Thursday, December 25, 2008

Cambodiacious

Having a great time so far in Phnomh Penh, although the banana blossom salad I had for dinner last night has created a bit of ruckus (nothing huge) and is a timely reminder to be a bit more careful with food.

Khmer food is very salty and not very spicy, luckily I got a good dose of Malaysian sambal on the epic that was the low cost carrier journey to get here.....

Cambodia is a bustliing hive of construction activity there is some serious rebuilding activity going on here. I have been travelling about with a really nice group of turkish travel agents and a chinese woman from beijing and who speaks excellent american english.. They are all leaving to go to Siem Reap today and I am off to the monastery to teach english to the monks and do a cooking class tomorrw... then I need to take a deep breath and dive off into the countryside by myself, which is a little scary, all the more reason to do it, I will be making my way down to the Cardamon Mountains to see if they smell as sweet as they sound....
much love and merry christmas, janine
PS - No escape from chrissy here, there is no way cambodia was going to miss the party!!! Santa hats everywhere....

Saturday, December 20, 2008

dis-combob-ulat-ed....

...is how you feel when, suddenly, you get 'home' unexpectedly, dip your toes in the Indian Ocean at sundown and then suddenly, with no prior planning, dunk your head in the Pacific at sunrise.
After feeling homesick for a number of weeks and a little bit disorientated and, both perturbed and disturbed! by my experiences in Native Title I came home to be with my family on hearing the news of my uncle's passing. It was a strange feeling. After pining for 'home' for quite some time I got back to Wollongong only to feel like something had irrevocably altered and that the grounding in people and place (thought to be a necessary pre-requisite for homesickness) had evaporated. Gone. Illusion. It was, well, discombobulating (to use a simple word).


The tinglings about the desert, native title work and the people and places I have had the privilege of experiencing and meeting over the last few weeks started on the plane. As excited as I was to fly over a lush green south coast landscape, absolutely drowned in water after seeing nothing but browns, reds, yellows and salty dams for days on end and as I felt that familiar feeling of moisture and abundance wash over my skin and soothe my eyes (I get this after a day in Canberra) there was a niggling yearning inside me to turn back and once again scuff my bootheels in the red dust of outback WA.

As you have done nothing but hear me complain about native title work on this blog maybe it's time to explain some of the good things and the reason for a kind of infectiousness that I feel about doing work with a native title rep body.

It's humbling to work alongside people from whom there is so much to learn about life. Groups that conduct business according to relationship building and mutual benefit rather than at an arm's length. That it really does make a difference getting people all the way to remote places at time and cost to discuss a mining tenement for five minutes rather than by email or phone. It can demonstrate who's committed to treating traditional owners with respect and who is not.

Working alongside people that recognise what they have capacity to fight for and walk away from what they do not ... and who know this limit! this comes from age and experience struggling in circumstances often far more onerous than anything I have likely encountered in my life. And who defend the personal and communal right to be self-determinate with all they have, smelling bullshit and patronising attitudes from miles and miles away.
Working with people who under the most trying and offensive of circumstances will often respond with humour, good grace and a hell of a biting wit.

Plotting in my head that this is just a stage on the way to self-determination and treaty and that I am not just another white lawyer benefiting from the 'Native title industry'.

Knowing that it is a privilege to work alongside these groups and that while I bring some skills to the bargaining table that the traditional owners can be bringing so much more that sometimes they are willing to share. The most important thing I think I can learn is how to build relationships based on respect. This appears to be the singularly most important aspect of working in indigenous communities and while it goes both ways, I still think this white-middle-of-the-road-young-law girl has an incredibly lot more to learn. There's a job going in Perth, maybe it's time to pick up 'home' and move.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Reflections on Native Title

It's like the shimmers of heat that appear in the distance on a hot road; teasing you with a resemblance to a sparkling lake of cool refreshing water but disappearing suddenly as you approach; evaporating into thin air leaving only a small memory that makes you feel, maybe, possibly, slightly cooler as you imagine diving into, submersing yourself in that lake while in reality your head pounds from the extreme heat.

If there is one thing I have learnt from my time out here it's to adjust my expectations. If you adjust your expectations you can find ways to feel like you are making progress in a system like native title. Deals that I would have thought were awful and would shudder at advising communities to accept suddenly appear more of a triumph if you lower your expectations and remind yourself that any deal can be a good deal for people that have nothing and who have virtually no recognised rights or power.
Native title is an incredibly racist system of recognition. It is the ultimate colonising process. White laws expect claimants to jump through legal loopholes (with almost no funding to do so) often only to be told at the end of the fifteen year journey that you are not who you say you are... or to quote that favourite phrase from Yorta Yorta 'the tide of history has washed away' your rights - meanwhile even if you do get native title rights recognised, they are a bundle of rights that for instance that might allow you to hunt on pastoral land but not live there. But then if this right to hunt is recognised the courts will often force you to enter into an agreement with the pastoralist negotiating terms such as how many dogs you can have and how many firearms and what type. how many people at any one time and you may not be allowed access to dams (these are 'improved areas' because they are fenced). (talk about mirages on horizons in the middle of hot stinking cattle stations!) Other times the relationships may be good and then it seems that a whole world of potential freedoms and recognised rights can be enjoyed by mutual recognition and respect.

But after the last three weeks which I have spent with various claimant groups in the outback it seems that our nation still has some ways to go. A prospector can still bring shiny worthless rocks and 'wow the crowd' who will then agree to almost anything... pretty impressive if you dont have much and you can take a bunch of shiny rocks back home as presents. At least that's something concrete because even if you are able to negotiate a royalty payment how are you going to keep track of who owes you money and chase the defaulters, particularly if over your large claim area you might have thousands of these little 'agreements' to issue mining tenements (they usually get issued anyway if you say 'no'). Of course the government funding that pays for your native title lawyer doesn't extend to trusts and financial and business planning assistance. And geez as a claimant you must be dog tired of all these years and years of meetings with nothing to show for it.


But then there are those who have big mining going on in their country and who will likely get quite a sizeable sum. The government then seems to expect you to spend this compensation money (that you get as recompence for a great big whopping hole in your country and extinguishment of your rights) on salary for a teacher and any medical services you might need; services that in other places are provided to the public. It also means that suddenly there are boundary disputes and people clamouring to get mining deals on their land so that they can get a dialysis unit and an aged care facility too.

BUt what I really wanted to talk about was expectations...and the lowering of them. A lot of the native title claimants that I met were simply looking for respect. Sometimes all that is needed is a sign recognising that they are the traditional owners. sometimes they just want the shire council to ask them before a new road goes in so that they get the opportunity to rebury their dead when it cuts through a burial ground. (sometimes in places that grandparents are buried so not even always that old) sometimes they just want to be involved in discussions about development and occasionally they want to be able to fish and camp and teach their kids bush skills when almost the whole of their country is a national park and they are not allowed. Symbolism is huge and even going through the motions of making symbolic gestures that indicate respect for the traditional owners of this country will go a very long way... Kevin Rudd understands that, which is why he said 'sorry'. I know that there is still so much work to be done but out here the struggle for repect and simple symbolism continues.

To illustrate - Here's a sign. Good start you might think. It was erected several years ago. It's spelt wrong. Can we get the shire to change it to Malgana? To do so has and will waste precious little resources that are supposed to be allocated to native title work. You would think it would take a simple letter, but no, nothing, no action for many years and the group continue to raise it as an issue. See what I mean by lowering expectations. To get the sign altered would be a success. I won't even bother saying anything to the white dude who just came into the meeting and said 'it's my land' about a million times.

Friday, November 28, 2008

The Lawyer in thongs

Thongs are a great measure of happiness, they are a sign of warmer weather and the lazy freedom of student days. When I have a pair on my feet I feel like all is well with the world. Second only to the exquisite pleasure of bare feet, they instantly lift my mood and make me feel grounded which is so very important for an earth sign like me. Yep, I've done it again. Gradually got comfortable in the office to the point where most days I wear thongs. Was a lot quicker this time, I wonder if it's because I feel sort of like I'm travel/working? As a girl who has an incredible dislike of pantihose I'm not sure what I was thinking when I signed on for this law caper. To speak of which I have now officially finished my degree and am graduating in December. I did well enough in my final paper to maybe just scrape into first class honours depending on things get calculated. Big relief (and very exciting for me because i never thought I'd make the grade) however I'm not feeling very smart today, how many times do you need to make yourself sick before you stop choosing to raise hell at the pub as a method of celebration???

So now I have the first bit of paper (and yes there's another one still to go) but am I prepared to whack on a pair of stockings? It was towards the end of my degree before I looked around and the horrible truth dawned on me like a prickling hot cold flush - most women lawyers wear pantihose and heels. Can I face a lifetime squishing all my womanly curves into a restricting mesh that tears at the slightest touch only the devil himself could have designed?

Well native title could be the answer! Where else can i work with lawyers who wear akubras and work boots to the office and would be more likely to use pantihose on a guest appearance in Bush Mechanics then as a wardrode 'must have'? I am settling here and I think I'm coming to quite like it. I leave Perth tomorrow, Geraldton will be the next test, and from there to Mt Magnet, the towns keep getting smaller and I suspect stockings on the legs of lady lawyers will be harder and harder to find. But apparently so will thongs, they aren't great snake shoes you see!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Catching up on sleep in the "hippie bus"!! Yay!!


I had a lovely weekend staying in Penny's lovely Bedford "Hippie Bus" on her property at Jarrahdale. It was a lovely escape and I got the chance to do some gardening, helping to lay out irrigation pipes and bushwalking, together with lovely meals and great company. A fabulous weekend that went a good way towards my much needed attitude adjustment.


After some really long deep and meaningful conversations I realised that some of the problems I had been having adjusting to the work environment were affected by all sorts of other factors and it's nice to know that in most cases my intuitions served me well and I had been reading the organisation's culture pretty accurately.
Despite that, still feeling quite a bit of culture shock - I don't think I'll ever get used to receiving legal agreements to review that are covered in red dust!!! They come from all those small time prospectors out there scavenging a living in the WA outback, an interesting but undoubtedly tough way to scrape a living.

The work is incredibly interesting and provides me with so much stimulus for deep thinking about Australia, how (not) far we've come and how the process of deep colonisation continues. In a climate where the WA government has just overturned a ban on uranium mining and the choas surrounding native title is still so far from resolution, it's hard to stay positive but I keep in the forefront of my mind the words of an elder who has been fighting this battle for a very long time, affected by choices and government actions way beyond his control. That this is just another step towards a treaty and in the geological time scale of aboriginal culture, the journey has only just started.


I also enjoy immensely the humour and reminder of how ridiculous the legal system must appear to those who live outside it. After pouring through a ten year claim history and reading how lawyers have tried to explain the various amendments and new decisions to their aboriginal clients. You can almost hear the sigh go around the meeting - what now? what does this mean? we sick of talking same rubbish. We already told you. It's an incredibly salient look at how incongrous the two worlds are and it's us whitey lawyers that look the clowns.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Pain and the Pleasure of New Places



Wandered around Fremantle over the weekend and was blessed enough to run into the Fremantle Arts Festival, so at least there was some music to entertain me. Ann- you'd have loved the WA Mandolin Orchestra. Fortunate enough to have the choice of Lindsay Pollack, a long time favourite, playing at Kulcha or the Herd playing down at the Arts Centre or some funky groove stuff I never heard of over at the Fly by Night musicians club. I chose the funky happenings and wasn't sorry...but as I was incredibly hung over and totally outdone binge-drinking wise by the seasoned party crew at the Perth office it wasn't a late night.


It's a strange city, Perth, they don't have that many people so they added a few bronze extras, mostly with a colonial feel to match the buildings. Its clean and refurbished and after so many good boom years it still looks flush with money. However it is a boom and bust kind of place, and all good Perthians are preparing for the big bust, commiserating with me for coming out West at the start of the wrong kind of cycle. You know you hear about the resource boom back in NSW and know that its a mining town but just how big and how skewed and how totally pro-mining it is still came as a huge shock to me. I guess I am still reeling and this week the shock of the place nearly had me totally undone.




Maybe I should start at the beginning... First of all the reality of work at a seriously underfunded and under resourced statutory body like a Native Title Review Board in what appears to be the most discriminatory state of them all - WA. Means that the accommodation that you knew would be nothing flash turns out to be a horror show that you can't switch off. Here is a photo of my hotel, I live in that yellow strip next to the jacaranda at the top left. People of Wollongong- think about those units at the corner of Crown and Mt Keira and you'll get the idea...


Next, welcome to an organisation that has been so chronically underfunded that the mining companies (opponents) had to request more funding for them, just so that they could manage to perform the totally one-sided farce that facilitates mining operations in this state. The result of which is a state of disorganisation second to none. Which means you get dumped in front of a computer, hardly introduced and you start working, never really sure what you are doing or why or if you should be doing it differently.

The frustration and bewilderment of landing in a place like this and needing to basically fend for yourself brought me to tears yesterday (not to mention the lack of sleep brought on by the eleven (yes, count them) lane freeway running past my window) ...BUT then amongst all that are the moments of humour and bewilderment that you get by looking at the world through the eyes of another. How strange this native title system must seem to the traditional owners who having been working in such a crazy, disorganised and frankly embarassing debacle that doesn't really get them anywhere anyway; except with a whole lotta money that they can fight over and at war with their neighbouring claimant groups about where exactly, with pinpoint GPS precision, their country stops and another's starts.
It is, despite all that, interesting work and the some of the people I am meeting here are really inspiring and amazing people. Thanks to the heavens for my fellow intern Akmal who has a great attitude and keeps me laughing through the day. And on the weekends to escape the accommodation horror I have been doing all sorts of exciting stuff, at least it's a great motivator!

On Sunday I went for a paddle around the Shoalwater Marine Park near Rockingham and also snorkelled through some really amazing kelp and seagrass forests. A marine environment I had never thought I would enjoy exploring so much (due to my absolute terror of seaweed) but it's really nice when it's all attached and alive, growing in a more orderly fashion with (naturally) seaweed free avenues you can snorkel through to look at all the different and countless types of kelp.

In the evenings I am not far from King's Park, its beautiful...and some of the Wildflowers are still out. There is also a flight of more than 600 steps (my estimate) and each night I join all the other crazies walking up and down them in an effort to fall into an exhausted (and traffic oblivious) stupor. Altogether, (although not if you asked me yesterday) I am still glad I came because I am learning and after all that is what it's all about.







Wednesday, November 12, 2008

super-blogger

Following in the well trodden footsteps of those pre-eminent and world weary friends who have travelled the far flung corners of the world before me and lived to blog it all in hyper real detail to their friends; welcome to the astounding, hair raising and altogether normal ponderings and wonderings of janine the ordinary blogger.

I'm here. In Perth; not what I expected. Working in Native Title. there is enough fodder here to feed the cynic in me for decades to come. hats off to all the amazing folk who work their guts out in such a flawed and racist system. I'll blog some more when I have settled in have something more interesting and jolly to report... right now, frankly Im dead tired.. and my legs are cold... so adios for now xoxo and welcome to the latest in blog-tastic entertainment. :) much love janine.