An Aboriginal reflection on Phantom Island viewed from Palm Island
(thanx to Creed photography-Palm Island)

another Aborigional view from Palm Island (thanx to Qld. Police - Palm Island)

Two non-Aboriginal reflections on Palm Island
The first of these stories is from Monique Bond, the second is by kalkadoon.org editor, John Tracey.

Monique Bond is a long time supporter of Aboriginal Australia and a member of ANTAR in Brisbane. She recently visited Palm Island during the coronial inquiry into a death in custody in 2004 which sparked the destruction of the Palm Island police complex.

After Visiting Palm Island 25-28 February 2006
by Monique Bond

Recently, Graham and I went to Palm Island to visit our friend Erykah Kyle and to attend the resumed inquest on the death in custody of Cameron (now known at Mulrunji) Doomadgee.

Hanging out and walking around this beautiful island, I saw: active, laughing children, friendly people giving us a wave, parents taking babies and toddlers out to get the cool breeze, some nice looking houses but many more looking derelict, with smashed windows and unkempt gardens, and the police houses, and the new Police Youth Centre, barricaded behind high wire fences..

I was surprised to see how obvious the power imbalance was. The non-locals working on the island are privileged and powerful by virtue of their education, their employment level and their status as whites or honorary whites.

Palm Islanders may have cultural knowledge and local knowledge about hunting and fishing but it is their lack of education, employment and standard English which seem to matter when their status as people is judged by mainlanders.

During the cross-examination of local witnesses at the inquest, it was clear that there is a significant difference in how the locals and the barristers speak English and in the perceptions and assumptions that the speakers are coming from. So simple questions of fact become misunderstandings based on a lack of shared experiences. For example, a man who is asked how much he has been drinking, might answer ‘a carton’ but he does not mean that he personally drank all that – rather that was the amount shared by all the people present. This is obvious to the locals but not at all obvious to the barristers, journalists and others, like me, present in court.

Talking with Erykah and other Palm residents, there is great energy and enthusiasm for doing the things which would make life better for the community. They want better housing, (housing is a major problem on the island, with chronic overcrowding being a contributing factor to many social problems) more culturally appropriate education, proper employment, food grown on the island, running and even owning the stores themselves…. so why do these things not happen.

The Palm Island Council is seriously under-resourced, because it was set up as a penal colony administered by the State Government, and then converted to a DOGIT or Deed of Grant in Trust community. The Council currently has no economic base but it needs to be able to negotiate, on a level playing field, with the numerous state and federal government departments which are continually coming up with plans to ‘fix things’ or to ‘do things’ on Palm.

Unfortunately, the Queensland Government does not allocate the Council sufficient resources to carry out the community consultations and then the overall planning which are needed. So, decisions are made on the mainland which are not ‘owned’ nor accepted by the local people and the priorities of the islanders are ignored.

I call on Peter Beattie and John Howard to allocate the Council sufficient funds to develop a 5 year Plan with prioritized objectives and timeline and to commit their governments to work with the Council with sufficient resources and people to achieve the Council objectives.

After a hundred years of ‘top-down’ management on Palm Island, it is time to give the ‘grass-roots up’ approach a fair go.

Aboriginal Self Determination - It’s common sense, not politics.
by John Tracey

I am writing this article from Palm Island, an Aboriginal community of 3-4000 people off the coast of Townsville in Queensland. It is a spectacular Island with magnificent mountains, beaches and wildlife of all sorts. I have just watched the new moon plummit into its own reflection on the calm high tide. It strikes me that this is one of the few real wilderness areas left in Australia, where human beings still live in the bush; unlike national parks where the people have been killed or removed to make way for the illusion of “the untouched wilderness“, undisturbed by human intervention.
Today I witnessed two disturbances involving alcohol. One was managed by the local police and the other by my local guide and junior law-man on the Island. The first incident involved a large party that had been going on for some time. I don’t know what circumstances lead to the police turning up, but they did. For about an hour the neighborhood was in chaos, people running from here to there and lots of screaming. The police walked through the houses and yards of the party and neighbors, confronting people and at one stage pushing a person backwards when they tried to walk away. Eventually one person was arrested on a warrant for an unpaid fine. This incident occured on the closing day of the coronial inquest into the death in the Palm Island watch house in 2004. It represents the very poor relationship between the police and locals. As such, it seems to me, that this incident had nothing to do with public order, safety or concern for the rights of neighbours. It was simply the police taking a high profile at the party as a warning. The arrest had nothing to do with any illegal activity at the time.
The other alcohol-related incident did involve issues of safety and public order. It involved a group of people standing around a road in the dark of night and at least one of them being very drunk, he was blocking traffic while arguing with those around. My local guide and I were driving on that road when we were stopped. My guide told me to stop the car beside the man on the road. He told the person to get off the road, a demand which was met with aggressive threats and the challenge “make me”. My guide got out of the car and “made him“, through force. At this point I got very concerned as I thought an all out brawl was about to explode, however after only a couple of minutes the two were walking down the road with there arms around each other sharing a beer. My guide took the young man to his home and left him in the care of his family. What I was not aware of, and hence my concern, was the respect that my guide had from the young man and his family. His intervention was welcomed by all involved and it calmed the situation down, thus removing the real threat of a traffic accident, a fight or arrests.
This latter incident, that of the exercise of authority through respect reminded me of the one and only riot that I have witnessed. In 1988, on the day of the big bicentennial Land rights march in Sydney, a large crowd gathered in the only Aboriginal owned pub in Sydney at the time. There were several thousand people in a pub that can hold several hundred at the most. The crowd overflowed onto the footpath at first and then onto the road, blocking traffic. A truck driver, frustrated at the road being blocked, drove onto the footpath knocking some people over. The crowd dragged the driver from the truck and attacked hinm until the police managed to rescue him. The police were out numbered and being showered with glasses bottles and bricks and retreated from the crowd. As I was wondering what the police’s next move would be, one Aboriginal man walked alone into the crowd and told people to move back onto the footpath or inside the pub - and they did, everyone. When the police finally turned up with reinforcements and full riot gear, there only job was to direct traffic to get it flowing again. One un-armed and un-armoured man had already dealt with the situation. I can only guess what would have happened if the police had returned before the lone elder.
There is much truth to the assertions that many Aboriginal people suffer mental health problems as a result of the history of invasion and colonaisation. Intergenerational crisis and anxiety are indeed major obstacles to Aboriginal prosperity. However I am not as convinced as I recently was that history is the prime cause of poverty and dysfunction in Aboriginal communities. It is what happens today and what has recently happened that is the cause of depression, chronic anxiety and a propensity for self medication through drug and alcohol abuse. For example, on Palm Island the residents do have enormous baggage to deal with from the Islands history as a penal colony. However this is not the reason for tension between the police and the community, it is the contemporary status-quo that causes this. The suspicious death in the watchhouse in 2004 and the prolonged and unproductive enquiries into it are the causes of fear, resentment and anger. Similarly it is not the Islands history of authoritarianism that has lead to a lack of will and determination amongst residents, it is current and recent impositions by the state authorities and their unwillingness to accommodate local will that is the cause of dissillusionment. For example the building of the Police yoth centre on the Island. The Palm Island Council demanded a non-police youth centre and were never approached for building, zoning or any other town planning authorisations for the centre. It was just dumped there against the wishes of the democratically elected council, which is supposed to have the same town planning authorities as white councils - but they don’t. In the face of contemporary colonial impositions, it is common sense not to expect to be able to achieve anything; not depressed irrational negativity.

Posted by kurityityin in HOME - current news, Education