The day before Cyclone Tracy hit

my family was planning our usual Christmas. It was our turn to have the clan at our place and my mother, Middle Cat and I had spent Christmas Eve doing all sorts of last minute preparations inside. The Senior Cat and Brother Cat had been making sure everything was tidy outside. The Black Cat was out somewhere.  Later we went off to the midnight carol service and were looking forward to the day to come.

Early the following morning everything had changed. The phone rang about five in the morning. The Senior Cat answered it sleepily but then sounded wide awake and very, very alarmed. Then he called me, not my mother, and passed the phone over to me with the words, "There's been a bad cyclone in Darwin."

"Bad" was an understatement. It was catastrophic. News was filtering through but much more slowly than it does now. Even without that I had already been called in to help because I was on a list of volunteers with the necessary emergency response training. Like a number of local teachers I had done a short course run by someone who had spent a number of years working in disaster relief. No, I was not going to Darwin. There would be enough people up there. I would be here waiting for people who had nothing but clothes they were wearing to arrive.

I know I ate something but it was not Christmas lunch. Nobody felt like celebrating as the pictures slowly came through.  A friend collected me in her car on Boxing Day and I left the house feeling very nervous. Could I really do what was required of me?

We were taken through procedures again. In my case it meant seeing certain information was gathered from people arriving. We were told nothing much more than "some people will be arriving but they won't have anything with them" and "some of them will be driving down". 

It also meant directing them to the food and clothing that the Salvation Army was already collecting ready to distribute. My parents and my brother left the house not long after I did to help with collection and distribution. Fifty years ago they were young and quite fit. They needed to be because, by the following morning, they were dealing with the mounds of clothing and furniture I could see arriving at the other end of what was then the biggest building in the state's showgrounds.

People had begun to arrive. They came in looking bewildered and exhausted. Some of them had driven through a night and a day in cars which were sometimes literally tied together. The police at the checkpoints further north had simply allowed anything remotely road worthy to continue further south. 

Most people were wearing nothing but shorts and flip-flops. One woman was wearing nothing but a nightie. There was a teenage girl with only a bra and pants and a beach towel hugged around her. Several men and boys were wearing nothing but a towel around their waist.

They queued in a reasonably orderly fashion I suppose but I hardly had time to notice. I remember one man blinking and squinting at the form he had been given and then breaking down because he had not been able to find his glasses in the devastation that had been his house. Someone handed him their glasses for a moment and that helped. It seemed such a little thing but the owner of the glasses was grabbed by both hands and it was done in silence. I remember how quiet it seemed. People were not talking.

Late in the afternoon though came the moment I doubt I will ever forget. I was helping a woman who was clearly overwhelmed by the situation. She was doing her best but she could not read or write and getting information from her had been difficult. Her exhaustion was evident too.  She had a number of children standing silently behind her as we tried to find accommodation for all of them. I was asking her for the ages of her children and I remember saying something, "So that's you and eight children Mrs...?" She looked at me, blinked and then screamed, "No, where's... " One of her children was missing. It seems impossible but she had come all the way from the north of the country to the south without realising one of her children was not there. He was a boy in his teens and she thought he had been with a friend when the cyclone hit. I never discovered whether he was safe. I tried not to think about that woman but I have often wondered what happened to her too.

I went on to the next family and the next...and the next. Many of them were women with children. The men had stayed behind to do what they could.  It was a moment of relief when a local woman came into the hall and took a friend and her two children away. Someone else arrived and took away a family to stay on the caravan in their property - instead of going on holiday themselves. It was little things like that which helped everyone.

My experiences at that time were the closest I have ever come to being a front-line worker in a disaster relief situation. It taught me a great deal, a great deal I would rather never have experienced. It was an experience which has enabled me to struggle with the role I eventually took on. And it has made me forever admire those who go out into the actual situations and deal with it all on a much more immediate basis, who sleep on the ground and eat the same rations as those they are trying to help. I was so lucky because I eventually went home to a fridge still with food in it. We eventually ate and slept normally but it was weeks before I stopped hearing the screams of the woman who did not know the whereabouts of her eldest son. She would be a very old woman now. If she is still alive I hope she is spending Christmas Day with her son.  

"No, you do not need money for that,"

is what I wanted to say. I managed to keep my mouth shut but it was difficult. 

I spent some time yesterday with a friend of mine who needed a bit of help. It was only holding one end of a very long tape measure but, as she said, "It is much faster with someone to help."

While I was there one of her neighbours called in wanting to know if F... would watch her children "for half an hour. I need to go and get one of the presents". 

F... gave in reluctantly on the understanding that the children came over to her place "with something to do".  The mother left and the three children arrived looking anxious.  Each of them had an i-pad. F... sighed and sent them to sit well away from each other on the lawn.

"I suppose I had to give in to that one but I have told G.... she has to make her own child-care arrangements over the holidays. I am not a free child minding service. They don't like me minding them anyway. I don't let them play with their screens."

"Expensive toys," I said.

"Hah! Their parents didn't pay for them," F... told me. I know G...'s partner is a very senior partner in a legal area. He earns a very, very good income every year. They have investments most people could only dream of, run two expensive cars and G... recently boasted that the mortgage on a five bedroom house with a swimming pool has been paid off. 

But no, they did not pay for the i-pads. The National Disability Insurance Scheme did because all three children are supposedly "autistic" and have "learning difficulties".

I have observed these children over a number of years. The eldest had some problems learning to read. He still prefers to kick a ball around. He can be sullen and moody, especially when he does not get what he wants. He can also be very pleasant and polite, especially if his mother is not around. The middle boy is almost silent. If what I have seen of his school work - homework done at F...'s place - is any indication he does not have learning difficulties but he does have some emotional issues. His older brother bullies him. The youngest boy is simply out of control. He knows how to behave in ways that will get him attention and will frequently say of school work, "I can't do it."  

I think all three boys have issues but they are not "autistic". Their "learning difficulties" are not related to any type of autism I have ever observed or read about. The oldest boy can read quite adult material without difficulty if it relates to something he is interested in. His maths is average for his age. He simply "hates school" and causes issues for other children because of it. The middle child is simply keeping his head down and trying not to attract attention. I estimate his work probably places him well above average - or would do if he was happy about saying more than a few words.  The youngest is very immature, the result of spoiling by his mother. 

F... talked to me quietly about the boys as we went on measuring up her new garden beds. "Their mother knows how to work the system. They all get some tutoring too. The i-pads were part of that."

F...was once a teacher of children who did have severe learning difficulties. She has worked with children who are severely disabled by autism. I think between us we know that this family is abusing the NDIS. 

It might be better to require the parents, or at least their mother, to attend classes in parenting. She needs to be told, "No, you don't need money for that. You need to spend time and effort on your children instead. You are encouraging them to be "disabled" and our taxes are paying for it." Last year they received a very large sum of money in assistance - assistance that could be better spent elsewhere. It won't happen.

Medication that does not work?

I see Johnson & Johnson have been hit with a class action for "knowingly selling medicines that do not work". Really?

There will be plenty of people who will put their hands up to be part of the action. I am not sure how they will prove they have taken things like "Codral" and "Benadryl" but I suppose it is possible. They might get a cent or two in "compensation" if the action works. It might bankrupt Johnson & Johnson I suppose...or it might not.

Of course the entire pharmaceutical industry relies on us taking medication to "cure", "recover", "treat", "control" and "live a normal life" for longer. And why do the hard work of going on a weight loss diet if that new wonder drug will do it for you?

Of course the pharmaceutical industry has produced some things of great benefit. They have taken the work of scientists and turned it into life-saving items like insulin, blood pressure medications and vaccines for otherwise deadly diseases. All that is surely to the good? At least one doctor friend reading this will tell me if I am wrong.

But there are other things I am much more concerned about. Anti-biotics should not be failing us - but is that the fault of the pharmaceutical companies or ours for over using them and diminishing their efficacy? I am fortunate in that I have not had cause to take an anti-biotic for well over twenty years. If I did get a bug that needed treating then how well would one of the current anti-biotic medications actually work?

When my grandparents were born "cholesterol" was not an issue. It may have been noted as far back as 1759 by de la Salle in France but it was not until 1955 that doctors started to express concerns about it. My paternal grandparents lived to their nineties. They ate red meat and drank full cream milk all their lives and never used cholesterol medication. Now they would probably be told to cut down the red meat or, preferably, not eat it at all. They would be told to drink only fat reduced milk, substitute plant based "margarine" for butter and never eat cream. On top of that they would be given "cholesterol lowering medication".  Perhaps they would have lived to 100?  

The pharmaceutical industry is there to make money for those who own the companies concerned or for their shareholders. As long as we recognise that first then perhaps we might cure ourselves of believing taking a pill or potion can provide an instant cure for everything? 

"Crimes against the person"

sounds dramatic and the story in the paper makes it seem dramatic too.The long list of rural communities and their crime rates makes depressing reading. It is especially so if you consider that these are the crimes which are actually reported. The actual rate would be even higher in some places, perhaps much higher. People have simply given up reporting the less serious offences against them because they know the police will not be able to do anything. They know that, even if the police do catch the perpetrators and charge them, the courts will let them off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. They know the courts will do that because government policy is what requires them to do just that. The perpetrators are all too often seen as people who have come from poor backgrounds, people who have been abused themselves. Courts are supposed to take that into account.

Some of the children involved are untouchable - and they know it. If you look at the names of some of the areas where the crime rates are highest you will see they have indigenous names. Not all of them have indigenous names of course but the other places with the worst crime rates also tend to have high indigenous populations. If there is a one in three chance of being the victim of an offence against the person in a community with an indigenous name then it is surely something we need to be concerned about?

No, I do not have the answers to the many problems but I do know that some of the problems and some of the answers lie in a change to the present government policies. There would need to be a radical shift in attitudes for this to occur and I recognise that is unlikely.

We need to be listening to women who want "welfare cards" to be brought back in. If they want to be sure they can spend money on essentials to feed their families rather than on alcohol or gambling then why should they be denied that? It is not as demeaning as having to go to a poorly stocked foodbank and beg for food. These women do not view it this way at all. They regard it as getting government assistance to handle the alcohol, drug and domestic violence issues in their communities. Not everyone needs to have their income support planned in this way but there are women who welcome it. The level of domestic violence and public drunkenness was reduced and school attendance increased. Why then did the government go against the wishes of those involved and remove those cards? The idea that the cards were somehow wrong has more to do with what bureaucrats and their advisers want than what people wanted. The very people who say that others need to be independent and able to make their own decisions are actually encouraging dependence on welfare and taking away the capacity to make other decisions.

We also need to ensure the children are learning English and then learning in English. That of course goes entirely against the notion that "culture has to be preserved".  We expect children of migrants to this country to go to school and learn English. They do just that and many of them do extremely well. Why then do we do everything possible to hold back indigenous children by insisting that their "culture" needs to be preserved? This is especially the case when what it is claimed is being preserved is actually nothing like the culture it is said to be. All too often what is being taught is not a culture which is being preserved but a culture which is being created. How can it be anything else when they see twenty-first century ideas on satellite television in remote communities?  We are setting children and young people up to fail when we insist on teaching them "in their native language".  Nobody wants to lose languages or cultural identities but if the alternative is a lifetime of unemployment and violence then we need to rethink our ideas about the consequences.  

Go Fund Me? NO!

It seems that almost every day there is a story in our state newspaper of someone who needs help. Then there is the call for donations through something like a "Go Fund Me" page or to a charity, often a little known charity, or for a one-off event.

I have often wondered how deserving some of these people are. Perhaps I should not judge anyone in this way but it is still something I wonder about. I have never donated to any "GoFundMe" request and I am even less likely to do it now than I might have even several days ago.

Why? It is because, as I have always felt there might be, one of these "requests" turned out to be a scam. Apparently "loving" parents chose to shave a child's head, put a bandage on and photograph him sitting in a wheelchair to claim he had cancer and they needed the funds for medical treatment.

I am beyond appalled by this. Parents who are currently sitting by the bed of a critically ill child must, if they know anything about it, be completely bewildered and even more stressed by it. Why on earth would anyone do this - except to steal from others while doing great harm to both their children? Their children have been removed for now but the question has to be "are they fit to be parents?" What is going to do more harm - return them or have family bring them up?

And how will all this affect this sort of fundraising? There is another lot of fundraising going on right now because two violent teens - out on bail - have been arrested for causing very serious harm to a very young child. She is in hospital with a fractured skull. The injury she has incurred may have life long consequences. It is something which will take time to discover and the family will be facing ongoing trauma for a very long time. All this is well documented and the community in which the family live have rallied in support. That is right and proper and I hope the support is ongoing. I do not want to see it reduced because of the extreme selfishness of the parents who have lied to obtain a financial benefit.

It would be so good to be able to help everyone genuinely in need but I will also continue to be extremely wary of GoFundMe requests to help.  I am equally wary of some charities making demands we consider others at Christmas. One charity here has a very, very expensive advertisement running on prime time television. This same charity has been looking for donations in our local shopping centre. It has been there since the beginning of the month. While people may have donated early on I observed people just walking straight past on the last few occasions I have been there.

Yesterday I took the things a friend has gathered over the year to a collection point for a shelter. She has very little to give in the way of money but she embroiders small items that can be used. It is her way of giving back. When I passed them over one of the women working there looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "I still have my little bag. It's so lovely."  Her life too has come full circle and, like my friend, she is now giving back to the charity which once helped her.

My friend was given help when she most needed it and she is giving her time and skills in return. It is not just money we need to give. It is time and skills. 

I admire both those women for giving what they can.  

Cheaper power bills

were  one of the many things the present government promised us would happen if we elected them. Like most election promises this has not happened. 

Did anyone really believe them? I suppose some people must have done. They may even believe that "subsidy" myth - that somehow we were all given money towards our power bills. I know I was not "given" anything. This is taxpayer money, money we have put into government coffers, being returned to us. Shh...you do not dare mention that our power bills are still some of the highest in the world. They will remain that way too. Our small population spread over vast distances is always going to be an issue.

We just need to face facts. Our standard of living is too high. 

Yesterday this house, about to go on the market, was "styled". It meant people coming in and moving most of our comfortable furniture out and putting in other furniture. They took down our pictures and put up blobs of brown. They "artistically" placed more cushions than this house has ever seen. I have strict instructions on how to recover my sleeping mat with a white spread, two very large pillows and two cushions. 

The girl who designed the layout told me, "You'll hate it." I loathe it. I can see where she is coming from but yes, I hate it. The only thing to be said is that it was a great deal cheaper than it might have been to have this done.

The company which did the job consists of just four people. The was G... "the stylist". Then there was her boss, his very shy wife, and his brother. They come from India and they are obviously workers. The house was transformed in two hours. There was no standing around.

It is heavy physical work moving furniture, making up beds and making sure that everything they have brought in is immaculate. No, it is not the way any house really looks but this is about "presentation". We have compromised a little. I am after all still living in the house. G... actually said, "It actually looks better this way but I don't know what the agent will say."

I don't either but he knows I am still here. I can get several things out of the way in a few days but not just yet. That does not bother me and I do not think it will bother him. What bothered me was how hard those four people worked. I know it would not have been so fast with any local people I know. I know it is the way they simply just "got on with the job" that allows them to make a living out of this. They are really working for what they get. I am also sure they go home at night and relax at least for long enough to recharge their inner "battery" for the next day. It is the only way they could continue to work at that pace.

We need more people to work like that, a lot more.   Our power bills might not be cheaper but we might be able to pay them if we all worked like that. 

Banning protests

from outside places of worship may or may not work. I do not know. What I do know is that there is a great deal less tolerance towards people who do worship at all. 

Yesterday I overheard someone being ridiculed because they attend church. I will give that young man credit for simply saying, "I have my beliefs. You have yours." He then walked away ignoring the jeers which followed him. 

I doubt I believe anything like the things he believes. From the way he was dressed I suspect he belongs to a very strict religious sect. I do not doubt he has the right to believe those things. Provided he does not attempt to make me believe them as well then we would probably get along just fine.

What disturbs me is not so much what other people believe but their demands that the rest of us believe it too. A major department store in another state apparently did not put up a Christmas display this year. They did not do it because others threatened to protest about it. What should have been fun for children to go and view was stopped by a small group of people who threatened there would be trouble if it went ahead. 

Here we no longer celebrate Christmas in at least one child care centre. One parent complained several years ago. She was backed up by a few more. The parent in question has no religious beliefs at all. The parents of children of other faiths had no problems with Christmas being celebrated but one mother managed to persuade three or four more that the celebration of a great festival should not go ahead. All the children missed out on something which should have been a memorable occasion. Was that right or wrong? Was it right or wrong when the same centre did acknowledge Diwali?

I remember Christmas celebrations at infant school. We would be told the story and write about it ourselves. We would decorate the classroom with paper chains we had made ourselves after measuring and cutting. We talked about Christmas trees and the meaning of them. There was a great deal to do and learn in all this. On the last day of school we would have a "party" with paper hats we had made and cherries to eat after we had eaten our sandwiches. 

It was all "fun" but I doubt a child of today would find it enjoyable in the same way. Most of us would have been church goers but many of the city children would never have been into a church. Even children in rural areas where church going was once an unbreakable Sunday ritual no longer go to church.

As we passed the lads jeering at the church goer the friend I was with remarked that she saw the changes as having begun with the demands of a few. These are the people who wanted the shops to be open all day on Saturdays and those who felt organised sport should be played on Sundays. That other people have to work in the shops and that teachers and students have to give up their Sundays to sport is of no consequence to those who see it as convenient for themselves. They simply shrug and say "Nobody goes to church anymore."

Perhaps people don't go to church. Beliefs have changed for many, especially the younger generations. I can't help wondering though, is it right that the beliefs of a minority should dictate how the majority enjoy something that does no harm and brings great pleasure?