ALICE SPRINGS NEWS,
June 29, 2006. This page contains all major reports and comment pieces in the current edition.





CIVIC CENTRE SCANDAL: LOCAL TRADERS FROZEN OUT OF $300,000 FURNITURE DEAL. Report by ERWIN CHLANDA.


The opening of the civic centre next month is overshadowed by a scandal surrounding the purchase of furniture for the new $11m building.
Local suppliers say they were frozen out of the contract, worth several hundred thousand dollars, which went to an Adelaide company.
Robin Murray, the commercial manager of Murray Neck at the time, says the engineering firm GHD, which managed the tender process for the council, had promised to provide tender documents but did not supply them.
"We supplied not one thing to the civic centre," says Mr Murray.
"As a company established in Alice Springs for 60 years weıre bitterly disappointed. We were told tender documents would be forwarded but none were."
Another local office furniture supplier, who did not wish to be named, says his company heard that by the time the tender was advertised a deal had already been made, the specifications were so narrow that no local company could meet them, and the time allowed for submitting the tender was far too short.
Council CEO Rex Mooney says the tender was advertised on September 6 last year and closed on September 15. Thatıs seven working days.
Says the Alice-based office furniture supplier: "We got all the drawings to supply a tender but we got wind behind the scenes that the deal had already been done.
"The tender would have been a monthıs work and it was clearly not worth doing it."
Another local supplier says: "Hardly any stuff requested on the tender sheet would have been available in Alice Springs.
"The brands nominated, custom finishes, could only be supplied by certain companies.
"It looked real internal."
The building, to be opened next month with fanfare, is costing the ratepayer at least $10.4m, three times the price for which the council was offered the Greatorex Building, opposite the police station, by the NT Government.
That three storey building would have comfortably accommodated all council needs, with much of office space left over for commercial leases, a revenue earner on the side.
That plan was kept secret by the council until leaked to the Alice News.
A detailed proposal to buy and commission the Greatorex Building was drawn up by former CEO Roger Bottrall and current Director Technical Services Eric Peterson (Alice News, August 25, 2004).
Mr Peterson now has the unenviable task of justifying to the public the massive expense for the new civic centre.
The council pressed ahead with it at a cost of $3686 per square meter.
That is three times the top square meter cost for building a home, earning the posh edifice the nickname of Aliceıs Taj Mahal.
The council office - and the new building is little more than that - is twice as big as the old one.
Why such a large building should be needed remains a puzzle, given that the town hasnıt grown in 10 years. Some of the councilıs major functions, such as household garbage collection, the landfill and road construction, are contracted out.
The "outside workforce" operates from a depot in Wilkinson Street.
Most efficiently run administration work forces, private and public, have shrunk because of computerisation, resulting in the need for less, not more, space.
But Mr Peterson cites "increases in responsibilities and services" such as sport and recreation and additional technical and engineering staff as a reason for needing more space.
The NT Government funded sport and rec program serves "to assist community and sport development.
"The staff deals with sporting groups in the community, provision of facilities, planning and co-operation.
"We do have a sports facilities advisory committee made up of representatives of various sporting bodies."
How many staff are we talking about here?
"One," says Mr Peterson.
In the one area where the council does need more manpower, the still futile battle against illegal camping, anti-social behaviour and littering, the council has made a cut in the current budget, reducing the ranger force by one.
The new building has two areas for holding functions.
It has three rooms for staff conferencing, one for each of the three internal departments, just in case they all need to have a meeting at the same time.
And there is a cavernous "main room" of 731 square metres.
Yet the public has less access to the complex than before.
The for-hire Garden Room has been rebuilt and renamed as the Andy McNeill Room.
It is slightly bigger at 184 square metres but the acoustics are very poor.
There is no budget for fixing this, says Mr Peterson. Mr Mooney says it is "an architectural issue".
The second "function and committee room" (280 square metres) is not for hire but is presumably for mayoral functions.
Why elected members canıt hold their committee meetings in the adjoining 225 square metre chambers is not clear.
About three quarters of this "town hall" are taken up by a table for the mayor and two officers, flanked by two tables for five aldermen each.
While the size of the civic centre has doubled, the public gallery has not: there will be just 20 chairs in the remaining quarter of the chamber, no more than in the old town hall, the subject of much public discontent.
There is standing space in adjoining rooms, says Mr Peterson, from where people interested in council affairs can peer at their elected members through bi-fold doors during those sections of meetings which are not secret.
The courtyard, previously the location of a small amphitheatre and open to the public 24/7, is now the locked-off private domain of council staff and members, except for special invitations.
The courtyard and the function room are now "catering for great crowds, in a private context, where itinerants couldnıt potentially interfere," says Mr Peterson.
If there is a message to the public in the design of the civic centre it clearly is: "Keep out".
An exception are the public toilets on the south-western corner, the ugliest part of the new building generally not over-endowed with architectural flair, yet also the most prominent.
Itıs the dunny you see first when you approach the civic centre from the south, as would most visitors arriving in town from the south.
While the blank walls and tiny windows would invite a mural, there will be no external public art, says Mr Peterson.
The exception is a dot-painted rubbish bin, currently on display in the foyer.
There will be 30 more such bins around town, says Mr Peterson, not just "public art for the sake of art" but one "that has a purpose, dealing with anti-social behavior," says Mr Peterson.
Art in its own right, not as a social project, is a keystone of Alice Springs national and international identity but that penny does not seem to have dropped for Mr Peterson and the town council.
You would have to wonder why they have put out a public art policy for community feedback.
The massive main room, 27.6 by 26.5 metres, is the centre of the building as well as its greatest mystery.
Who will be working in there?
At the moment there are rangers and staff for community services, human resources, technical engineering, says Mr Peterson.
How many is not clear, but there seem to be just six while thereıs room for maybe 25, in call-centre like cubicles.
Mr Peterson suggests the vacant places could come in handy when consultants are engaged from time to time.
Another mystery is the air conditioning system, constantly referred to when the exorbitant cost of the building is raised.
However, the cost of the plant canıt be revealed because all costs are part of a single contract, and Sitzler Brothers are "responsible for resourcing the project," says Mr Mooney.
The construction firmıs principal, Michael Sitzler, says for his part of the contract, excluding furniture, he has been able to obtain "99%" of goods and services locally.
The only exception is landscaping, he says.
The trouble with the air conditioning plant is that it still isnıt fully commissioned.
In The Centreıs glorious winters that isn't much of a worry because most temperature adjustments can be made simply by opening and closing windows.
To be able to do that, and not to have windows fixed shut, seems to be one of the cleverer aspects of the supposedly ground-breaking system, although the opening and shutting of windows is partly done by computers.
Less clever was the plant's malfunctioning in summer when staff were sitting by conventional air conditioners temporarily installed in boarded up windows.
As the plant still isn't working properly, any claims of it being cutting-edge, and the epitome of outback cleverness, to date are not worth much, especially as the costs are not known.
CLIMATE What's even more astonishing is that performance and requirements of savings in operating costs when compared to other climate control equipment, were not written into the contract.
That means the plant seems a blank cheque for experimentation at ratepayers' expense.
"There was an expectation of some savings," says Mr Peterson.
"The council wanted to demonstrate that this technology does have a place.
"In many respects it's probably emerging technology."
The operating principles are simple: the plant uses ground water which has a stable temperature of 27 degrees.
That's a bit lower than the ambient air temperature in summer and a bit warmer than in winter.
Through a heat-exchange system the ground water cools or warms water that is circulated through radiators in the building, with the additional heating or cooling supplied by conventional means.
The air flow in and out of sections of the building, through under-floor and roof cavity ducts as well as windows, is managed by a computer system.
Last week it had the southern part of the building at a pleasant temperature (the windows were open) while the northern part, including the meeting chamber, still in the outfit phase, was like a sauna.





A TOAST TO SAVING (KILLING?) OUR TOURIST INDUSTRY. COMMENT by KIERAN FINNANE.


Let the world know we are bloody good drinkers in Alice Springs, in fact we're going to drink even more! Little children, you are just collateral damage.
Claiming to act out of concern for the tourism industry, and apparently without any comprehension of the massive damage caused to the town's reputation as a tourist destination by recent national and international attention to our alcohol-drenched social problems, the town council on Monday night voted to support extended alcohol takeaway trading hours.
This occurred late in the meeting after they earlier rescinded a motion in support of restricted take-away trading hours, passed at their previous meeting. Mover and seconder of the rescission motion were Aldermen Murray Stewart and Robyn Lambley.
Aldermen want to keep it simple: they support takeaway trading seven days a week from 10am to 9pm, a total of 20 hours a week more than at present.
Mayor Fran Kilgariff stated her support for a later opening at noon but abandoned it without any attempt at persuasive argument, in order to dispose of the matter so council would be seen to have a position.
Only Aldermen Meredith Campbell, favouring trading from noon to 7pm on seven days, and Ald Jane Clark (10am-7pm) attempted to persuade their fellows to take a whole of community perspective, not one focussed on a single industry.
Ald Campbell also argued that limited access to grog would not sound the death knell for the tourism industry and that most tourists would be proud to support the "overall health and social spirit of the town". Council's stance does not mean that their favoured trading hours will be adopted but it sends a strong message about their priorities.
Their debate, such as it was, and vote came after a presentation by Alice Springs hospital general manager Vicki Taylor who revealed, among others, the "disturbing statistic" of a 20 per cent jump in surgery at the hospital in the last year which she suggested was down to "a lot of injuries resulting from alcohol consumption" and "family disputes" arising with more people staying in town.
She rated the hospital's three main challenges as dealing with the impacts of alcohol and petrol sniffing and the timely provision of elective surgery. This has been reduced, though not cancelled, as the only "discretionary area" when managing an "increased workload. We don't know when this will stop", said Ms Taylor.
The council's refusal to support even a trial of restrictions in an effort to reduce alcohol consumption does nothing to help.




HUGE SUBDIVISION ON HOLD YET AGAIN. Report by ERWIN CHLANDA.


Developers and objectors have locked horns again about turning the pristine valley between Heenan Road and the Heavitree Range into a 160 block subdivision.
The Development Consent Authority heard further arguments for and against the proposal last week but says it needs "substantial further review" and the applicant will receive "guidance" at a meeting which will be closed to the public.
At a sometimes volatile meeting last Thursday the developers, a consortium headed by real estate agent John McEwen, presented fresh plans for a new style sewerage system and the draining of storm water.
At one point authority chairman John Pinney threatened to have objector Heather Puddick "removed" from the hearing, but later apologised for it. The opponents, about 20 people, claimed the proposal should have never gone further than the front counter of the planning department, because of a conflict with the town plan.
Opponents also reiterated earlier claims that flooding remains a problem and they raised noise, pollution and lifestyle issues.
The applicants, represented by David Cantwell, said "90% of the objections" voiced earlier would be taken care of by the now proposed use of a new sewerage system that uses a "masherator" to turn waste into fine particles which are then piped to the town's sewerage plant.
Mr Cantwell also claimed that tanks, drains and ponds in the planned subdivision would retard the current flow of storm water and reduce the peak flow of a "hundred year flood" by 44%.
He said agreements had been made with the town council about the care for drains and green areas.
A "significant offer" had been made to native title owners for turning the north-eastern side of the land into a culture park.
This offer had been "received with open arms" and Mr Cantwell suggested that was likely to lead to the lifting of native title claims.
He said overhead power lines was PowerWater's "preferred option" - a notion vehemently opposed by the objectors.
Mr Cantwell said the installation of overhead electricity would cost $3000 to $5000 per block, compared to $15,000 for underground power.
The strongest objection came from the Rural Areas Association president Rod Cramer.
He said the authority could recommend to the Minister any minimum block size in the rural "R" zoning, but it did not have power to alter the area's purpose: Mr Cramer said it is agriculture, not residential.
The "R" zoning is currently 40 hectares. Oddly, with rural living (RL1 and RL2) zonings the authority's discretion as to size is only five per cent.
Mr Cramer cited in the town plan "the definition of agriculture (passive) means any primary production activity be it plant or animal based where the natural environment is not significantly altered or degraded.
"The land may be fenced and watering points provided but not otherwise altered including cleared."
The town plans permits the growing of crops, pasture timber trees and the like, but not a plant nursery or horticulture, allows breeding of livestock but not intensive animal husbandry or stables, and certainly not a residential subdivision.
Mr Cramer described the application as a "planning obscenity".
Nearby resident Bob Kessing said the valley during winter is in shade from 5.30pm and very cold.
While he and three other residents had to buy 40 hecatres to create a buffer around their block on Heenan Road, the developers were seeking blocks of 0.4 hectares, one-hundredth of the current zoning limit, a "double standard".
Mr Kessing also expressed concern about "160 dogs and cats" moving into a valley which has significant ecological features.
Roger Thompson, an Ilparpa Valley resident, said the application is vague, frequently using words such as "encouraging" rather than making clear requirements.
He said even clear covenants were often ignored, as can be seen at Ilparpa.
Mr Cramer, too, criticised "buzzwords and phrases short on substance" in the application. As a former resident of land nearby, his parents' dairy farm in the seventies, he described the flood precautions as inadequate.


NOISY POWERPLANT: RESIDENTS WINNING? Report by ERWIN CHLANDA.


Power and Water boss Kim Wood is still dodging requests for an interview with the Alice News, while power station noise campaigner Liza Dubois is gearing up for a class action and keeping Essential Services Minister Paul Henderson awake with 2am phone calls.
But under grilling from Greatorex MLA Richard Lim in Estimates Committe hearings Mr Wood confirmed that a shift of the screaming gas turbine generator to Brewer Estate is under serious consideration.
Ms Dubois has been swamped by neighbors in the posh Golf Course Estate tired of the unceasing noise, urging her to keep up her protest. She says: "If people want to complain I say to them this is the bloke to ring and this is his number: 89 276935.
"Keep ringing him, day and night, keep him awake."
The number is Mr Henderson's.
Ms Dubois says Mr Wood has breached his promise to ring her weekly about any developments.
And she has no faith in his pledge of noise abatement through baffles installed in the exhaust of the gas turbine.
She wants Power and Water to start immediately with relocation of the generator, and ensure another one due to be installed soon be put into the Brewer Estate from the start.
The baffles won't be installed until October and if they don't work, Ms Dubois says it will take another year until the equipment can moved.
She says not one person from Alice Springs is on the Power and Water board.
The following exchange took place between Dr Lim and Mr Wood last Friday:-
Dr LIM: Back to the budget allocations, there was a significant amount of allocation to Power and Water, is this for another turbine in Alice Springs? If it is, imagine the community angst that is going to be there. If one machine causes that much noise, two is going to be just absolutely unbearable. Mr WOOD: There is a further gen set needed in roundabout 2008 and certainly our initial thinking was that would be at the existing site, Sadadeen Valley Power Station.
Probably, despite what some of our customers may think, we actually do hear and I can assure you that there will be quite a lot of thinking going into what the location is going forward.
We have just demonstrated we are flexible here in Darwin, the next augmentation in Darwin will not be the Channel Island Power Station site, for reasons of risk and a range of other things it will be elsewhere. I think we are open to community pressure and always conscious of costs and risks associated with putting things in other places.
Look I have been up on the ridges, I have heard the noise and I have not liked what I have heard, and there is certainly no lack of will to resolve this to everybody's satisfaction. Dr LIM: There will be at least five homes that are constantly surrounded by the noise and others intermittently and those five homes, I would not want to buy one of those homes at all, even if they were given to me. Mr WOOD: I think we have to significantly reduce the noise or move the set. I do not think there is any other solution. I think expecting people to accept the situation long-term is unacceptable. Dr LIM: That is right, I am glad to hear that you are considering that. What will it cost to improve the grid between Brewer Estate and the township.
Mr WOOD: Initial costings we have got to ensure we have got sufficient gas and sufficient pressure at Brewer, we have to have transmission line capable of taking the additional 10 megawatts in the Titan [turbine generator] and then there is composite controls and switch gear.
Lowest ball park price we have seen from our internal team is $5.5m which will let us just move the Titan, but if we then plan to include all future generation there, the number goes up to north of $12m.
So in our capital program, it is around 10% of a typical capital program over recent years.
It is an unanticipated expense and it would take capital away from other projects, but as a first step we could spend that $5.5m if it works out that way, if it is required, because baffling has not worked and that would at least get the Titan out of Sadadeen Valley.


BOOZE MOVES: REFORMING THE TOWN OR HITTING THE BADDIES? Report by ERWIN CHLANDA.


Two resolutely opposed schools of thought have emerged in the quest to tackle the alcohol mayhem in Alice Springs.
One says the average consumption of grog is at twice the safe level, and not just the drunkard in the street, but everyone needs to do their bit, drinking less, sacrificing personal convenience and paying more for their booze.
The other school says get off the back of the bloke who drinks in the privacy of his home or club, and target those who make a mess in public, frighten and put off our tourists and in their drunkenness commit crimes ranging from the annoying to the horrendous.
Alice News editor ERWIN CHLANDA asks Associate Professor Dennis Gray to sort through the arguments and see if there's common ground.
Prof Gray is deputy director of the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University, WA. He has conducted research into a range of Aboriginal health issues and is the co-author of books on Indigenous alcohol use and Aboriginal health. His most recent work has focused on alcohol and other drug use, including patterns of use, liquor licensing, the supply and promotion of alcohol to Aboriginal people, and the evaluation of Aboriginal intervention programs.

NEWS: According to the People's Alcohol Action Coalition (PAAC) the problem drinkers' own financial resources for alcohol, and money they generate by humbugging others, have reached their limits now. So we know how much money is available for alcohol. If, as it's suggested, the cost of cheap alcohol is raised to be in line with beer, how much less alcohol will be able to be bought?
GRAY: I would need to calculate that but I could expect probably a 10% to 15% reduction in per capita consumption.
[PAAC's John Boffa says the reduction for the people drinking what is currently the cheapest alcohol, cask wine, and who are likely to be the principal anti social behavior perpetrators, would be 67%, as the price would increase three-fold.]
NEWS: It is assumed that the amount of anti-social behaviour is in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed. Is that right?
GRAY: The best predictor of harm is per capita consumption. I'm talking about acute harm, that's motor vehicle accidents, assaults, alcoholic poisoning, those kinds of things. Then there are chronic indicators of harm, long term damage to the liver and the brain, for example. There is a very close correlation between all those indicators of harm and per capita consumption. In Central Australia the level of consumption is almost double the safe level of consumption recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
NEWS: Does a 15% reduction in consumption equate to a 15% reduction in harm and anti social behaviour?
GRAY: There would need to be a lot of calculating done and I don't have any of that data to hand. There is not necessarily a one to one correlation. For some things you might see a greater reduction, in others a lesser.
NEWS: Is it true that the drunker you get the more dangerous you get?
GRAY: If we're talking about motor vehicle accidents, for example, someone who is extremely drunk is unlikely to drive, but someone who's moderately drunk can jump into a car, think they're OK, but in fact they are mentally impaired and may have an accident. People who are moderate drinkers make a greater contribution to the overall alcoholic harm than do heavy drinkers, because there are so many more moderate drinkers.
NEWS: Seen from the point of view of the community, would a 15% reduction in consumption result in a 15% reduction in anti-social behaviour? If that is so it would be far from satisfactory, given the current level of alcoholic related disturbance in Alice Springs.
GRAY: It's an over-simplification to attribute all anti-social behaviour to alcohol. Alcohol clearly makes a significant contribution but it's not the only contributor.
NEWS: How big a contributor is it?
GRAY: No-one has sat down and done that kind of research.
NEWS: What a pity.
GRAY: Yes. There are so many things you could do but getting the money to do them is not on anyone's agenda.
NEWS: Urban drift is a second factor that comes into play in Alice Springs. Reduced individual consumption may well be more than offset by the continuing drift into town by people from bush communities.
GRAY: That's assuming that more people will be consuming at harmful levels simply because alcohol becomes more readily available to them. There is grog running but the quantity of alcohol getting into remote communities isn't all that great. But if large numbers of people were transferred into town with nothing much to do, you would expect to see more people on the grog and more alcohol related harm.
NEWS: Even if per capita consumption is lowered by an insignificant 10 to 15%, people are still drinking at exceedingly dangerous levels and urban drift increases the number of drinkers, so the town will be much worse off.
GRAY: A 10 or 15% reduction is significant. It's something you don't often achieve with these measures although in Tennant Creek they had a 20% reduction over two years, which is at a 10% rate. We need to be realistic about what we can expect. There is no magic bullet. You need a range of strategies. The price strategy has been shown to be effective.
NEWS: The proposal put up for discussion by Alderman David Koch, to limit take-aways to one day a week, the last day before the cycle of welfare payments, coupled with a home delivery system, would be tantamount to withholding alcohol from all irresponsible drinkers.
GRAY: The assumption in that argument is that everybody who's got a house is a responsible drinker.
NEWS: He or she is likely to have a credit card, an income from work, and is unlikely to become a public nuisance by drinking in a park or other public place.
GRAY: There can still be anti-social behaviour behind closed doors but it just isn't obvious. What that proposal does is actually increase the availability of alcohol although it decreases availability to one section of the community. If someone can just get on the phone and say, deliver me a slab of beer, they have access to alcohol they normally wouldn't.
NEWS: It seems to be a philosophical issue. On the one hand you have PAAC saying we have to reform the entire community's drinking habits. And that is most unlikely to stop with raising the price of cheap grog, because the chance of success with that is remote. There is likely to soon be a call for increasing the cost of mainstream alcohol. As that is not an option that is politically acceptable we'll be stuck with the patchwork of incompetent and ineffectual measures we've seen in the past. There are already indicators of these being given a new lease of life. On the other hand you have the proposition that what people are doing in the privacy of their homes is their business, and what needs to be stopped, urgently, is the public disorder that is destroying the town's lifestyle and amenity as a tourist destination.
GRAY: I disagree with that point. My job is to look at ways to improve the public health across the board. I don't have the narrow perspective of just focussing on anti-social behaviour.
NEWS: What went wrong with the most recent alcohol trial in Alice Springs?
GRAY: Two things. One, there was a failure by the Liquor Commission to set reduction in consumption as an objective of the trial. They wanted to reduce alcohol related harm but for whatever reasons, they thought that might occur without necessarily reducing the level of consumption. I suspect in part what they didn't want to do was to affect the profitability of the alcohol industry and the tourist industry. The level of consumption in Sydney is considerably less that in Alice Springs and they have viable tourist and alcohol industries.
Secondly, when they introduced the ban on cask wine it took no time at all for the two litre casks of port to appear on the shelves. And that, almost from day one, undermined the impact of the restrictions. The ban on four litre casks was in essence a price measure because you're taking the cheapest form of grog off the shelves. Various groups said to the evaluation group you have to do something about this but they didn't. The trial was compromised from the outset. One thing that was effective was the change in take-away hours. In those first couple of hours there was a big reduction in police detentions, for example.
NEWS: What would you do right now in Alice Springs if you were the government?
GRAY: I would give the price based intervention a trial for a limited period, three to six months. If it doesn't work, scrap it.
NEWS: Would you give the Alderman Koch proposal a trial as well?
GRAY: No, I wouldn't. The second thing I would do is to increase the capacity of the police to enforce liquor laws. There are things like the Two Kilometre Law, legislation against serving intoxicated people, and those things need to be enforced. Any liquor laws are only as good as their enforcement. And I would make sure that services such as the Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Program Unit are adequately resourced.


A TOAST TO SAVING (KILLING?) OUR TOURIST INDUSTRY.


COMMENT by KIERAN FINNANE
Let the world know we are bloody good drinkers in Alice Springs, in fact we're going to drink even more! Little children, you are just collateral damage.
Claiming to act out of concern for the tourism industry, and apparently without any comprehension of the massive damage caused to the town's reputation as a tourist destination by recent national and international attention to our alcohol-drenched social problems, the town council on Monday night voted to support extended alcohol takeaway trading hours.
This occurred late in the meeting after they earlier rescinded a motion in support of restricted take-away trading hours, passed at their previous meeting. Mover and seconder of the rescission motion were Aldermen Murray Stewart and Robyn Lambley.
Aldermen want to keep it simple: they support takeaway trading seven days a week from 10am to 9pm, a total of 20 hours a week more than at present.
Mayor Fran Kilgariff stated her support for a later opening at noon but abandoned it without any attempt at persuasive argument, in order to dispose of the matter so council would be seen to have a position.
Only Aldermen Meredith Campbell, favouring trading from noon to 7pm on seven days, and Ald Jane Clark (10am-7pm) attempted to persuade their fellows to take a whole of community perspective, not one focussed on a single industry.
Ald Campbell also argued that limited access to grog would not sound the death knell for the tourism industry and that most tourists would be proud to support the "overall health and social spirit of the town". Council's stance does not mean that their favoured trading hours will be adopted but it sends a strong message about their priorities.
Their debate, such as it was, and vote came after a presentation by Alice Springs hospital general manager Vicki Taylor who revealed, among others, the "disturbing statistic" of a 20 per cent jump in surgery at the hospital in the last year which she suggested was down to "a lot of injuries resulting from alcohol consumption" and "family disputes" arising with more people staying in town.
She rated the hospital's three main challenges as dealing with the impacts of alcohol and petrol sniffing and the timely provision of elective surgery. This has been reduced, though not cancelled, as the only "discretionary area" when managing an "increased workload. We don't know when this will stop", said Ms Taylor.
The council's refusal to support even a trial of restrictions in an effort to reduce alcohol consumption does nothing to help.


YEAR 10S STAY: PRIVATE SCHOOLS. Report by KIERAN FINNANE.


Alice Springs' private secondary schools will not be changing their structure following the Territory Government's decision to place Year 10 students in senior colleges (Alice News, June 15).
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College principal, Brother James Jolley, says the school has put a lot of effort this year into "getting its middle school up as a structure".
Years Five, Six, Seven and Eight have been co-located on the Traeger Avenue campus for a number of years but "it has not been a middle school as such", says Br Jolley. "Years Five and Six were still treated as primary years, while Seven and Eight were the traditional secondary years.
"Now we have them flowing together and we won't be making any changes to that next year.
"Students will still transfer to our senior campus in Sadadeen at the end of Year Eight. So none of this fits into the Territory Government's plan for middle schooling from Years Seven to Nine." OLSH's Year 10 students are already strongly linked with Years 11 and 12, accessing a wide range of curriculum options.
Because of this, Br Jolley thinks it is unlikely that OLSH will lose Year 10 students to Centralian Senior Secondary College (they always lose a number for Years 11 and 12).
"And I don't know that Centralian will have the capacity to take more anyway," he says.
"I would expect the vast majority of our Year Nines to continue to Year 10."
St Philip's College principal, Chris Tudor, says the school remains committed to "the notion of Years Seven to 12 [as] something very powerful and important".
"We appreciate that classroom teaching methods change, and we keep abreast of the changes to the delivery of the curriculum. However, the mentoring that occurs between our students in the senior years and those in Year 7 is beneficial to all involved. "The concept of a school being a community is significant, and a community needs to be made up of diverse ages so that students can gain from the diversity and develop skills they can transfer to life later on." Mr Tudor says the college is proud of its senior studies program that already incorporates Year 10, with a number of VET courses and School-Based New Apprenticeships on offer. "We don't envisage losing any students to Centralian Secondary College."


WHY IS WEST BEST? Report by ELISABETH ATTWOOD.


West Football Club have had a perfect record in this season's AFL competition, winning every one of their games including last Saturday's Champions League grand final against Ltyentye Apurte.
Grand final champions for the last two years, the gap between them and the other three A grade sides has widened this year.
Being an organised club and having support off the field are the reasons club president Rob Wenske gives for the team's strength.
"We're not here to dominate the league, we're here to have fun," he says.
"I feel sorry for other clubs in a way. We're run like a football club should be run: we work well as a team on and off the field.
"We've got good support behind us: the committee hasn't changed for six years or so.
"But if other clubs want help, we help them."
He says stability in a transient town like Alice is also vital.
"We've got a core of blokes that have been playing for a long time," says Wenske. And I've been president for 10 years, Hodgy [Ian Hodge] has been coach for 12 years.
"We say that no one is better than anyone else: we are a complete team."
Wenske says that the club's attention to its junior players is also a key strength.
"Juniors are a very important part of a club.
"The juniors we've got coming through now are the result of recruiting we did 10 years ago, and we're doing that recruiting again.
"We had six kids under 16 playing in the grand final on Saturday. It gives them the experience and educates them for the future."
Mark Bramley was voted best on field and he says a high standard of behaviour on the field is another reason why the club has maintained its success.
"We play good disciplined footy. We've got team rules and penalties for undisciplined acts," says Bramley.
"We try to stay out of trouble and play good hard footy.
"Everyone wants to be out there, they're a good bunch of blokes. We don't worry about other clubs, we worry about ourselves."


ALICE FACT BETTER THAN FICTION. COLUMN by ADAM CONNELLY.


Remember the TV series "The Alice"? It started on Imparja about this time last year and like a flow of the Todd River was gone almost before it even started.
The show was doomed from the get go for several reasons. One of which was that the acting wasn't exactly Pacino quality, let's be honest. But "The Alice" failed on a couple of other key factors.
The show built its drama around showing Alice Springs as an eccentric, at times nonsensical and mysterious place.
Strangely enough Alice Springs is all those things but the makers of the program, for some strange reason, decided to import most of the idiosyncrasies.
Why did everyone seem to live in a caravan? Where did all the pine trees come from? And can someone please tell me where they got the idea that an arid desert environment is a place for sheep farming?
There's one way to describe the real Alice Springs, authentic. So why create a bogus Alice Springs? Especially when all the eccentric, nonsensical and mysterious stories happen in real life in this real town.
I've been to cold places before. It gets pretty cold in Canberra. Minus ten or so. In Cooma it got to minus twelve one night I was there and while it only got to minus five the night I stood on a train station platform in a place called Lithgow New South Wales, the wind that blew that night came straight from Siberia.
All those places are colder than Alice Springs yet they don't celebrate a device that keeps you warm. We do ­ the Beanie Festival.
When I was a kid in Sydney, the Beanie was associated with either boganism or football fanaticism. Here though, the humble beanie is the medium for combining art and fashion. The festival isn't just an array of colourful knitwear plonked on some Styrofoam heads either. No, no, that would be too common for an Alice Springs style festival.
Creations that defy physics are the go for this festival. Beanies with wire and feathers and engineering certificates each attempt to outdo one another for extravagance. It would not surprise me in the slightest if this time round there was a knitted woolen cap sporting a scale replica of the Old Ghan on display. Perhaps an ironic water feature atop another might get a run?
We love a festival here, don't we? But not your run of the mill celebration for spring or the town's foundation. Far too plain a reason for Centralians.
What about the Camel Cup? Where else is a feral animal considered the region's faunal emblem? It's a festival in the middle of the desert in the middle of Australia with real life Sheiks and real life shirts lost in the betting ring. The big brouhaha wasn't over the crazy idea of the event itself but rather whether a house of "intimate relaxation" gets to sponsor it.
Then there's the Henley-on-Todd. "Wouldn't it be nice to go for a sail"? "Yes, but there's no water, we live in a desert"! " Who cares"? No one as it happens. Thousands of people flock to see grown men and women sweating it out as they paddle through the sand and then cake themselves in egg and flour like some sort of bacchanalian human tempura.
We have all seen these events before and in the context of Alice Springs they seem perfectly legitimate. Take a step back though and you can see just how ludicrous they are. Wonderfully ludicrous.
Half a million people come to Central Australia every year. That's ten thousand a week. Most come for the beauty of the place but some stay for the off the wall excellence Alice Springs fosters.
So if another production company wants to tell the Alice Springs story, my advice is simple. Bring a handycam. Do a documentary. The real thing is far more interesting. .


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