Forgotten people in paradise

Drunkenness doesn’t create vices, but it brings them to the fore - so said Roman philosopher and poet, Seneca (c. 4 BC-AD 65).

My first journey back to Darwin, during the third week in May - to attend the Northern Territory Writers’ Festival -after an absence of almost 20 years was an experience crammed with breathtaking highs and disheartening lows.

The tourist brochures spoke of its cultural diversity - more than 50 nationalities making up its 100,000 population, including the area's traditional landowners, the Larrakia.

Perched on a peninsula with sea on three sides, the city is an excellent base to explore the natural attractions of World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park, Litchfield and Nitmiluk National Parks, the Tiwi Islands and Arnhem Land.

Darwin is now a recognised holiday destination in its own right and visitors are often pleasantly surprised at the sophistication of the city and just what there is on offer. With international standard restaurants, shopping malls, marinas, a beach-side casino and a range of local attractions, visitors are sure to be kept entertained for days on end.

But buyer beware, there are glaring omissions to the glossy brochures that become apparent in an instant to new arrivals to the classical, tropical sea port. Some say there is a tropical mystery that belies the past image of safari suited men going hand in hand with crocodiles, summer madness and torrential downpours. Perhaps a wetter version of Townsville or sameness with Cairns, I reflected after a couple of days of being immersed in its ambience.

As I approached my hotel in the centre of town, after a midnight arrival, I was astounded to see, lining its perimeter, rolled (half metre diameter) razor wire.

When I asked the cabbie why there was a need to have razor wire on the hotel fencing, he explained it was to prevent local petty criminals from stealing the customers’ cars. “Likely story”, I said to myself, “probably to keep the blacks out”.

On later inspection I noticed most private and residential dwellings in the city had razor wire, spiked or high walled fencing.

After a couple of hours sleep, I showered and consumed a hearty breakfast at the hotel before leisurely walking a couple of blocks to the Smith Street Mall for the Writers’ Festival launch. While everyone was positioning themselves under limited shaded vantage points, Ted Egan, NT Administrator, played homage in a song to Vincent Lingiari - Gurindji leader of the 1966 Wave Hill strike.

I was enjoying the launch presentations, in particular the Kenbi Dancers; the vibrancy of the men, women and children dancing their dreamtime stories in unison, when off to the left I heard loud laughter from the direction of two jovial women. On closer inspection, I noticed the women were holding large glasses of beer, obviously purchased from the corner pub no further than 20 metres away, and who appeared to be familiar with the performers as they joined in with dramatic chanting.

What struck me most about the women were their ghastly facial scars - one in particular had a conspicuous straight cut from the forehead to the chin, her lips were swollen and the jubilant mood revealed a toothless grin. They were both probably no more than 25 but looked twice that age.

If I thought that would be my only encounter in Darwin with public drunkenness, albeit from a respectable distance, I was sadly mistaken.

The conference for the next three days was held at the impressive Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery located at Fanny Bay: tourists flock in the thousands to view the impressive museum collection and to take in the wonderful tropical gardens and spectacular, uninterrupted views of the Timor Sea.

Although there were many fine non-Indigenous authors speaking on a wide range of topics, I was most interested in hearing from the Indigenous participants; Ali Cobby Eckermann, Richard Frankland, Charlie King, Alec Gruger, Tom Lewis, Jared Thomas, Ali Mills, Romaine Moreton, Boori Mony Pryor and Tara Winch, just to name a few.

The one non-Indigenous person who did however leave an indelible impression on me at the conference was Kirsty Sword-Gusmao. If you didn’t recognise the name and took her on face value, then this humble writer, who wrote A Woman of Independence (2003), would go unnoticed. I was fortunate to share the autobiography - The Human Journey panel session with the First Lady of East Timor along with Alec Kruger who wrote The Long Way Home and John Harms who wrote The Pearl - Steve Renouf’s Story.

Kirsty Sword-Gusmao shared her story of how she fell in love with the people and country of East Timor from her first visit in 1990. She spent the next decade working as an undercover activist in Jakarta, becoming an increasingly valuable operative within the East Timor independence movement. In her book she includes her relationship with, and eventual marriage to, the nation’s first president, Xanana Gusmao - a charismatic leader capturing the national headlines of late.

After the session, Kirsty agreed to have a photograph taken of us holding our respective autobiographies. Being conscious of the uproar by the press when Paul Keating touched the Queen on a visit to Canberra (the English press nicknamed him the Lizard of Oz) and wary of her minders, I stood rigid with my book held firmly to my chest - when unexpectedly Kirsty, an Australian by birth, put her arm around me in a warm embrace.

That evening at a Parliament House reception for writers and East Timorese expatriates, hosted by Clare Martin the Chief Minister in her honour, Kirsty spoke of how she broke the heel of her shoe at the entrance to Parliament House and joked with the co-ordinator, who kindly swapped shoes for the occasion: “Now you know what it’s like to stand in the shoes of a First Lady”, to broad smiles and claps all round.

However, on the last night of my stay in Darwin, I had cause to pay closer attention to another woman who stood out in a crowd - but in this instance it was for all the wrong reasons.

After a most entertaining viewing of Mission Impossible 3 at the city cinema, I decided against taking the direct route to my hotel and instead sought to walk along Mitchell Street to an Indian takeaway in Knuckey Street.

By this stage, it was quite dark, perhaps around 8.30pm, and I’d ventured no further than 50 metres from the cinema when I came across a scene I thought I wouldn’t come across so soon after Aunty Delmae Barton’s publicised ordeal at Griffith University’s transit centre (she was left unattended after suffering a stroke).

If I wasn’t looking where I was going, I would have trodden on a heavy-set, middle aged Aboriginal woman lying flat on her back in the middle of the busy walkway. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but I leant down to hear if she was breathing - a nervous, first instinct reaction - on hearing her breathing heavily, I decided the next thing to do was phone for an ambulance. Worse still I didn’t have my glasses with me to read the white pages’ small print and started to panic.

A thousand thoughts rushed through my mind - should I ask a backpacker at the nearest internet café to assist, dial 000, or go into a restaurant for help?

Luckily, I spotted a female security guard crossing the street who I insisted walk with me to the helpless woman to lend a hand. At first the security guard appeared reluctant, but after assertive persuasion eventually relented. She didn’t waste any time in telling me I shouldn’t fuss about these people as they make a habit of falling down drunk, anywhere, and sleep. She said they all did it so the cops would pick them up and take them to the watch house where there was a comfortable bed.

For the next hour, after she radioed police for help, I was given a history lesson of public drunkenness: they revert to their uncivilised ways when drunk and bash each other with whatever they can get their hands on; most of them you don’t touch without protective gloves because they have hepatitis B and some have HIV; this one’s okay but most of them are not very lady like when they sleep as they don’t have any underwear; the next day she’ll be back in the park again looking for her next drink and will probably be bashed up again by other drunks.

And on and on it went.

What I did observe, during her incoherent spiel, were several cop cars driving past without showing any interest in assisting; locals not blinking an eyelid at the predicament and simply walking around or stepping over the woman: and those who did stop to help were tourists, mainly middle aged and white.

I found it quite interesting that recent ABS figures revealed up to 35 per cent of Indigenous men do not drink alcohol compared with 12 per cent of non-Indigenous men; up to 80 per cent of Indigenous women do not drink alcohol compared with up to 25 per cent of non-Indigenous women and in the Northern Territory, 75 per cent of Aboriginal people do not drink alcohol at all.

But do you think these statistics would have changed the view of that security guard on that busy Saturday night in Darwin’s tourist precinct?

I doubt it.

And perhaps Seneca got it right when he said "Drunkenness doesn’t create vices, but it brings them to the fore".