Bangtail beats bureaucracy

 
By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
Aussie Icons is the theme for this year’s Bangtail Muster on May 1, which brings hundreds of kids and their parents into the streets of Alice Springs, showing off their colourful costumes and floats, usually on the the back of trucks.
 
Bangtail is a stockman’s term, chopping the tail brush off cattle for the purpose of counting them.
 
The day is organised by the Rotary Club of Alice Springs, with the support from other community clubs.
 
It will be the 56th annual muster, and the proceeds – gold coins thrown into buckets by the crowd – go to charity.
 
The event was in jeopardy because of traffic control requirements which would have cost the club around $10,000, gobbling up more than what is usually raised, for a job that in the past was done by a handful of volunteers with lollipop sticks.
 
However, the Alice Springs Town Council, at no cost to the participants, arranged a traffic control course for half a dozen Rotary members and helpers who will now do the job, so all proceeds can go to deserving causes.
 
[Declaration of interest: The writer is a member of the Rotary Club of Alice Springs.]