When Canadian woman Kyla Dolen first met cowboy Fred Osman she admits she was instantly infatuated.
“I had moved out on a backpacking visa and had got a job helping out at his dad’s station,” she said.
“After working with him I was very twitterpated and in love with him.”
That was 12 years ago.
Now, she’s married her dream man.
Thousands were in attendance on the final day of the biggest rodeo in the southern hemisphere.(ABC North West Queensland: Larissa Waterson)
The couple tied the knot on Sunday, paying homage to Fred’s stockman roots as they said “I do” in front of a crowd on the red-dirt arena of the Mount Isa Rodeo — the biggest event of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
In true cowboy fashion, just an hour after his vows, Mr Osman, 36, went on to win the bareback ride, defending his 2021 champion title.
“I don’t know what I was more nervous about, getting married or winning my fourth buckle here,” he said.
The two said their vows on the arena just before Fred won the bareback competition.(Supplied: Mount Isa Rodeo)
A long road to rodeo romance
A year ago, Mr Osman popped the question to Ms Dolen while on a hike in Canada, right before he flew back to Australia.
“It was dodgy as. I didn’t have a ring or anything at the time so I just nicked one of her other little rings and did it with that,” he said.
“But I just wanted to make sure, because we were doing a lot of flying between countries, that she knew what my intentions were.”
The couple met 12 years ago and have been together for the past three years.(Supplied: Mount Isa Rodeo)
After COVID-19 lockdowns forced the couple into a 10-month long-distance engagement, Ms Dolen had had enough.
“My dream wedding was always to get married in Canada in the mountains,” she said.
“But after COVID and everything, I didn’t know when we were going to get back to Canada. And I’m lazy and I don’t like planning things. And I didn’t want to plan a wedding. So I was like, why don’t we just get married at Mount Isa?
“He was already going to be here riding in the rodeo and his family was coming to watch him ride so it was just so easy.
“And I wanted him to be excited about it as well and have a venue that he was excited about.”
Kyla tossed her bouquet into the crowd where one lucky single girl caught it.(ABC North West Qld: Larissa Waterson)
At the noon lunch break on Sunday, Ms Dolen walked onto the Mount Isa Rodeo arena in a sparkling white two-piece gown and cowgirl boots, her family watching via live stream from Canada.
Kyla enters the Mount Isa Rodeo arena from the chutes in true cowgirl fashion.(ABC North West Qld: Larissa Waterson)
“It’s been awesome. When you really love someone, it’s really hard to just pick the small things you love about them — it’s just the whole entity of that person that you’re drawn to,” she said.
“He’s my best friend and I just can’t imagine doing life without him anymore.”
Kyla and Fred (center and left) first met on his family’s station.(Supplied: Kyla Dolen)
To legally buy alcohol from this Queensland pub you must blow in the bag – and you must blow zero.
Key points:
Queensland government measures prohibited all alcohol in Kowanyama since 2008
In 2014 the community’s canteen reopened, serving restricted amounts of alcohol
Takeaway sales are now allowed in the community, with each person allowed 12 mid-strength drinks per evening, four nights a week
Kowanyama, a remote town on western Cape York, was one of seven Indigenous communities in Queensland where prohibition was introduced in 2008.
In 2014, the local canteen reopened serving restricted amounts of alcohol.
This year the community has gained more freedom regarding alcohol, successfully applying for a takeaway license.
But that freedom is restricted.
Each person is limited to buying 12 mid-strength drinks per evening, and only from Wednesday to Saturday between 5pm and 11pm.
To enter the canteen patrons you must sign in, take a breathalyser test, and return a zero blood alcohol reading—even to buy takeaways.
Some Kowanyama residents register their homes as ‘dry places’, with penalties for anyone who brings alcohol in.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby )
They can then, for example, have four drinks at the bar and take eight home.
Producing a members or visitors card at the bar allows staff to keep tabs on how many drinks people have had, while customers are kept informed of their limit by a flashing digital display on the cash register.
A similar canteen has this month opened on the opposite side of Cape York, at Lockhart River — another of the seven communities where prohibition was introduced in 2008.
Venues on Mornington Island and at Pormpuraaw, on western Cape York, are also in the process of applying for extensions of their existing liquor licences.
‘Hardly anyone here’
Many in Kowanyama gathered for the annual Rodeo Ball this month, hosted at the canteen.
Thomas Hudson, President of the Kowanyama Sport and Recreation Association which runs the canteen, said the aim of the ball was to bring the community together.
Kowanyama Sport and Recreation Association president Thomas Hudson spearheads the annual Rodeo Ball.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
“For people to dress up and be proud of themselves because we don’t do that every day here in our community,” Mr Hudson said.
Attendance at this year’s event, the first since its inception where takeaway alcohol has been available, was down on previous years.
The steady stream of people buying from the canteen takeaway counter before its 8pm closure confirmed what ball attendee Clive ‘Smokey’ Gilbert suspected – that many were choosing to drink at home.
“There’s hardly anyone in the canteen here,” Smokey said.
“When no takeaways were on this pub used to be crowded but you don’t see that now, they’re always going home now.”
Clive ‘Smokey’ Gilbert (L) and Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Mayor Robbie Sands (R) attended this year’s Rodeo Ball.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
Fellow Kowanyama resident Gwendolyn Dick said despite the below average attendance, the ball did succeed in bringing the community together during an extended period of sorry business.
“We had four deaths just recently, and another one in the last week or so,” Ms Dick said.
“It’s good to see all the families from in the community come together all in one because we often can’t during the sorry business and the funeral.”
Return of rights and responsibilities
Most in Kowanyama welcome the return of the canteen and of takeaway alcohol sales, including the community’s women’s support group.
Security providers and canteen customers said the increase in takeaway sales had resulted in a reduction in fights and anti-social behavior at the pub.
“It’s something good for the community,” Smokey said.
“It keeps them out of trouble and people enjoy their beers at home watching the football.”
Rodeo Ball attendance was down in 2022, with takeaway sales meaning more people are choosing to drink at home instead.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
For Michael Yam, a former mayor of the Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council the resumption of takeaway alcohol sales at the community’s canteen is a return of the rights and responsibilities of the townspeople.
“It’s about time they gave us something back,” he said.
“It’ll probably minimize the sly grogging because, as we know, in our community there’s always opportunists that are going to do it.”
And he said there were benefits to people choosing to drink at home, rather than at the canteen.
“Some families take their drinks home so that they can be home with their kids instead of drinking in the club all the time, away from their little ones.”
Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Major Wayne Butcher said that community’s newly opened canteen had been “14 years in the making.”
“It’s created 10 new jobs in the community overnight so it’s great to see a lot of young people working as crowd controllers, security or people serving alcohol behind the bar and preparing food,” he said.
“That’s the other side of the coin that we don’t get to look at too much or focus on.”
Traumatic brain injuries, severe dislocations, and broken bones are some of the injuries Graeme Maw has seen come through the Townsville University Hospital from electric scooter (e-scooter) accidents.
Key points:
A Townsville Hospital emergency physician says around one person a day presents to the hospital with injuries
Data shows that 70 per cent of patients with e-scooter injuries are male, with the majority in the 18 to 30-year-old age group
The RACQ says a crackdown on non-compliant e-scooter users is needed to improve safety
Emergency physician Dr Maw says staff would support a ban on the two-wheeled devices, as new research shows half of the riders are making potentially life-threatening decisions on Queensland roads.
He said approximately one person per day was presenting to the hospital with injuries ranging from skin abrasions to significant head trauma.
“Lots and lots of soft tissue injury, extensive grazing and abrasions. Lots and lots of lacerations that require suturing up,” Dr Maw said.
“Often, these patients go on to suffer relatively significant long-term impacts from these sort of injuries.
“There was one young man who came off a scooter after drinking. He came in deeply unconscious and was sent to intensive care. He went from being a functioning member of society with a job to spending months and months in hospital and rehabilitation.”
Dr Maw says about one person per day presents with an e-scooter injury.(Supplied)
The Townsville University Hospital has been collecting data on the frequency of e-scooter accidents since the ride-sharing devices arrived in the city in 2020.
Dr Maw said about 50 per cent of patients presenting to an emergency were not wearing a helmet, and more than 75 per cent were under the influence of alcohol when an incident occurred.
The data showed 70 per cent of patients presenting to the hospital with e-scooter injuries were male, with the majority in the 18–30 age group.
The data shows 70 per cent of patients presenting to Townsville University Hospital with e-scooter injuries are male.(ABC North Queensland: Rachael Merritt)
But Dr Maw said the true extent of cases was being under-reported.
“It’s not just the people riding the scooters. We’ve had a few innocent bystanders knocked over,” he said.
“Not everybody who comes off an e-scooter ends up going to the emergency department.
“A lot of patients head to GPs, private hospitals, and some may not seek medical attention at all.”
Calls for help becoming ‘more frequent’
Queensland Ambulance Senior Operations Supervisor Wayne Paxton, from the Townsville district, said paramedics were responding to an e-scooter crash at least once or twice a week.
“It’s starting to become more and more frequent over the weeks and weekends,” Mr Paxton said.
“The types of injuries we deal with can vary from a small cut or abrasion to something like a head injury or fractured leg or shoulder injury.”
Doctors say they have seen cases of traumatic brain injury in Townsville since the scooters were introduced.(ABC North Queensland: Rachael Merritt)
Amid the rising cost of fuel, Mr Paxton said more regional Queenslanders were choosing the cost-effective mode of transport.
He said their popularity would likely continue to rise but warned riders to be aware of the risks.
“I’ve been to accidents where the helmet has been on, but they haven’t done the strap up, and it has come off during the fall,” he said.
“If we don’t have the right education and don’t wear protective equipment … it can certainly lead to serious injuries and, worst-case scenario, more deaths.”
Safety not being taken seriously
With more regional Queensland cities such as Mackay, Rockhampton and Bundaberg taking part in the e-scooter rollout, a recent survey by the state’s peak motoring body found half of the riders admitted to reckless driving behaviour.
Andrew Kirk, principal technical researcher at RACQ, said a crackdown on non-compliant e-scooter users was needed to improve safety, as well as a stronger education campaign.
“Nearly one in 10 riders have had an accident, and over half of those have been injured,” he said.
“That comes down to lack of safety equipment, going too fast and riding in the wrong areas.”
A statewide survey of e-scooter users by RACQ found only a third of riders were aware of the road rules.(ABC North Queensland: Lily Nothling)
Mr Kirk said RACQ had been in talks with e-scooter rental companies to incorporate new technologies, such as onboard cameras, to improve user safety and did not want to see them pulled from the streets.
“It’s getting cars off the road, so it’s reducing vehicle emissions and reducing traffic congestion,” he said.
“They do have a big role to play in Australia’s net-zero goals.
“Most bike riders have adapted to the fact you have to have a helmet on, but for e-scooters we just need to change that mentality to get people to do the right thing.”
Every time Palawa woman Nala Mansell walks past the statue of former Tasmanian premier William Crowther, she says, it is “a reminder of the atrocities committed to William Lanne.”
Key points:
William Crowther, a 19th-century naturalist, surgeon and politician, cut off and stole the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne after he died
Earlier this month, a council committee unanimously agreed that Crowther should no longer be commemorated.
The full council will vote tonight on whether the bronze statue will be removed or partially removed, with a report identifying the potential for an alternative
However, Ms Mansell might not be walking past it for much longer, as Hobart City Council tonight considers a motion to remove the controversial statue from where it stands in Franklin Square.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this story contains references and images of deceased persons and content which may cause distress.
Crowther — a 19th-century naturalist, surgeon and politician — cut off and stole the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne after he died in 1869.
Then Crowther replaced the skull with that of another man in an attempt to conceal the act.
As campaign coordinator for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Ms Mansell said it was upsetting that the statue of Crowther was still standing.
“It’s so hard to comprehend how people cannot understand the offensiveness of glorifying a man who is responsible for mutilating a human being simply because of their race,” she said.
“To Aboriginal people, William Lanne represents our struggles, our treatment, our dispossession and everything we fought for over 220 years.”
Dr Maddison said the removal of the Crowther statue could be the first of its kind in Australia. (Supplied: Sarah Maddison.)
University of Melbourne Australian Center director Sarah Maddison said the conversation in Australia around controversial monuments is a growing one.
“There’s certainly been ongoing pressure and campaigning to either remove or dismantle statues celebrating Australia’s most famous colonisers, [such as] Governor Macquarie in New South Wales.”
A growing movement
Campaigning has been boosted in recent years in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in line with a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement.
It saw a series of Confederate statues taken down and, in England, the statue of a Bristol slaver was thrown into the bay.
Dr Maddison said she believed the removal of the Crowther statue could be the first of its kind in Australia.
While a statue of Captain Cook was removed in Cairns, it was his pose that was deemed offensive.
Now, it’s a focus on the man himself, and Dr Maddison said it could set a precedent for conversations around other controversial monuments.
“History is never just one-sided. Statues make it seem as though it is, and we need to engage far more critically with the way we commemorate aspects of Australia’s past,” Dr Maddison said.
“Public statues commemorating men who have committed crimes against First Nations people is a continued source of pain.
“It’s hard to imagine what it would be like walking past the statue of a man who had removed the skull of one of your ancestors.”
Crowther’s statue, erected in 1889, stands in the heart of Hobart.(ABC News: Andy Cunningham)
Statue should serve as ‘conversation starter’
Earlier this month, a council committee unanimously agreed Crowther should no longer be commemorated.
The full council will vote tonight on whether the bronze statue will be removed or partially removed, with a report identifying the potential for an alternative sculpture in its place.
“Now is a great opportunity for the Hobart City Council to acknowledge the wrongs of the past, and the hurt and trauma that it has caused,” Ms Mansell said.
“If the Hobart City Council are not ready to acknowledge those things, it will be a sign to the state, the nation and the rest of the world that racist attitudes still exist to this day.”
Alderman Simon Behrakis said he would like the statue to serve as a conversation starter about Tasmania’s history.
“If the full story hasn’t been told with William Crowther, then we tell the full story, but I don’t think removing his statue and removing mention of him is the way to do that,” he said.
“Our history isn’t just the parts of our story we have good fond memories of. It needs to be the darker parts of our history because they’re the ones that we learn from.
“Put a plaque up there, put something up there that tells the story, but I think removing the statue is the same as burning books.”
Councilor Simon Behrakis said he did not think removing the statue was necessarily the best way forward.(ABC News: Maren Preuss)
A dark chapter of history
Historian Paul Turnbull said the statue was an affront to many and what happened was a dark chapter in Australia’s colonial history.
“If you look at the case of the mutilation of the body of William Lanne, even at the time it was said there was nothing more loathsome than what actually happened,” he said.
“There was a ‘rather obscene’ competition between Crowther and the Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) for the remains. Crowther wanted to send them to London’s Royal College of Surgeons, RST wanted them for the Hobart museum.”
When Crowther was denied access to Lanne’s body, he and his son broke into the hospital where Lanne was being kept. Crowther then cut and peeled back Lanne’s skin and stole his skull from him, replacing it with one from a nearby corpse.
It is then believed that another surgeon cut off Lanne’s hands and feet to prevent Crowther from returning and stealing the full skeleton.
Mr Turnbull said Crowther’s actions horrified Hobartians.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
“This caused a range of responses, but generally many people in Hobart were horrified by what happened,” Mr Turnbull said.
“I can’t think of any other statues where we are talking about people who were actively involved in plundering of Aboriginal graves or theft of Aboriginal heritage.”
Lanne’s grave was later robbed, and parts of his remains have not been located.
It is believed Lanne’s skull was taken to the Royal College of Science when Crowther’s son moved to London to study.
Crowther’s collection of Aboriginal remains was donated to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery when he died, many from unknown sources. TMAG returned all remains to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community in the 1970s.
RST council president Jocelyn McPhee told Hobart City Council that the organization acknowledged past involvement in trading remains of Aboriginal people and supported the statue’s removal.
“There was interest from a scientific point of view, and most of our members would have regarded the Aboriginal community as primitive,” she said.
“The society failed to challenge prevailing attitudes [about] Aboriginal people that were destructive.
“The position we have now is a new one.”
Statue’s presence ‘untenable’
Julie Gough with her Breathing Space art project.(Supplied: Andrew Wilson Photography)
Last year, the Hobart City Council launched a Crowther Reinterpreted art project, in which four local Aboriginal artists transformed the statue in various ways to reflect an alternative message.
Renowned Aboriginal artist Julie Gough, who participated in the project, said its continued presence “in the main public square in Nipaluna/Hobart is untenable.”
“WL Crowther was premier for only 313 days in 1878-79. His good work was not remarkable nor worthy of a permanent statue,” she said.
“The suffering of Aboriginal people, who have not forgotten, needs to be addressed by the removal of this monument to a disgraced man.”
Allan Mansell’s artwork temporarily transformed William Crowther into a memorial for William Lane.(ABC News: Maren Preuss)
Some members of council are not convinced removing the statue is the best way forward.
Dr Maddison said there were ways to continue the conversation while removing the statue.
“Taking down those statues, or relocating them to museums where that type of behavior can become part of proper education and debate about the truth of Australia’s colonial history, I think would be a really good step to improving Indigenous-settler relations,” she said .
“Removing the statues is a step, but it can’t be the last of the conversation.
“It needs to be the basis for opening up the conversations about reparations, about compensations and about treaty and agreements.”
Denys McKelson, 78, says he’s “lucky enough to have his caravan to sleep in”, but covering the costs of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) on his pension income is now out of reach.
“My thoughts are purely, ‘How far is the pension supposed to stretch?’,” Mr McKelson asks.
He worked until the age of 70 and now lives in his van, currently parked at his daughter’s house in Brisbane.
“With COVID very active, why are pensioners no longer able to get the RAT kits for free with our pension card?
“Cost of living is going up. I buy the exact same food items, and I get much less for my money these days. Vulnerable people are not going to have the money to spend on RATs,” he says.
With the cost of living increasing, 78-year-old pensioner Denys McKelson says “vulnerable people are not going to have the money to spend on RATs.”(Supplied)
Mr McKelson is referring to the federal government’s move to end concessional access to RATs at the end of July.
Under the scheme, concession card holders — including those with a Pensioner Concession Card, Low Income Health Care Card or Seniors Card — could access up to 10 free RATs over three months from pharmacies.
In announcing the end of the scheme last month, Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said the prices of RATs had “come down dramatically”.
“The concessional RAT program was set up a time when it was borderline impossible to obtain RATs and those who were lucky enough were paying close to $30,” a spokesperson for minister said.
They’re now down to around $8 to test.
The spokesperson said the former government and state governments designed this program to end on 31 July.
‘Significant cost if you’re not affluent’
Pensioner Andrea Lindsay says access to RATs needs to be made easier.(Supplied)
Andrea Lindsay says she is in good health and lives in a good location.
“For anyone that isn’t fairly affluent, the cost [of RATs] is quite significant. It’s just not going to encourage people to be careful,” she says.
Ms Lindsay volunteers at a plant nursery as well as an op shop with other seniors in Melbourne.
“I won’t be doing these things, volunteering, if I can’t be confident about keeping people safe,” she says.
She, too, has noticed the hit from the free RAT test scheme ending at the end of July.
“If we want to encourage people to be active in the community and be responsible, [access to RATs] better be made easier.
“And pensioners aren’t the only ones [who] are in a low-income group.”
Council on the Aging (COTA) Australia chief executive Ian Yates said his organization would have preferred the federally-funded free RAT scheme for concession cardholders to continue.
“Pensioners don’t need a financial barrier to test at the same time as the costs of living are rising on many basic goods, including food,” he said.
He added that the Commonwealth’s withdrawal had largely been covered because most states now have free RAT schemes in place.
“[That] demonstrates the need for this support. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests are also free in all jurisdictions and the Commonwealth is still providing them free for visitors to aged care facilities.”
Where can I find a free RAT kit in my state?
Yes, there are still ways people, including pensioners, can access free COVID-19 tests.
Here is the latest information on finding a free RAT kithopefully, located near you.
queensland: You can get free RAT kits at Queensland Health’s RAT distribution points, which are listed here, if you hold an eligible Commonwealth Concession card. You can get up to five RAT kits per month and collect up to three months’ supply during a single visit if you hold an eligible concession card.
NSW: Free RATs are available for priority cohorts in NSW at any one of the following 200 neighborhood and community centers across the state, which can be found here. Eligible people include:
people with disability, immunocompromised people, and their carers
Commonwealth Concession Card holders from NSW
Pensioner Concession Card holders
Commonwealth Seniors Health Care Card holders
Health Care Card (including Low Income Health Care Card) holders
Department of Veterans’ Affairs Gold, White or Orange Card holders.
Victory: Free RAT tests to eligible Victorians with disability can continue to access 20 free rapid antigen tests per visit from state-run testing sites and from Disability Liaison Officers, with the program to run until the end of September. To find out which testing sites have rapid antigen tests, visit here.
More information about Disability Liaison Officers is available on the vaccination for people with disability or special requirements page, here.
WA: A list of locations of where you can get free RATs is available here.
NT: Free RATs are available from a number of participating GP clinics, remote and urban primary health clinics and Aboriginal health clinics across the Northern Territory, listed here.
However, the NT government health site states supplies are provided for immediate use only and large supplies for future use are not provided.
SA: If you are a close contact with no COVID-19 symptoms, you can access free RAT kits from RAT Collection Points across the state. You must register before collecting your kits, and you can locate this here.
Tasmanian: Service Tasmania centers are collection points for free RATS for concession card holders. There are 27 centers located around the state, to find your nearest center call 1300 13 55 13 or visit the website here.
Or from your nearest respiratory clinics: People can still access free RATs from one of the 129 national respiratory clinics across the country, which you can locate here.
‘Proactive policing’ in place after double homicide
Detectives say “proactive policing” is underway to prevent retaliation attacks after a double murder in Sydney’s south-west.
Two women, aged 48 and 39, were killed when their car was sprayed with bullets in Revesby on Saturday night.
Yesterday, Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty said the case had been allocated with significant resources, including officers from gangs squad, Strike Force Raptor.
“And it’s always concerning: What’s the repercussions of all this? But we’re going to be doing our best to try [to] suppress that,” he said.
Police say the older woman was known to them and believe she was targeted because of her “past relationships with other known identities.”
A 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man, who were also in the car during the attack, were uninjured and are cooperating with police.
Detectives are working to determine if several burnt-out cars found nearby are linked and are appealing for anyone with information to come forward.
NSW Labor leader did not investigate bullying allegations
The Opposition Leader says Labor has an independent complaints-handling system.(Facebook: Chris Minns)
Opposition Leader Chris Minns did not investigate allegations of workplace bullying by his frontbencher, Walt Secord, saying that’s in line with the Labor Party’s complaints-handling policy.
On Friday, Mr Secord “unreservedly apologized” for his conduct and stated that he could be “too blunt and too direct”, after an ABC investigation revealed several of his current and former colleagues alleged he had engaged in bullying behaviour.
The Opposition Leader says the Labor Party has an independent complaints-handling system.
“It is critical that the process remains independent and, therefore, above the review of any parliamentary or party official,” Mr Minns said.
“Any grievances pursued outside this risks supplanting the independent process and the objectives for which it was designed: to protect complainants and to handle their complaints with care, respect and without prejudice.”
The allegations leveled at Mr Secord coincided with the release of the Broderick Review, which found bullying is systemic in the New South Wales parliament.
Barilaro internal review into appointment due today
John Barilaro was due to front the inquiry again on Friday but was unable due to sickness. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)
An internal review into John Barilaro’s controversial appointment to a lucrative trade role in New York is expected to be released today.
That review — by New South Wales Public Service Commissioner Graeme Head — was announced by the Premier, Dominic Perrottet, in late June and is separate to the parliamentary inquiry into the appointment.
The Head review has already led to the resignation of Stuart Ayres from cabinet and as leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party after it “raised concerns” about his conduct around Mr Barilaro’s appointment.
Calls for more visas for Afghans
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.(Reuters: Ali Khara)
A Sydney human rights lawyer is calling on the federal government to provide 20,000 emergency humanitarian visas for people trapped in Afghanistan.
Today marks one year since the capital, Kabul, fell to the Taliban.
In that time, scores of civilians have been killed or injured, women’s rights have been scaled back and food insecurity has risen, according to a recent Amnesty International report.
Refugee Advice and Casework Service’s Arif Hussein said that increased protections needed to be prioritized.
“Allowing people, refugees from Afghanistan currently in Australia living on temporary visas, to remain here permanently, and allowing for family reunification visas to be processed quicker,” he said.
City2Surf a boost for businesses
About 60,000 people took part in this year’s City2Surf, which returned to Sydney’s streets after a two-year COVID-19 hiatus.(ABC News: Helena Burke)
The greater Waverley in Sydney’s east is hopeful this year’s City2Surf has given the local economy a boost.
About 60,000 people took part in the 14-kilometre fun run, which has been held virtually for the past two years.
People traveled from around Australia to take part in the event.
Mayor Paula Masselos said Bondi businesses were bouncing back.
“The cafes, the shops were absolutely packed. It really was fabulous to see the vibe that was there,” she said.
“It was happy. It was positive. COVID has had a significant impact. The City2Surf and other events like this are really important in helping the local economy.”
Australia’s first prime minister, Edmund ‘Toby’ Barton, was many things: A leader, a visionary and as one of his obituaries summed up, “a great Australian.”
And, according to author Matt Murphy, he was also “an outright drunk.”
“If you look at our early parliaments — drunkenness was just accepted.”
And Barton is far from an exception. Since colonial times, Australia has been a country soaked in booze, as drinking has been both a national pastime and a source of untold harm and tragedy.
But is it finally starting to change?
colonial roots
When the First Fleet set off from England 235 years ago, its cargo was indicative of the kind of country Australia would become.
The first governor of the NSW colony, Arthur Phillip, insisted on bringing two years’ worth of carefully rationed food for the new settlement, in case conditions were inhospitable for agriculture.
He also took along four years’ worth of rum.
“The marines, who came to escort the First Fleet, insisted and insisted and finally got their way — to have four years’ worth of rum on board … [But] it didn’t last close to four years,” says Mr Murphy, who wrote the book ‘Rum: A Distilled History of Colonial Australia’.
It’s hard to overstate how important booze was in the first few decades of the colony.
“Alcohol was a currency. If you wanted something done, you had to pay for it. How were they paying for it? With booze,” Mr Murphy says.
“There’s lots of records of people buying and selling things for rum. For example, buying land in [the Sydney suburb of] Pyrmont for rum or selling your wife for rum.”
The NSW Corps, or the permanent regiment of the British Army, became known as the Rum Corps because they controlled the access to alcohol.
As the colony grew, rum was made locally and imported. But this wasn’t the kind of rum we know today.
“rum [became] a generic term … People were making ‘rum’ from potatoes and making ‘rum’ out of peaches. There was hooch, backyard rubbish. People died on the spot drinking some of this, they went blind. It was pretty nasty stuff,” Mr Murphy says.
“[But] people would need rum to start their day, like people need their coffee today.”
Alcohol and drunkenness became firmly entrenched in the lives of colonial Australians, which has had an impact to this day.(Supplied: The State Library of NSW)
During these early years of the colony, grog was also introduced to First Nations people, which had incredibly destructive effects.
As the 19th century progressed, demand for rum dropped, but people kept turning to other varieties of alcohol.
The social, economic and health tolls of this much alcohol across Australian society prompted various governments to try and curb drinking habits.
But this came with mixed results.
The six o’clock swill
Starting in 1916, states adopted rules where bars had to close at 6pm.
“It partly came about because of the temperance movement, because they were wanting to cut down on alcohol consumption,” says Richard Midford, an adjunct professor at Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute and a clinical psychologist.
“But it came into place during the First World War, in a major part, because people felt that the homefront shouldn’t be having a good time while the boys were away fighting in France.”
Photographer Max Dupain captured the ‘six o’clock swill’ in 1940s Australia.(Supplied: The State Library of NSW)
But the ‘six o’clock swill’, as it became known, had an unintended consequence — a culture of extremely heavy drinking developed, where workers would drink as much as they could between clocking off at 5pm and the 6pm bar closures.
It was not pretty. Bars would lay sawdust on the floor to soak up patrons’ urine and vomit, while many were refitted with tiled walls and floors (a feature which remains today) to make cleaning easier.
“It lasted from the time of the First World War right through, in some states, to the 1960s,” Professor Midford says.
Patrons at the Northern Club Hotel in Sydney toast the introduction of 10pm closing in 1955.(Supplied: The State Library of NSW)
In 1965, an unlikely invention was introduced to try to reduce drinking—the wine cask.
“The wine cask was invented to preserve wine, not to drink it more quickly,” Mr Murphy says.
“When you take the cork out of wine, it immediately starts to oxidise, it immediately starts to go off. And so the average person would rather drink it than tipping it down the sink tomorrow.
“[Cask wine] doesn’t rust.”
But, he says, “it quickly became just a convenient thing to stick under your arm and take to a party.”
Booze and politics
Alcohol and politics has long been a noxious mix in this country.
Alcohol really doesn’t provide ‘good health’.(Supplied: The State Library of NSW)
According to Mr Murphy, the fact that Australia’s first prime minister was “an outright drunk” isn’t even the most outrageous example. Not even close.
“John Norton was elected in a [NSW] by-election in 1898. When he entered parliament, he was drunk every day,” Mr Murphy says.
“Really, I mean disgustingly drunk, apparently. To such a point that about two months later, he downed his dacks and pissed on the parliamentary carpet.”
Mr Murphy also points to then-governor general John Kerr’s drunken speech at the 1977 Melbourne Cup, which he calls “disgusting”.
An inebriated Kerr rambled on in front of the racetrack audience, noting “life is wonderful for all of us,” before presenting the cup.
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“[Bob Hawke] said himself that his most endearing attribute to all Australians was his world record for drinking a yard glass,” Mr Murphy adds.
Hawke entered the Guinness Book for World Records in 1954 for finishing a yard of ale in 11 seconds while he was studying at University College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. But he gave up drinking when he went into parliament and stayed off the grog when he was prime minister.
Mr Murphy says the attitudes of politicians have had a major influence on our drinking culture over the generations.
But recently, there’s been a lot of discussion about how this is actually playing out in Canberra.
“The stuff that’s come out of parliament … is another example of a boozy workplace culture [without] restrictions put in place,” says Nicole Lee, an adjunct professor at Curtin University’s National Drug Research Institute and CEO of drug and alcohol consultancy 360 Edge.
She says parliament and other workplaces need to become spaces where “we do think about women; and people from culturally diverse backgrounds; and people who don’t want to drink; and people who don’t want to be around people who are drunk at work”.
Part of the culture
Experts say the centuries of heavy drinking have meant booze is now closely interwoven with Australian culture.
“We’ve got that sense that if you go anywhere in Australia, socially, that there’ll be alcohol there and you’re expected to drink it,” Professor Lee says.
Professor Midford adds: “There’s a very strong culture of going out and deliberately getting drunk. If you have that sort of culture, the sorts of harms that are going to occur, in terms of violence and sexual predation, are going to be much higher “.
Today, there’s a patchwork of drinking habits across demographics.
“There is some indication that people in middle age are actually drinking more — and a lot of that is driven by women drinking more,” Professor Lee says.
Binge drinking continues to be a problem in Australia.(Getty Images: Brook Mitchell)
People in the country drink more than people in urban areas.
“The further you go away from a major city, the higher the drinking levels and the higher the risky drinking,” Professor Lee says.
And there are different drinking habits among Indigenous Australians, who often get lumped into one group.
“Fewer First Nations people drink, compared to the general community, but those that do drink tend to drink at higher levels,” Professor Lee says.
“Factors of colonisation, of the stolen generations, of trauma — all of those things are linked to higher alcohol consumption.”
On the decline
Yet there are cracks appearing in our close relationship with booze.
We’ve recently seen the rise of the ‘sober curious’, as Dry July has become increasingly popular, along with zero and low-strength alcohol products.
Non-alcoholic wines can now be found in supermarkets around Australia.(ABC RN: Nick Baker)
As perceptions around alcohol are slowly starting to shift, overall drinking rates are starting to go down in Australia — thanks to one particular demographic.
“[The fact that] drinking rates are going down is nearly entirely driven by young people,” Professor Lee says.
“People in their 20s are still the heaviest drinking group, but fewer of them are drinking. Those that do drink are drinking less [than previous generations] and they’re starting later… It’s a really big shift.”
So what’s behind this shift among young people? Experts say it’s thanks to a mix of education, awareness and different priorities.
“There’s a lot more talking about [alcohol consumption]. It’s a lot more visible when there’s problems — those problems are more often reported on,” Professor Lee says.
“[Young people] are being healthier, they’re probably more conscious of their appearance — alcohol is really the only drug that makes you fat by just taking it … Also I feel like young people are much more ambitious than my generation.”
Or, as Professor Midford puts it: “Young people are much more savvy, I think, about the effects of alcohol than those 20 or 30 years ago.”
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“I will not stand by and allow the same to happen to us between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.”
He said traffic congestion was a “Brisbane CBD problem” and needs a new way of thinking.
Wide angle view of the Powerhouse Museum site in Parramatta. Work has been stalled due to a number of issues including flooding. Photo Nick Moir 5 May 2022Credit:Nick Moir.
“The mapping that was released with this report shows us all exactly what Brisbane’s challenge is: it’s their CBD,” Cr Flannery said.
“Ace [transport expert] Professor Matthew Burke said after this plan was released: ‘There are no regional job centers outside of Brisbane’s CBD, and there aren’t any plans for it’.”
Moreton’s answer is to create regional job centers outside the Brisbane CBD, Flannery said.
It’s a similar approach tried by Ipswich and Gold Coast – and to a lesser extent – Logan councils.
Moreton is calling it the “polycentric city” approach.
The state government’s recent Caboolture West interim development plan proposes specific job-generating districts.
“A polycentric city is made up of a web of smaller centres, with high connectivity between commercial and residential precincts, Flannery said.
“It means you can work closer to home, which means less time spent in traffic.”
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His argument is by planning early, congestion can be reduced.
“That includes consideration for public transport in planning, specifically public transport mode-share,” he said.
“That includes building an entirely new Bruce Highway to the west, so people in Caboolture and Morayfield and Petrie aren’t all forced into the existing congestion.”
Unfortunately, as RMIT urban policy professor Jago Dodson identified recently, the proposed Caboolture West does not have a rail link.
Meanwhile, a Chermside business group, who used 2017 census data to propose three blocks of Gympie Road around Westfield Chermside become a tunnel to address congestion problems welcomed proposals for both road and rail corridors through Brisbane’s north-west corridor.
A tunnel was proposed for three blocks of Gympie Road at Chermside in 2019 as a business lobby group argued for a high planning profile for regions outside the CBD, an issue again raised by Moreton Bay Regional Council.Credit:Suburban Futures 2019
On Saturday, a new underground rail station at Chermside was revealed as part of a proposed underground eastern corridor link to Carseldine.
Suburban Futures director Steve de Nys said there needs to be greater emphasis on suburbs and regional centers as jobs-growth centers.
“We believe that rather than being considered as the ‘dormitory’ for the city, the suburbs should be repositioned as the ‘engine room’ and receive appropriate attention through policy and investment,” de Nys said.
“The pandemic has shown how important the suburbs are to the economic and wellbeing of a city.”
“This proposal for north Brisbane is not just a transport solution but the opportunity to facilitate the revitalization and renewal of suburbs that have long been ignored.”
Their report identified that in Nundah a decade ago $55 million in traffic design led to about $800 million in new private investment to transform the Nundah community.
Mandarins are providing a much-needed source of income for citrus growers in South Australia amid a tough season.
Key points:
A Riverland citrus company says they can’t keep up with demand for mandarins
Flooding on the east coast and cold weather has affected citrus supply
Domestic demand has fueled sales for fruit unable to be shipped overseas
With flooding affecting many areas on the east coast, mandarins from the Riverland region have been filling supermarket shelves across the country.
Venus Citrus managing director Helen Aggeletos said demand had been outstripping supply.
“Mandarin volumes in general have been lower this year, both from Queensland and in the southern states as well, except for the Afourer variety,” she said.
“Basically we’re packing as much as we can.
“The only time there was a bit of a low was during school holidays, because mandarins are a bit of a lunch box fruit.”
The high demand for the fruit was fortuitous as it came after 14 outbreaks of fruit fly infestation in the Riverland and disruptions to the shipping industry.
So, Venus Citrus was able to redirect mandarins to the domestic market.
Ms Aggeletos said mandarins had also escaped albedo breakdown which unusually cold conditions had caused in oranges, making the skin softer and able to rot more easily.
“[Mandarins have] been good, and that’s probably been one of the positives in the scheme of things,” she said.
Citrus appeal during cold winter
Citrus Australia chief executive Nathan Hancock said the cold weather had helped drive sales.
“Of all the fruits out there at this time of year there’s plenty [of citrus] for Australian consumers to get their hands on,” he said.
“And it’s also really closely associated with boosting your immune system during winter.”
The end of lockdowns has coincided with an increase in winter citrus sales.(Rural ABC: Cherie von Horchner)
Mr Hancock said more people back in the office and at school after COVID restrictions had also helped the industry.
“Lots of citrus is used in hotels and restaurants and even juice bars that during [the] COVID-19 [pandemic] were really badly affected,” he said.
“So lemons, limes, grapefruit all suffered during that time because there just wasn’t the market for them.
“People are going out for dinner, and going to bars, [where they are] having a couple of slices of grapefruit, limes, or lemons in their cocktails and beers. And that’s really kickstarted those markets again, which is great.”
It’s taken more than 40 years, and a chance encounter, for a Victorian woman to find out what her family name really is.
Heather Ahpee’s husband Robert’s great-grandfather left China for Victoria around the time of the gold rush.
“My family name is Ahpee, which is bastardised Chinese,” she said.
“Like so many Chinese names in Australia, it’s not a proper Chinese name.
“It’s not even [Robert’s great-grandfather’s] family name. It’s his given name, and it means “peace”.
Ms Ahpee says she and her husband had to abandon the search after being stonewalled by family.(Supplied)
“We decided when the kids were little, so in the late ’70s, that we’d like to find out but unfortunately [Robert’s] father already passed away.”
The couple then approached other family members, but to no avail.
“We went to his aunties… but they didn’t want to tell us anything” Ms Ahpee said.
“They obviously suffered quite a bit of trauma, I think, [and] discrimination when they were young, and they didn’t want to recognize that they were part Chinese.”
With nowhere to go, the Ahpees abandoned the search.
Summarizing the search
Ms Ahpee returned to the task of tracing the family’s genealogy in 1999 through her work at Ararat’s Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre.
The center wanted to exhibit local families who were descendants of Chinese migrants who had arrived during Victoria’s gold rush.
But the only written record she could find was the Ahpees’ marriage record from 1875, where he simply marked his name with a cross because he was illiterate.
But a chance discovery in 2019 changed things.
A slate headstone bearing a Chinese characters of Ahpee’s real name was found underneath a butcher store.(Supplied: Avoca and District Landcare)
The Avoca and District Landcare group was preparing to build a highway rest stop at Avoca Lead on land that had been donated by a family in the area.
They discovered a slate headstone.
It was sandwiched between two timber boards and bore a Chinese inscription.
It also happened to be a known location of a butcher shop owned by the Ahpee family.
While the building was no longer there, Ms Ahpee said the headstone was well-preserved underneath concrete that had a hollow in it where blood from livestock could drain and be made into blood pudding.
“Finding it in Chinese characters was a real breakthrough,” she said.
Ms Ahpee had the inscription translated, which revealed Ahpee’s name in Chinese characters to be Gong Pei, and that he came from a small village in southern China called Panyu.
Unfortunately, Ms Ahpee said her husband had died in 1995, before the surprise discovery.
“He would’ve been so pleased,” Ms Ahpee said.
The Chinese characters found on the headstone have been translated into Mandarin.(Supplied)
Overcoming linguistic and cultural hurdles
Historian and curator Sophie Couchman is all too familiar with the challenges of tracing Chinese genealogy dating back to the 19th century.
She said not only were records in Australia often incomplete, but handwriting styles also changed, and certain letters looked ambiguous.
“S and T can look similar, so you have to go back and see what the writing style of those letters was like at the time,” Dr Couchman said.
“And some people’s handwriting is just atrocious.”
An adjunct senior fellow at La Trobe University, she said cultural and linguistic differences added another layer of complexity to tracing Chinese ancestry.
Dr Couchman said one challenge was that Chinese names were written with the surname first, which meant that recorded names would be flipped.
Dr Couchman says Australian records are an approximation because Chinese names can’t be captured in English.(Supplied)
She said Chinese languages were also tonal, so they could not be written in English.
The classic example, Dr Couchman said, was mā, má, mǎ, mà.
“If you were to write any of those sounds in English, you would write, ‘ma’ but that could mean four different things,” she said.
“When a Chinese person came to Australia, they couldn’t write their name in English or Roman letters, so what you ended up with was an approximation.”
The multiple dialects within the Chinese language was another obstacle.
Dr Couchman explained that while Chinese characters remained the same, the name could be pronounced differently depending on where the person was from and the dialect they spoke, and vice versa.
Nicknames unintentionally recorded
Different pronunciations across the dialects could change how a person’s name might be written.
Moreover, she said a person’s nickname was often unintentionally incorporated into historical records rather than their formal name.
For example, names could be written as “Ah Tan” or “Ah Lim”.
“The ‘Ah’ is something that makes the ‘Tan’ or the ‘Lim’ a more friendly or familiar name,” Dr Couchman said.
“In English, you might refer to someone as Frank, but if you want to be more familiar, you call them Frankie. John becomes Johnny.”
She said it was a common thing among Cantonese people, which was a common dialect among Chinese migrants during the gold rush.
Dr Couchman says ‘Ah’ often gets unintentionally incorporated into official records, like on gravestones.(ABC Wimmera: Gillian Aeria)
“You probably wouldn’t be recording somebody’s name using [‘Ah’ in China],” Dr Couchman said.
“But in Australia, they are sometimes used and then end up in the official record. And through the generations, it can be incorporated into people’s surnames.”
She said finding an ancestor was not impossible but just needed creativity.
“The Chinese characters almost become irrelevant because [the approximation] becomes their name in Australian records, so you search by that name, and then you search for slight variations on that name,” Dr Couchman said.
“If the name is Chong, you might try Cheong, you might try Cheung… you start to learn the ways in which officials misspell that name, so you’re able to trace those people through the records.”
downplaying heritage
Sometimes people deliberately tried to hide their ancestry because of discrimination and the stigma attached to being Chinese.
Ms Ahpee said that when her in-laws got married, her mother-in-law’s side of the family did not attend the ceremony because she was marrying a “Chinaman”.
But over time, she said, the Ahpees were able to overcome those perceptions because they were quite well-respected in the Ararat community for their “legendary” charitable deeds.
Over time her mother-in-law’s mother even came to live with the couple.
Ms Ahpee’s father-in-law, Eric, (right) said there were some racial tensions in his family to overcome.(Supplied)
Ms Ahpee said tracing her family history had been a long journey.
“By the time I started, I was 50-odd years old,” she said.
“… And by the time there was nobody left. The older ones who would’ve had knowledge were already dead.”
And while she now has the characters of her last name — 江 — the name of her husband’s great-grandfather, and the name of a village in China where familial records can date as far back as 700 years, she feels her journey ends here.
“I’m probably getting a bit old to start doing that stuff now, maybe one of the grandchildren might do it,” Ms Ahpee said.
