Musical Dispatch from the Front

Hola,

Good news! The NT Government is legislating to make pepper (oleoresin capsicum) spray available to the public to make us safer. They're proposing a 12-month trial. If successful, and it will be interesting to see how they'll measure success (number of people sprayed?), they may upgrade us to tear gas.

You never know, in some future to look forward to, we may be allowed to possess stun grenades. We'd feel safer still. They may even be able to cut back on the number of police.

Meanwhile the NT prison population keeps breaking new records. Yesterday it reached 2,834 including 70 accommodated in watch houses and 55 in youth detention. Around half of these are on remand. My previous report was 2,803 prisoners eight days before i.e. a daily increase of three prisoners (incarcerated less released).

Ray Price - Release Me

Chau, Frank

This column comes from Frank Baarda who arrived to live in Yuendumu half a century ago, after working for Central Pacific Minerals as a geologist, and his wife, Wendy, got a job as a teacher in the local school.

In 1974 he became the manager of the Yuendumu Mining Company which had 300 Aboriginal shareholders and dabbled in a gravel quarry and a string of joint ventures with major uranium, gold and wolfram companies.

A major asset Frank acquired for YMC was a bulldozer in pretty good condition. He turned up at its auction, made it known that he had a pocket full of cash from Canberra, and there wasn't much point for anyone else to bid for the machine. No-one else did and Frank got the dozer for $11,000 – which was about all the money that the company in fact possessed.

Why "musical"? Because the cheeky column is always linked to a song.

Why "front"? Because it's the line to which the settlers' colonial enterprise advanced.

"It's to let off steam and to debunk the lies, propaganda and misunderstandings of the Federal Intervention," Frank says.

"You’ve got to take the piss."