SATURDAY EXTRA 19
SATURDAY MAY 7 2016
also making beds so that people have
camping off the ground.”
I
N washing its hands of outstations,
the Federal Government has provided the WA and NT governments
with one-off payments to take control
of services.
It is unknown what will happen
when the money runs out. WA has
threatened to close 150 of the most
“unviable” communities and outstations. NT Chief Minister Adam Giles
has not gone down that same fraught
road, but the $155 million his government received in last year’s Budget is
the equivalent of eight years’ outstation funding, so he can say what he
likes for the time being.
In February, Giles announced close
to $30 million of that $155 million had
been allocated for infrastructure and
at least 15 news homes at the community of Arlparra in the Utopia region.
While many in the region have
welcomed the investment, critics
point out it was supposed to support
outstations, not communities. Utopia
elder Rosalie Kunoth-Monks believes
it is a ploy to move the people in.
“They will not go,” she says.
Utopia has no organisation like
YKNAC, nor the luck.
In a serendipitous twist to
YKNAC’s already unique story, Yuendumu’s defunct solar power plant is
proving more valuable for the community in death than in its short life.
Wall and his team will make the
“most highly engineered roof truss
you’re going to come across” from the
copious scrap steel; there will be
troughs for the nascent cattle program out of the towering poles; jumper lead from the wiring; and insulation
from the foam beneath the reflector
panels.
YKNAC has about 10 tonne of
scrap copper to sell at $3.50 a kilogram, and 10 44-gallon drums full of
nuts and bolts.
There are enough batteries in excellent condition to go to every outstation for a basic solar setup, which
Wall reckons he can do for about
$15,000 each, a fraction of the price
of connecting dwellings to the mains
line.
Power and Water Corporation,
which took over the assets from the
bankrupt owners several years ago,
was thankful to be rid of a monumental scrap headache.
YKNAC is virtually independent of
regular government funding streams.
This leaves it potentially vulnerable,
but Wall believes it is a strength.
“There just seems to be this attitude out there (from governments),
‘we know what’s best’. I think anywhere you go in Australia it’s like
that,” he says.
“You look at so many communitybased things that are running well and
then governments come in and just
seem to want to mess them up.
“And unless you can be independent of government funding, you’re
going to be dragged into that. In a
way, that’s why I think we’re going to
be successful.”
Malcolm Wall among
the scrapped solar
equipment his team
will use to power
outstations near
Yuendumu
Harry Collins with
wife Janet Gordon
and ‘Little Harry’ at
Yulurrku
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