Remote Australia Online

The article aims to complement contextual analyses of the political, ideological and commercial uses of natural environments in Australian landscape cinema by exploring from a cognitive perspective exactly how such environments are foregrounded in ways that affect viewers’ emotional relationships to both characters and the environments themselves. Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) serves as an example of a film that aims for a realistic portrayal of the physical hardship of the Australian outback, while also using that cinematic environment strategically to reinforce viewers’ emotional attachment to its young heroines and, ultimately, to push a political argument that runs counter to the conservative national ideology that informs much of traditional Australian landscape cinema.

In this article we discuss ways teachers might think about extending school-based language practices with home-based language practices for multi-lingual young people. We use an example of middleyears aged young Aboriginal people storytelling around a mobile phone using a mixture of their preferred language, Ndjébbana, and English. The concept of translanguaging is defined and discussed, and the article considers how translanguaging transgresses and destabilises language hierarchies, and, at the same time, expands and extends practices that are typically valued in school literacy classes and in the everyday world of communities and homes. We consider the value of student-driven elements in the curriculum and the importance of the speaking and listening modes of the curriculum.

The policing of public dissent in rural and regional areas is influenced by many factors, including global and state events but also by the dynamics of the localised context of police and activist interaction. This article asserts the importance of dialogue and negotiated management between police and demonstrators in order to facilitate peaceful protest in regional and rural areas. It explores policing approaches of dealing with industrial disputes in regional areas as well as environmental climate change protest. Rural and regional police face the challenges of broad geographical expanses, isolation, fewer resources, limited back-up and equipment, and more distant communication with senior officers than their urban counterparts generally experience in public order situations. The success of dialogue policing and negotiated management of public order is tested in the current era when police are becoming more heavily armed not just in urban but also in regional and rural locations. Rural and regional police are often immersed in tightly-knit local communities and follow a community policing ethos but they are also entrusted to maintain law and order.

This study adopted a strengths-based approach to identify and explore these higher performing communities’ characteristics, attitudes and expectations; programs, partnerships and interventions; and social capital and infrastructure in order to uncover key influencers that support their residents to embark upon, and succeed in, higher education.The study confirmed that there are differences amongstregional and remotecommunities in terms of community assets and attitudes that affect higher education outcomes for regional and remote students and other equity groups in regional and remote communities. Positive community attitudes toward education, and employer support for higher education, have an important significant role in promoting higher education access and participation, and in student retention and success. Proximity to a university campus, and connections between campus and community are also factors that facilitate access and participation, particularly for younger students. Mature-aged students in regional and remote communities, many of whom are studying part time and through distance mode, are a largely invisible but important segment of higher education participants and the workforce of regional and remote communities, which could be better supported by policy and university practice. This project utilised a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design. Regional and remote communities, defined by postcode, were analysed for student access, participation, retention, success and attainment (completion) indicators by equity group using Department of Education and Training higher education student data for all regional and remote students from 2011 to 2016. In this report, the attainment indicator is defined as award or degree completion. Asurvey of regional and remote students attending five universities with more than 30 per cent of student load from regional and remote areas sought to find community-related factors that influence and enable access, participation, retention and success. Case studies identified community infrastructure relevant to educational aspiration and key informants were interviewed to explore community factors that contribute to higher education participation and success in five communities, selected to represent a diversity of communities that performed well on access, participation, retention, completion and/or success indicators from the national data and survey phases.

This is a new fictocritical work, about nursing to death my two parents in Columbia, Missouri over the same two and half years that saw the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the rise of Black Lives Matter, the election of Trump; events that saw me return to my home in the Midwest for the first time for longer than the few days it had been for over three decades. And while I appreciate that the violence and undoing of these events are not related nor commensurate according to a logics of scale—I do not want to be ‘whitesplaining’, in this sense, reducing differential inequities or to be making my narrative the one—nevertheless the events are materially entangled in what Karen Barad might call a ‘strange topology’ or ‘geopolitics inside a morsel… an implosion/explosion of no small matter’.1 It is this matter and the mattering that has taken place since, that ties racism, the rise of neo-fascism, to the death of my parents, to a hauntological that won’t quit; a brutal facticity of indeterminacy that is constitutive; what I call composting death.

The outback has long had a mysterious place in white Australia's psyche, depicted on the big screen as a vast landscape in which one might get lost and never come back. Yet, as Dean Biron and Tiffany Sutherland outline - with reference to a selection of films about lost or missing characters from the last fifty years - these cultural and cinematic anxieties have slowly but surely shifted away from the rural and towards the suburban, a milieu that can be as threatening as it is familiar.

The Remote Community Mining Toolkit is designed to empower remote communities to gain a greater understanding of, prepare for and act to better manage the changing effects of a mine over its lifecycle. A key goal of the toolkit is to deliver enduring community value from mining (ECVM) – or long-term, lasting value to the community. The best way to do this is for the community to make decisions and act early so as to best influence the mining decision-makers: the company, the state and, in the Northern Territory, Traditional Owners who have the power to block mining development on Aboriginal land. This toolkit is provided for guidance purposes only and does not substitute for expert legal and other advice which should be sought early in the mine lifecycle and before any decision is made or action is taken.The toolkit is structured into nine modules, which can be read in order as a whole or selectively as reference material.

Surficial iron-rich deposits (ferricretes) occur on and around Burringurrah (Mount Augustus), a huge, remote inselberg in the Gascoyne district of Western Australia. Oriented NW-SE, Burringurrah is approximately 14 km long, 5 km wide, rises to 1105 m above sea level and stands some 700 m above the surrounding plain. The majority of the ferricretes occupy bedrock valley bottom floors on the southern side of the inselberg at Edney Springs, Flintstone Creek, and on the Edney Trail where they have formed on unweathered quartzose Mount Augustus Sandstone, which only contains a few percent Fe2O3. At ‘The Pound’, a boulder ferricrete overlies deeply weathered igneous bedrock, unroofed by erosion of the overlying Mount Augustus Sandstone, exposing the unconformity between the weathered granitic bedrock and the Mount Augustus Sandstone in the core of a broad, asymmetrical and doubly plunging anticline. On the northern, steeper, side of the mountain, vermiform and conglomeratic ferricretes are sparsely exposed in drainage lines. Ferricrete mineralogy is dominated by goethite with only small amounts of hematite. Oxygen isotope inferred ages of weathered monzogranite produced a top-down weathering front extending up to the Neogene at an elevation coincident with the ferricretes within bedrock valley bottoms. Beyond the mountain, the age of ferricreted sandy alluvium was established by thermoluminescence polymineral fine grain dating. These produced a minimum depositional age of >37.6 ± 2.6 ka and a second finite age of 139 ± 44 ka, suggesting ferricrete formation here may have begun during the last interglacial period and continued throughout the late Pleistocene. Formation of ferricretes on top of iron-poor quartzites is unusual. It reflects not only the absolute accumulation of iron oxides derived from the Mount Augustus Sandstone but possibly the additional contributions of iron-bearing aeolian dust from the surrounding plains subsequently washed down drainage lines to accumulate in swampy depressions at the foot of the inselberg. Ferricrete formation was initially simple, with iron in solution impregnating sandy sediment and organic host materials, sporadically impacted by bioturbation by termites. Thin-section petrography reveals an interesting form of in-situ, self-brecciation of quartz and feldspar clasts, which are fractured and infilled with iron oxides and newly precipitated clay which further promotes fragmentation. The mode of ferricrete formation described from Burringurrah is relevant to the laterite-ferricrete debate, for here it is most unlikely that the zones of iron enrichment developed in situ and vertically above the iron-poor quartzite basement as in the sense of the regional ‘classic laterite profile’.

Objective Because of the high prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes in Australian Aborigines, and a suggestion that the prevalence of birth defects was high in the infants of Aboriginal mothers with gestational diabetes, this study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of birth defects in infants of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal mothers with insulin-dependent, non-insulin-dependent, and gestational diabetes mellitus. Design A retrospective cohort study of all births to diabetic and non-diabetic mothers in Western Australia, 1980?1984. Main outcome measure Birth defects diagnosed at any time up to the age of six years. Results Compared with infants of non-diabetic, non-Aboriginal mothers, the prevalence ratio for birth defects in infants of non-Aboriginal insulin-dependent mothers was 2.08 (95% confidence interval, 1.2?3.7), and for infants of mothers with non-insulin-dependent diabetes the ratio was 3.64 (95% CI, 1.5?8.6). The corresponding ratios for infants of Aboriginal mothers were 4.85 (95% CI, 0.8?28.2) and 3.64 (95% CI, 1.3?10.4). For birth defects in infants of gestational diabetic mothers, the prevalence ratio was 1.07 (95% CI, 0.6?1.9) for the non-Aboriginal group and 3.65 (95% CI, 2.3?6.0) for the Aboriginal group. Diabetes could have accounted for 0.14% of birth defects in infants of non-Aboriginal mothers and for 4.62% in infants of Aboriginal mothers. Conclusions The excess of birth defects in infants of Aboriginal women with gestational diabetes may be due to non-insulin-dependent diabetes that predates the pregnancy but is only diagnosed during pregnancy. For Aboriginal infants, maternal diabetes may be the single most common known cause of birth defects that is amenable to change.

Introduction This paper describes the collaborative development of a method and process for transcultural qualitative enquiry, undertaken as the second phase of a mixed methods PhD research project. Aim To develop an ethical, sensitive and culturally secure research method and process with which to explore the experiences of Aboriginal women in an acute mental health inpatient unit, a potentially vulnerable research population. To invite Aboriginal women to share their stories and their experiences as current inpatients, or as carers, visitors and health service providers. Method A local Aboriginal Reference Group (ARG) was constituted and collaborated with the first author in developing working strategies and tools. Members of the ARG guided all aspects of the research process, acted as primary agents for information-giving, informed consent and interview processes, and were co-authors of relevant publications. Results The method described here fostered trust and cultural respect, and embedded informed consent as an ongoing process. Eleven Aboriginal women inpatients undertook a single semi-structured interview prior to discharge from the inpatient unit. Five ARG members also gave interviews, adding insights from their ‘insider-outsider’ perspectives. A rich dataset of personal experience was made available for analysis. Conclusions The process devised for this study integrated principles of cultural respect and collaboration with an ongoing process of informed consent. By integrating these principles into research initiatives and evidence-based practice, and by ensuring familiarity with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures, non-Aboriginal mental health nurses can enhance transcultural mental health service delivery in an acute setting.

This chapter explores what a reflexive encounter in an Indigenous archaeology context looks and feels like, and what its implications might be for the archaeologist and how they construct the past. Archaeological fieldwork can oftentimes generate emotional and affectual responses all of which represent critical features of the reflexive process. Here, Brady draws on aspects of his journey as an archaeologist working alongside anthropologists and Yanyuwa Families to explore this reflexive process in a series of encounters with what is routinely described in the archaeological literature as “rock art sites.” As part of this process he reflects back on the discipline of archaeology, and his training in this field. He writes to show how reflexive thinking may ultimately contribute to the decolonizing process in archaeology.

Managing the rangelands is complex. Soils and vegetation can vary considerablyover short distances in distinct or subtle ways. Separating climatic from managementinfluences on the condition of the land has always been difficult.Whether we live on a sheep station, in a country town, in an Aboriginal community, a miningcamp, or even if we only visit the Australian outback, it is vital that we understand andappreciate the unique character and management requirements of the rangelands. This bookfunded by the National Landcare Program will contribute to that understanding.Much of our vast arid shrubland has only been settled by Europeans for just over a centurycompared with thousands of years of Aboriginal involvement. Consequently, ourunderstanding of its unique landscape and processes is still evolving. Learning to ‘read therangeland’ has been a slow process, involving the knowledge and skills of pastoralists,Aborigines and scientists. In particular, the Resource Inventory and Condition Surveyscommissioned by the Government since the late 1960s have given present and future users anexcellent body of knowledge to guide management. I acknowledge the efforts made bypeople in the Departments of Agriculture and Land Administration in mapping anddescribing the soil and vegetation in the arid shrubland areas.Reading the rangeland has been prepared by an experienced team involving technical expertsin rangeland management and publication. It was also ‘road tested’ by a diverse group ofleading pastoralists and others with love for and interest in the country. I believe the final textmelds the ideas from both these groups in a way that both new and old users of the rangelandwill find fascinating.

This chapter draws on the experience of the Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group in Alice Springs, Australia, as an example of both individual and community resilience. The history, outcomes and implications for practice of the group are presented. The chapter identifies the links between the development of resilience through experiences of loss and grief and how this community has transcended vulnerability to create social change. It examines the importance of going beyond individual psychological understandings of resilience to include social and cultural perspectives to enhance our understanding of what it means in practice. The chapter draws on the definitions of resilience throughout the book but pays particular attention to these cultural dimensions.

Objective : Identify preventable pre-pregnancy risk factors that may affect the prevalence of miscarriage among a cohort of Australian Indigenous women. Methods: Data from 1,009 Indigenous women of childbearing age who participated in a 1999?2000 health screening program in far-north Queensland were linked to Queensland hospitalisation data. Women who attended hospital after their health check (censor date: March 2008) for a pregnancy-related condition were identified. Characteristics associated with becoming pregnant and subsequent miscarriage were analysed using generalised linear models. Results: After adjusting for age and ethnicity, women who became pregnant were more likely to be smokers and to have low red cell folate at baseline. The risk of miscarriage increased with age. Women who reported risky drinking or had elevated gamma-glutamyl transferase were also at higher risk. After further adjustment for risky drinking, the presence of chlamydia or gonorrhoea before pregnancy was associated with miscarriage. The presence of both infections at baseline compared with women who had no infection, again after further adjustment for risky drinking, was strongly associated with miscarriage; these women had more than a four-fold increase in risk (PR: 4.57 [2.21?9.46]). Elevated body mass index, high blood pressure and smoking were not statistically significantly associated with risk of miscarriage. Conclusions and implications: A high prevalence of pre-pregnancy sexually transmitted infections and high rates of risky drinking are associated with miscarriage among young Indigenous women in rural and remote communities in north Queensland.

BACKGROUND: The realms of parenting have long belonged to females. In many cultures it has been a female who has predominantly cared for and raised children. For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander male parents this has resulted in them being largely overlooked from contributing to the parenting conversation. Predictably, such a dominant discourse has led to an inadequate distribution of opportunities available and a societal perception that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander male parents are disinterested in and/or disengaged from their parental roles and responsibilities, however, this is far from the truth. METHODS: This study is entrenched in an Indigenist research approach which privileges Indigenous lives, Indigenous knowledges and Indigenous voices, and utilised the Research Topic Yarning method to capture participants stories. RESULTS: Four yarning groups were conducted across South Australia in Coober Pedy, Yalata, Port Lincoln and metropolitan Adelaide. In total, 46 Aboriginal men contributed their experiences and stories of their roles and responsibilities as parents to this study. Men described being a dad as a privilege, emotionally fulfilling and rewarding and although at times it can be challenging, neglecting their roles and responsibilities are not considered options. Lack of employment and therefore financial security were described as a challenge to fatherhood especially for fathers who live in remote communities. Aboriginal culture, connection to country and family were identified as critical elements and strengths for Aboriginal male parents. Furthermore, Aboriginal male parents are yearning for opportunities to participate in parenting programs including men's parenting groups. CONCLUSION: Consideration of and concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men's involvement and experiences prior to conception, prenatal and postpartum has slowly gained momentum in recent years, yet there has been little improvement in the overall provision of appropriate parenting support services and/or programs for these men.

Improving the rates of, and instruments used in, screening for perinatal depression and anxiety among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are important public health priorities. The Kimberley Mum’s Mood Scale (KMMS) was developed and later validated as an effective and acceptable perinatal depression and anxiety screening tool for the Kimberley region under research conditions. Other regions have expressed interest in using the KMMS with perinatal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. It is, however, important to re-evaluate the KMMS in a larger Kimberley sample via a real world implementation study, and to test for applicability in other remote and regional environments before recommendations for wider use can be made. This paper outlines the protocol for evaluating the process of implementation and establishing the ‘real world’ validity and acceptability of the KMMS in the Kimberley, Pilbara and Far North Queensland in northern Australia. Methods: The study will use a range of quantitative and qualitative methods across all sites. KMMS validation/revalidation internal consistency of Part 1 will be determined using Cronbach’s alpha. Equivalence for identifying risk of depression and anxiety compared to a standard reference assessment will be determined from receiver operating characteristic curves. Sensitivity and specificity will be determined based on these cut-points. Qualitative methods of phenomenology will be used to explore concepts of KMMS user acceptability (women and health professionals). Additional process evaluation methods will collate, assess and report on KMMS quality review data, consultations with health service administrators and management, field notes, and other documentation from the research team. This information will be reported on using the Dynamic Sustainability Framework. Discussion: This project is contributing to the important public health priority of screening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women for perinatal depression and anxiety with tools that are meaningful and responsive to cultural and clinical needs. Identifying and addressing barriers to implementation contributes to our understanding of the complexity of improving routine clinical practie.

Male urethritis is primary sexually transmitted. Northern Territory (NT) has the highest rates of gonococcal infection in Australia and local guidelines recommend empiric treatment with azithromycin and ceftriaxone for all men presenting with urethritis. As gonococcal drug resistance is a growing concern, this study aims to improve empiric use of ceftriaxone through examining local patterns of male urethritis, comparing cases of gonococcal urethritis (GU) to controls with non-gonococcal urethritis (NGU).

We describe the first case of HTLV associated bronchiolitis to be associated with HTLV-1c subtype infection. An Aboriginal man with HTLV-1 infection was repeatedly admitted to Alice Springs Hospital, central Australia, with hypercapnic respiratory failure from the age of 28 years. High resolution CT chest findings were consistent with bronchiolitis and large numbers of lymphocytes were found in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). After extensive investigations failed to find a cause, he was tested for HTLV-1 and found to have a high HTLV-1c proviral load (6.8%) in peripheral blood leukocytes and in BALF (4.7%). The administration of systemic corticosteroids resulted in a rapid clinical response; however, he did not continue treatment after discharge and died due to respiratory failure in the community.

In 'Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Kobelt' [2019] HCA 18, the High Court held by a majority of 4-3 that the provision of credit to residents of remote Aboriginal communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY lands) in far north South Australia pursuant to a particular form of the 'book-up' method was not unconscionable within the meaning of s 12CB(1) of the 'Australian Securities and Investment Commissions Act 2001' (Cth) (ASIC Act).

This paper focuses on Australian Indigenous rock art tourism, a field that has received limited research attention. Our aim is to identify aspects which are invisible in tourism promotions. We note trends in rock art tourism and related research, survey the Australian situation, and employ a case study approach to outline the development of Indigenous rock art tourism in Kakadu National Park (KNP) and parts of the Quinkan (Laura Cooktown) region. In both regions, Aboriginal communities inherited legacies of top down decision-making and bureaucratic methods. Although the Laura people transitioned to a community-based system and a successful ranger program, they face challenges in achieving their aspirations for sustainable rock art tourism. KNP communities, subsumed into an unwieldy joint management arrangement for the World Heritage listed National Park, are faced with competing values and perspectives of the dominant government system. A centerpiece of the Balnggarrawarra tourism initiative is the ranger/tour guide system of the type which operated for some years at Laura and was introduced briefly at KNP. The model incorporates key elements of sustainable Indigenous tourism–traditional owner control and jobs, land care, conservation, cultural preservation, partnerships, and public education. Notwithstanding contemporary challenges and realities, a unifying theme is caring for rock art.

Objective: To investigate the extent of participation in cervical cancer screening among women who live in discrete rural and remote Indigenous communities in Queensland. Design: Descriptive analysis of data from the Queensland Health Pap Smear Registry for the period March 1999 to February 2001. Subjects: Women aged 20?69 years who had given their address of usual residence as one of 13 discrete rural and remote Indigenous communities in Queensland. Main outcome measures: Proportion of women who participated in cervical screening over a two-year period (?biennial participation percentage?) and variation in participation across the 13 communities. Results: Overall, the biennial participation percentage in the Indigenous communities was 41.1%. This was 30% lower (risk ratio, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.67?0.72) than that for the rest of Queensland. There was statistically significant variation among communities, with biennial participation percentage ranging from 19.9% to 63.5%. Conclusions: The variation in participation across the communities suggests that the problem of low participation among Indigenous women is not intractable. Achieving participation rates similar to the highest rates found in our study would be of major benefit to Indigenous women.

Strategies for mitigating climate change through altered land management practices can provide win?win outcomes for the environment and the economy. Emissions trading for greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement in Australia's remote, fire-prone, and sparsely populated tropical savannas provides a financial incentive for intensive fire management that aims to reduce fire frequency, severity, and extent, and it supports important social, economic, and land management opportunities for remote communities, conservation agencies, and pastoralists. These programs now cover >20% of Australia's 1.9 million km2 tropical savanna biome, encompassing areas of globally significant biodiversity value. A common assertion is that by reducing the frequency, severity, and extent of fires for GHG abatement, these programs provide biodiversity co-benefits. However, such biodiversity benefits have been assumed rather than demonstrated. Much better accounting of how biodiversity is responding to changed fire management is required to ensure that there are no unintended outcomes for biodiversity (bioperversity), and that biodiversity co-benefits are maximized. Such accounting could underpin the earning of formal biodiversity credits from improved fire management, and will go a long way to understanding and improving the biodiversity outcomes of savanna fire management.

For several years prior to the Australian Federal elections in September 2013, Commonwealth Government telecommunications policy and legislation focussed exclusively on the fixed services National Broadband Network. This distracted broader public attention from the need for cellular mobile expansion in the more sparsely populated areas of the country. Commercial returns in these areas are clearly inadequate for unilateral private operator investment, making government participation crucial. Thus a commitment from the newly elected Coalition Government for a Mobile Black Spot co-investment programme marks a significant change of prospects for remote and regional Australia. This paper proposes that the joint program should commence with a comprehensive financial and technical study of backhaul and base station technology options, to identify the most cost effective approaches. These options include the coordinated provisioning of modern satellite and terrestrial backhaul systems, utilising and upgrading existing HCRC microwave system infrastructure, and the implementation of small cell base station types. It is especially timely for these opportunities to be considered now, during the present pre-launch design and construction phase for the NBN Ka band satellites.

Objective: To quantify the childhood infectious disease burden and antibiotic use in the Northern Territory?s East Arnhem region through synthesis and analysis of historical data resources. Methods: We combined primary health clinic data originally reported in three separate publications stemming from the East Arnhem Healthy Skin Project (Jan-01 to Sep-07). Common statistical techniques were used to explore the prevalence of infectious conditions and the seasonality of infections, and to measure rates of antibiotic use. Results: There was a high monthly prevalence of respiratory (mean: 32% [95% confidence interval (CI): 20%, 34%]) and skin (mean: 20% [95%CI: 19%, 22%]) infectious syndromes, with upper respiratory tract infections (mean: 29% [95%CI: 27%, 31%]) and skin sores (mean: 15% [95%CI: 14%, 17%]) the most common conditions. Antibiotics were frequently prescribed with 95% (95%CI: 91%, 97%) of children having received at least one antibiotic prescription by their first birthday, and 47% having received six antibiotic prescriptions; skin sores being a key driver. Conclusions: Early life infections drive high antibiotic prescribing rates in remote Aboriginal communities. Implications for public health: Eliminating skin disease could reduce antibiotic use by almost 20% in children under five years of age in this population.

Standardized testing and school achievement: The case of Indigenous-language speaking students in remote Australia