Dealing with the tragedy of indigenous communities in Central Australia

Central Australia is more than just the area around Alice Springs. It does not fit within State boundaries. It stretches into Western Australia and South Australia from its centre which is Alice Springs.

In this area live many previously nomadic aboriginal people who relatively recently had only passing contact with other Australians. They lived a tribal or family life. Tribal connotes large numbers but groups were often quite small.

These people were unlike the more settled indigenous people in southern states and even Queensland who to a much greater extent were enmeshed in Australian society.
In Central Australia Settlements were created by both Govt and firstly missionaries where evangelism could be based and as a side effect health and education issues addressed.

It was only after World War Two that government began to seriously address these health and education issues.

Communities were created generally because of the availability of water where health and educational personnel could be housed and infrastructure established. It was presumed that these tribal aboriginals would want these advantages. Houses were built to accommodate the people.

After a time most of the nomadic aborigines came to be in many ways dependent on these settlements. Eventually relatively organised schooling and health treatments were operating.

In my time in the Alice in the 60's and 70's I would say that the system was working though the output was not likely to produce too many people going on to tertiary level.

Liquor though has long been a problem. And fast forwarding to today its consumption is out of hand at all levels. There are official reports about the ghastly abuse within these groups by males which too has got worse from all reports, not better. And drug abuse is widespread in tandem with alcohol abuse.

These settlements such as Papunya and Yuendumu have become notorious across Australia as places where health workers flee from drunken violence, and no one wants to be posted to work in them. Clearly, they are not a good environment for schooling.
One can only assume that these expensive habits are funded in some way by the taxpayer. There are precious few real jobs in Central Australia and this is going to be a problem where I can see no solution.

After all what's the point of striving to produce educated young people with no future to go to.

And don't say that it's in culture. If that were so would we be facing the tragedy that is engulfing these people? That's what the talkers say and if the talkers had been on the money this situation would not have arisen.

No, there is no significant number of real jobs in Central Australia and never will be. Of course, you could create a large number of public service jobs dedicated to doing nothing but that would produce the same frustration that I believe motivates a lot of the anti-social activities publicised in recent times. As gas is the only mineral of significance in the Centre the future there is clouded.

Beautiful but barren, what do you do to give these young people in Central Australia a future or at least the option of a future?

And the stolen generations report has petrified authority. That report did not in its terms of reference seek to find any success stories.
I can see no way forward without education for all the youth of Central Australia. Many if not most have no supportive home life. So to create the circumstances for a meaningful education they must have access to boarding schools.

At the primary level those should be built around Alice Springs itself having regard to family susceptibilities so that there are no white elephants. Perhaps dormitories and schools need not be together.

But once students pass on from primary to upper school, in my view they need to be sent to boarding schools all round Australia to give them a glimpse of the wide world. Not in some haphazard fashion but in groups of at least four for mutual support.

My reason for this is that these schools have support networks that will encourage these young people and look after them, get them jobs, be a fallback.

We are not talking in thousands we are talking in hundreds, maybe a few hundred a year and the Australian education system has enough boarding schools to accommodate that. Of course, Govt funding will be essential but even allowing for many failures, especially at the outset, the money will be better spent than it is now.

And these children are going to need a lot of support to ensure that they can stay the course. There is scope here for some of the talkers about indigenous matters (and Sydney is awash with them) to actually carry out some deeds by involving themselves in support groups. There will be lots to do.

Kids will run away, it happened regularly among homesick kids at my boarding school. So it's sure to be a regular event for quite a while and they will need support of all kinds to get them through. These school's support networks will help them to an assured future if that's what they want.

It is vitally important that the boarding schools round Australia to which young Centralians are sent wholeheartedly join in the process of outfitting them with real options for advancement. I have seen what the networks of supporters of these schools can do to help those not greatly gifted achieve a respected position and make a beneficial contribution to the community. In those cases that will come their way no effort should be spared.