Comments on: Bleak tunnel vision in new book on Alice Springs

By: Linda Wells

Linda Wells — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 01:34:29 +0000

Great review Kieran. I bought the book, keen to support emerging authors and books on Alice Springs. I read the first chapter then returned the book unharmed and got my money back. Glad to hear from your review that my summation from reading the first chapter was an accurate reflection of the whole thing. And sorry to hear that as well. Many excellent comments above. It’s awful to think that book will be put up there with the writings of prominent authors and our town will be presented in that simple little two dimensional way, yet again.
Alice, as we know, is fascinating, beautiful and complex as well as trying. At least some of the troubles we do have are only what the rest of the country managed to avoid by getting in earlier and doing a more complete job of colonisation. I’m off to register for the Master’s Games. I’ll probably see 20 or 30 assorted people I know and like along the way, tonight I will dance with them and tomorrow I will play netball with them. It is all about what we choose to focus on and how we choose to interpret that, put so well by Evelyne above.

By: David Chewings

David Chewings — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 03:13:57 +0000

@ Travis Bransgrove Posted September 8, 2012 at 7:25 pm

Lamenting (in his opinion) that Alice Springs has become a basket case, he says and I quote: “Which is why my family amongst others and droves of others who are leaving, won’t ever be back.”

Social worker and left wing author but not a lesbian, Eleanor Hogan has just published quite a readable little hardback of 309 pages which explores in detail, the issue of summertime crime in Alice Springs in post NT intervention times.

In her attempts to ascertain if summertime crime is getting worse she asks John Adams, coordinator of the youth hub, for his views.

He states that it is a moveable feast whatever that really means.

We know that when a government allows kids to run amok then it is not long before kids have total control of the town. The children know the difference between right and wrong but from their point of view, especially at Xmas, the fun and excitement is too great a temptation to knock back.

John Adams says on page 293 of this little book titled Alice Springs: “Why do people expect kids living in fourth world conditions to behave perfectly?” The question is a fair enough one and deserves deeper exploration by one far more politically literate than I.

For most of us who come to live our lives in the Alice, (and NOT trying to make big money), and to have our children, leaving is not an option. When that perfect storm arrives the undreamable does become an option and then reality. May I say that love of Central Australia for most, does remain intact, if a little burned along the way.

D.R. Chewings
aka THE lone dingo

By: Chris Carey

Chris Carey — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:03:13 +0000

“It’s very, very confronting.”
These words appear in the book.
These words were also said by someone from Melbourne who recently visited Alice Springs.
Ms Hogan writes:
“But weariness set in that I found difficult to shake and I feared my outlook on life was becoming unduly negative.”
I think that we should acknowledge that the bleakness can be seen as a function of the weariness.
One of things I miss is the weekly physical receipt of your newspaper. Somehow the web edition is simply not the same.
Or, perhaps it is simply that there is a certain weariness attached to reading the predictable correspondence which is a testament to what might be seen as the intractability of things.
Listening to the national anthem being sung in multiple languages at Araluen on Saturday I wondered how we might protect ourselves against this weariness.
Well, we do.
We wake up in the morning (thankfully slightly warmer mornings) and go on.
The search for solutions lies in the search.
There is bleakness.
There is wonder.
Let us abandon thoughts of weariness and negativity.

By: Travis Bransgrove

Travis Bransgrove — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 09:55:08 +0000

I suppose that any discussion of The Alice’s problems invariably draws in political angles, but this would seem a strange forum for it. Anyone who says that Government has not failed Central Australia and its people is a fool or a liar. And as saddening as it may be for those of us born and raised in the town, or those choosing to now make it their home to admit – the town really IS a basket case. The “snatches of hope” may be paltry in their identification throughout the book, but that would be because there is so few of them to identify. Many years of bad government in all areas – policing, health, education, housing, tourism – have culminated in a situation where levels of unease and agitation amongst both indigenous and non-indigenous residents, levels of crime and outright fear are palpably high. And there will be no quick fix to this! Personally I don’t believe Alice will EVER again be the pleasant and relatively safe town that I knew in my youth. Which is why my family, amongst the droves of others who are leaving, won’t ever be back.

By: Russell Guy

Russell Guy — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:21:27 +0000

Steve Brown @ Sept 5 comments that “politics is all about having the right enemies.” Enemies is not the word that I would use in a debate, such as we enjoy under democratic principles, but Steve has remained consistent in his pugnacious approach towards those who disagree with his arguments and that is what I have come to expect.
Being “on the right track”, he joins a long list of adventurers, e.g. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, etc. both of whom were absolutely certain that they were.
Just because “the people have spoken” doesn’t necessarily mean that their selective judgement should be correct or even wise, especially if politics is about having the right enemies. I think we can see this in action by the immediate dismantling of the Banned Drinkers Register (DR).
As for Steve Brown’s much used jive about “shouting from the rooftops”, the town hears him, but in terms of the health of the town, “the people” appeared somewhat deaf to the police and health professionals’ warning about alcohol management.
Under the CL, the NT now has a new lead on the rest of Australia. Alcohol management costs will increase from $642m p.a. to an estimated $750m ($300,000 per annum for each of the 2500 people currently on the BDR, as a residential, secure rehab prison inmate) and at a time of declining tax revenues, not that the alcohol industry is concerned. This does not include the construction of the facility.
It’s going to be interesting to watch how Mr Mills attempts to make it work, but then Steve Brown has spoken, so it must be right.

By: Steve Brown

Steve Brown — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 22:33:01 +0000

@1 That you would seek me out in such a benign place as a book review simply to vent your spleen in my direction, Ian, fills me with absolute delight! Politics is all about having the right enemies and knowing that you are more than likely one of them gives me great confidence that I am, and have been all along “on the right track”. As they say in the vernacular Ian “have a look at the scoreboard”! The people have spoken, judgement has been made! [You are a] a person who not only stood by and allowed the destruction rained on our community, but shouted from the rooftops “There is nothing wrong”, “Your talking down the Town”. The community has passed its judgement and you and your argument came out on the wrong side of it. Just a little advice, it might be time to sit and reflect a little on how Labor got it so terribly wrong, put the barbs away for a while until there’s something worth saying.

By: Ian Sharp

Ian Sharp — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:49:30 +0000

Laughable for Steve Brown to refer to our community agony as having our story told by ‘blow-ins’… as a born and bred Centralian he does a good job himself of running the place down. Enormous mote in his eye. Quite a few blow-ins just been appointed Ministers in the new government, they have done their fair share of running the place down, will be interesting to see how they go now.

By: Philip Selman

Philip Selman — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:56:31 +0000

Excellent review, trouble is I feel like I’m going to have to buy and read the book to see how unbalanced the book really is and how balanced the review really is, a real conundrum! I think Steve Brown is right Kieran, time you wrote the Story of Alice and I genuinely mean that.

By: Evelyne roullet

Evelyne roullet — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 07:39:09 +0000

People see only what they’re looking for and what they understand, what they are prepared to see,and not necessarily what lies in front of them.
One must keep in mind that the world reflects what we need to see, not only what we want to see.

By: Hal Duell

Hal Duell — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 05:49:20 +0000

An e-mail feed I get from Inside Story recently reviewed this book.
I was struck at the time by how much it sounded like an almost perfect impression of Alice from someone coming from “down south”.
This review does nothing to change that.
I wonder if Ms Hogan still lives here. Or has she packed up her kit bag and retreated from this “red, calloused earth” (!) to find solace in those coastal cities the poet A.D. Hope apparently once described as “five teeming sores.”?
Hey, please! It’s just not that bleak.

[ED – Inside Story previewed the book with an excerpt.]