian Aboriginal Communities have used water supplies with nitrate levels between 45 - 100mg/1 for a considerable period of time. There are no reported cases of methaemoglobinaemia in Central Australia. This fact should not be taken to indicate that the condition does not exist. Medical Officers advise that increased methaemoglobin levels increase susceptibility to pneumonia and a number of common diseases noted in rural communities. The apparent low incidence of the condition does, however, provide a relative indication of the degree of risk involved in living off high nitrate supplies.The literature indicates that at nitrate levels up to 100mg/1 there is a risk to infants under 3 months of age and that the problem does not arise for adults (WHO 1981).

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The Derivation of the Standard of Quality: the present drinking water standards fornitrate seem to have been originally based on limited epidemiological evidence indicating that no cases of methaemoglobinaemia had been reported in the United States when water containing less than 45 mg/1 nitrate was consumed (Hart 1974). This level is the one currently used by the NH&MRC and adopted by the Northern Territory Department of Health.

Infantile Methaemoglobinaemia: the most common cause of infantile methaemoglobinaemia isexcessive nitrate in water used for the reconstitution of baby food. Prolonged boiling of water for the latter purpose may increase nitrate levels due to evaporation and thus concentration. The vast majority of cases have been associated with the use of wells as a source of water which were microbiologically contaminated (WHO 1981). This means nitrate had in all probability been converted to nitrite before it entered the human system. This action should not be possible in the deep bore water of Central Australia.

There are several physiological and biochemical features of early infancy which explain the susceptibility of infants less than 3 months old to methaemoglobinaemia. Research indicates, however, that breast-fed infants are not susceptible to the same risk as those who drink dried milk formula mixed with raw water (Achtzehn 1979). There is little likelihood that Aboriginal infants under 6 months of age would drink water in sufficient quantity to be harmed as almost all are breast-fed. In outstation situations, facilities such as bottles and feeding teats are not readily available and where they are present there are limited facilities for sterilisation. In this situation the risk from unsterilised equipment is higher than the risk of using high nitrate water.

Culture Differences and the Determination of Effects: the WHO and NH&MRC standards forwater quality relate particularly to European peoples living in a temperate climate. Although some allowances are made for hotter and cooler climates, none is made for ethnic differences in metabolism and water usage. The standard for nitrate is concerned with its effect in converting haemoglobin to methaemoglobin. However, high levels of haemoglobin have frequently been observed in Aboriginal people, which raises the question whether this is a compensatory mechanism for methaemoglobin or other reductions in oxygen carrying capacity (DAA, 1981b).

Nitrates in water supplies are neither visible nor discernible by taste and are not removed by conventional treatment techniques. A major factor hindering an awareness among Aboriginal people of the dangers of drinking high nitrate water is the difficulty one has to demonstrate convincingly the presence or effect of nitrates, particularly if the water tastes good. The problem is exacerbated if people have lived off a nearby soakage for a long time without apparent effect. Methaemoglobinaemia does not have irreversible or residual effects once detected. It is simply treated by not drinking the offending supply and the signs and symptoms will disappear of their own accord following the removal of the source, although medical treatment is available where restoration of haemoglobin level is required fairly rapidly.

Hydrogeological Aspects: previous geological eras experienced widespread growth ofleguminous vegetation which nurtured bacteria in the soil (Hem, nd) . Geological events covered the bacteria-rich layers of earth with soil and rock and over time water infiltrated and dissolved the nitrate. The resultant pockets of high nitrate water remained trapped in the basin. There is no consistent evidence which allows one to predict the presence of nitrate before drilling, except that it occurs more often but not exclusively in the tertiary basins. In many situations in Central Australia it is not possible to obtain significantly better water supplies by additional drilling in the region. In addition, it has been found that nitrate levels fluctuate over time. Supplies which were initially unacceptable because of high nitrate have dropped with pumping to an acceptable level. The opposite has also occurred. It appears, therefore, that hydrogeological data do not enable us to define ways of overcoming the problem.

Technological Aspects: there are a number of treatment techniques suitable for denitrifying water supplies. They may be conveniently grouped in the following categories.

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Biological Treatment - Attached Growth Techniques - Controlled Plant Growth

Chemical Treatment - Ion Exchange

Physical Treatment - Reverse Osmosis

Distillation Techniques - Solar Distillation

A number of factors should be considered regarding the appropriateness of the solution for the community concerned. These considerations centre around the mobility and fluctuation in occupancy at community sites and the resources and skills of the recipient community. The feasibility of each technique varies according to the size of the population to be served. Demand has to be realistically assessed as there are cost penalties in all systmes which are 'overdesigned'. Experience has shown that treatment technologies are not successful unless they are truly appropriate to the community using them. Of the four methods listed only one is readily available and appropriate to a remote Aboriginal community setting. The remainder have potential economically and technically but require development for use in remote communities.

Solar distillation is the only readily available and appropriate technique for remote communities. But its suitability may be questioned because large areas of glass panels in remote localities are not easily replaced following breakage. The initial capital cost and low daily output are other disadvantages and they are hardly competitive as a means of treating a community supply. As a domestic treatment facility they could be viable, particularly in view of the low maintenance requirement and simplicity of operation. In situations where treatment is deemed unnecessary or too difficult, it may be appropriate, depending on location, to harvest rainfall or cart water from existing acceptable supplies.

It is evident that it is not possible to prevent the entry of nitrates into the supply system nor is it realistically possible to treat remote community water supplies for the removal of nitrate. In the context of Aboriginal lifestyle and environment the risk at the levels commonly encountered is restricted to infants under 3 months of age and it is unlikely that the risk is more than minute. Further, the mobility patterns, infant feeding practices and water usage of Aboriginal people suggest that exposure to high nitrate supplies would be irregular. Under the circumstances it would not seem appropriate to introduce treatment technologies to denitrify the water supply. Such action (or more correctly inaction) will reduce the strain on the community by restricting the introduction of an extra service in the community together with the maintenance and operation infrastructure which accompanies the service. The community retains a water supply system which it can control.

Diagram 1.

HEALTHBENEFIT

LITRES / HEAD / DAY

Installing the in-ground components

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Welding the lifting mechanism

The completed pump

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BRUCE A. SOMMER

BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND THE OUTSTATION MOVEMENT

The delivery of bilingual education services to remote Aboriginal outstations comprises the most extreme instance of service responsibility amongst the Department of Education's many programs. It requires specialist personnel, specific materials, and a rigorous program to be incorporated into what is technically known as a distance learning operation. The social and political issues surrounding bilingual education in both the service agency and the client communities are complex. The logical place to begin is with the recipient's expectations of the services delivered and with the political action these generate.

Traditional Aborigines' Perceptions of Education

Even Aboriginal elders living in remote communities have some perception of education: they have been invited to the school to see the work of teachers and students, or perhaps, as members of council, have had formal dealings with the school and its teachers, and in any case, have had contact with the school through the experience of younger members of their families. What is evident from most of these experiences is that educational services are provided for Aboriginal children - who are politically the least powerful and socially the least important members of the local community. Because of this focus on children, Aboriginal people have, by and large, been unwilling to take great interest in education until lately. Education has been regarded as 'balanda business'; it has seemed mysterious to Aboriginal elders that white people should show such an interest in an insignificant minority of their community, who have not yet reached adulthood. Only as Aboriginal people have adopted something of the European-Australian's view of the future and concern with as yet unrealized changes, have they expressed any interest in education. This interest has normally taken the shape of the request that the department should provide their children with skills of readiing and writing in English and of being able to calculate. This request has been seized upon, often uncritically, and in some cases it has been taken as an 'open invitation to introduce the whole range of educational activities typical of a white, middle-class, urban school. This has meant a great deal more than the 'three R's'; it has meant training workshops and home science facilities, as well as curricula in natural science, social science, music, art and so on.

Even where this form of cultural imperialism via education has been sucessfully avoided, a critical appraisal of this frequently formulated request for services has still not been made. Such an appraisal is necessary if misunderstandings are not to eventuate. One not unreasonable interpretation is that Aborigines make this request as the expected answer to queries by education administrators. Because they know something of school programs and reading, writing and arithmetic are elements in those programs, Aborigines propose these as the most desired content for their children's education. They hope that this request pleases education administrators. Another possibility is that the bequest is motivated by considerations entirely foreign to European-Australian thinking: Aboriginessee themselves manipulating the events around them by means of magical processes; those magical processes can be called upon to improve fertility, to secure the attention of a lover and to bring about the death of an enemy. In each case, not only are certain materials required - the feathers of a certain bird, the blood of a certain animal - but appropriate incantation must be made if the process is to be successful.

Now it can be argued that English - particularly in its written form - is a language of great magical power. It has, without apparent reason, brought to Aboriginal people both great joys and many woes. It has provided on occasions the gift of a Toyota, or sent a man to jail, or closed the store, or brought a delivery on the barge, or made available

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a government grant. All these magical events are manipulated by communications that are written in English. One community even asked, somewhat impatiently, when they would be taught the 'inside' English. The use of the terms 'inside' and 'outside' to refer to access to ritual knowledge adds weight to this possibility. Is it any wonder, then, that English takes on the appearance of a powerful magical language and is desired for that reason by Aboriginal communities? Speculative though this analysis may be, it is consonant with Berndt's (1962) account of the 'Elcho Island Adjustment Movement', in which he proposes that the sacred boards by which Aboriginal people manipulate their environment in their favour were displayed, hopefully in exchange for those means of power whereby the European-Australian community was able to control the production of Toyotas and record players and electric guitars. Again, it parallels Brown and Gilman's (1960) study of Pronouns of Power and Solidarity. Aboriginal people, perhaps wrongly, assume that they can themselves control the social solidarity of their children with themselves. But they seek English as a language of power which will control the flow of goods and services. Mathematics is a much less desirable skill. Their main purpose in expressing this desire is perhaps so that leaders can gauge the order of difference, for example, between 18 and 15 per cent of the royalties, or the order of difference between a Toyota at $9,132 and a similar vehicle from another dealer at $8,989. What I am arguing here is that the mathematical skills have to do more with the scales of difference than they do with precise calculation.

If these analyses reflect in some way the reality of traditional Aborigines' perceptions of education then administrators have been proceeding on false assumptions ever since Aboriginal education programs commenced. That is to say, the politics of delivery are falsely predicted.

European-Australian Perceptions

The request for the three R's, has, I have suggested, been sometimes interpreted as an open invitation to introduce the entire range of typical educational services. This has probably been reinforced by an assimilationalist view of Aboriginal education in which it was anticipated that the Aboriginal graduates from the school system would compete with their European-Australian counterparts equally in the job market. Given that this is not a view that can be sustained in the 1980s, it is difficult to justify the tenets of unmodified curriculum transposition (Shimpo 1978).

A significant change took place in 1972 when the federal government announced a policy of bilingual education for traditional Aboriginal children (Watts, McGrath and Tandy 1973, McGrath 1975, Tryon 1975, Harris 1979). In this program, cognitive development continues through incorporation into formal learning of traditional Aboriginal knowledge (introduced through the child's mother tongue) until such time as his oral English skills have progressed far enough to commence an instructional program in English (which includes English literacy). Because the program depends in its first years on the Aboriginal language and traditions of knowledge, it has sometimes been called bicultural as well as bilingual. Arguments have been put forward to maintain thisbilingual/bicultural component right through the schooling years of the child, so that English at no point becomes the sole medium of instruction. The validity of bilingual education as an instructional program has been well established overseas, and evaluations of children in bilingual programs here have shown them to be significantly advantaged.The general tenor of the research to date is that grade 5 children have coped with the additional demands of vernacular literacy and, in a battery of tests, rate either as well as their non-bilingual counterparts, or significantly better. It is expected that tests on grade 7 children would show even greater advantage. (The evaluations that have been written up are largely still inaccessible; Gale et al. will soon appear in TESOL Quarterly, and with the condensation of Murtagh's PhD thesis in a volume of papers planned by the NT Department of Education. This volume will, it is hoped, also include abstracts of the Department's internal reports on the schools at Yirrkala and Bathurst Island.) A

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bilingual program cannot operate, however, as a revival program; community use determines the language of instruction, and, of course, the cultural values it incorporates.

In 1979 the Department of Education introduced the concept of core curriculum. Core curriculum enshrines minimal competence standards whereby certain understandings, learning and skills are regarded as essential for ALL children in the school system. There are evident problems in combining the principles of bilingual education and core curriculum in the one instructional program. These problems are under close debate.

With the benefit of the hindsight that 1981 provides, it is possible to see that bilingual education got off to a very poor start. It met with some unfortunate

politicians who moved without consultation or discussion with experienced education administrators. The result was that the program was seen by some educationists as a somewhat cynical vote-buying exercise by politicians, and its very real values were peremptorily dismissed. Second, the introduction of bilingual education posed problems for some departmental advisers and administrators who had formed strong attachments to English as the sole medium of instruction for traditional Aboriginal communities. It also threatened novice and unspecialised teachers who had no training in what to expect of a class being instructed bilingually. In other words, the announcement of bilingual education caused an ego-defence reaction amongst some top administrators and teachers. Third, bilingual education immediately entered into competition with other educational innovations seen by their proponents as being more valuable to the Territory's overall needs and perhaps their own careers. I will return to the internal politics of bilingual education again at a later point in the paper. Lastly, there were both initial and intermittently recurring complaints from Aborigines that education through the vernacular wasted the children's time, held them back, and denied them access to English and what it stands for. This stems from a basic lack of understanding of the advantages of bilingual education.

The concept of a satellite community, depending for supplies of goods and services on a settlement or town, appears to be one which has grown up in the last twelve years as a response by Aboriginal people to the need to preserve their linguistic and cultural traditions. If this is the case then the residents of outstations are the most logical clients for the delivery of bilingual education services, whereby culture and language are not only respected in the program but are the essential building blocks in an instructional program that intellectually gives advantage to the client child. I presume that the general logistic problems of the delivery of any service to an outstation community are well recognised and are largely the same whether water is being provided, or a health service, or, indeed, education. The following, however, appear to be unique to the provision of education services:

- the grading of classes where there is only a small number of students;

- the load on the teacher, for the same reasons;

- the storage of materials and equipment;- the experience and qualifications of the Aboriginal Assistant Teacher;

- supervision of the ongoing program; and- transport of personnel to and from the remote community if they are not to be resident there.

Four comments might be made: the first is that the program was initiated by

Outstations

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The response to these logistic problems has perhaps been best worked out at Maningrida where some qualified success has been achieved in a well thought out and extensive system of instruction which is uniform in both the central settlement school and the many outstations.

Problems that are specific to a bilingual education model are:

- an adequate English model for the ESL (English as a second language) program;

- supply of vernacular materials; and

- literate ATs (Assistant Teachers).

It is again difficult to overcome traditional expectations of what constitutes schooling - even in an outstation context. Only where there has been very limited contact with formal schooling is it possible for education to proceed without all the formalisms of desks, blackboards, chalk, books. Arnhem Land communities are usually very loathe to forego these trappings of formal education; the outstations west of Papunya, however, have happily accepted a program of education which continues to be independent of them.

Social

Where bilingual education has been subject to evaluation procedures, it has been evident that children develop an enhanced 'self-image'. A more positive attitude is also generated towards the European-Australian community (Murtagh, forthcoming). The parents of these children, however, rarely make any active response, perhaps because education has for so long been purely 'balanda business'. Parents, and even councils, are apathetic about what is going on in the school classrooms. Many are unaware even that early education is being undertaken in their vernacular. There have been, however, just a few heartening responses to bilingual education. For example, the Warren Creek outstation leaders at first requested an instructional program only in English, but having seen the bilingual program at Yilbili and New Bore they revised their request in favour of conformity with the other programs, recognising no doubt the value of instruction in their own language and culture. In a few other places there have been similar responses.During 1980, a large meeting at Milingimbi reacted angrily to the rumour that the school would no longer be teaching the language. At another school a year later there was a strong reaction against the school being staffed by an administrator who was believed to be antagonistic to a bicultural program. School attendance has sometimes been cited as sociological evidence for community valuation of this service, and as an index of the program's lack of social acceptance. In point of fact, attendance at bilingual schools are somewhat better than at their non-bilingual counterparts; but the difference, though consistent, is certainly not impressive. Again, it should be pointed out that bilingual education is provided for intellectual and cognitive reasons - it is an educational program. While it may have positive aspects in social terms or perhaps political terms, Fishman (1976) argues that these are secondary to its value as an educational program. To place this argument in local context, one could confidently assert that attendances and self-image amongst the children of, say, the Oenpelli school are not likely to show any significant advantages because of bilingual education until the more pressing social problems surrounding the mining issues are resolved in their favour. At this point it is worth making perhaps a brief comment on the Yipirinya indepenent school activities. Here it is possible that false expectations are being raised of bilingual education. Bilingual education cannot necessarily per se deliver the socio-political results that are being sought for it. It is an educational program and must be formulated not in social or political terms but in cognitive and intellectual terms if it is to be a success at all. The use of supposedly educational means to socio-political ends may mean, in this

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instance, that neither education nor the other ends are effectively served. This brings us to political considerations.

Politics

Away from the immediate delivery scenario, bilingual education has generated considerable political conflict. Harris (1979) documents aspects of the conflict over resources at that time and in effect argues that educational goals are not being attained for lack of administrative support. Since then, the technical advisory staff has been cut from seven members to five, and natural loss may be allowed to reduce the team further. Again, for the twelve languages in which the Department provides this service, there are only five research linguists to support the school programs with language materials. The service reaches only about half the Aboriginal children who are speakers of traditional languages.

While the cost of the program is of the order of $1m annually (according to the best available figures) there is competition for continued funding at this level by projects with wider appeal to administrators and politicians. At the point of service delivery also political issues arise. For example, the choice of an outstation's Assistant Teachers may be politically motivated to secure for one family or another the relatively lucrative pay cheques that the Assistant Teachers receive. Again, there have been requests for education services - usually bilingual - which have been motivated by community considerations. One such community saw the presence of the necessary teacher as giving them a case to argue for an improved bore; another community sought a teacher for its outstation school so that access could be secured to the electricity plant which was lying unused there. In a third case, the community admitted that a teacher appointed to their school would ensure that transport to and from the local settlement was readily availably. An interesting case arose at another outstation where the teacher was seen as a specialist who could allow the community to maintain the management of its own store by keeping the finances and accounts in order. There is also, however, Aboriginal resentment at the highly visible community of teachers and the inevitable blocks of classrooms and teacher residences associated with even the smallest school program. This high visibility is possibly behind the great damage that is done by vandals to school properties.

Another aspect of political contention at the point of service delivery concerns the vernacular language in which the bilingual program is conducted. Not all settlements and, in some cases, not even outstations, are linguistically homogeneous. There is, therefore, competition between the speakers of different languages for their clan language to be represented in the instructional program. These diverse interest groups must be handled carefully, both at the point of delivery and so far as official policy is concerned. In one instance, the member of a minority linguistic group succeeded in securing federal funds for writing up materials in his language where the school program was being carried out in a related but different language.

Conclusions

Services provided by agencies concerned with health or water supply have a relatively high public visibility in a community. Education remains a largely low-key delivery, continued over lengthy periods without obvious changes from month to month. Because education is so often regarded as 'balanda business', beyond the control of the local community, it is frequently misunderstood by those with decision-making authority, both at the settlement and at the outstation. One obvious change which would greatly affect Aborigines' perception of education, and ensure their cooperation as well as constructive criticism, would be to bring the education services first to the adult community. This would perhaps have unpleasant political consequences for any government, but may be the

most significant step that can be taken to improve the shape of education delivery services and the relation between the services organisation and the recipients.

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GEOFF BAGSHAW

WHOSE STORE AT JIMARDA? : Delivery and distribution of Western foodstuffs in an ArnhemLand Community.

With an average monthly population of 87 for the period October 1979 to February 1981, the community of Jimarda constitutes one of the largest of Arnhem Land's so-called outstations. Situated some 2km east of the Blyth River/Arafura Sea estuary, it lies at a point virtually midway between the government settlement of Maningrida (48 km west) and what was until recently the Methodist mission at Milingimbi in the Crocodile Islands (46 km east). Although relatively close 'as the crow flies' to each of these townships, large bodies of intervening water (rivers, straits, swamps) make direct access impossible. The only means of entering Jimarda are by way of a 120 km dry season track from Maningrida, an arduous sea voyage from either Maningrida or Milingimbi, or by light aircraft.

Apart from a small number of affines drawn from neighbouring linguistic groups, all members of this isolated enclave are Gidjingali (also called Burarra) speakers, with a marked preponderance belonging to the Madai (stringy-bark flower) and Gulala (coastal mangrove-fruit) residential associations (cf. Hiatt, 1965). Other associations represented include Marawurraba (inland creek mangrove), Maringa (eastern coast) and Madarraba (crocodile head). Accordingly, Jimarda provides a point of contemporary demographic focus for both coastal and hinterland Gidjingali - peoples who would not have lived in such close proximity in pre-settlement times.

The history of Jimarda as a community began in the dry season of 1971 when a small group of Gidjingali, tired of institutional life in Maningrida, travelled back to the Blyth River (Wana Anagartja) and determined to live in their country - initially on a seasonal and later on a permanent basis. The evolution of what is termed the 'outstation movement' in the Maningrida region is well documented (see, for example, Hunter, 1973; Gillespie, et al., 1977; Bagshaw, 1977; Borsboom, 1978). For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that the majority of the returning vanguard were Anbara (river water) Gidjingali who established a camp at Kopanga on the western bank of the Blyth, close to the river mouth. Accompanying them were a handfull of Madai who made excursions to their own territory on the eastern side of Wana Anagartja by dugout canoe. By 1973 a semi-permanent camp had been made on the eastern bank at Manakadork-adjiraba and attracted increasing numbers of Madai and Gulala residents from Maningrida. Corrugated iron for the group was purchased with the aid of an Aboriginal Benefits Trust Fund (ABTF) grant. A further series of grants made through the ABTF in 1975/76 (including one for a two-way radio) prompted the group to move to higher ground where the officially recognized 'outstation' of Jimarda was created. Bureaucratic legitimation was further heightened when yet another grant was forthcoming for the construction of a rough airstrip to facilitate the delivery of Western food and medical supplies.

Today, Jimarda boasts regular health, education and food services from Maningrida and contends with a regular stream of junketeering bureaucrats descending from above in order to 'view at first hand' the unique problems besetting a remote community. This last factor, of course, implies that Jimarda is well and truly on the regional services delivery map. Undoubtedly, the service most valued by Jimarda residents is the regular provision of balanda (European) foodstuffs to the small store established there in 1975 as an independently run 'bush branch' of the Maningrida Progress Association. For an appreciation of the significance locally accorded both the store and the problems associated with it, it is first necessary to have some knowledge of how the store originally came into being.

Early Servicing: from the earliest days of their relocation in the Blyth River area,access to balanda goods and services has been perceived by the Gidjingali as a critical

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factor in the maintenance of a viable post-settlement way of life. This is particularly so in respect of basic Western foods such as flour, rice, tea, sugar and tobacco. While Meehan (1977) and Jones (1980) have conclusively demonstrated that the diet of Anbara Gidjingali, with its emphasis on 'bush tucker', is superior in both nutritional value and variety to that of their kinsmen in Maningrida, the fact remains that people returning to the bush take with them a desire for certain balanda commodities to which they have long been accustomed. Indeed, Western foodstuffs provided the single largest source of carbohydrate intake for residents of Kopanga in 1972/73 (Jones, 1980).

More often than not, this desire is couched in the rationalization 'our children won't eat bush tucker', because they are not used to it and because it takes more effort to procure than balanda food. Occasionally 'lack of sweetness' in bush tucker is also cited as a contributing factor. Not altogether surprisingly, this statement does not fully accord with the reality of the situation, although in some cases it may have a minor bearing on it.

As shortages of balanda consumables at Jimarda have illustrated, children (particularly those aged 3-10 years old who form the majority) are prepared to eat a wide variety of foods extracted from their immediate environment. Nor can this recourse to traditional sources of nutrition be explained solely in terms of a response to dietary crisis, for even during times when balanda foods are readily available, children's meals are invariably supplemented with seasonal foods, ranging from jingga (pandanus nut) and munbarnda (long yam) to anbulabinya (threadfin salmon) and manakadork (brolga). Given this, the manifest demand for Western goods is more properly attributable to adults who have spent up to twenty years in the 'fast food' environments of Maningrida, Milingimbi and Darwin. Accustomed to certain Western foods on a regular daily basis, the Gidjingali sought to retain access to these items while incorporating them into the framework of a protein- enriched traditional diet. On their return to the bush it is apparent that people seek the best of both culinary worlds. But far more is entailed in the provision of a regular food service than simply meeting the desire for a cuppa with one's damper.

During 1972 the Maningrida Progress Association (MPA) initiated a food delivery service to people based at or near Kopanga. Ideally the service operated on a fortnightly basis, though it was often less regular. Items of food, believed to be essential by Gidjingali and MPA staff alike, were carried overland during the dry season and by boat through the wet. White employees of the MPA, clearly sympathetic to the needs and aspirations of the relocated Gidjingali, ran the service with minimal Aboriginal assistance.

A singular, and highly significant, feature of this original service was the practice of MPA staff in taking social welfare cheques from Maningrida out to individuals now resident at Kopanga. On arrival cheques were signed, witnessed and cashed from the fund of money brought by the MPA representative and credited to the organization. Further cash outlays were made for items of art and craft produced for sale through the Maningrida Craft Store, then a branch of the Progress Association. Only after these procedures had been completed and individuals held cash in hand, were direct sales conducted from the back of the truck or on the beach. A 10 per cent surcharge was levied on all goods sold in an effort to meet the considerable transportation costs involved (fuel, vehicle maintenance). Trading continued in this often chaotic fashion until either goods or money were exhausted.

While the implications of the MPA's cashing of cheques for a 'captive' consumer audience are open to wide interpretation, the point I wish to make here is that the delivery service providedd a range of functions which were only nominally subsumed by the broad category of food delivery. In affording an avenue for the delivery of social welfare cheqeus and the means of their encashment, the purchase of locally produced art and craft, the transmission of requests and messages of all kinds to and from Kopanga - all in addition to its stated purpose of food distribution - the delivery service

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effectively constituted the primary transactional nexus between remote Gidjingali and the wider balanda oriented world of Maningrida and beyond.

Acutely aware of this fact, the Gidjiingali came to regard the existence of this multiplex service as a clear expression of 'official' balanda approval for their return to the Blyth River region. Obviously, if white officials had wanted them to remain in Maningrida, or were unwilling to condone their move, a service of this kind would not have been provided. Moreover, the service allowed the Gidjingali to experience the subtle change of status in their relations with Europeans entailed in the new policy of 'self-determination'. They realized that they now constituted a recognized social lobby in the area, capable of attracting certain goods and services on terms that were their own, rather than on those hitherto imposed by whites in Maningrida. Here, after all, were balandas extending a multi-faceted service at great logistical effort to the very people who had deliberately chosen to distance themselves from a predominantly balanda world.

Nor were the Anbara reticent in making social capital of the finer distinctions they considered implicit in the food delivery service. As Kopanga was sited on land expressly associated with certain Anbara babaru (patrifilial totemic corporations), they reasoned that the new community belonged entirely to the Anbara and that any service inputs to it were, as a consequence, entirely for their benefit. Madai, Gulala and members of other residential associations with links to land on the other side of the river were entitled to service benefits only on Anbara sufferance. European workers employed on the early food delivery service have observed that the Anbara increasingly viewed Kopanga as a regional Gidjingali 'capital', holding sway over the 'less developed' eastern areas.

Needless to say, chauvinism of this sort made people from the eastern bank both uncomfortable and not a little envious. By the dry season of 1972 a small, predominantly Madai group were camping on their own totemic territory at Manakadork-adjiraba. As yet they had received no grant assistance for the establishment of an outstation community.The arrival of the food service at grant-assisted Kopanga was signalled by shotgun and members of this group crossed the river by canoe to receive their cheques and purchase provisions. In the following year two motor launches were acquired and aided the transportation of people and goods.

During the same year (1973) the Manakadork-adjiraba community finally received a grant for the purchase of building materials to be used in the construction of a permanent 'outstation'. Much to the chagrin of the Anbara, the first direct food deliveries were made to this camp shortly after. Thus the Madai had achieved an independent status as far as the food service was concerned, a status no longer predicated on Anbara relations with white authorities. Deliveries by boat to Manakadork-adjiraba continued until the move to Jimarda and the establishment of a store there in 1975. By that time, the Maningrida based Outstation Resource Centre (ORC) had assumed responsibility for food deliveries to Manakadork-adjiraba/Jimarda, purchasing food at normal retail prices from the MPA and imposing its own resale surcharge of 10 per cent. Other facets of the service, including the cashing of cheques and purchase of art and craft were also taken over by this new agency. Thus responsibility for the service had changed hands while content remained unaltered - indeed, a number of MPA employees who had worked on the original delivery service now occupied similar positions in the ORC. The period immediately following the first grants to the Madai group witnessed a massive population increase in this area; members of other eastern bank residential associations (particularly the Gulala) were inspired by the prospect of gaining similar government assistance to return to their homelands. Most, however, gravitated towards Jimarda with its already established lines of communication.

Increased population caused similar problems to those experienced earlier by Madai at Kopanga. A small number of Madai individuals, who had originally applied for grants to establish Jimarda, felt that the community belonged to them even though they stood in the same relationship to the Jimarda site (rrauwa an-ngaman/mother's country) as many of the Gulala whose presence they came to bitterly resent. Moreover, there existed no living

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persons who could resolve the situation by asserting a direct patrifilial link to this land. The eventual upshot of this apparent impasse was the division of the community into two residential areas on either side of the airstrip: one predominantly Madai and theother Gulala. With a proportionately greater strain placed upon environmental resources, increasing quantities of Western foodstuffs were sought to maintain Jimarda's burgeoning populace. As a consequence, local perceptions of the role that the food delivery service played in community life were to become irrevocably altered.

Servicing Today: the small corrugated iron shed which serves as Jimarda's present storewas erected in the dry season of 1975 by an MPA carpenter with local assistance.According to the general manager of the Progress Association at the time, the store was one of five established in regional outstation centres, the others being at Gamedi, Mormega, Godjanjinjirra and Mangallod, with a view to providing residents with a greater variety and quantity of goods than could otherwise be brought to them on a fortnightly 'tucker run' by truck or boat. In effect, these stores were envisaged as small-scale larders upon which people could draw over a longer period of time than had hitherto been the case with on the spot purchasing — particularly so during the wet season when regular access and servicing were rendered impossible. Stores were erected at the expense of the MPA and a nominal wage of $80 per fortnight paid to the individual responsible for operations in each location. It should, perhaps, be stressed here that these stores were established at a time of massive population movement away from Maningrida to bush localities, and they were started at the request of these relocated groups, rather than simply imposed on them in order to boost declining sales at the central store. Indeed, as events have demonstrated, most of these stores operate at an overall loss to the MPA - if, in fact, they continue to operate at all.

Originally, the principles underlying MPA delivery and distribution of local store goods were much the same as those applied to earlier 'shops' conducted from truck or boat. A margin of 10 per cent was still added to the value of each item sold, primarily to defray the considerable freight and transportation costs incurred by the ORC carrier. Initial stock outlays on the part of the central store were debited against each community and the 10 per cent surcharge was further employed to recoup this expense. For the most part, however, these initial outlays were written off as 'developmental costs', inevitably entailed by such a project.

Weather permitting, stocks were renewed every two to three weeks, when takings for the previous fortnight were collected and receipted. Consultation with the storekeeper concerning projected requirements also took place on these occasions - as did the continuing practice of cashing social security cheques before trading commenced. The present practice of making regular food deliveries to the Jimarda store by light aircraft was first adopted in 1978. Based at Maningrida, the single-engine Cessna was, at that time, operated under lease by Connair (later the ill-starred Northern Airlines) on a general charter basis. Once again the Maningrida Progress Association assumed direct responsibility for the delivery of goods, creating the European-filled position of outstation supply manager. As part of his overall responsibility, the manager was required to accompany each service flight to Jimarda.

Owing to the comparatively small payload of the aircraft, up to three supply flights were made during a single service 'run'. Jimarda residents desirous of travelling to Maningrida, readily availed themselves of the empty return trips, thereby adding a further dimension to the swift and convenient means of maintaining contact with people and institutions in Maningrida. Those in need of medical attention were particularly aPPreci-ative of this aspect. The $78 fare for the brief return trip was borne on alternate fortnights or flights by the central MPA store, or by the takings of the Jimarda branch.

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At her own suggestion, L.G., the 27-year-old daughter of a prominent Gulala man at Jimarda, was assigned the task of running the store on a daily basis. She had worked for some years previously as a cash register operator in stores at Milingimbi and Maningrida. Three succeeding general managers of the MPA have characterized her as the 'most competent Aboriginal - man or woman' - each has met. 'Hard working' and 'impeccably honest', she is regarded by the present general manager as 'the main reason the Jimarda store is still going'. As MPA figures for the 1979-80 financial year indicate, it is a position of no small responsibility. Goods out to Jimarda came to $47,783 at Maningrida retail prices while repayments totalled $44,855 - a deficit of just under 3,000. These figures gain contextual significance in monthly terms when compared to a total average monthly income of approximately $7,500 for the period October 1979 to February 1981 - thus, monthly store repayments regularly consume almost 50 per cent of the community's cash income over a twelve month period. Over a two year scale, the deficit ranged in excess of $9,000 to as little as $200, indicating a strong repayment commitment.

Nonetheless, the combined inability of L.G., MPA staff and the community as a whole to redress this persistent imbalance, remains the foremost economic obstacle confronting the long term operation of the Jimarda store. In an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the amount owed, L.G. acted upon the advice of the MPA and raised the local surcharge on goods sold to 20 per cent in 1980. By the time I left the field in March 1981 it had been increased to a staggering 35 per cent on many of the most popular lines - still without noticeable effect.

This is partially attributable to the increased frequency of plane deliveries, now averaging one major 'run' per week. The contraction of time between stock inputs actually served to increase the relative interval between repayments, for, linked as it was to the fortnightly cycle of social security income, the period required to sell stocks remained the same as it had been in the days of a single two-weekly service run. As such, a perceptible stockpiling of 'unpaid for' goods resulted. Moreover, in discontinuing its earlier policy of paying for alternate charter flights to Jimarda, the MPA imposed a further financial burden of up to $200 per week on store profits.

At the same time, the level of practical management assistance, in the form of personal appearances by the white outstation supply manager, declined dramatically. At one stage in 1980, six weeks passed before he was sighted at Jimarda. Messages from MPA management to the store were conveyed via the offices of the charter pilot who assumed all of the functions associated with the classic 'broker' role, even to the extent of cashing cheques and assisting behind the counter. Understandably, L.G. complained of a lack of MPA support. Reasoning that the Jimarda store would 'muddle through' as it had in the past, MPA staff in Maningrida failed to appreciate the cumulative effect of these store-related problems upon community life in general.

Distribution and Disputation: broadly speaking, the operational difficulties experiencedby the Jimarda store fall into two distinct, though related, categories. On the one hand are the issues entailed in, and arising from, the actual process of delivery and distribution to a remote area. On the other lie problems of a more expressly social nature, derived from divergent Gidgingali perceptions of general community development and responsibility.

In respect of the former category, the following can be itemized:

a) an absence of consistent and comprehensive auditing procedures at the local level (regular stocktakes, provision of receipts for cash repayments and so on.

b) the forwarding of unwanted/unsaleable goods, based largely on vague European conceptions of what people require 'out there'.

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c) MPA imposition of an unsubsidized freight scheme.

d) a general failure of MPA management, in its endorsement of exorbitant local surcharges, to recognize the strictly limited purchasing power and wage potential of Jimarda residents. Unlike Maningrida, where relatively well paid employment can be secured, outstation residents rely almost completely on social security benefits for their cash income.

e) a lack of consistent price control at the local level, often caused by uninformed individuals helping with counter sales.

f) insufficient European legitimation of, and support for, the extra-normative role played by L.G. in running a balanda style business within the restrictive and often hostile framework of a predominantly kin-based economy.

While it is far from my intention to apportion 'blame' for these shortcomings, the inescapable conclusion to be drawn is that the majority of these factors can be brought together and viewed as the result of poorly maintained lines of communication on the part of the central servicing agency in Maningrida. Moreover, it is this lack of effective communication on the part of MPA which serves to compound and exacerbate structural problems experienced at the level of local 'development' ideology.

As noted above, there exists at Jimarda a strong antagonism between Madai and Gulala residential groups over the issue of responsibility for, and control of, perceived community resources. Much of this ill-feeling stems from a Madai conviction that an exclusive and perpetual right to the control of these resources formed an explicit feature of their initial grant award in 1973. By constituting the majority of the eastern bank population at this time, the Madai genuinely believed that the government intended Jimarda to be 'their outstation', much as Kopanga was associated with the Anbara.

A later influx of Gulala who, with no comparable grant of their own, regarded Jimarda as a non-partisan regional centre designed to provide services to all residential groups in the Blyth River - Cape Stewart area, posed a potential threat to this ideological security and notions of social prestige incorporated therein. This challenge was realized in 1975 when a Gulala woman assumed the role of storekeeper and effectively removed control of the community's most valued resource from Madai hands.

In an attempt to reverse the change and to recover lost prestige, Madai individuals have consistently sought to undermine privileged Gulala participation at the service level by the persistent use of invective and innuendo, primarily aimed at L.G. This practice is normally placed within the context of vehement protestations of government support for their position.

Resenting both the slanderous accusations and parochcial attitude towards community affairs proferred by the Madai, Gulala residents have responded in kind, arguing that without their management skills, Jimarda would have no store at all, alleging a manifest lack of competence on the part of their antagonists. The store has thus become the focal point of a wider struggle for resource control, which may be seen as the primary determinant of social power, prestige and influence.

An extraordinary coalescence of these factors occurred in Jimarda during the week 3 to 10 November, 1980. Without going into protracted ethnographic detail, it is enough to say that a casual public announcement made by the charter pilot to the effect that the MPA general manager was concerned at the size of Jimarda's $6,000 deficit, set in train a series of events that were to bring these problems to an unresolved head.

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Included among these events were repeated Madai imputations of financial misappropriation on the part of L.G. and her Gulala kinsmen, a general condemnation of the prices charged at Jimarda, and a spirited Madai claim to ownership of the store. A final Gulala threat was made to leave Jimarda and establish an independent outstation, replete with its own MPA sponsored store run by L.G.

The threat to the continued operation of the store seemed serious enough to warrant the presence of the MPA general manager at a public meeting convened at Jimarda to discuss these issues.

In an attempt to demonstrate support for the beleaguered L.G.1 s management of the store, while at the same time trying to avoid the further alienation of Madai critics, the general manager's intervention only served to confuse the issue further. Asked by Madai individuals who held ultimate responsibility for the store, he replied in the spirit of enlightened liberalism that it belonged to the community as a whole, adding that the role of the MPA was to provide assistance, not control. In so doing, he effectively pulled the social rug from beneath L.G.' s feet. Her strongest argument against Madai interference in the store's affairs had been that it was a part of the MPA. Once more, the Madai claimed that if the general manager was to be believed, then the store necessarily fell under their control 'because we are the boss of the community - we got the grant in the beginning'. On the following day, as a further gesture of 'support' to L.G., the general manager despatched a massive truckload of supplies to Jimarda - the only effect being to compound the situation further by raising the deficit to almost $10,000! Thus the cycle of disputation began anew ... The food delivery and distribution service plays a fundamental role in a developing cultural dialectic between contemporary forces of production and consumption and the changing social infrastructure of the post-Settlement Gidjingali.

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ROLF GERRITSEN

OUTSTATIONS; DIFFERING INTERPRETATIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The 'outstation movement' amongst the Aborigines of the Northern Territory (and other states) is not much more than a decade old. It was originally described as the 'decentralised communities' movement but 'outstations' gained currency in the late 1970s and is still in most common usage today. The nomenclature favoured at present is 'homeland centres'. I continue to use 'outstations' because it does not presume that all these small communities are on homelands (which they are not) and because it is the most readily recognised term. The movement has been either lauded or derided. It has been seen as the saviour of the Aboriginal people's traditional culture and 'separateness' from white Australia, an opportunity for Aborigines to take control of their own destinies. Alternatively, the outstation movement has been attacked as a wasteful use of resources and an excuse for Aborigines to sit in the bush spending their social security cheques on alcohol! Given such polarised attitudes, it is unsurprising that the outstation movement has not received the serious social and political analysis it merits.

The governmental attitude to outstations is sympathetic:

Throughout northern Australia over the last decade, many Aboriginal people have made a conscious choice to adopt a more independent and traditional way of life. A large number have moved from townships or reserves to more remote areas to establish small outstation communities.This decentralisation movement to outstations or homeland centres gained momentum in the 1970s, as both Aboriginal people and white authorities concluded that former administrative policies of gathering Aboriginal people together in artifical townships did not always work. Many Aboriginal people have felt a strong desire to leave these townships to return to their traditional land, or at least to an environment more congenial to them.Basically it is a move by the Aboriginal people themselves to re-establish communities along more traditional social lines and under traditional leadership. Outstations provide a style of living that is a twentieth century adaptation of the Aboriginal hunter-gatherer society which functioned on the basis of small groups exploiting local food resources (DAA 1980).

In the 1960s 'official attitudes' were not so sympathetic; several moves towards outstation formation proved abortive because of governmental indifference (Brokensha and McGuigan 1977). By 1980 it is estimated that 3,000 Aborigines lived 'more or less permanently' at outstations (DAA 1980). This figure is at best an approximation.Education Department estimates give a total figure of about 120 outstations, with a population of 2,800 persons, in the northern region of the Northern Territory alone (Haslett and Whiteford 1980, 33). The population of outstations can fluctuate so markedly, even from week to week, that any aggregated statistics are more like guesses than estimates.

The movement has come under strong attack. The rhetoric of this attack echoes the assimilationist philosophies of the past. One observer, writing under the nom de plume of 'Davenport', sums up this approach:

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However, it is not the expense of outstations which is so wrong, even if they are obviously not going to work, it is the immorality. People who go to outstations are supposed to be going back to the traditional way of life. There is no room in a civilised country like Australia for the standards of that tradition; they just do not conform to the basic human rights of society (National Times, 6-11 June 1977).

Supporters of the outstation movement acknowledge that it is 'not all sweetness and light' (Meehan and Jones 1980, 146), that there may be frustrating disputes over land ownership, leadership and property - usually vehicles (Coombs, Dexter and Hiatt 1980, 19).But the outstations' supporters react strongly to the critics, arguing (probably correctly) that white racism threatens both Aboriginal and the outstation movement (Meehan and Jones 1980, 146 ff).

But the debate, because it has been wrongly focused, has overlooked the major factor in favour of outstations - their positive implications for equity within Aboriginal society. The debate has missed this point because of deficient analysis of the Aboriginal polity as it has evolved over the last decade.

This paper is in three parts: an outline of the 'conventional' interpretations ofthe outstation movement and my 'revisionist' approach and the insights it provides of certain aspects of the outstation phenomenon; the evolution of government policy and its problems; and a brief description of the outstations of the settlement of the Katherine region as exemplars of my model.

Outstations: Interpretation and Revision

The decentralisation movement began in the north of the Northern Territory in the 1960s, even while some Aborigines in Arnhem Land had never left their decentralised communities/estates and the Pintubi were still being brought into settlements. In Arnhem Land the Reverend Shepherdson had been encouraging 'decentralised' clan settlements from Elcho to the mainland. Port Keats had its cattle outstations. Without encouragement in the resultant administrative confusion the movement for decentralisation did not gain momentum until the 1970s.

The turning point came with the establishment of an economic basis for the movement and the official encouragement of it after 1972. The economic base was created by the replacement of the ration system by the cash economy of wages and social security benefits. In the 1970s grants for vehicles and equipment became available from the ABTF, and the Labor government ushered in the policy move away from assimilation that allowed for decentralised Aboriginal communities.

In this early 1970s period, the influential Dr H.C. Coombs analysed (and supported) the gathering decentralisation movement in what has become the basis for its conventional interpretation. Coombs' presidential address to the anthropology section of the 1973 ANZAAS Congress gave the first widely-noticed account of the outstation movement. Coombs concentrated upon explaining the phenomenon from three standpoints.

(1) The Aborigines' unique relationship to land and their desire to 'look after' the land, something that had a deep religious significance as much as any notion of proprietory ownership. It was this impulse that was then emerging as the Aboriginal land rights movement.

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(2) The outstation as a reaction to the stresses created by life in the large multi-tribal (or multi-clan) settlements. The elaborate social order of the Aborigines reflected their societies' mode of production, the hunter-gatherer. For example, complex avoidance mechanisms became a far greater strain when one was in continuous proximity with people to be avoided than in the hunter-gatherer 'horde', where such contacts could be mainly expected only in the ceremony season. The alcoholism, disorder and anomie of settlement life were a result of the incongruence between the social situation of the settlement and the social system of its inhabitants.

(3) The outstation as a reaction to black-white contact: as an Aboriginal attempt to cometqyfcerms with the dominant and intrusive European Australian economy, society, polity and technology:

the decentralising trend is an Aboriginal response to the problems which contact with white society has created for them: an attempt toevolve a life style which combines what they wish to retain of the Aboriginal way with those goods and services of the white man which they desire: an attempt to build their relationship with us intopatterns comprehensible to them in terms of the mutual obligations which underlie their own social relationships (Coombs 1974, 140).

This analytical model of outstations, with subsequent refinements, has remained the received interpretation ever since. Meehan and Jones' study provides the current conventional statement in their analysis of the development of Maningrida outstations.The outstations movement from Maningrida was prompted by a combination of circumstances: the residential grouping was too big, bigger even than for a Kunapipi ceremony, quarrelling in the settlement was exacerbated in 1969 by the introduction of a beer club and sorcery problems; food was plentiful in the bush; the people moved to anticipate the control of their land they perceived would flow from the Woodward Commission and the Whitlam Labor government; the people wanted to construct a neo-traditional lifestyle using European technology (Meehan and Jones 1980, 134-35).

Other conventional interpretations contain different emphases, but they all agree on the general model (cf Gray 1977; Griffin and Lendon 1979, 4). Indeed, some of the model's creators insist upon its universal validity:

I propose to examine one area I know well, where I have seen the outstation movement begin and develop over a period of 20 years. The events that occurred there were typical of the whole movement. Variations in the end results are due more to environmental and historical factors than to any differences in Aboriginal aims (Meehan 1979, 4).

The conventional model has also been applied to the Pitjantjatjara (Brokensha and McGuigan 1977) and the Pintubi and Luritja (Morice 1978), both of which began decentralisation movements somewhat later than in the north.

Refinements have also included the undeniable assertion that the movement to outstations was associated with an increase in traditional life (Meehan and Jones 1980, 141), though whether this is coincidence or causation is not so clear. Outstations have improved the health of Aborigines (Gillespie, Cook and Bond 1977; Meehan and Jones 1980, 136) supposedly because of the increased access to animal protein, but also because they

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conferred important psychosocial benefits with the removal of settlement tensions. They have even been seen as panaceas for problems such as petrol 'sniffing' (Eastwell 1979). Morice has argued that an important psychosocial benefit of outstations is that they incorporate opportunities for displacement of aggression through its extra-community projection (Morice 1976, 940). This Morice sees as a strong social bonding agent - the outstation being closer to the traditional Aboriginal bonding group than the multi-group settlement, where an identity suitable for projection of aggression, and hence social bonding, was difficult to create. Another indicator of social well-being is the reduced consumption of alcohol on outstations (cf Gillespie, Cook and Bond 1977, 8), a fact which belies the popular notions propounded by the outstation movement's critics.

Even as outstations have become more numerous and more complex, the conventional model of them has remained much the same. Outstations such as Pipalyatjara that have become 'mini settlements', spawning further outstations, and outstations that are little more than holiday camps, where people desire facilities so that they periodically can visit their 'country' (cf Griffin and Lendon 1979, 4), are treated as part of the same generalised phenomenon. The real failure of the conventional model is that it is Euro-centric, dominated by the priority of Aboriginal reaction to white-created problems. If the focus is shifted to the internal social and political dynamics of Aboriginal villages then a modified picture of the outstation movement emerges. This modified picture stresses the ongoing processes of Aboriginal politics and the outstation movement as a response to the pressures generated by this socio-political process.

Clues to this revisionist hypothesis emerge even in the conventional writings. One analysis of the Maningrida outstations includes amongst the reasons for this formation a reaction to the power of the Aboriginal landowners at Maningrida by the immigrants who went there in the 1960s (Gray 1977, 116). Descriptions of groups who form outstations to be near their 'country' can contain surprising twists. Wallace describes a Pitjantjatjara decentralisation movement that seems to fit the conventional model until he notes that some of the outstations were sited near roads to capture the (imagined?) tourist market - something Wallace curiously finds 'distressing' (Wallace 1977, 134).

These two examples give us a clue to one of the reasons for the outstation movement - the search for economic, social and political resources. The struggle for access to resources is as important in explaining the outstation movement as is the land, religion and other factors of the conventional explanation of that movement.

The struggle takes place around two related foci: inter-group contention andintra-community contention.

Inter-Group Contention

This was considered by some of the 'conventional' analysts of outstations. Speaking of the mission settlement of Maningrida and Yirrkala, Gray argued:

The placement fo the mission within the bounds of a certain group's territory had the effect of placing that group in a position of authority to which all other Aboriginal groups on the mission were subject. Over the years this authority has become reflected in certain areas, in the membership and office holders of village councils and other non-Aboriginal institutions which have been introduced as part of the modernisation program. It is the constant subjection to the authority of the land owning unit, coupled with the tensions arising out of contact with the non-Aboriginal authority that has made many groups return to their own country (Gray 1975, 22-3; see also Gray 1977, 116).

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The assertion of the land-owning groups was related to Aboriginal perceptions that the Land Rights Act meant that land owners had control over land in a stronger sense than the mutual reciprocity characteristic of 'traditional' (i.e., pre-European) Aboriginal societies in the situation of land sharing. During the 1960s the Gunavidji landowners of Maningrida were swamped by immigrants from the surrounding areas. They became the dispossessed of the settlement. Starting in the 1970s they began their attempt to (re)gain power. This coincided with the land rights movement. I suspect it had something to do with them manipulating the John Hunter/DAA intervention in 1974. By 1978 they had seven of the twelve members of the Council, a useful position from which to monopolise the power of the 'whitefella' institutions of Maningrida.

In September 1978 a public meeting was held at Port Keats to formulate a strategy for the community to begin running its own affairs (i.e., to move from custodial superintendence to limited self management - the initiation of the process of 'decolonisation'). From this meeting the Kardu Numida was formed; the Murimbata, the traditional owners, dominated the organisation. The immigrant groups felt insecure and the previously half-hearted outstation movement began in earnest (cf Ibbetson Report 1980). Another possible factor, the importance of which I have not yet verified, was the introduction of vernacular language into the liturgy of the Catholic mission church. Possibly inspired by an Aboriginal priest with links to the Murimbata, this innovation entrenched the symbolic dominance of Murimbata, and rendered the church no longer 'neutral' .

Since July 1978 the agencies of separate governments, the Commonwealth and the NT Government, have respectively been responsible for funding outstations and settlements. This has aided groups suffering from disadvantage in the distribution of resources (employment, housing, access to vehicles, etc.) at the settlement level. These groups have had another, sympathetic, government to appeal to for resources in the shape of outstation funding and vehicles. This has given a great impetus to the outstation movement in the recent past. In that sense the outstation movement is an attempt by some political interests within Aboriginal communities to circumvent the power over resources distribution held by some group or oligarchy within each settlement.

Intra-Community Contention

A salient factor here is that the homelands/outstation movement has been led by adults in the 'upper age range' (Coombs, Dexter and Hiatt 1980, 18). This and the absenceof young, active men and juveniles explains (as much as the 'absence of tension' of the conventional model) why there is little alcohol consumed on outstations. Aborigines beyond middle age are mostly infrequent and modest drinkers.

But more importantly this 'upper age range' of leaders has been the second echelon of Aboriginal village power brokers. They are prominent men who have failed in their drive for the power and status of dominant men. They have not been able to share in the control of the distribution of resources at the village level. But they have been 'strong' enough as leaders to acquire a following to go to their outstation. They are competent enough to secure access to DAA funding for their outstation and the all-important vehicle. And they have sufficient power to forge the necessary links to the settlement to obtain supplies and regular access via road/track maintenance. The prominent men leaders of outstations may be 'strong' enough to obtain financial support from younger members of their retinue who remain behind in employment in the 'home' village.

If we accept that the leadership of the outstation movement is from the second rung of village power, then revised explanations, different from the conventional interpretation, are intelligible and likely for a number of the features and problems of the outstation movement.

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For example, the widely-observed improvement in health of outstation inhabitants. Being on an outstation gives increased access to the protein that leads to better health. The outstation's prominent men leadership did not have the power in the village to secure employment for all their followers. So the access to animal protein on the outstation serves as a de facto substitute for the income required to secure a comparable protein consumption on the settlement. Also this interpretation throws a new light on the psychological benefits of outstations. The status advantages of having their own autonomous access to funds and their own community confers substantial psychosocial benefits on the leaders and their followers. That the outstation leaders can control their followers (cf Morice 1978, 57), free from the powerful interference of dominant men and the distractions of the settlement, also confers advantages in the recognition of leadership status thus demonstrated by these prominent men.

Vehicles, a normal part of the Commonwealth government's service provision to outstations, are here central. The possession of a vehicle, as such, makes the outstation possible. The outstation movement largely coincided with the governmental provision of vehicles because to obtain a vehicle was an important part of the motives for establishing an outstation. Vehicles are the ultimate status symbol of Aboriginal villages. As Stanley observes, 'this improvement in transport has meant that the cultural and material losses from moving away from the original settlement are lessened' (Stanley 1978, 249).The importance of vehicles explains some of the so-called 'problems' of vehicle provision to outstations.

For example, bureaucrats (and settlement 'whitefellas') often complain that outstation vehicles spend most of their time being driven around the settlement. This is perfectly understandable if we interpret this as a symbolic 'display' of the prominent man and his followers' new- found status. Also the desire for Toyotas explains the resentment at DAA's current policy of providing outstations with tractors. From the administrator's point of view, tractors are more sensible - they require less maintenance, are more durable and better suited to the rough tracks to the outstations. But to the prominent men they are a vehicle of infinitely inferior status to a Toyota, hence the complaints (usually couched in terms of tractors being too slow).

Vehicle usage also provides further evidence that outstation leaders are the second echelon of Aboriginal power brokers. Outstation resource centre vehicles are frequently appropriated by the dominant men of the Council for their own use on the settlement. The prominent men of the outstations are not powerful enough to prevent this 'abuse'.

Also vehicles and the status drives that they reveal provide a possible clue to the future of the outstation movement. The emphasis upon Toyotas and the great deal of time spent on the settlement suggests that replicating the settlement may be the ultimate objective of the outstation movement. If the younger generation take over their fathers' outstations they can be expected to demand similar types of services (education and health, but more importantly essential services like housing, electricity, water and sewerage) as now exist on the settlements. The next generation of outstation leaders will not be as spartan as the present generation, or as DAA outstation policy theorists would like .

There may be long term conflicts in store between the outstation movement and government bureaucracy over future levels of service provision. This should not be surprising. The middle class white Australian rustication movements which began in the 1970s around the major cities of eastern Australia soon led to demands for the provision of city-style services. The development in Aboriginal Australia may be different only in that it will be slower in coming.

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Government and Outstation Policy

The first (semi-official) pressure in favour of outstations came from the Council for Aboriginal Affairs (cf Coombs 1974; 1979). The Council began thinking about outstationsin the 1960s. It made its first application for funds to survey the Aboriginal situation in 1968. In 1970 it decided to help the decentralisation of groups to Caledon Bay, Pitti Pitti (near Amata) and Sunday Island (near Derby). The Council also tackled the preliminary problems of the Crown Lands Ordinance (which required a lease to permit any form of permanent settlement - even of Aborigines on an Aboriginal reserve) and the legal requirements of group incorporation.

In early 1971, largely in response to groups decentralising from Yirrkala, Prime Minister McMahon appeared ready to act:

Consideration will be given to an appropriate policy for Aborigines and the land, ensuring its continuing Aboriginal groups effective access to land for recreational and ceremonial purposes as well as for development of enterprises (Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet,Press Release, 23 April 1971).

Action, however, awaited the Labor government, in particular to empower the AB'TF to grant funds to Aboriginals for vehicles and boats to support their decentralising moves.

DAA initially reacted cautiously. In 1974/75 outstations were to receive an establishment grant of $10,000, though problems of definition soon arose. Papunya Yai Yai took over 200 people from Papunya and received $94,950 by mid-1975 for wages, Special Work Projects and maintenance. It was treated as something between an outstation and a new settlement. In 1974/75 outstation groups were allocated $526,000 in toto, less than the funds obtained by some of the village housing associations. The outstations were considered something of an administrative distraction, as possible ephemera that should not absorb too many resources. In 1974/75 also the administrative guidelines for outstation policy were established. These stressed that:

a) Groups wishing to establish an outstation must first demonstrate their sincerity and integrity, usually by moving out to settle without assistance. This created Aboriginal hostility and sometimes proved no guarantee of persistence beyond the outstation group's acquisition of a vehicle.

b) There must be no re-creation of the traditional institutionalised settlements in outstations. Apart from whether this is a viable long-term policy, this requirement was at the mercy of the changing nature of various outstations (as some became a quasi-settlement nucleus for further decentralised communities), and, in application, further complicated by the introduction of the NT government after July 1978.

c) Outstations should have resource centres in the settlements and these centres should carry out a variety of functions. This policy encouraged the fixation upon the settlement of the outstation leaders. It also often introduced white wayfarers into the political equation of bureaucrats and prominent men. The wayfarers were suspected of creating exaggerated expectations from the outstation movement, though they may merely have reacted to the settlement focus of its leaders. Resource centre wayfarers were also seen as inhibiting the self-sufficiency of outstations, as the wayfarers sought to make themsleves indispensable and the prominent men outstation leaders dependent upon them. Where the resource centres were not staffed by wayfarers, their resources could be plundered by dominant men, or used for the benefit only of particular outstations.

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The DAA field staff were left to carry on and to make the best they could of the situation. In 1980 DAA commissioned its first review (certainly in the Northern Territory) of the outstation movement (cf Ibbetson Report 1980). By then the field staff had some experience and had developed local systems that tried to take into account the varied nature, even within a single region, of the outstation movement.

The Ministerial Directive governing outstations states that the policy's objectivesare:

To ensure that Outstations are provided with services and support, in respect of the basic necessities of life, in a manner that takes into account Aboriginal lifestyles and against a background of consultation between Departments (Commonwealth and State) and communities.

Such a directive, suggesting that DAA has officially accepted the conventional view of outstations, has immediate problems. The fact of vehicle acquisition and usage described above belies simplistic notions of 'Aboriginal lifestyles', as do the variety of demands for various services. For example, housing was originally supposed to be provided by the groups themselves; DAA just provided basic materials. By the 1980s some groups were requesting settlement-type housing. In other instances, for example at Lajamanu, they have become dependent upon wayfarer resource centre personnel to build houses. Self-sufficiency as a bureaucratic policy is meeting resistance from prominent men anxious to acquire settlement-style facilities and so enhance their status and attract further followers.

A reactive policy, supposedly merely responding to Aboriginal demands, supports the notion of Aboriginals setting the level of their service requirements. But it may store up problems in the long run. For example, only about 25 per cent of outstations receive an education service (Deslandes 1980, 20). This may perpetuate the second-rate access to resources of the outstation leader's followers and may exacerbate future inequities.

The bureaucracy's twin requirements of uniformity of services and encouragement of Aboriginal self-sufficiency poses further contradictions. Until 1979 it was DAA policy that unemployment benefits not be paid to Aboriginals resident on outstations. This was to encourage self-sufficiency and was a reaction to the tendency for income-earning activities such as craft production to fall off when alternative income became available. But this policy has run into public criticism as inequitable. Uniformity of policy is impossible to achieve in this area as some outstations have adequate income sources through control of their women's supporting parents benefits and family allowances, or the older peoples' pensions. Other outstations need income supports, which DAA has tried to deliver through per capita subsidies, operational subsidies, award wage employment, special work projects, etc. But to provide these to any outstation risks the demand for uniformity and the further erosion of outstation self-sufficiency. It is doubtful whether the prominent men of the outstations and their followers share the policy desire for self-sufficiency. Aboriginal demands appear to be contrary to the received interpretation of the aspirations of Aborigines on outstations. This contradiction is explicable only in the context of understanding that outstations are one card in the competitive game of gaining access to resource distribution that so preoccupies Aboriginal leaders.

Official DAA policy is that there shall be a coordinated and cooperative provision of services to outstations by government departments:

Where the movement of outstations is likely to entail claims on State resources for long-term developments and services (for example, schools, clinics, medical services) State authorities are consulted

65

before such projects are supported by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. State authorities are expected, wherever possible, to provide essential services to outstation communities. Within the contraints of available finance and other priorities, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs may provide supplementary grants to the States to encourage them to undertake this responsibility (DAA 1980).

This coordinated and cooperative approach is enhanced by Community Development supplying services only to outstations recognised by DAA. But in practice the realisation of this ideal is hindered by rivalry, at the Katherine regional level, between DAA and DCD and by the independent actions of other ministers and departments. For example the Chief Minister arranged that an electricity generator and ablution blocks would be provided at Weemol and Transport and Works, in theory DCD's client, installed solar electric light panels at Namaloori outstation. Cox River outstation received settlement-style power and water facilities (again after a visit from the Chief Minister). The problem lies in the differing perceptions of outstations held by these departments.

Community Development does not necessarily share DAA's philosophy that service provision to outstations should be so simple as to be rudimentary. DCD tends to provide its essential services component, supposedly more in line with Aboriginal aspirations, on the standard of settlement essential services. This involves high initial capital expenditure. Also, whereas DAA expects an outstation to be substantially self-sufficient in operation (except for DAA grants to its parent resource centre) or to rely upon ABTA grants for further facilities (usually vehicles), DCD facilities usually involve high in-built recurrent operational costs (e.g. diesel-powered electricity generators). These recurrent costs DAA regards as more appropriate to a settlement than an outstation.

In a situation of such disparity between conceptions of outstation resource provision the prominent men's ambit claims, as at Weemol, can sometimes be realised. At the very least such divergent attitudes to outstation servicing reinforce the settlement fixation of the outstation leaders.

However, this situation may not continue. Community Development funds outstation essential services programs from the 'continuous items' - minor capital works (as distinct from major capital works) - section of its budget. Recently the NT Cabinet cut the DCD's fund allocation under the continuous items expenditure head. So Community Development may not be able to do any more Weemols in future. Even if they cannot, the political consequences of the exaggerated expectations of the prominent men outstation leaders remains, politically more troublesome for being less realisable.

Katherine Region/District Outstations

This section does not attempt comprehensively to analyse or describe the numerous outstations in the Katherine region/district. Instead it takes some of the arguments advanced in this paper and provides examples that indicate their pertinence.

Generalisations about outstations are of course difficult to make when the forms of them are often so different. For example, the outstations of Lajamanu are close to the conventional prototypes of homeland centres, being sited, as in the cases of Parnta and Kulngalimpa, near important sacred sites, or, as in the cases of Kamara and Tanami, on or near a traditional estate. Similar to my generalised model of an outstation is Weemol (near Bulman) which was started by Ngalkbun people from Bamyili. Its leaders are 'second division', prominent men rather than dominant men, and the site is on traditional Ngalkbun estates. It has become an important ceremony centre and is also used as a punishment camp for errant youths. Both these activities are profitable (in monetary as well as power and status terms) for the 'bosses' of Weemol. Many of the outstations of Ngukurr are not on

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country of which the boss is the traditional owner. The 'bosses' of Mumbumumbu and Namaloori are related by marriage to the traditional owners. The boss of Wanmari, Charlie Munur, acts as surrogate for the traditional owner of that country, John Nangurra, who chooses to live at Numbulwar.

The outstation at Castello near Ngukurr is interesting for the processes it reveals. It is mainly composed of Rittarrngu people who come from the 'stone country' of central Arnhem Land. They were originally well-represented at Ngukurr. In the 1970s, Peter Woods (now NLC Vice-President), 'son' of Duncan Yapanula, the traditional 'big man' of the Rittarrngu, even became Vice-President of the Ngukurr Council. But the Rittarrngu people could not stand the competition in Ngukurr and many joined Yapunula and Woods at Rittarrngu, a 'Gibb' community excised from Urapunga station nearby. Another group joined Charlie Johnson, at Lake Katrine. In the wet of 1978/79, Johnson's group at Lake Katrine were 'overlooked' and nearly starved. They needed to move closer. In 1980, after he had been defeated by Andrew Joshua, David Daniels began to construct a new coalition to regain power. Charlie Johnson was allowed to establish a permanent outstation at Castello on Nunggubuyu land.

Other outstations belie their formal purpose. The Remburrunga of Bamyili and Beswick treat Bulman as an outstation, though under the funding definitions applied by the bureaucracy it is a 'Gibb' community for the ADC-funded Gulperan Pastoral Company, an Aboriginal cattle company. Similarly the Miayili people of Bamyili treat Eva Valley as an outstation, though technically that also is a Gibb community. The Gurindji of Daguragu regard Boonaroo as an outstation, though DAA has refused to acknowledge it as such, seeing it as a mustering camp (McDonalds Yards was its former name) for the ADC-funded Murra Mulla Gurindji, another Aboriginal cattle company. The Daguragu Council has become the service agent for that project.

The outstations of the Katherine region are led by second rank leaders, prominent men. Lajamanu outstations provide an illustration of this. The Parnta outstation is led by Peter Blacksmith (Japanangka). The dominant man of this skin was Lionel James, ex-Council President and Police Aide. His successor is Joe James, Councillor, Council night patrolman, and to be the next Police Aide. The Kamara outstation is led by Jimmy Burns (Jangala); the dominant man of that skin is Jerry Jangala, ex-Council President, current Council Liaison Officer and owner of Lurlju outstation. The Tanami oustation, started in early 1981, is led by Hector Jungarrayi and Gularri Japaljarri. Lindsay Herbert (Jungarrayi), current Council President, is the dominant man of the former skin; Tony Gibson (Japaljarri), boss of Kulngalimpa outstation and President of the Walaign Outstation Resource Centre board is a dominant man of the Japaljarri skin.

But dominant men seem, superficially, more involved in the outstation movement than my revisionist interpretation allows. Jerry Jangala of Lajamanu, David Daniels and Andrew Joshua of Ngukurr, Leo Findlay and Don Miller of Borroloola, all have outstations. But a close examination is revealing. Jerry Jangala's outstation, Lurlju, is a dormitory camp a few kilometres from Lajamanu. It is a short commuting distance from the settlement and daily work. Similarly, David Daniel's outstation at Nallawan is another dormitory outstation. Andrew Joshua used the Boomerang Lagoon outstation as a political base in the mid-1970s to gain control of the Yugal Mangi outstation resource centre - an alternative political resource to the Council. After he had been overthrown in late 1979, David Daniels in turn moved to secure control of Yugal Mangi. By March 1980 he had ousted Phillip Roberts as President and begun distributing the resources of the outstation centre in a bid to regain support. He did this with such verve that by the end of 1980 DAA was forced to hand the outstation resource centre's funding over to the Yulngu Association (but Daniels still won the 1981 election). Once Joshua had secured the Ngukurr council presidency, his outstation atrophied. Don Miller uses his outstation on Kangaroo Island as a weekend recreation camp. Leo Findlay proposes to establish his outstation on Vanderlin Island. The pervasiveness of the settlement model can be seen in that Findlay has approached the NT government with a request for $1 million to build a settlement on Vanderlin.

67

The dominant men of the Katherine region are not particularly interested in outstations, they already control the greater resources of the settlements. But this can change, as it did recently at Borroloola.

The Yanyula outstations at Borroloola are on the land once known as the Borroloola Common (the Garawa 'outstation' there is the Garawa-owned Robinson River station). There are three outstations on the Common:

(1) 'Djungourie', 'bossed' by Gordon Lansen (and a lesser boss, Willy O'Keefe), is on Rhumburria clan/semi-moiety land. Lansen is a prominent man with aspirations. He was constantly thwarted on the Council by the triumvirate of Leo Findlay, Musso Harvey and Don Miller. His outstation is for Lansen an autonomous political (and financial) resource. Lansen is Findlay's chief (if rarely successful) opponent. The hostility is based upon clashing personal ambition as well as the fact that Findlay's father and uncle some years previously obtained a large tract of Rhumburria land through a Kunapipi ceremony. Lansen bosses a reduced estate, which rankles.

(2) 'Wadawadala', 'bossed' by Dinny McDinny - this outstation, the largest and most active in the Borroloola area, is on Mumbuliya clan land. But Don Miller, Council President, is the djungayi (custodian) for this land. Conversely McDinny is the custodian for an important Yabaduruwa site on Kangaroo Island; so political linkages between the two are easily forged, resting as they do on a traditional base.

(3) Minyalini' outstation is on Wurdaliya clan land, south-west of the settlement. It is 'bossed' by Barney Pluto who is of the Wailia clan/semi-moiety. He has been allowed to use the Wurdaliya land because his father lived on it for many years. Pluto is the least important of the outstation leaders. Don Miller and Tom Friday are the Wailia leaders.

There is a fourth outstation, Don Miller's small outstation at Kangaroo Island, down-river from the Common.

In May 1981 the outstation 'mob' formed the Nawimbi Association in preparation for incorporation and DAA funding as an outstation resource centre. Willy O'Keefe was President and members of the other two Common-based outstations comprised the steering committee. The 'Nawimbi' refers to a dreaming path that links the three Common outstations. Then big 'mobs' of money entered the picture.

The Borroloola Aborigines had won their land claim for the Common, the first initiated under the 1976 Land Rights Act. But the NT government had granted Mount Isa Mines a corridor to facilitate ore carrying from a projected mine to a proposed port on the Gulf islands. There was grave uncertainty as to how, and to whom, the $500,000 compensation was to be distributed. In August Senator Kilgariff, on behalf of the government, handed over the titles to the land to the Narwimbi Land Trust (NT News, 17 August 1981 ) . The Aborigines at Borroloola became convinced that part of the compensation money was to be channelled through the outstations. DAA was not very happy at the possibility of this $50,000 a year for three years being channelled through the outstations; it violated their notion of outstation self-sufficiency.

Findlay acted quickly. Within a month the outstation association had been reconstituted. Findlay became President and Public Officer, thereby continuing the control of access to government that is the foundation of power. The Kangaroo Island Wailai 'mob' were brought onto the executive. Symbolising the transfer of power, the new organisation was named the Mabunji Outstation Association. The *Mabunji' refers to a dreaming path that begins at Wadawadala and goes down the MacArthur River to the Gulf islands.

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This example is not unique; it is unusual in that it was such a completely successful grab for resources. There have been many other like cases. One example is the Munjakai Association. This was formed by the Huddlestones, the dominant patriline of the Ngandi tribe of the Ngukurr area. The Munjakai Association was formed to cover the Huddlestones' outstation at Ruined City, near a sacred site of immense importance on the southern escarpment of the Arnhemland plateau. This site was the origin of many of the dreaming paths in the Roper and Rose Rivers area. The Association was to seek incorporation and eventually operate a tourist project in the Ruined City area. It was a potentially lucrative project. At least one white tour operator (plus the crew of the ABC's 'Peach's Australia') had been refused access to the site. The Northern Lands Council had indicated to DAA that the NLC recognised the Huddlestones as the traditional owners of the area. The family of a prominent 'boss' of the NLC sought to gain admittance to the project. The Munjakai Association executive was comprised solely of members of the Huddlestone family. The countervailing custodial interests of the djungayi was recognised by members of the Thompson and Hall patrilines being members of the Association. But these people were not aware of the import of their membership, nor even of the propose! tourist project. Dominant men of other groups found out about the proposal and their opposition proved decisive in stopping it.

Of course the initiative for unequal access to resources does not always come fron the Aborigines alone. Sometimes it is the consequence of government actions. For example, during the May 1981 celebration of Lajamanu's grant of community government status, the Chief Minister, Everingham, promised the Parnta outstation group a Toyota. He rejected a similar request from the Kamara group on the grounds that their outstation was not within th newly-proclaimed community government area.

Conclusion

I have argued that outstations have to be understood as an element in the struggle for resources - the 'politics of scarcity' - in the Aboriginal villages from which the outstations came and to which they constantly refer. The conventional interpretation of outstations has too often recorded the ideology of the movement as if it were explanation rather than justification.

An example may illustrate the point. While at Ngukurr I asked why the Daniels, vho are of the Nunggubuyu 'tribe', were allowed to establish an outstation at Nallawan, near Ngukurr on the land of the Ngalakan. The answer was that the Daniels' outstation of Weiyagiba was considered too far away for the Daniels, as djungayi of the Yabadurruwa ceremony, to maintain close supervision of the ceremony grounds ... 'to keep the story close' (to Ngukurr) . The traditional landowners of the Ngalakan, the Miliwarraya dar. (Pontos' patriline) invited the Daniels to 'sit down' at Nallawan to secure that supervision. Is that explanation or justification? The apparent urgency to have the Daniels settle at Nallawan occurred in mid-1980, when the forces to overthrow the Joshua-led Ngukurr Council were gathering strength. This episode probably signified an alliance in formation. It was an alliance that secured David Daniels the support of sufficient groups to regain the Council presidency at the June 1981 elections.

It is my contention that the conventional interpretation of outstation movement - stressing land only for its cultural-religious significance, the reaction to the settlement situation, and hostility to white domination - is insufficient. To fully understand the outstation movement we have also to analyse the outstations within the totality of the politics of Aboriginal villages. The outstation movement reflects inter-group contention for resources as well as the drive by lesser Aboriginal leaders, prominent men, for their (and their followers) autonomous access to resources. Whitefella resources are sought not just as an end in themselves but because their possession confers status and prestige, the driving motives of Aboriginal politics. The confusion and uncertainty of governmental policies with respect to outstations interacts with these

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politics and the factors of conventional interpretation to produce the outstation movement, a phenomenon of great complexity. It well merits serious and dispassionate analysis.

70

ELSPETH A. YOUNG

OUTSTATIONS, 1981: THE WIDER SETTING

The preceding chapters discuss many important aspects of outstation organisation and development at a local, and therefore a micro level. These are of great importance because they illustrate the interaction between cultural, economic and social factors in a way which cannot be achieved with broader based data. However the preceding chapters focus on some outstations which have specific characteristics not shared by all, i.e. they are long-established, (or always established) (Yirrkala and Maningrida) or are associated with highly fragmented groups (Ngukurr). Such characteristics affect the significance of different factors in outstation development and organisation - long-established outstations are more likely to have relatively stable support systems, such as water supplies, semi-permanent or permanent housing, radios; and also to be related to an organised outstation resource centre, which provides services such as health and education visits, a store truck and other supports. They have also had the advantage of a longer period over which to make application for, and often to win, funds from DAA or Aboriginal Benefits Trust Account (Fund) (ABTA (F)). Establishment grants provide a basic incentive to an outstation development.

Outstations from fragmented communities, in which the socio-political structure and internal power politics exhibit a continual ebb and flow, have been used as expression of a status struggle. While it should not be denied that such factors operate elsewhere, it would be misleading to always place the main emphasis on them. Bell (in the concluding chapter) suggests that the preceding papers should be supplemented with examples of other kinds of outstations, drawn principally from the Central Desert. I suggest that an analysis of outstations in a wider setting, the macro framework, will provide further balance for the whole discussion. This wider setting may be provided by reference to the data, collected in 1981, in the community profiles of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA, 1981a , 1981c) .

DAA Community Profile Data

Most outstations, or homeland centres, are located within the Northern Territory or in immediately adjacent parts of South and Western Australia. For the purposes of DAA's community profile survey (the source of the statistics presented here) they were defined as small communities linked to resource centres which are responsible for providing a variety of support services. The resource centre is, in most cases, located within a larger centralised Aboriginal community (e.g. Papunya) although theoretically it could also be a town such as Katherine, Tennant Creek or Alice Springs. In fact very few places classified as outstations by DAA came into that category (Utopia was considered to be based on Alice Springs as a resource centre), but small groups excluded, e.g. some of the Gibb communities around Katherine, must have similar characteristics to outstations - they depend on store services, health delivery and similar facilities which are Katherine-based. This, then, is a discrepancy in the classification.

Each group of outstations was, for analysis purposes, amalgamated into a unit according to its resource centre and these were further aggregated into areas (see Map).

Melville IsMilingimbi. iGaliwinkuBathurst

Nguiu YirrkalaJ V_VGaputaiyakRamingining• Darwin •enpelli

AREA 1 AREA 5

^ Angurug' Numbulwar( J

KeatsKatherine Ngukurr'

Borroloolal

AREA A

Lajamanuy

• Tennant Creek

UtopiaYuendumi

AREA 2PapunyaHaasts B l u f f Q

•Alice SpringsHermannsburgAreyonga Q

^ __y Docker RiverC 3 b lacks tone

Wingellina___Z'-"'AREA 3

Warburton/ Jameson |

Pipalyatjara

-- people

0 400km

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While areas do not correspond entirely to differing environmental, social and cultural characteristics - all of which might be expected to affect the organisation of outstations - they do provide a rough basis on which to examine differences between the Top End and Centre of the Northern Territory, and so are the main grouping used in this discussion. Where clear discrepancies associated with particular outstation groups occur, these are highlighted. While the DAA data suffer from some severe limitations - they are based on the outstation population at a single point in time and hence take no account of fluctuations which affect age and sex structures, employment, social security receipt, incomes - they still provide a useful basis for considering some of the points brought out in micro-level analysis.

Location and Access

Outstation populations belonged to over 150 separate communities, ranging in size from over 100 people to only five. Their average size was about 26 (Table A). While some resource centres catered for only one outstation (e.g. Nguiu), others such as Hermannsburg provided services for a considerable number (18). Most outstations (56 per cent) were located relatively close to resource centres (less than 50 kms away). No clear differences in these basic characteristics are apparent when Top End (areas 1, 5 and 6) and Central (areas 2 and 3) outstation groups are compared. However numerical comparisons conceal many important facts about the physical linkages of outstations and their resource centres. During the wet season outstations in Arnhem Land may be cut off from their centres even though the road distance between them is only a few kilometres. Similarly, storms sufficiently severe to cause flooding may cut the linkages between desert homeland centres and the base on which they depend. These uncertainties are responsible for the emphasis placed on other forms of communication, e.g. air transport and two-way radio sets. As Table E shows, only one third of all outstations had airstrips. However, in Arnhem Land, 50 per cent have strips, a necessity in many places in the wet season. In the desert areas only 20 per cent had airstrips. Lack of this facility can to some extent be alleviated by the use of two-way radio to relay messages and requests. At the time of the survey two-thirds of outstations had such radios. Areas with few radios included 1, 2 and 4. However, in area 2, most outstations without this facility were located close to Hermannsburg, and were, except in highly unusual circumstances, readily accessible by road. None of the eight outstations in area 4 had radios, which partly reflects their relatively recent establishment. It also reflects the success places in other areas have had in their negotiations with government departments. In the case of Yuendumu outstations which, according to the survey, had radios, money was allocated for purchase of sets at least two years before installation. The delay was attributed to difficulties in reaching an agreement over access to frequencies and to broadcasting schedules.

A further important characteristic of outstation location is their site in relation to the traditional land of those concerned. Wherever possible it is to be expected that outstations will be located on traditionally owned land, where contact with places of religious significance can be maintained. Over 80 per cent of all outstations included in the survey were in such locations (Table A). Most of those not on traditional land lay within area 2, particularly in two communities, Hermannsburg and Papunya. This illustrates the continuing effects of population relocation associated with the establishment of government (Papunya) and mission (Hermannsburg) settlements, and also the effects of land alienation in adjacent regions. In the Hermannsburg example, some groups, although eager to establish their own outstations away from the mission centre, have been unable to move back to their traditional lands because these now lie within the boundaries of pastoral properties. In Papunya the Pintupi people who, as Bell points out, have been determined to establish their own outstations away from the socio-cultural dsruptions of the large settlement, have as yet been unable to return to their true homelands because these are so distant. Until such time as communications to those parts of the western desert improve, they have set up outstations on the country of others, more accessible to Papunya.

L

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Demographie Structure

Differences in physical communication between resource centres and outstations are one reason for presenting an overall comparison rather than drawing conclusions from one or two small samples. Differences in their population sizes and structures are another important component. The total outstation population has a high proportion of children (40 per cent) and high dependency ratio (0.98, Table B). These figures do not differ markedly from those of all rural dwelling Aborigines covered in the same survey (proportion of children 40 per cent; dependency ratio 0.90). This suggests that outstation populations are becoming more stable, i.e. are not drawn predominantly from certain specific age groups as they were when newly established (in Yuendumu in 1978 only 27.3 per cent of outstation populations were children and their dependency ratio was only 0.83). Age structures did differ between areas - area 1 outstations consisted almost entirely of adults between the ages of 15 and 59 (dependency ratio 0.15) while in area 4 almost half the group were children and the dependency ratio was well above average (1.26). Differences for individual outstation groups were even more marked. Those associated with Nguiu had no children, while at Borroloola, Angurugu and Ngukurr they accounted for more than half the residents.

Outstation masculinity ratios were, compared to the total rural-based Aboriginal population, low (0.94 : 1.02), although, as with dependency ratios, considerabledifferences existed between areas. In area 5 men were considerably out-numbered by women while area 4 had a comparatively large proportion of men. On an individual basis more marked differences occurred - the masculinity ratio in Yuendumu outstations was only 0.67 while at Borroloola it was 1.25. These differences can be attributed to a variety of factors: some outstations may have been associated with specific activities in whichpeople of different sexes were unequally represented (e.g. running a cattle project/stock camp); some may have acted as refuges for people who felt that they must leave the settlement because their lives were being affected by unacceptable disruption (e.g. widows, and their 'sisters' who move to other places following a death). Factors such as these do not operate continuously and hence changes in their significance can have a marked effect on the population structure of an outstation. Because of high local population mobility some groups probably did not represent their true 'core situation'. Further factors which would undoubtedly change the structure of outstation populations would be upgrading of service delivery - provision of a schoool would make some families more willing to move to the outstation because their school age children could accompany them; similarly the provision of a resident health worker might enable some old people to remain in the oustation whereas they might otherwise have to remain close to the clinic because of infirmities.

Infrastructure - Water Supply

Outstation populations, once site and basic group structures are established, are still dependent on certain resources, not all of which can be obtained from the natural environment. Water supplies are perhaps the most important of these resources. Because of fluctuations in water availability in its natural form, either from rivers, lagoons or soakages, most outstation groups have come to depend on water supplied with the help of non-Aboriginal technology - reticulation systems, bores or tanks. This dependency is far higher and less seasonal in the Centre than it is in the Top End. Bores, tanks and the like provided the main water supply for about 55 per cent of outstations (Table C). Bores alone were by far the most important type of water source for desert outstations (55 per ̂cent) . In the desert delays in establishment of bores have strongly hindered outstation development. Without a bore it is impossible for most desert outstations, apart from those sited on natural springs, to grow to any size. Other water sources - soakages, clay pans and rock holes - are often ephemeral and, even when they hold water, may provide only limited quantities. Desert outstations also suffer from problems of maintaining bore

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equipment and may be forced to abandon their settlements when this breaks down. For this reason Walker's discussion (in an earlier chapter) of desert water supplies is particularly valuable.

In the Top End, outstations are often close to a river or lagoon which provides satisfactory water supplies for drinking and cooking. Almost half the communities in areas 1, 5 and 6 depended on such sources. While river levels fluctuate even in this area, most flow through the dry season and a yearly supply is maintained. This allowed outstation establishment without the provision of a bore, and many Arnhem Land groups were able to exist on these dependable supplies until bores were provided. In fact Arnhem Land outstations are in many cases not new ventures, but small settlements from which the people never made permanent moves into large settlements such as Maningrida. In the desert such forms of survival, for all but the smallest groups, would have been highly unlikely.

Infrastructure - Shelter

While water supplies are an essential for outstation survival, shelter of the conventional type (i.e. using permanent structures) is not. Almost 80 per cent of all outstation structures were either classified as being traditional (windbreaks, bush material humpies) or improvised (humpies made of canvas, corrugated iron and other introduced materials in addition to brushwood and timber) (Table D). Areas 3, 4 and 6 had particularly high proportions of non-permanent dwellings. The construction of permanent huts and houses on outstations appears to be related to several factors: the climate,which, for Top End communities, makes provision of rain-proof shelter extremely important; the resources of the community, and whether any housing funds are allocated to outstation housing; previous experience of community infrastructure (the extent to which families have come to look on conventional permanent housing as the norm); and the period of establishment of the outstation group. In areas 2 and 5, both of which have relatively high proportions of permanent dwellings, these structures are associated particularly with mission communities - Hermannsburg and Yirrkala respectively. This reflects independent policy towards outstation development, along with differences in the perceived needs and aspirations of the people. That this is closely related to previous experience was clearly demonstrated in the case of one Yuendumu outstation in 1978 (Ngaru) where a group of old men tolerated living behind wind-breaks in order to show the government that they were determined to stay and should receive financial support. It is doubtful whether younger members of their families would have been willing to make such a stand. Now, with the provision of a bore and construction of more substantial improvised dwellings, others have gone to join them.

Infrastructure - Communication

An additional important element in outstation infrastructure is a means of communication, both with other outstations and with the centralised resource centre. As mentioned earlier, two way radios are one important method used to keep in touch, a facility which is now more common than previously but which is by no means universally available. Air communications also only exist for a few outstations and lack of airstrips has hindered the development of some outstations through the wet season in the Top End. Lacking such facilities, many outstation groups depend heavily on being able to move in and out of the centre on their own, either using communal vehicles or privately owned vehicles. More than half the outstations had community vehicles in 1981 (Table E), and in the worst served group (area 2) more than one third had acquired trucks. In this area, most outstations without trucks were close to Hermannsburg, and were probably able to function more easily without this service than others at more distant locations such as west of Papunya or in the Tanami Desert region (Yuendumu). Provision of outstation

75

vehicles with public funds (i.e. DAA, ABTA) has been a problem for many years. In the early seventies outstation groups sometimes received grants for trucks but never made the move to the outstation. This apparent abuse of funds led to a tightening of regulations whereby applications for trucks would only be considered when the outstation was firmly established, and should be supported by contributions from the group. ABTA has been the main funding agency. The acquisition of an outstation Toyota undoubtedly provides a major incentive to the development of the community. For example, five outstations associated with Yuendumu received funding for Toyotas in 1979 and this change was largely responsible for a rapid growth in population in at least two cases - Ngarna (1978 pop. 5; 1981 pop.20. At the time of the DAA survey the population at Ngarna was only 9; from my own knowledge of the families regularly in residence, the figure should have been approximately 20.) and Yarripilangu (1978 pop. 6; 1981 pop. 27).

Lack of community vehicles can be compensated for by access to privately owned vehicles, available in a higher percentage of outstations (62.3 per cent). These are normally small cars and trucks and therefore are less valuable for travelling in adverse weather conditions. Nevertheless they provide a very important support for outstation groups. Private cars belonging to non-outstation dwelling kin and friends, many of whom are frequent visitors from central settlements, also play an important part in providing communication links. In 1978 some Yuendumu outstation groups had access to transport only when relatives arrived at weekends, and not only depended on such transport to bring store-bought food but also to enable them to range widely in pursuit of kangaroo, emu and other game. The use of vehicles for hunting is another important reason why they are particularly prized in outstations. David Bond's account, in a preceding chapter, of the difficulties of maintaining vehicles at Maningrida, must be recalled at this point.

The above figures exclude boats and outboard motors, very important forms of support in Arnhem Land outstations both for allowing access to the resource centre in the wet season and for hunting and fishing. ABTA have also allocated funds for such purchases to outstation groups.

Social Support - Health

While vehicles provide a main means of outstation support by allowing individual families and groups to move to other centres when necessary, the extension of services from the centre - health, education, retail store, cheque cashing - can make up for their absence. For over 70 per cent of outstations health services consisted of periodic (weekly, fortnightly or monthly) visits from nursing sisters and health workers based at the central health clinic. During these visits health staff maintain ongoing checks on those who need constant medication, carry out pre- and post-natal care and deal with any other cases presented to them. Some patients may be taken back to the clinic for futher attention or told to present themselves next time the doctor visits from town. Between visits outstation people have to either arrange for their own transport to the clinic or else, for minor complaints, deal with the problems themselves, perhaps using a medicine chest provided by the health clinic. Only 31 per cent of communities had such a medicine chest at the time of the survey. An alternative, and certainly preferable, solution is to train a health worker belonging to one of the outstation families. Only 21 per cent of outstations had achieved this so far, and most of these were located in areas 2 and 3, i.e. in Central Australia (Table E). It becomes worthwhile only if the staff of the health clinic are sufficiently determined to carry the project through, if the Department of Health is willing to allocate the necessary funds and, for stability, if trainees are really willing to base themselves at least semi-permanently at the outstation. Trained health workers are also required to spend some time in the main clinic and attending further courses at the training school, so that their experience is extended. Hence they might not always be living at the outstation.

76

Social Support - Education

Education at outstations depends largely on facilities available at the centre (only 25 per cent of outstations had resident teachers (Table E) and few others ever received visits from central school staff). The main outstation groups with teachers were Hermannsburg (area 2), where the development of educational facilities formed an important basis for the original decentralisation movement, Yirrkala (area 5) and Maningrida (area 6). In all cases resident teachers were either members of the outstation group or were well-known to that group, and were thus able to provide a type of education adapted to and acceptable to local needs. This has generally involved instruction in basic numeracy and literacy, often with bilingual teaching, and further time devoted to activities such as hunting and gathering, dancing and ceremonies and learning tribal customs and folklore. Outstation teachers receive back-i p support from visiting resource teachers, in the Hermannsburg case approximately once a week.

For the remaining outstations (about 75 per cent) no formal education is available on the spot. Families with school-age children have three alternatives, none of which are satisfactory: to leave their children to be cared for by others in the central settlement; to abandon their plans to move to the outstation; or to move the entire family to the outstation and keep the children away from school. In the first case, which affected some people in almost half the outstations covered, parents worry about the welfare of their children all the time and express this by paying frequent visits to the centre to ensure that they are being properly cared for. The numbers of people who are prevented from moving to outstations by lack of school facilities is unknown but is probably considerable, as can be seen from some of the population structures which show deficiencies in the younger adult and child age groups. Education Department policy, which demands that funds for an outstation teacher will be provided only when the outstation contains a specific number of children in need, effectively hinders people from making the move. While the statistics do not indicate clearly how many families adopt the third alternative, it is probably that many outstation children receive no formal education. Lack of schooling cannot always be attributed simply to lack of service provision, but may also express the desires of the people who consider that non-Aboriginal formal education is inappropriate to their needs.

Food - Local Resources

One of the main advantages of moving to outstations is improved access to game, fish and naturally occurring fruits and vegetables. This occurs not only because many outstations are in productive areas (near shell-fish beds, lagoons and rivers with plentiful supplies of fish or, in the desert, accessible to different land types where game abounds) but also because the outstation populations are sufficiently small for resources to be exploited without rapid depletion. A furhter factor is that outstation people may make more effort to find food locally, partly because of their own individual interests and partly because of periodic supply difficulties from the resource centre (e.g. during the wet season). Since access to local food includes access to cattle, buffalo and other introduced species, outstation groups with killer herds or with pastoral operations also have important additional food supplies. Further supplies can also be obtained from cultivated gardens. Altogether, over two-thirds of these outstations obtained food from at least one of these sources; 18 per cent killed cattle to eat and 21 per cent had gardens.

L

77

Food - Purchased

While local foods are almost certainly more significant for outstation groups than for people in central settlements, their availability varies according to the season and according to access to technical aids such as vehicles, boats and rifles. A further variable is the age-structure of the outstation population. If most residents are elderly people, with some disabilities, it is not always possible to make the best use of what is available. For these reasons, along with the fact that most people have now come to depend heavily on certain store foods, access to some type of retail facility is important. Only 16 per cent of outstations had stores, and most of these were located in three areas - 3 (Amata and Pipalyatjara), 5 (Yirrkala) and 6 (both Maningrida and Oenpelli) (Table E). The data do not indicate whether these were cash stores, i.e. normal retail practice, or whether they were actually bulk ordering systems whereby the outstation group pooled their money to obtain goods, and then redistributed when the goods arrived. Outstations without shops either obtain store goods from a truck run by the central community store, organise their own access by going to the centre when necessary or place bulk orders. Nearly 60 per cent of outstations were served by a mobile truck, mostly at weekly or fortnightly intervals. This is yet another example of an outstation service which, according to the view from the centre, is only worth providing to a certain size of population. Its absence may hinder an outstation from ever achieving that population size. High mobility among outstation populations, an important characteristic at all times, is a further factor preventing the establishment of such services.

Money - Employment, Social Sectority

While outstation populations have, on the whole, developed a lifestyle in which non-material Aboriginal elements are more prominent than in a large centralised settlement, access to certain services and also to the monetary economy are essential to their survival. Money is needed not only for food but also for clothing, petrol, cooking equipment, rifles, tents and many other goods of value in the bush situation. As in the large communities it comes from two main sources: wages and social security payments. Insome outstations people also earn considerable sums through their own activities or from royalty moneys.

Wage earning opportunities in outstations are, for the most part, few in number. Approximately 16 per cent of those aged over 15 had jobs, and, for individual areas, the proportion employed ranged from 5.2 per cent (area 6) to 39.1 per cent (area 3) (Table F). In individual groups such as Docker River, Ngukurr and Numbulwar not a single adult earned wages. If area 3, which included several outstation groups involved in the Community Development Employment Programme (CDEP), is excluded the proportion of adults earning wages is only 9.3 per cent. Lack of employment in outstations reflects the lack of an infrastructure which is responsible for many central settlement jobs (e.g. collecting garbage, constructing houses, operating the power house, teaching, working in the shop). The CDEP system in the Pitjantjatjara region takes account of the fact that some of these types of job are desirable in outstations but would otherwise be done on an unpaid basis or would not be done at all. Other outstation wage jobs may be connected with specific enterprises, such as working on the cattle project.

Self-employment, either in artefact production or commercial food production (e.g. fishing for cash sale), has contributed significantly to the incomes of some outstation groups. in the Top End outstation dwellers in Maningrida, Milingimbi and Yirrkala have earned considerable sums through selling carvings, paintings and woven objects. The success of such ventures depends heavily on an efficient marketing system, a service which has existed in all these places. Other outstation groups have been less fortunate and it is unrealistic to expect such groups to become significantly involved in such enterprises without the relevant type of support.

78

Without either jobs or the chance for self-employment outstation people are forced to derive most of their income from social security payments, mainly unemployment benefits or pensions. Unemployment benefits were being paid to 29.4 per cent of adults in outstation groups, with the lowest percentage (9.0) in area 3 and the highest (52.0) in area 5. Afurther 14.3 per cent said that they were unemployed (i.e. were not working although theywould like to work) but were not receiving benefits. Differences in the level of unemployment benefit receipt reflects a number of factors: the effectiveness of deliveryboth from the outstation resource centre and from the regional office of the department, the policy of the community towards applying for benefits; and the other income-earning opportunities which are available. As the above figures indicate approximately two-thirds of those who should have been receiving unemployment benefits (i.e. were members of thelabour force but did not have jobs) were in fact receiving cheques. Considering that suchcheques only continue if paper work is regularly maintained (undoubtedly a problem in outstations where communications are frequently disrupted and populations are mobile), this represents an improvement in recent times. Yuendumu outstations in 1978 had 5 adults (10 per cent of the population) on unemployment benefit and in 1981 35 per cent (30 people) in outstations were receiving such benefits. One factor behind these recent changes is a shift in policy at the regional level; in early 1979 the payment of unemployment benefits to outstation dwellers in Arnhem Land was discouraged because it was felt that they could either earn sufficient income through self-employment or could provide sufficient food through subsistence to enable them to live on low incomes; in the desert applications from outstation dwellers were treated more sympathetically because it was felt that they had little opportunity to earn an income in any other way.

A further reason why some communities had no outstation dwellers on unemployment benefit was that they were opposed to using this as a form of income support. Yirrkala (area 5) was an example of this type. In Numbulwar outstation 18 adults (51.4 per cent of the population) received the benefit in 1981 while in 1978, when the community were in general still strongly against this system, there were no recipients. In both these communities attitudes are probably related to the strong influence of the missions,Uniting Church and Church Missionary Society respectively and in Yirrkala at least the entire community development program promotes a policy of self-help in the outstation situation.

Finally, outstations with the CDEP system, which is based on estimates of the eligibility for unemployment benefits, had no recipients. These were all located in area 3.

A further 23.1 per cent of adults in outstations were on pensions - age and invalid pensions, widow's pensions, sickness and supporting mother's benefits. Variations between different areas reflect differences in the age and sex composition of outstation groups. Area 3, where almost 35 per cent of adults were on pensions, had a high percentage of old people, while in area 5, where the number of pensioners was almost double that of the aged, it can be assumed that many received payments as widows, invalids or supporting parents. This is further confirmed by the low masculinity ratio for that area (0.85), which suggests that considerable numbers of single women were in outstations.

The delivery of social security to outstation groups varies according to the arrangements which exist in the central settlement and according to the organisation of the resource centre. In some communities outstations receive no special provision and all recipients are expected to travel to the centre to pick up their own cheques and cash them. This is both costly, in terms of transport, and disruptive, in terms of outstation activities. In other communities an outstation run, often combining social security, savings bank and store, delivers the cheques to the recipients and at the same time provides them with the goods on which to spend their money. If properly organised these runs also allow for immediate checks on payment problems, and for completion of the statutory unemployment benefit applications. Unfortunately this type of delivery system, which takes the service to the people, is easily disrupted by changing circumstances either in the outstation or resource centre, and outstation groups commonly find

79

themselves having to revert to making their own arrangements. The assertion that some families are unwilling to commit themselves to moving to the outstation because of problems in receiving pensions and benefits is probably, to some extent, valid.

Almost one-third of outstation adults had no source of income (Table F). As the range suggests (58.7 per cent in area 1 and 11.1 per cent in area 5) this reflects both employment opportunities and the efficiency of social security delivery, and is a major reason for differences in income. Rough estimates, based on social security payments and unskilled labour rates for mid 1981, show that average per capita income for the whole population was $63 per fortnight but incomes ranged from $41 (area 4) to $74 (area 5) (Figures used are as follows: pensions - $130/fortnight; unemployment benefit and CDEP -$135/fortnight; wages - $200 per fortnight). There was no clear distinction between Top End and Central Australian areas. The most important factor appears to be receipt of unemployment benefit or, in the case of area 3, involvement in an alternative form of income support such as CDEP. Comparisons with other surveys are difficult because of rises in living costs. While the average per capita income in Yuendumu's outstations rose from $57 in 1978 to $65 in 1981, this represents a drop in real terms if inflation is taken into account.

Conclusion

Although the analysis presented here lacks the finer details of in-depth studies, it clarifies some important general considerations affecting outstation development and maintenance. First, it is unrealistic to imagine that an outstation group can survive in isolation from the resource centre. Certain amenities, in particular communications, health services, income support and water supplies are essential. While in some circumstances requests for these services may be based partly on the fact that people see them as a visible sign of status enhancement (especially Toyotas), most of these demands represent a real need. Secondly, the prime reason for the existence of most outstation groups remains their contact with land for which, in customary terms, they feel responsible. Even when they are unable, for a variety of reasons, to maintain such a contact directly, they attempt to reach an acceptable compromise, for example, establishing their outstation on land belonging to other people but adjacent to their own. Their ultimate aim would be to return to their own prime sites. Thirdly, the relative importance of these two components - the association with the land and an infrastructure appropriate to support the chosen lifestyle - varies between different regions and between individual outstations. Other variations, important in terms of broad policy-making and planning, include environmental and seasonal differences, population fluctuations and differences in both past and present cultural and economic contacts with the outside non-Aboriginal world. In the final understanding all of these components should be recognised.

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TABUE A*

Location, Land Tenure

Distance

Total

ea No. of Aver. from Resource Centre No. onoutstations Pop. <50km 50-100km 100 + trad.

1 6 16.8 2 2 2 62 43 28.6 26 10 7 203 32 26.2 15 12 5 324 8 23.8 6 1 1 85 41 26.2 26 10 5 386 21 23.9 10 8 3 21

151 26.0 85 43 23 125

land

♦For all tables,Area 1 - Nguiu (Bathurst Island), Port Keats, Wagait

2 - Areyonga, Haasts Bluff, Hermannsburg, Papunya,Utopia, Yuend’umu

3 - Amata, Docker River, Wingellina, Blackstone,Pipalyatjara, Ernabella, Warburton/Jameson

4 - Borroloola, Lajamanu, Ngukurr

5 - Angurugu, Galiwinku, Gapuwiyak, Milingimbi,Numbulwar, Ramingining, Unbakumba, Yirrkala

6 - Maningrida, Oenpelli

81

TABLE B

Demographic Characteristics

AREA Total Pop. 0-14- %

Masculinity'

Population Total Ratio

1 101 8.9 1.062 1228 39.7 1.003 837 35.2 0.934 190 47.9 1.095 1074 42.8 0.856 502 46.6 0.94

Total 3932 40.1 0.94

♦Masculinity ratio = Males

Females

♦♦Dependency ratio = Children 0-14 + Adults 60 +

Adults 15-59

Dependency**

Ratio

0.150.951. 011.260.991. 21

0.98

82

Total

%

AREA

TABLE C

Water Supply

TotalArea Town River/ Bore Soak Other No. of

Lagoon Outstations

1 - 3 1 2 - 62 10 1 20 8 4 433 3 - 21 7 1 324 - 2 3 2 1 85 2 12 15 9 3 416 - 17 1 3 - 21

15 35 61 37 9 151

10.8 20.4 48.9 18.3 4.5 100.0

TABLE D

Shelter (% of all shelters)

Traditional/ Prefab. Multi-room No . ofImprovised Huts Dwelling Shelters

1 60.7 39.3 - 282 68.4 30.9 0.7 2823 93.9 5.6 0.4 2314 97.3 2.8 - 365 71.0 6. 1 22.9 2146 87.1 6.8 6. 1 132

78.9 14.5 6.5 923Total

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84

85

DIANE BELL

OUTSTATIONS: REFLECTIONS FROM THE CENTRE

Perspectives on the discussion

Is the movement the hope for the future of Aboriginal society or is it merely a push for more Toyotas and tents? Comments on service delivery to outstations reflect in critical ways the point of contact and nature of the involvement of the analyst; from public servants charged with implementation of government policy one hears expressions of enthusiastic support, measured concern and outright cynicism; from social scientists - the anthropologists, demographers, political scientists - one hears of land relationships, religious considerations, social organisation, population structures, power games and the like. While it is undoubtedly unfair to suggest that an unbridgeable gap exists between the implementers of policy and the social scientist (indeed there is overlap of personnel and duties) it was nonetheless evident during the NARU conference that each drew on distinctive conceptual tools in presenting their position and defining 'the problem' and in turn that each benefited from a forum in which ideas could be exchanged.

The issues raised by the conference are ones which cross boundaries and which facilitate communication of ideas and data between otherwise disparate parties. Without analyses of the overall structure and meaning of the movement those who deliver services will be drawn increasingly into engaging in crisis management and ad hoc administrative arrangements. Without an understanding of policy and the aspirations of those who deliver the services, the way in which the movement is shaped by policy and personnel will be hazily understood. Without access to community profiles and case history material the documentation of a period of rapid social change will be impoverished. Ideology will indeed masquerade as explanation. Hence my plea is for the dialogue of the conference to continue.

Because the issues raised by the papers are important at more than a local level, the debate should be widened to include data from other areas of the NT, especially from the settlements, towns, missions and cattle stations of the Centre. Some of the differences between the Centre and the Top End are discussed by Elspeth Young in a paper based on data not available in the Territory at the time of the conference. Her paper balances those which, at the time, read like the Maningrida handbook. While there is great value in the presentation of several fine grain analyses of one complex situation - which Maningrida undoubtedly is - there is also a need to set other data alongside those from the Top End. Somewhere between the Machiavellian power plays enacted by dominant and prominent men as Gerritsen describes them and the romantic image of the prophet leading the people back to traditional lands, lies the reality of the fragmentation of Aboriginal communities (be they mission, cattle station, settlements or towns) which has gained momentum in the past decade. In reflecting on the conference papers I point to comparative data from Central Australia and suggest that a profitable line of analysis can be pursued which takes account of political analyses like Gerritsen's but which locates such positions within a broader socio-cultural and historical perspective. In so doing one moves a little closer to a central perspective.

Outstation or Homeland?

The mode of characterising the movement is important for only when the nature of the links to the larger community are understood can effective consultation regarding priorities be undertaken. From a European point of view it is a movement away from service centres and hence is an outstation movement; for the people establishing the new community it is a movement to something (be the motivation religious, economic or social)

86

and so it is often termed a homeland movement. The way in which communication networks are perceived from the service centre and by the new community illustrates this point. As Bryan and Reid note, inadequate communication facilities can be a constraining factor on the establishment of a new community but to this I would add that once a community has made the move, its use of a communications network alters in subtle ways. No longer is the emphasis on the link to the service centre but rather on the ability of the community to seek assistance when required and on the new possibility of by-passing the centre altogether and speaking directly to other new communities. Once established and in control of their communication with others, people feel free to transmit information in culturally appropriate forms and their messages are backed by the authority of people who are living on land for which they are directly responsible. This power over their own word is manifest in the confidence with which people use their networks. No longer are they a remote community receiving services, they are a centre which transmits to other centres.

Let me give another example but this time with reference to roads as the communication network. One new community which is in the process of being established to the west of Tennant Creek could most conveniently be serviced from that town and indeed the easy road access is an important factor when people discuss the running of the community. However the location of Pawurrinji is part of a much larger Aboriginal master plan of road networks for the desert region encompassing Yuendumu, Willowra, Lajamanu and Ali-curang. The Pawurrinji site iself is of intense religious significance and stands at the intersection of the major dreaming tracks of diamond dove, willy^wag-tail and seed which span the desert and provide links between desert communities. The road network as envisaged will take advantage of service tracks to so-called 'outstations' but will then provide links between the communities. Pawurrinji will stand as the grand central station of the desert. As with other communication networks, once the roads are under Aboriginal control they may be used in a distinctively Aboriginal fashion. At present for ceremonies to travel from Willowra to Lajamanu they must back-track to the Stuart Highway and travel a circuitous route. By travelling through the desert, along roads which resound with the echoes of the ancestral heroes, the danger of the unsuspecting or ignorant happening upon a 'business road' will be minimized. Communication of travelling business at present must be 'broadcast' through highly inappropriate means and frequently people prefer to limit ceremonial business rather than run the risk of outsiders learning of their secrets. Thus I suggest that while roads and radio contact may initially be designed to provide a link to the service centre which was once under Aboriginal control, the focus of the flow of information will shift in such a way as to reduce traffic to the service centre and to redefine the network.

Beyond the case studies

Data from the Centre illuminate the Top End experience and in so doing highlight the danger of formulating policy in response to one case study area. When discussion regarding the dynamics of specific communities is located within the wider context of Northern Territory society, patterns emerge, generalisations may be proposed and hypotheses tested. To focus on one community, such as Ngukurr, as the model of settlement/outstation power relationships denies the shaping influence of history on regional socio-cultural formations. To be fair to Gerritsen he does emphasize that his work is in one area but the generalized nature of his categories of leadership invites one to apply the analysis elsewhere. In an area such as Ngukurr one must consider the mission influence wherein certain individuals have been groomed as leaders and the severe disruption to land-based relationships which has occurred. All of this has happened within the context of a region of elaborately and intensely staged ritual politics. Bern (1974) has written of the ritual politics of the Roper River region and the interface between what he terms 'Blackfella businessrwhitefella law'. In the past, one might say the power plays were for ritual control of scarce ceremonial resources; today the 'limited good' is the Toyota. From this perspective the shift is one of degree, not kind.

87

New items are incorporated within old structures and value systems and thereby brought under control.

To make any real sense of the fluctuations of leadership in a community, the political action of the region must be viewed through time. It may be that the second rung of the political leaders - those who established the outstations of Ngukurr - while no doubt motivated by considerations such as those Gerritsen identifies - are also reasserting land-based relationships which have not been as disrupted as those of persons who have risen to the ranks of 'dominant men' on the mission. One of the defining characteristics of Aboriginal political systems is their extreme flexibility. However this can be known only by tracing the fortunes of individuals and groups through time because what I have elsewhere termed 'the dogma to immutability' masks the shifts in power relations within and between groups and creates the illusion of stasis. While all resources are concentrated on the mission, the person who can play the entrepreneurial role will be dominant. Such a person's status is based on an involvement in the white feller business and I would see those who seek to establish new communities as issuing a challenge to such persons and to the basis of their power. By reasserting ties to the land and by gaining access to scarce resources, the so-called prominent men are entering into another round and may ultimately tip the political leadership scales in the delicate system of checks and balances. If the dominant men of the mission are left without a sizable group to dominate, their claim to status is undermined. In time those living in new, smaller communities flex their muscles and demonstrate their independence and control over services. Their non-involvement in the white feller business of the mission then becomes a source of strength.

One community south east of Tennant Creek - Ngurrantiji - provides a contrast to the Ngukurr scene. I have known the families since 1976 and been able to observe the way in which their self-perceptions and the responses of others have changed through time. In early 1977 the Aboriginal employees of Kurundi cattle station walked off and relocated to the north of the homestead, at a site known as Ngurrantiji, on a corridor of vacant land (see Bell 1978). Prior to 1976 their involvement in white feller business had been limited to their interactions with the station management, patrol officers, a visiting sister and a yearly trip to town - i.e. Tennant Creek - where they were overawed and retiring. The core family of the group enjoyed high status in terms of their importance as land holders and ceremonial leaders in the area. Once independent of the station, they increasingly chose to look to Tennant Creek as their service centre. One became the Central Land Council (CLC) representative for the community and today travels from Alice Springs to Darwin to attend meetings at which he speaks authoritatively. In town, amidst Aboriginal people who have lived all their lives in Tennant Creek, this group stands out. Transactions in banks are confidently executed, their mail is delivered to a private PO box, they seek out the persons they wish to see, town people defer to them, service delivery personnel admire them. They become leaders outside their group and while they might qualify as prominent men, it would be a category thrust upon them.

The Pintupi movement back into their desert homeland is also an interesting contrast to the Roper River experience. The Pintupi at Papunya, although numerically strong, like the Pintupi at Yuendumu (where they are outnumbered by the Warlpiri) are conspicuous by their absence from white-feller business. Their coming-in from the desert (in the early 1960s) is within one generation's memory and claims to status are based on land affiliations and ceremonial importance. Their return began as soon as a long drought had broken but they have not yet filtered back into the depths of their own land because communications are extremely difficult. They have however removed themselves far enough from the large centres to be able to function as autonomous groups in terms of law and order.

88

Land Claims

To understand the dynamics of the new desert communities, we need to look at recent events such as the Tanami desert land claim, the Warlmanpa, Warlpiri, Mudbara and Warumungu claim and the Kaytej (Kaititj) claim which have provided (or will provide in the near future) security of tenure to land from which people had been forcefully removed and relocated several generations earlier. With reference to this area we are fortunate to have access to the rich source material produced during a land claim: claim books, exhibits, transcripts and the reports of the Aboriginal Land Commission all provide up-to-date information on the movement away from the major centres of population density.

In reporting on the evidence of the Warlpiri and Kartangarurru-Kurintji claim (the first claim in Central Australi), Mr Justice Toohey (1978:para 237) wrote:

Both at Lajumanu and Yuendumu witnesses, men and women, spoke of their desire to live away from the settlements whether permanently or temporarily and of the need to have vehicles, water and the benefits of health services and education. The evidence indicated plans by the claimants for some fifteen outstations on traditional country.

By late 1979 Young (1981:70) reported that six of the proposed centres had been established, all on land now under Aboriginal control. Plans for others, she comments, had not been realised due to problems with water, transport and land tenure.

To follow the fortunes of these centres we have also Junga Yimi, the bilingual newsletter of Yuendumu, which carries articles about the hopes, plans and frustrations of those seeking to move away from the settlement and up-to-date information regarding services (see 1981 Vol. 9, No.3:20 for a map of the centres and the linking roads).

Further to the north in the areas of the Warlmanpa and Kaytej claims, witnesses also spoke of their desire to move back. The Warlpiri movement off Warrabri appears to be in two stages. Firstly to Tennant Creek: the Warlpiri have been moving off the settlementwhich was traditionally Kaititj/Alyawarra country and where Warlpiri have been somewhat unwelcome guests since their forced relocation in the 1950s from Phillip Creek settlement. The move off Warrabri gained momentum in the late 70s and while toing and froing still goes on, many have set up camp in Tennant Creek. From there they are entering into the second phase of their move back into their own country to the west of the town. At present their move is being frustrated by the way in which their proposed bore moves on and off the list of priorities of the appropriate government departments. In speaking of the move back into their country people stress their desire to leave the strife-torn life of settlements and to live as a family unit on the land of their forebears.

Topsy Napurrula Nelson (1980:278-279) explained in giving evidence to the Warlmanpa claim about her father's desire to return.

Yes but he was trying to go to Pawurrinji; trying to reach his country to go back and die in his own place ... Because they like to go back to their own land, back to the place they come from and where they were born. That is why old people (some of them who are still young) want to go back in peace to their country. This is my father's family, because my grandfather was really proud of his people. He was really proud of all the people and they were coming to his place. He

L

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never made a bad enemy from every track and every place, he never made a bad enemy, never. He was really friendly and they are his people and they are still my father's people, and they want to go back Pawurrinji.This place is somebody else's sacred site and they are buried up in someone else's sacred site tree over there. They want to go back to their own land and sacred site ... All the people of Pawurrinji want to go back to Pawurrinji because a lot of old people have been passed away, and some of them young people never look back to that country and sacred site, even old people.

The Jarra-Jarra group of Warrabri who have attempted to return to their country west of Warrabri since 1976 have been thwarted by lack of water and the problem of the maintenance of access roads which must cross wide flood outs. While the homeland centre has been seen as the result of a move off Warrabri, and the Warrabri budget was spent on grading the access road, it could be serviced more sensibly from Willowra. Peter Horsetailer (1982:90) spoke of plans to return in giving evidence in the Kaytej claim:

I was thinking about Stirling Station because it is on a pastoral lease, but I don't think we can take that country away from the station. What we are thinking now, like the way I am thinking, is that I can have the same country I am talking about today for that Crown Land.

Of the practicalities Peter Horsetailer (1982:83) stated:

PETER HORSETAILER: I been asking about that land, someone going tohelp us.MR HOWIE: What sort of help do you need?PETER HORSETAILER: Putting down a bore or something.MR HOWIE: You want a bore?PETER HORSETAILER: And truck or tank.MR HOWIE: A truck?PETER HORSETAILER: Yes.MR HOWIE: Why do you want a truck for?PETER HORSETAILER: We've got to shift there.MR HOWIE: You have to shift them out there?PETER HORSETAILER: Yes.MR HOWIE: If you lived at some place out there, Peter, what aboutfood? What would you do for food?PETER HORSETAILER: We might get food from the European people.MR HOWIE: How would you do that?PETER HORSETAILER: Because we've been working long enough for theEuropean people. We've been working. We want - we can take too because we've been working in the mine; we've been working on the cattle station; we've been droving cattle. That's why we ask them. MR HOWIE: Do you reckon you need a store out there?PETER HORSETAILER: Yes, we want a store.MR HOWIE: What about bush tucker? Is there enough bush tucker?PETER HORSETAILER: Bush tucker and a store, we want.

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The social organisation and system of land tenure of the group must also be considered to understand the structure of new communities. Desert dwellers emphasise the inclusivity of the group. Ties may be established in a multiplicity of ways: throughcountry of father, mother, wives; residence; ceremonial rights; conception dreamings; subsection affiliation and so on. Ties may also be established across vast distances: dreaming tracks link sites and their owners. This allows an individual a degree of flexibility and, in the event of a dispute, the possibility of gaining membership of another group. On the other hand, I see an emphasis on principle of exclusivity in Top End group structure; clan territory and membership are rigidly maintained.

The flux of desert social life was evident in precontact land use patterns. During times of plenty, after rains, groups fanned out across the land. When the peripheral waters began to dry up they retreated to the permanent water. A similar ebb and flow is now apparent in the movement in and out of settlements and towns by the residents of new communities. By contrast in the Top End, the ebb and flow is tied to the dry and wet, a much more predictable seasonal round than that of rains in the Centre.

In areas where security of tenure has become a reality through land rights, the injection of cash is a catalyst to movement rather than a motivation. I would suggest that the land/kin complex of values and the possibility of the maintenance of law and order in small groups is the sustaining ideal of the movement away from large centres. Material goods provide the hardware; they are the necessary but not the sufficient conditions in the establishment of a new centre.

Cattle Stations

One needs also to look at the movement of cattle stations. Like the movement away from the settlement this is also multi-faceted. There is the disenchantment with employer relationships (see Kurintji walk-off), the desire to stake claims to unalienated crown land, the desire to remain close to the country for which one is responsible and to raise children within an environment in which the controls are in part Aboriginal. Underlying the fragmentation of cattle station populations there are, in common with settlements, important social structural considerations which are reflected in the groups people form. This is well illustrated by the form of the local Aboriginal companies which manage the cattle enterprises at Willowra and at Utopia. Each reflects local leadership and authority structures but does so in distinctive ways. In analysing the situation Bell & Ditton (1980:45-46) wrote:

At Utopia, the people have found a workable solution to the co-residence of five different clan groups on the pastoral property by breaking the running of the property into smaller units. To do this they have moved away from the homestead area which, during the time of white managers and owners, provided the focus of the station. The dispersal has eased many of the tensions which had built up over the years of white ownership and management. It has also enabled people to manage their own affairs in smaller more homogeneous groups. The three groups which now manage the cattle at Utopia share rights in land in the area chosen as the residential site for their group more equally within the group, than they did when co-resident with the other land-holding groups at the station. At Willowra the population concentration is still near the homestead although there is some talk of establishing a homeland movement further north on the lease. The camps are spread out so as to allow proper separation of different groups.

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The orientation of camps reflects dreaming ties to country and family obligations. The directors of the Willowra cattle company are from the major land holding units in the lease area and the Willowra community so far appears to be able to achieve consensus amongst these groups in this united fashion.

Local organisation amongst the desert-dwelling Warlpiri is more diffuse than that of the Aranda who inhabit relatively well-watered areas. Where the pattern in the past has been one of clearly defined territorial units, these have reasserted themselves as at Utopia. The Willowra Warlpiri on the other hand appear to have accentuated their community identity as Lander Warlpiri. This Meggitt (1962) aruges is the highest level of corporate action.

The Towns

I have been speaking of 'new communities' (Aborigines in the Centre often speak of 'the new place') because I think that the process of fragmentation is much wider than the terms 'outstation' or 'homeland movement' imply. I see the situation in the towns as part of a total phenomenon and this cannot easily be described as an outstation movement. It is however a move to establish small family groups and to tie their identity to a particular piece of land - that this land is within the town boundary is a reflection of their history not a comment on their social organization (see Bell and Ditton,1980:81-90).

In Alice Springs, following the hearings of Mr Justice Ward, the interim Land Commissioner, and through the work of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Panel and later Tangentyere (see Heppell & Wigley 1981) there have been powerful moves to formalize the situation of the so-called fringe dwellers (see also Ian Yule's paper on Yipirinya school, Yule, 1982). The people have re-defined as 'town campers' - to remove the image of the itinerant - and lodged claims for town leases which include reference to their ties to locality. In the process of lodging these applications redefinition of camps has occurred and each group now approximates to a family group (with the possible exception of the out-of-towners camp. By separating the rationale of these town communities from that of the others in more remote areas, the service requirements of twon people may be ignored or dismissed.

In June 1981, Lands Minister Jim Robertson spoke of the way in which illegal camping on areas under application for leases and claims to sacred sites was 'ring barking' Alice Springs (Centralian Advocate 24 June 1981). Yet I would argue that the town camps share many of the features of the so-called outstations which in order to qualify for assistance must demonstrate their sincerity by camping on their chosen site. In the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs reference on Fringe Dwelling Aboriginal communities, much valuable information is becoming available (see House of Representatives, 1981, Bell, 304-318; Brandi 92-107; Drakakis-Smith 263-303). It is to be hoped that Aboriginal opinion will be recorded by this committee.

Concluding comment

The essentially fluid nature of the structure and life of new communities frustrates those who prepare projected estimates and excites those who grapple with the nature of the impact of the changes wrought by a century or more of intrusion into and use of Aboriginal land. The bibliography in this collection offers a representative sampling of material from social scientists but is sadly lacking in references to views of the persons on the

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spot. Indeed their perceptions are recorded rarely and then only in memos and interdepartmental reports. The NARU conference was important in that such views were recorded and available for comment. In reflecting on the conference I have suggested we look to sources where Aboriginal perceptions are recorded and that we look to comparative material and allow that socio-cultural and historical factors are important to an understanding of the form which new communities will take and in turn the services they will require.

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AID, 1980. Agency for International Development, Two Way Radio for Rural Health Care: AnOverview, AID, Washington D.C.

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Bell, D., 1978. For Our Families: the Kurundi Walk-off and the Ngurrantji Venture. InAboriginal History, 2, 1, 32-62.

Bell, D. & P. Ditton, 1980. Law: the Old and the New, Aboriginal women in CentralAustralia Speak out, Canberra, Aboriginal History, ANU Press.

Bern, J., 1974. Blackfella business; whitefella law: political struggle and competitionin a SE Arnhemland Aboriginal Community, unpublished PhD thesis, Macquarie University.

Berndt, R.M., 1962. An adjustment movement in Arnhem Land. Mouton, Paris.

Boorsboom, A.P., 1978. Maradjiri, A modern ritual complex in Arnhem Land, NorthAustralia. Unpublished thesis, Katholieke Universiteit te Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Bradshaw, J., 1974. The Concept of Social Need. In Ekistics 37, 220, March, 184-187.

Brokensha, Peter and McGuigan, Chris, 1977. Listen to the Dreaming: the AboriginalHomelands Movement. In Australian Natural History 19, 4, 119-123.

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Congdon, R.L., 1977. Introduction to Appropriate Technology, Rodaie Press, Emmaus, Pa.

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DAA, 1981b. Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Science and Technology for Aboriginals in Outstation Communities, DAA, Canberra.

DAA, 1981c. 1981 Community Profile Statistical Collection: Supplementary Tables on A2(Outstation) Communities, Statistical Section, DAA, Canberra.

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Darrow, K., Keller, K. and Pam, R., 1981. Appropriate Technology Sourcebook, Volunteersin Asia Publication.

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Fishman, J., 1976. Bilingual Education. Newbury House, Rowley, Mass.

Gale, K., McClay, D., Christie, M. and Harris, S., forthcoming. Milingimbi bilingual education: results in the three R's. TESOL Quarterly and Two languages ineducation. NT Department of Education, Darwin.

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Gray, W.J., 1975. Community Development and Decentralisation in Arnhem Land:Implications for the Australian Government. Manchester, Department of Adult Education, University of Manchester. Diploma of Community Development, unpublished thesis.

Gray, W.J., 1977. Decentralisation Trends in Arnhem Land. In R.M. Berndt (ed.),Aborigines and Change: Australia in the '70s. Australian Institute of AboriginalStudies, Canberra, 114-123.

Griffin, G.F. and Lendon, C., 1979. A Report on Visits Through Three AboriginalHomelands in Central Australia, CSIRO Division of Land Resources Management, Perth.

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Hart, B.T., 1974. A Compilation of Australian Water Quality Criteria, AGPS, Canberra.

Haslett, R. and Whiteford, R., 1980. All Responsibility Will Be With the Parents:Outstation Education in the Northern Territory. In Aboriginal Child at School 8, 1,31-45.

Haynes, C.D., 1978. Land, Trees and Man (Gunret, Gundulk, Dja Bining). In Commonwe a1thForestry Review 57, 2, 99-106.

Hem, J.D., nd. Study and Interpretation of the Chemical Characteristics of Natural Water, US Department of the Interior, Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 1473, second edition.

Heppell, M. & J.J. Wigley, 1981. Black out in Alice: a history of the establishmentand development of town camps in Alice Springs, Canberra, ANU.

Hiatt, L.R., 1965. Kinship and Conflict - A Study of an Aboriginal Community in Northern Arnhem Land, ANU Press, Canberra.

Horsetailer, P. 1982. His evidence in the transcripts of the Proceedings, Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, 1976 re the Kaytej, Warlpiri and Warlmanpa claim, before his Honour Mr Justice Toohey, Aboriginal Land Commissioner, Warrabri, 7 December.

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Appendix

Aboriginal population in the Northern Territory - first half of 1981

Aboriginal No of Communities M F Totaltownships on Aboriginal

38 NT 7860 7870 15730

Land/Reserves 122 Aust 20692 20168 40860

NT as per cent of Aust 31.1 37.9 39.0 38.5

Outstations and other small

207 NT 3862 3921 7783

groups 271 Aust 5055 5112 10167

NT as per cent of Aust 76.4 76.4 76.4 76.6

Cities 1 NT 180 190 3701 Aust 43285 42732 86017

NT as per cent of Aust - 0.41 0.44 0.43

Towns 35 NT 2748 2674 5422442 Aust 36573 34868 71441

NT as per cent Aust 7.9 7.5 7.7 7.6

All 281 NT 14650 14655 29305Communities 893 Aust 105605 102880 208485

NT as per cent Aust 31.5 13.9 14.2 14.1

NB Cities figure for NT is underestimated because suburban self-identified Aborigines in Darwin are not counted, only those at Bagot Reserve. (Source: DAA, 1981a).