Many years ago Hugh Jackman spent a few months in remote Indigenous communities. It seems to have left his mark on him.
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An Australian-first project to improve the liveability of Aboriginal communities is underway in the remote town of Warburton in Western Australia, led by AECOM, the University of Western Australia and the Shire of Ngaanyatjarraku.
The Sustainable Warburton Project is a research, design and planning project to create new and improved urban spaces with the aim of transforming how Indigenous people live, that could be applied to Indigenous communities across Australia and around the world.
It brings Aboriginal residents of the town, 920km north east of Kalgoorlie, together with a team of AECOM specialists in urban design, ecology, landscape architecture and architecture, and academics and students from the University of Western Australia (UWA).
Projects designed include an award-winning community college and an urban agriculture scheme where orange trees irrigated with treated wastewater are planted throughout the town to provide shade, food, protection from dust and improved health.
Townspeople and community representatives have gathered over the past few months to discuss their needs in formal and informal settings with students and the project team to help identify community-enhancing projects.
Masters and honours students are now finalising design projects as part of their academic requirements which will become the basis for funding application and development. Designs will be presented to the Shire Council in February, when the winner of an AECOM prize for the most outstanding design will also be announced.
AECOM Project Director, Jon Shinkfield, who established the project’s framework with UWA, said it was a ground-breaking model to improve Aboriginal communities.
“This is the first tri-partisan relationship between an Australian Indigenous community, academia and industry to build a research and knowledge bank over a longer term with the focus on settlement planning and implementation,” Shinkfield said.
“The Sustainable Warburton Project will not only affect the future of the Warburton community but potentially inform the broader agenda of Indigenous settlement.
“We’re committed to a program focused on research, practice and realisation of a new spatial order for the town and it is hoped this will lead to major changes in the way Indigenous people can live.”
As projects are funded, students will become part of the development team to project-manage and deliver the initiatives for Warburton’s 600 residents. Projects focus on sustainability, community, urban planning, water and energy management and agriculture to improve health, education and social engagement, and include:
Dean of the UWA’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, Winthrop Professor Simon Anderson, has commended AECOM and the Shire Council of Ngaanyatjarraku on the project.
“This is a most important community-based planning and design initiative in partnership with our faculty,” Professor Anderson said.
Another Australian first
Work is also underway on a separate AECOM project to expand Warburton’s Early Learning Centre and Learning Landscape. In an Australian-first, it features a playgroup for Indigenous women and children with structured activities to help school become a more acceptable option for the future.
AECOM is also advising on alternative energy options to help find solutions to the community’s reliance on costly diesel fuel to drive the town’s generators.
AECOM plans an ongoing involvement in Warburton to ensure the proposed projects are delivered to the community as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility commitment.
“AECOM and UWA look forward to coming back to Warburton annually to build the knowledge base, see further projects conceived and help develop and implement them,” Shinkfield said.
many thanks to Reed publications for allowing me to repost this article from their website.
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Fly-in Fly out workers to sites in Western Australia and Queensland are ruining country towns close by their camps and are increasing the crime rate according to reports on WAToday.com.au (here and here.
The study by Queensland University of Technology’s Professor Kerry Carrington was published in the British Journal of Criminology. Here’s the abstract:
Over the last two decades, two new trajectories have taken hold in criminology—the study of masculinity and crime, after a century of neglect, and the geography of crime. This article brings both those fields together to analyse the impact of globalization in the resources sector on frontier cultures of violence.
This paper approaches this issue through a case study of frontier masculinities and violence in communities at the forefront of generating resource extraction for global economies.
This paper argues that the high rates of violence among men living in work camps in these socio-spatial contexts cannot simply be understood as individualized expressions of psycho-pathological deficit or social disorganization. Explanations for these patterns of violence must also consider a number of key subterranean convergences between globalizing processes and the social dynamics of male-on-male violence in such settings.
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Only two remote mining towns in western Australia were visited (unsure of how many in Queensland) but the results of the study seem to reflect (actually seem worse than) previous posts I have written on this topic (Remote Mining – check links in article).
If the abstract is a bit dry here are some quotes from Professor Kerry Carrington:
These (communities) are in a David and Goliath struggle, these are little people in a community that have very little voice, that are watching these massive, powerful, big mining companies build these work camps on their door steps
In one Western Australian mining community, which was surrounded by work camps housing about 8000 mostly male workers, the rate of violence was 2.3 times the state average.
The workers then get bussed to these pubs that are surrounded by wire mesh, they drink hard and get plastered, get into fights, sleep it off and go again.
One quote in the articles reflect my own views.
Queensland is regulating these social impacts somewhat by forcing mines to plan for them but WA does not have the same policy
The big problem we had in the WA mining industry was that (mining executives) refused to talk to us and didn’t see it as their problem. That’s because they sub-contract out their workforce.
Until mining companies are forced to improve local communities near their mines and to spend the time to train up and mentor the local population (in many cases poor with significant indigenous residents) to improve the community and reduce the fly in fly out workforce these problems will only get worse.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-mine-sites-the-worst-for-flyin-flyout-violence-study-20101206-18mm1.html
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The Queensland Government has committed $2 million to assist remote indigenous communities to prepare for extreme weather events. Indigenous Disaster Management Field Officers will be based in Indigenous communities. It will provide training for these officers to run disaster management exercises.
These Indigenous Disaster Management Field Officers are to work with Indigenous Councils with the following aims:
- enhance disaster management planning and exercises;
- recruit and support volunteers for disaster management roles; and
- encourage community leaders to be involved in disaster planning.
There is a need for these people.
Coastal and remote Indigenous communities are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme events such as cyclone, storm surge and flooding.
Factors such as distance from major centres, proximity to the coast and the socio-economic status of community members can increase this vulnerability and influence the impact of events.
This two million dollars is to be spent over three years. In remote communities accommodation is scarce. I assume new people will be employed and brought into the community. If it is people already working in the community then they will have to be replaced and housing found. Basic houses in these areas can cost several hundred thousand to build.
Queensland is a large state. These field officers will have to travel extensively. So there will be significant costs with buying vehicles, fuel, airfares etc. With wages to be paid out of this program I can’t see too many field officers being employed.
This $2 million dollar Indigenous Disaster Management Field Officers initiative is a tiny part of a $196 million climate change strategy.
I think I will call it window dressing.
The bulletin is available for downloading: Keeping Our Mob Climate Safe (217)
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