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In October 2022, the opera Olive Pink by Anne Boyd was performed at the botanical gardens in Alice Springs, in collaboration with the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir. The stage, under a gum tree, was positioned on the site where Olive Pink had once lived in a tent. On the stage was a white house-shaped tent from which white smoke drifted upwards. The night fell while the opera was in progress. The moon was full, lighting up the white trunks of the gum trees. Olive’s white laundry on a line flapped in the wind, bringing us the scent of freshly burned gum leaves. It was an unforgettable night.
Alice Springs, this red-hot bleeding heart of ours, is a surprisingly robust society, largely because of its community driven collaborations. The town features truly iconic creative and sports events: the Parrtjima light festival, the Anaconda mountain-bike race, the Finke Desert Race, the Beanie Festival, the NT Writers’ Festival, the Bush Bands Bash, Desert Mob, Desert Song and the Desert Festival.
In the opera Olive Pink, the actor who plays the anthropologist Ted Strehlow sings: “The Northern Territory, where truth and justice are always just out of reach.”
Justice and truth in the Northern Territory form the subject of this blog. It is about the future and what it can be when we walk the path of sustainable justice and stay on track. Sustainability is not only about the economy and environmental pollution and the ultimate effects on the climate: it is also about justice, and seeing truth, and having a vision from a clear mind. Only sustainable justice can repair this hot, wild, bleeding heart of ours. Just as with our climate, we need to be quick and sharp and not sluggish and dull.
Our kids are burning down the town because they cannot feel its warmth. It will take a village….
A town councillor tried to declare a state of emergency, only to find out that town councils cannot declare an emergency. A few weeks later, the same councillor was forced to withdraw a motion to privately finance street guards with dogs – in other words, to take vigilante action – because of the number of concerned community members present. Was this councillor seriously suggesting a private army? Precious time was lost. The town showed its concern. It may be ready for sustainable justice instead of the revolving-door justice practised up to now.
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