Photos of brumbies and sunset at Lajamanu in my first week here.

Found this article on the review of the intervention. It will be interesting to hear more about it as it sounds like it will be the guide to any changes to the intervention policy.

www.ntnews.com.au//article/2008/10/14/9255_ntnews.html


People I've spoken to about the intervention have had mixed opinions about it. There is neither overwhelming praise for it nor overwhelming rejection, from what I've picked up. I've heard a number of people say they think the welfare quarantining in communities has led to there being better access to food. That sounds like a good thing. But there is concern about the way it was enforced on everyone. Hence the argument for it being made voluntary. Someone explained to me that in the communities it is well known which people/families need help to manage their money and more control could be given to communities to work out for themselves who needs welfare quarantining.

Keeping grog out of communities, people tell me, has led to more people coming to places like Katherine to buy it. This means more people sleeping rough in the streets and grassy areas on the banks of Katherine River - the 'longgrassers'. Drinking alcohol in any public place within the katherine town boundary is banned. But the amount of broken glass beer bottles you see on the footpaths is evidence it must be possible to avoid being found in the long grass and other places. And 6 bike tyre punctures in almost as many weeks and I'm a bit over all the glass!

Something to get used to here is the bottle shop opening at lunch time and closing at 8pm. You can't go to a late night party and pick up a bottle of wine on the way! Its by no means a terrible thing but just takes an adjustment in your thinking and planning. I liken it to the change of mindset that would be needed if the local video shop closed at 6pm and you had to know what DVD you wanted to watch that night and have picked it up on the way home from work, assuming that is, that you were able to leave work on time. So much for the spontaneous stroll to the video shop to get a DVD after dinner.