¶ The Regenerative Era (Introductions, Supporter Thanks and Previews)
I'm very straight , black and white . I've got the Cornish and Scottish sides of my family . We went blonde-haired , blue-eyed surfies from Cottesloe and farmers in South Australia that went into Victoria . I'm very basic Australian , black and white . I'm just straight , black and white is what I always say to people .
G'day Anthony James here . Welcome back to The RegenNarration charting the stories of the regenerative era, under moonlight , out bush nearby Carnarvon in Western Australia , on the way to another incredible story tomorrow . It's a little breezy but , wow , it's spectacular . Hopefully the sound holds up .
Here we are post a brilliant regenerative agriculture conference in Margaret River . So many profound moments , experiences and yep momentum to go on with , with several esteemed folk saying words to the effect of it being about the best conference they'd ever been to . Greetings and thanks to everyone involved onstage , backstage and on the floor .
It was just great sharing in that with you and some moments were truly unforgettable . For everyone else, I'm looking forward to sharing some of this with you soon . But today , a conversation that came up a little at the conference actually .
Before we'd headed south from the Kimberley , I had three more wonderful conversations there , culminating back at Kachana Station and beginning with this one in Fitzroy Crossing .
There's ways of things working together in parallel , not doing the assimilation thing , but like going you know how rich, if you've got all these different lines , all these different cultures or ideals , that you can just enrich so many different things . T he fabric and things that you could weave , oh , my god , it would be amazing .
That was Natalie Davey . Natalie and I last spoke for the podcast nearly two years ago . That's still the sixth most popular episode . Natalie is a community leader from Fitzroy Crossing with Bunuba- Walmajarri , English and Scottish heritage . She's a Traditional Custodian of the magnificent Martuwarra Fitzroy River .
She's also a broadcaster with the local Wangki radio, an artist , educator and former ranger . She was the first Indigenous Chair , too , of highly respected not-for-profit Environs Kimberley, until her life was turned upside down by the worst flood event in West Australian recorded history at the start of this year .
Among the details you might be familiar with , over 350 ml of rain fell in a single day upstream from Nat's place at Dimond Gorge . 830 ml in a few days . T hat's almost equivalent to its average annual rainfall , and it resulted in 200 communities being evacuated from across the Fitzroy Valley .
What you might not be familiar with is that while the water has passed , the earth has shifted , figuratively and literally . Some of the things that weren't washed away , like parts of the enormous Fitzroy Crossing bridge , were buried . Coming into Fitzroy this time , I'd been wondering if there was a fuller story to tell .
So here we go upstream , also figuratively and literally , to where we find some of the root causes and conditions , like what part our land management might have played in the damage , how community mobilised ahead of designated agencies in some crucial ways , the art that has flowed from disaster , how competing narratives confused causes for solutions and , ultimately , how
there are ways the community is responding successfully to not only the flood but other issues like the youth crime waves that have been splashed across national media . Fitzroy is one of the places in the Kimberley turning this around and in ways that are related to the flood - essentially how we cultivate a culture of regeneration , we might say , or custodianship .
D eeply listening to country and each other . So , having become something of an accidental spokesperson for a community throughout the flood , I was happy to find Natalie appreciative of the chance to go beyond the snippets of news stories she'd been featured in, to this fuller story . I ncluding where and how we go from here .
Before we start , though , a couple of things . I cite some of my research with the Bureau of Meteorology , or BOM , just shy of the half hour mark . In our ongoing exchanges , the Bureau more recently informed me that the flood level peak at Fitzroy was 14.2 metres , not the 15.8 metres that had been initially reported .
The correction is due to the gauge being knocked about by the flood, but still stands as the record flood level . And , of course , thanks very much for the support that came in soon after we left the Kimberley . Huge thanks to Rachel Ward , Michelle Mullarkey and Megan O'Grady for your generous subscriptions , and to Asha Stabback for committing to a year .
And Di Haggerty, enormous thanks for doubling your monthly subscription . Thanks also to long-time subscriber Caitlin Tacey for your wonderful correspondence . It's what makes this ad-free , freely available podcast possible . If you're also finding value in this , please consider joining Rachel , Michelle , Megan , Asha , Di and Caitlin, and this great community of supporting listeners .
You can enjoy a variety of benefits , like some behind the scenes footage from me , invitations and discounts to events - like the one coming up in Byron Bay I'll talk about at the end of this episode - and , of course , you'll continue to receive the podcast every week . Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration . com forward slash support .
Thanks again .
¶ A Glimpse into Crisis, Including Media, Agencies and Becoming an Accidental Spokesperson
Okay , let's join Natalie near the camp they've set up beside their house as it's being repaired and raised . Hey , Nat , welcome back .
Thanks , well , no other way around .
Yeah , indeed , thanks for having us .
It's amazing to think so much has happened , since we were just behind where we're seated now , actually on the deck of the house that's having a lot done to it to recover from what's happened to it , and we're just on what you call the mound here , the rise that the waters come up to in the past but never sort of gone way past .
Right now , of course , it's middle of the dry , so we're looking out across a largely dry river bed and we're sitting pretty in an amazing sunset situation .
We are , and all the birds are coming out and taking out their hunting positions ready for the feed time . Should get the blue wing cookaburras . They like this little triangle out here .
They're coming through . We saw the brogues today , oh yeah that was incredible . Yeah , yeah , so that was a treat . But how's it feeling to you at the moment , seven months ?
on . It depends on the day and what you're asking about just being at home and being able to listen to the birds , and that is amazing , like it's a glorious day . As for flood recovery stuff , but it's a whole nother thing completely so it there's many layers of it , so I guess it depends on , yeah , what it is .
Let's start with something specific . You work for local radio . Here you've been a bit of a I don't know whether it's so much chosen , but you found yourself being a sort of a spokesperson for the area with a lot of media hey , the ABC and others that have come through .
Do you feel like , or how do you feel about , how it's been represented , and is there more of the story to ?
tell yes , going straight to there more of the story to be told Any news outlets outside or only wanting snippets and usually looking at the most sensational versions of it , like , oh , how bad was it , how bad is this ? All that .
Then it sort of switched over to all look at you know the bridge and how quickly wanting good news stories because there was so much in the negative . So a lot of stuff was diverted to an agency , given to the bridge and people getting through and across . And as for the community itself , that's kind of been forgotten and there is so many stories for that .
As for my role in it , it was just I was sitting here , well up the house , and family didn't know who to call to get evacuated , because we never needed to do that before and it was just a matter of okay . There's a lot of information that we don't know and we're not getting from anywhere . Where do I get that from ?
So , as someone who you know had a phone could ring around , just started calling and going , I don't know this . I don't know how we get evacuated , I don't know who we contact . I don't know where our food is coming from , I don't know how people you know , just all of those kind of things like what else is the water doing ? Is it rising ?
We've had gauges taken out . Those are the things that we could see and I could report on and just keep getting information out to our local community . It wasn't really concerned about the rest of the world , it was just a whole lot of information that we were just constantly scrambling for and fighting for .
So there's major agencies that were all we're supposed to have information and it was always still kind of is always in a fight for all basic information which you know .
Just , we've just gone through a massive traumatic event and then it continues with the lack of communication and how all of those things have progressed along , and there's so many things that uh , um , yeah , needs to be changed this , it it's massive , but like , the only thing I was trying to do was make sure we knew that everybody around knew where we could get
info from . Like you know , there was first the uh , what's the water doing ? How's it coming up ? Which way is it coming from ? Is it going to surpass certain ways ? How do we get evacuated to ? Do we contact ? Where do we go ? Where do we get shelter ? Where do we get food ? Um , what can we take with us ?
Some people we got to take in some of the food that we had .
Like you know , it's just uh , there's so many different lines but , um , just the biggest thing was just the basic information on who needed to contact who and how they would get help for all your basics like basic survival , evacuation , shelter , food , shelter , warmth you know whether it's clothing , all those kind of things and knowing where your family were .
Like just all of those basics is . It wasn't easy to get that information and because I was looking for it , my family needed to be evacuated , my family needed food , my family needed all those kind of things . Um , I had the means to be able to start broadcasting .
First , it started off with social media because we weren't sure if we could get to wongie or you know , broadcast out being the local radio station . Yeah , yeah , so wongie radio is . I'm a broadcaster there and I do a program , a language program , with my father , a bullet , or the man in the white hat , as I call him , um . Yeah , it was just it was .
I was looking for that information , so I was going to share it , because it wasn't easy , even for someone who , like me , who sort of um , loves finding info and like looking up things and working out where what the channels are being in contact with people , sort of getting collaborate um , collating that kind of stuff and sending it out that .
I love that kind of stuff , you know um . But when it's sort of under pressure and all your basics on surviving each day , it's quite a different thing . So it was just um extreme like I . I first I felt like I you know I had um support outside our very new manager who'd only just been hired the year before but hadn't actually started .
Um couldn't fly in to broom or fitroy so he was external . His wife , who is the producer of the voices of the river , which I was a part of .
So she's a friend of mine in yeah , indeed and talked about the river .
She took some time off to help collate . I was just like I , as I get things , I'm on the ground running around trying to just go here , there , everywhere , send it to them so they could get it up and out and try and ring agencies to get more details . Um , and free up , we just it kind of just .
We just kept scrambling , but you know , we were doing at least 16 hour days , like it was I . It was constant and there was still the um , where do we go for food ? uh , you know all it was all . It's all very , quite weird what you do in a crisis like you don't .
It's not your everyday and your everyday normal is something completely different , so it's hard to kind of explain , but that's where . So , where it went and you know , people saw what we were putting out , wanting to get the snippets of it . So that was quite a roller coaster and hard . Yeah , it was like being hit by another type of tsunami .
To be honest , the whole amount of people that were contacting me different um media and things like that I yeah , it was a thrown in the deep end , um , just to learn how to scramble and how best to use it .
Um , as in being able to put out different things because those media could attend all these outside media releases with all these agencies that weren't happening in our town . So I could send .
I realized I could actually send the questions that we or a community were asking that we weren't getting on the ground here out to media elsewhere and it being reported and being talked about and it's like , well , how does that make any sense ? But , um , so that was one thing I learned that I could do and it was just there's a lot of like .
Very upsetting to think that , okay , basic information that you're , as a community member , going through a crisis , chasing info is been given to um outside of it , for I don't know , for likes , for whatever it was . There's no , I don't understand what the purpose of it was happening there and not on the ground how curious yeah , so it was just .
It was just it involved into its own thing .
But it was just an amazing Again , just everybody on the ground getting together and helping Andrea Myers she's a board member and also she's great at taking minutes and was at meetings and making sure getting back information about what was happening in any of the community meetings so we could broadcast that and just scrambling and getting everything out that we could
get out . And yeah , it was just . I don't know how it kind of evolved or how it ended up looking . That's what it came from .
She's an , emphasises the value of the community media , doesn't it as much as anything ? And I hear what you said too about community responses there . We might go into that a bit more too .
But just firstly , if I've heard right , the responses that really came through big time came from the local rangers too , right , when you were trying to get emergency support as the water level started to even reach you in a dangerous way , it was the rangers that came to it .
Yeah , it was
¶ Community Mobilisation During the Flood
quite funny . I had the community up the road from us which is on higher ground , but they got evacuated the day before we did , which was kind of a you know , when you go . We knew the water was different and was changing , but just to have a community higher than you get evacuated because they're getting inundated , it's just like what is happening .
But then we had like one of our cousins she was in New Zealand , so I'm messaging her to get in hold of mob added bungalow , which is the community there , and go getting updates that way to find out . I'm like , oh , is the rangers out that way ?
And yeah , so the Buonobu rangers and Cooksea , who is the head ranger out at Dango Gorge , like they're just done there , they know how to drive boats but they're just done their tickets and all the official things , so they didn't have like so much seat time .
But you know they were the ones going okay , let's get a boat , let's get on the boat , let's get out there and help people . And just the tracking , oh my God , I have no idea how many they did . Like one of their last trips out to Bangani was at night . So you're never getting with like spotlights , flashlights along roads everywhere .
You've never driven a boat before to get to community , and it's really disorienting let alone , being in the dark and not sure where all the currents and all of that kind of stuff is like .
Wow .
Cooksea has done tons of time on the water . He's done , he's worked boats all the time , so it was just great for them to have a mentor . But like that's a hell of a space to learn rescue during a massive flood , but it's . They only had two boats and they had them both out and picking people up .
Like it was incredible , like the helicopter mob that live that side their house , I mean , went under and they were out in the helicopter . Like they dropped down into this space here between the trees to just check . We were alright on the second and we're like hung our heads out and gave the thumbs up because we were at that time .
But I mean the next day we got evacuated , so it changed so quickly .
This is amazing . It is all a local crew .
That was like we know where everybody is , know who we need to check on , we know who's in and that's how it was coordinated .
You know , between messenger when I was first trying to get a hold of people , I called around to you know different parks or different mob and got had to call , like you know , perth and Kanara and all these places and left messages . And it was just kind of like very stressful that you couldn't . I'm like we're in an emergency .
I just need to know how my family is going to get out , because my niece with her little girl , they're like , oh you know , she's texting me going . Mom , the water is starting to come into the house .
I'm like , okay , and it's not like they're close to any other houses , that , and I don't know what the water is happening over there , and you just sort of have this trying to stay calm go okay , look , we're on it . We'll work out who's coming in , make sure you're okay .
And at the same time , they're just like oh my God , how is my family going to be okay ? I don't know Like you know , just not knowing having an answer to that is just quite stressful . But at the same time it was just just kind of stayed calm and went okay , you know , there's things you have to do . You need to know how to get ahold of them .
And it was actually a messenger .
Really .
So we just went . Oh , I'm like , oh , quick see , whereabouts are you . Oh , someone's like my cousin texted me from New Zealand , which is hilarious going , oh they're at Bangerini , I'm like , okay , great , I'll text him .
That is hilarious .
And I said , oh , this house and this house need to be picked up . And then they went from there to Delgania and picked that mob up and I was just like okay , but I did get a call back from the person who had been sent in because there was initial . When I first called it wasn't very .
He was wondering how I had his mobile number and I'm like I need my family needs to be evacuated and I was about to hang up on him but he did . I don't know how I kept calm during that phone call , but I did look at my messages .
I would love to go back and actually get a proper audit of every one I called that day and stuff , because it was just so intensive .
Yeah .
So after that initial I had no love for that person at all but they did bring back and leave a message that someone was heading out and I already knew because I'd been on Messenger and organizing , helping organize and letting my niece know go finding out . I said , can you yell across to the other houses and find out who's where so they can come get you ?
and how are ?
they going to come and get you .
And this is like five day , five or six days into the really rapidly rising waters .
Hey , no , this was pretty much . It was very quick , so the timeline is so the Thursday 29th I think it was me and dad did a run out to Dungugorge , to the sandbar and we did a word of the day and saw a fill neck lizard and all of this kind of stuff and yeah , I saw that little post .
Yeah , and we did a word of the day for bank , which I don't think I ever posted for like Riverbank which I'm going to put out at some point . But , like the Riverbank we talk about , doesn't exist anymore and it just kind of messes with my head when I think about it .
But so we did that just to go have a look and that hadn't been out there for ages . So that was really nice and we did our shopping and bought all of us . After 30th , our road access a little bridge Brooking Creek that runs our road access for Dunganean Banggadi got cut .
I could still get out to one of the creeks but that was cut so I couldn't get into the gorge because I did a really quick run out . And then I came back really quickly because I was worried that Mudler , another creek just up from us that cuts off Dunganean Banggadi . It rices quickly and I didn't want to get caught on the wrong side .
So that was on the 30th , then the second . On the first , you know , we celebrated as usual , but you know the water , there's just so much rain , like mum talks about , like you know the massive amounts of water that was being dumped everywhere . We just kind of kept looking at it and going not really like going , wow , that's a lot .
And then as we started looking at the bomb sites and just the levels , like the levels I just kept rising . We're just like what the hell is that ? But just because it was so different , we're just going , I can't quite compute it . And then by the second , it was just like okay , this is just something completely different .
And the second is when people started getting evacuated . So Banggadi was all evacuated on that day , some half of Dunganean . And the third , like the second , it just our driveway that you know . You came up at 4am . I could walk down it to the road and the water . You could see it coming .
Like the main road always gets flooded , but that dirt road usually doesn't . By 11 o'clock in the morning , cooksy drove the boat down that our driveway , up to the mound to check in and we're like , yeah , we're still okay . Now , by 6 o'clock in the evening we could not get a step off the veranda because the water was right up there .
It just , you could see , it is spread out , spread out , stopped . And then it just jumped up a meter in height , just like that , and we're just like whoa .
This spins me out right , because in my ignorance I've always thought when a flood happens , it comes out from the river , but this was coming in towards the river .
So the different thing we had like a plumb plane where you're . When you're driving into state coming from Derby or Broome , you come over to where we are in Dunganean , where the river is there . There's all these channels like little bridges , booking thing .
The river pushes the water back and sort of shuts off the other systems here and then it goes around to Plumb Plane and sort of spills into there . It had filled so much there that it was coming back from Plumb Plane , which I've never heard of it doing that before .
So you had a wall of water coming from the north through Bungalie first to us , towards back to the river , which was just weird to have water rushing from that side . You know when it's coming from , like the east to west , because that's where we are , that's how the river is running here .
But to have it coming from the north , like that , was just insane .
Wow , so it had cycled back around .
Yeah .
And did that have ? How much of that stood as just the natural formation and how much of it stood as the infrastructure at the crossings and the town .
Oh well , that's hard to say . Yeah , just the volume of water affected , how all of that is Like . Every time infrastructure is put in , it changes , like you know , as soon as the when the new bridge the bridge that was damaged that we call new bridge got put in other places up , I think fossil and places started experiencing flooding , like it always changes .
It's got to be really interesting , considering we've got like these , like three little dams along here , how that's going to push back into our community .
Because now we've got the old crossing sort of restored in a little bit of a super-duper fashion . Well , we've got a low level causeway , which is downstream from the old bridge and that's that might be the traffic people can hear , where they wouldn't probably heard any of it last time we spoke here .
No .
Cause there's a lot of heavy industry now putting up the new , new bridge , the one that's going to replace the new one that was put in the seventies , the big one . And then , yeah , the brooking bridge too , and that new bridge . Then this is the thing , hey , like the unintended consequences that come from any intervention , and now we're doing like super size .
This bridge is going to be five meters higher than the last one , and they've gone from 10 to 15 meters deep to , I believe , 50 , to hit bedrock Again , supposed to be impenetrable by the . But then , yeah , you're just wondering what comes from that .
Yeah Well , the bridge may never move again , but the sides will . So I mean , just to get the low level two lane bridge they've had to cut down . So I was like , yeah , what is going to go in there ?
And I was like , oh , will it just take out Lord Bun , which is the community there , or just connect up to brooking channel , which is just on the other side ? There's another bridge there . How , yeah , it'll be interesting to see what it does with the water , because that there's a bend that happens there .
So , yeah , it'll be really interesting to see how it runs that the bridge may survive for ages Around the edges of the bridge . I mean , we did say when was it ?
The 2012 one , when they got all first put all the rocks in said , well , it's going to cut a channel at some point , and to alleviate that because we've talked about you know how much water and how many , how much water it needs to be higher and how much water it has to let through so it doesn't do that yeah , it cut the channel and that's what people saw
the bridge plus the channel . I was like , yeah , well , the rocks did stay , but we did say it was going to cut a channel and a lot of the lodge side .
So hearing repeated themes of the value of listening to people on the land .
Yeah , it's just one of those things , like it's , the movement and the amount of sand that we've had down has changed . I mean , we're losing water holes that have been there for forever , like they've been filled in , like it is something else like it .
I would equate it with you know , media , media , falling tidal waves , all of those kind of things that changes to our places , of stories that go back just generations and generations and generations , that it's changed , and I'm just like what on earth are we doing ? That is , you know , allowing ?
You know we've used the word climate change refugees quite a lot , and I'm like people don't know what this water is doing .
No .
Like , and it's changing such a short time frame that it is not you know it's .
¶ Shifting Landscapes and Disorientation
And we don't even know what the earth is doing , in that sense like the land , for the land formations to be shifting such that you and your community are trying to almost relocate yourselves where the height of ground up on trees doesn't look like the trees that you would remember being in certain places .
Some trees are lost , of course , but even to my eyes you see the enormous cutaways of the banks than to have new banks now and you're saying yeah , I mean again , you're accustomed to high watermarks and wet season deluge that would move sediment around .
Yeah , this is a whole other level . Yeah , that's a natural course of things . It's why , like we're at the old police station and down here we don't Well , in the middle bit here there's it's quite clear of trees , because they used to have gardens down here , because that's for the police and everybody used to .
It's got a course there's rich soil for that , growing things on , so that's a natural part of it , and the nutrients that it takes out to the East Timor Sea and all those places for feeding coral and all of those cycles are normal .
However , this is the shift in Dramatic shift in how the river runs and how shallow it's become in a lot of parts is just yeah , I know yeah .
And you don't even be sure where that sands come from .
Yeah , I don't know . Everybody sort of has theories on it . I'm an artist so I , just Because there's just so much , I did the gorge with a massive sand snake sort of bringing it , because it's just like where .
This painting .
What , yeah , there's just so much movement and change . It's really hard to sort of fathom and Because you've got to relearn everything . You've got to relearn places and country , and it's been an amazing season for the birds and all of these kind of things where I'm like , okay , what ? Yeah ?
Yeah . Humans not so much yeah yeah , totally Just for displacement , yeah .
You know , the birds have had bumper crops and things like little bridge is still running . When Dad was a kid , little bridge never went dry . Our brooking channel never went dry In my time . It always sort of finished up in around rodeo time , which is what July , like it would be dry from then .
And we're now in August and it's still running , which is really interesting to see those kind of changes as well , like okay , that's a replenishing of a certain thing , and then it's just smashed other things where you're like unsure of what's next move on it .
That's right . That's right Because I think we know that the Bureau didn't forecast this system . They thought the risk was very low . The modelling showed the risk was very low for this to happen .
But the long range forecasting showed this was on the cards increasingly , as we're familiar with in different parts of Australia and the world the long range forecasting for the big fires over in the south-east . It was there .
And when I look back , even on the Bureau data , I've been scaring it myself trying to make sense of the variables and what might be going on . And you see really marked shifts in the high water marks every year , particularly as we got into the 80s and then 90s .
And they were they're just a substantially higher than 60s and 70s and pro to that sort of thing . And then this it had never been above 14 metre high water mark before it had nudged , it hadn't been above it , and that was 20 years ago . And this goes two metres above that , like almost breaches 16 metres in height .
So I think when your dad was young that that used to maintain a flow , but with much lower high water marks . It just suggests to me there was something about the way the ecology was working as a whole that kept that going , rather than this intense burst . That's just sort of filtering out , yeah exactly .
So there's . You know that's changes we've done to the landscape and you know how houses the infrastructure that is , roads and bridges and all of those kind of things and just what we continue to do to country and dig into it and the sand has to come from somewhere and like upstream , like is there massive holes up there ?
Like is it getting deeper upstream , is it like what is it ?
What is it ? Yeah , there are things to look into . It's to come back to that artwork for a moment . You may have finished it . You felt it stop calling Did it call again today .
No , it stopped moving on Friday . Yeah , it stopped moving .
The serpent stopped moving just as soon after . We arrived soon after and saw it and it's breathtaking .
It's breathtaking and that's not even having gone through it , but I guess , having you walk me through with your photo series , how it evolved and how the serpent kept moving , and that sense of it , it being the force of this movement of sand , not the water , the sand .
Yeah , exactly , and it was just not that long ago I finally got to go out to see the well , the ranger station and I hadn't , so my ranger family was good to just go with them and just sort of take it all in . But there was things like our work shed , which is you know at least what three meters , you know , a normal height .
You could stand on the roof . It hadn't shifted , it was just filled in with sand and just like trying to contemplate , like I said , like the level of trees when you're looking at it three meters above where you're usually staring at it , like you know how the shape of it , I'm like I think I know what tree that is , but I'm literally not sure .
No , you wouldn't be .
Yeah , and just trying to gauge where you were before that , but , like you know , three meters above where you you were used to like , it's just yeah , it's so disorienting .
¶ The Source of Artworks Transforming Nat Out of the Flood
How would you describe where that work of art came from , because this has tapped something more in you too , hey .
Yeah , it's , let's say , country , like everybody talks about country as a place and it's not . People are like , oh , we're going to go out on country . I'm like , well , you're going to go , bush , but country is not just place .
It is place , but it is place in people and flora , fauna and it's the energy and force and you know its own identity , depending on where you are . And it's that kind of when you've almost been like so far removed from it and I always think of like the gorge , because we're starting to put like so much concrete into it .
And it was just like you know , we're covering and not telling the stories and changing it so much for mainstream and commercial aspects . You know you have that always fighting with that kind of balance of going okay , you want to share things , you want to be able to provide and maintain those stories and keep them continuing .
But is it worth , you know , changing the value and how people see it for access or whatever all of those kind of things . And I had that canvas . It was just , it was painted black and I just did this . I grabbed the dark red paint and just scribbled it on as this burst and I was just like this is pain and I don't know what it is .
And I just put it there and I was like I don't know what else and left and then it came back and then we were talking about just with family . I looked at them like I still don't know what it is . I know it's pain , but I don't know what it is .
And as we were talking about , you know you go through family legacies and all your stories and who's seen what , and you know , trying to match up all these stories and what's happened and make sense of it and going , okay , what are we not responding to , what are we not listening to ?
I just , I think I read you the thing that came to mind and I was like , oh , okay , I know what it is .
I mean , like the old band rock that sat there and has been sort of the point of , like Dangu is where he sits in that waterhole , for you know , all this time for that to be shifted , like the whole foundation being moved , and you know old people don't like to be , you know , shoved around the place , but to have the idea that he was , you know , shoved
and like unhappy , I was like , oh see , oh , man , rock , like you know I . So I drew that . But it was the sand and the movement and just the force that came down that gorge that completely went from wall to wall and the only reason it didn't spread out was , you know , the resistance against those , the Devonian reef and it .
But it took out our sandbars and just cut so much and that's why I had that snake just spread from wall to wall and just come at you but not at you like it .
So the painting is like it's of the gorge and you can see the main walls , like the east wall , the west wall and the wall across from the west wall , which is not the one we call the east wall . The east wall is where the old man is , but just further up . So that's all there .
But then this snake goes , winds like touching the rock and there's very little water to be seen in between that , and then it kind of raises up at the front , but its head's not , it's in strike position like the body , but its head's not . Its head's just kind of turned to the side and is kind of calm and it's like you know well , this is listening .
I wish I could remember the thing I wrote , what came to mind when I painted it . I guess I could find it . Yeah , so , because I write it as well . A lot of times I write and express it in , sometimes , words . If I'm lost for words , it comes out in that feeling and in that expressing it on canvas or whatever art form .
And since the flood , it's been amazing I've had to follow a certain energy that's sort of just gone . You need to get this out . You need to get this out and it's just translated to these amazing works but , like , they're just so much emotion and feeling for different things that happen .
But the words that just came quite easily for the snake it was country called out for us and we were not there . Country asked for help and we did not hear . We were making ourselves busy with trivial things , so country sent a snake to make sure we listened . So it's such , that whole thing of like .
It's such a dramatic change you can't ignore it and we need to be present and need to work out how we work forward . For you know what future proof in all of those buzzwords that people like to throw about , and it's the whole thing of like . You know , it knocked us into what is important .
This is the thing . Hey , there's opportunity in these moments because it does strip every well , literally literally , quite literally strips everything away and so many more of us be at the fires over there , and then this here and then northern hemisphere .
Now , I mean , we are being sent the message and I'm really interested in how you yourself , who sort of seeks to live this in a deep , daily , responsible way , has felt it deepening you , like dramatically , through this experience too , and is being expressed in these ways and , yeah , that not being comfortable but being a gift of sorts as well .
Yeah , it must feel like you're talking about reorienting in the context of the landscape , but it's almost a reorienting internally , I imagine .
Yeah , and I guess it's like the sort of last line of making sure we stop and listen and not being caught up in being busy with trivial things , all the things you think are important .
There are things that have much more priority in that and I think we , because we do have , you know , houses and social lives and all the different things we forget that we do have responsibility .
We talk about that like our totems and different things we're connected to , like we're all here and we're all responsible for looking after country and place and flora , fauna , people , your community , everybody is responsible in that and we have , sort of , as our society's , gone along , we look at , you know , the commercial side of a lot of things and that is
what you know house , cars , all of those kind of things .
¶ Learing the Lessons and Rebuilding Communities and Cultures
You know I love having a house , I love having aircon , I love having a car to get around and I mean I'm not .
No , it'll be nice when you can live in your house again . It will be nice .
You just need new floors , doors , walls and ceiling and we're good . Just that's all . Oh and it needs to be raised you know , raised a meter too , eh .
Yeah , just under a meter , I think it is but um and it's so high right now . It's amazing . Anyway , I'll put pictures for people so they can there are still high water marks , right that tree right across from us yeah we are sitting under the water . Yeah , we are if we're there yeah so we , yeah , I will also .
I'll send you some of my blood photos from that day , so I just .
I think it's just um there for me I guess there's been sort of a standoff with the responsibility and how much it is , because , like when we started with the um , with wongy radio , and just trying to get the basic information and standing up and talking , going communication , especially for um , not being able , everybody's already going through trauma and not knowing
basics . It's not that hard to go .
Look , I don't know that information , I'm gonna find it for you and let you know by this point where we can get food or if there's another date , and checking back in something that basic , yeah , isn't that hard yeah and it just sort of made me sort of step up into , you know , leadership roles , which I've kind of stepped back from quite a lot because , um ,
there's a horrible thing that I just it drives me crazy .
A lot of people in western world or outside my community are like oh yes , you can help your community and I'm like I'm like that is so racist and the reason it is is because , um , I , we're born with totems , we're born with skin names and that connects you to everyone and it also gives you your list of responsibilities to country and place and floor of
water , people , your community . You are born into responsibility and um all of that , which is massive on its own thing , the helping your people in , you know it's still going into that . Um , like the white Australia policy , helping them to be more western , which you don't need to be like I'm . I'm very , I'm very , straight , black and white .
Like you know , I I've got the Cornish and Scottish sides of my family . We went um blonde-haired , blue-eyed surfies from Cardis Lowe and farmers in South Australia that went into Victoria like I'm very basic Australian . You know , like black and white , I'm just straight , black and white is what I always say to people and it's just .
You know the value that's given to being a particular way . Like I think I've said this , um in the last time we talked about I'm now a middle-aged white woman but I will never be allowed to be that in in society , which is quite an odd thing because I am . I'm very western .
My , my most practiced language is Australian standard English and it's not my first . Creole is Kimberley , creole is my first , but there's all of these kind of aspects and I'm very good at code switching is which is why I think I get that , oh , you're , you can help your people . I'm like the Scottish mob , the English mob . Which mob are we talking about ?
that's the thing . It's so presumptive yeah , but it's .
But it's looking at it in the sense of okay , you're still following the white Australia policy going . Okay , you can help your people be more western so the western values .
Yeah , those values are higher than , say , um connection and responsibility to family , community , country , the flora , fauna , all of those kind of things that you've already assumed , like you had been assuming that from the game . Yeah , and it's just .
But the thing is that we're all here and it's all of our responsibilities , like the difference between , say , my Aboriginal lineage well , that was hard is ? It just spans a whole lot of history and stories and things like that . That is great to learn . Like you know how many degrees a doctorate's in knowing how things flow .
So you know , january 2023 , things flowed a bit differently Just all of those kind of things like it's something that we can all learn from , and that whole thing of like , oh yes , I don't .
Yeah , all of those things can run parallel for us being able to look after where we are , like you know , just hearing stories of the fires and that communication and looking after people's , like the trauma and the mental health of people , like they can't go home because they're traumatized and you know it should be . Everybody should be supported going .
Okay , I can go back to my house that is completely burnt to the ground and I can rebuild and I can , you know , come back stronger and look after it . And I understand that we need to do this , this , this , and not have to be triggered by that and not feel like they can return home , like that .
It's just the idea of not being able to return home is just devastating , and I think everybody gets into . They're like , oh well , you know it's different .
Yes , it is different for me in the sense of the other aspects of how I'm related to this place , but it's still the same of like , why aren't we got systems in place for response and recovery that , you know , has that communication , has that mental health thing and it is for years and all the future proofing , all of those kind of things .
It's not that hard to have the list to check in with people and know that everybody's at different points and some people will need a lot more support and the stronger the support I mean the community can then be supported and support each other to just , you know , be able to bounce back and create that resilience and all of it .
I just find it really devastating hearing those kind of stories and I mean seeing it here where people are like , well , I just want to go home , like we had a meeting today , and at the end of it we're like , yeah , well , we just want to go home , that's why we're camping here , like I know .
To at least be home .
Yeah , I mean , once we had running water , it made it a bit easier for us to camp . But we were like , oh , we need to go home . Yes , we're houseless . Yes , we probably won't make it through the heat or any wet with our current camping situation , but we're home and I'd rather be here than anywhere else .
And , yeah , the entire household or contents is still out on the deck because we just haven't been able to process it all and we're constantly doing that . But it's yeah , there's something different about just being able to be home and be calm and happy in that space .
Yeah , I can totally imagine that . It makes me wonder if , like the fires over in the Southeast , a whole new well , even before that , I remember the fires in around Victoria in 2009 , a whole new regime of warning systems and so forth came out .
I wonder if this will prompt a similar thing to take up some of the mantle that you'd like to think had been available this time around , but make it available next time , including the recovery and the repatriation and the support for people who need that and so forth . That this could be a catalyst for that .
I hope so and I want to be a part of that or be the one to push it .
I don't know like for myself and the several breakdowns I've had through this process , I know I'm going to get to a point where I'm well , I am anchored , now that I'm home , to be getting stronger , to be able to get back out there the way I , the way I was at the beginning of the flood , but not so traumatized like just trying to in survival mode will
be sort of that purpose , about helping community build that resilience and how you do all of those things . But for everyone like
¶ Caring for Country and Each Other Towards a Culture of Regeneration
this . We're having so many of those major events or severe weather stuff , whether it's flood , fire , drought heat . Yeah , all I mean the Kimberley is going to get to those stages where we're going to have 45 almost like every day . Yeah , I'd read that by 2090 .
So it's currently , if I remember right , it's currently 68 days a year above 40 here and it's projected with by 2090 to be 225 days . So most days of the year it will be above 40 on the current trajectory .
Yeah . So are we going to be able to get some work out , something so we can survive that and stay home , or are we going to just push towards more climate change refugees and push everybody into smaller places and lose connection and just the downhill of people's ? Mental health and society as a whole .
Yeah , it's not an option . Yeah , exactly .
So I mean this . I think this is one of those things that can be a catalyst for it . But you know , just being flood affected and knowing there's all of those kind of things up there and sometimes being really tired at still having to fight and argue for certain things , there are things happening and there's a we have gotten help and we have been supported .
So if you just look at some of the stories and people are still . There's still people flood affected who are scrambling for bits of information .
It's just seven months on .
Yeah , and you know , agency is given to the infrastructure , not necessarily to the community and its people , and I don't mean that as in just Aboriginal people , I mean all flood affected people all the way down . Yeah , I mean just with the funding stuff .
You look at anybody with private so you know , like a home , just as a pricing thing it we got courted at something like 250,000 as the basics to get it back to being safe to live in .
Yeah , so if you're looking at any private homeowners , that's a lot and you've got a Lord Mayor's Fund which is maybe give them 50 grand to do what Are you going to look at the floor ? so you can walk on it , but you're still going to have mouldy walls and to die later for your family , or you know it's just going .
Each of these places need that much to have it . Why can't that be sorted ?
Indeed .
And then I think , with all the money , I mean the I don't know how it's tracking , but the repair bill , let's say , was estimated at half a billion dollars when it sort of happened , and it was already sort of a quarter of a billion dollars when we flooded 10 years ago really badly out at the Chamberlain River in the East Kimberley , and so this is another
level . Still like then you think , okay , rather than face down more of those sorts of costs , let's invest properly in these , aid these systems , but then be the earth repair upstream , wherever that sand's coming from , the cultures that are telling you , let alone the land that's trying to tell you , but the cultures that are sharing with you these dynamics .
If we invested in that it's the same with the youth crime , in the epidemics that have been getting so much press around here If we got to the source of that and just invested there versus investing after the event , it's ultimately less costly in every way to do that .
And they're also long term things . So that's , you know , working out foundations so things can build on .
It's not , oh yeah , we'll chuck some money , or that looks good , I'll take that , and then hopefully that's it runs okay and then not supported in every other place , so that one thing gets overloaded and falls down and it's like , well , you know , they can't manage it .
Well , or all of that stuff .
And it's like , well , we told you all the supports . It's like it's the same thing as why I burnt out , like having one person or a couple people on the ground , why they're going through a traumatic event trying to do it . It's very easy to .
I mean , my first break was I got COVID and I literally couldn't breathe and spent half a day in hospital and that was the first time I had stopped and I slept .
It was the first time I kind of slept and I was literally because I had a forced meditation of concentrating on breathing because I could not and like I was like I've never gone thank you , covid in my life because it smashed me so hard that I actually slept . It was like the best .
I still remember passing out in the hospital , going and then waking up , going wow , I vaguely remember sleep . It's like , oh yeah , I like that . That was good .
And I remember your brilliant mother , Carolyn , telling us how she was holding up pretty well , but she too really felt the pinch in about May . And then what picked her up ? I imagine picked you up too , like this grand swell of support that you receive from just everyday folk .
Yeah , exactly , but there was look , things have been progressing and , to you know , deface the Department of Iron Emergency . They did learn as they went there .
Yeah , see guys , a whole lot of things they could improve All those services learned .
There's still a world of pain with communication , with the recovery and the shire and the flood hub . Like there's still a world of pain with the communication , but there was things filtering on Like there's .
It's sometimes really easy to comment about like how hard it was and sometimes it feels really overwhelming or sometimes it is overwhelming , but then you know they supported local teams to be able to come out and help us and just having helped to move an entire house in two days out of items out of the house in two days so it can be cleaned and the mold to
be covered , so it's safe to be in there . It was massive .
Yes , the entire contents still needs to be sorted , but you know when they're like , oh , you can't go in there if there's any animals or young people or people , people with breathing difficulties , which just lined up , the dog that we lived in , the child , the elder mature lady that's my mother and myself with breathing difficulties and I'm like , well , that's our
household . So you know we and things like not having the basic information and access to , like all the masks and all the things that we need to be able to process , or just getting access to our house to clean or like you know . I mean , we did walk through all the mud and all of those kind of things . I'm like so floods bring mud .
There is mold associated with water . I don't understand how that wasn't . They're like oh well , we want to find out the exact mold that would be up here . I'm like okay , sure , like , and all we want to make pamphlets is all of these like oh , we want to make sure it's safe and we don't end up getting wrapped around the knuckles .
And I'm like well , you've now just wasted all our time We've lost . Well , we thought we lost everything . We could have recovered this much and then we've lost even more because we couldn't get access or we didn't have the right information .
So , access to the actual property , access to the information that would kept us safe when we're dealing with all of these kinds of things .
That risk aversion stuff , isn't it ? There's got to be some way we can make each other feel safe enough and institutions , for that matter , to be out of just take more leaps into what needs to be done there's a lesson . That's another lesson .
Oh yeah , there's so many and I think there's a whole heap that you know we've learned and we can improve our systems , but we've got to , just you know , get stuck into that .
So when it ?
hits the next mob . It needs to . You know it's all in place and they're going to be looked after better . We did and then just get better each time that we don't .
There's a really short period of people having to deal with it can talk it through and know exactly how they're going to get help and know how they're going to bounce back from it and know they will be supported in that process .
When , like I'm pretty practical , I know how to do a lot of stuff , I know how to research things and I lost all of that after it , I was just like I don't understand , like making a call to , like it was so difficult just trying to work out you sort of walking around because you know you're in trauma and unlike you're being in a car crash or something
happening , your entire community or your network . Like my mother , I don't know how she did it- and stayed calm . Within that , like you know , the dog was disoriented .
The child was just , you know , trying to make it as normal or like safe space for her to be able to just at least sleep and all of these kind of things , like it was , and do normal things , like you know , feed us all and my mother is my mother , so she , of course , worrying about me , who was just not sleeping , was doing ridiculous hours , and I just
kept going and I just , you know , I don't know how she did it and I could not support her in it and I was like oh wow , and she gave me so much support and she was going through all of it and I was out doing all this other stuff and I'm just like at times I was like I literally have no idea how to support my mom through this as well , like I
just I couldn't work things like that out .
Yeah , this from that . At the same time , I suppose you were able to do something she couldn't do out there .
Yeah , and that's what she supported me to be able to do , but , like you know , it was just oh .
Yeah , yeah , that's a raw , yeah , exactly .
But you know , I must've been in town and my first breakdown I literally was like I couldn't move . I was at Longi and had to lock the door in studio . One sat in the corner and I was just , you know , going back and forth .
And it was different because I did keep calling out , like usually I just shut down when I hit that , but I kept calling and like nobody answered . Oh my God , it was horrific anyway .
But you know , at some point mom got a hold of the mental health workers and , like all the mental health workers that were on the ground had also gone through the flood , like they're trying to support everybody in their mental health when they've also gone through it , like it was just insane and it was .
You know , all of us trying to support like all the times with all the flood affected people at the oval sitting together and going through it . That's what's missing now , because things have been given up to agencies we still don't have . We've lost that point where we can all come together . We all understand what we've been through .
We've been through different things , but we need there's people who understand where you don't have to explain where you're at going . Look , this is where I'm up to and you know you can .
Just that's so interesting that the collective sharing of that , processing of that , as you've sort of gone back home or to other avenues of support , has been dispersed . But there's a richness in being together . That's so interesting , isn't ?
it . That's something I would love to bring back in , but I've also got to watch my space and my energy and how I do that . Like I know I can help facilitate some of that and advocate for all of these kinds of things , but I've also , like I said , I have hit some massive walls through it and I've got to be really protective of my health going forward .
Totally . You don't want to tempt fate , do you ?
Yeah , exactly . So it's good and like , but it's also that whole thing of oh , I could so do that , but I'm like well , actually you can't right now .
Yeah , right on , totally .
¶ Competing Narratives and Confusing Causes for Solutions
I'm curious . Last time we spoke it's interesting to even think this the last time we spoke , like going back almost two years on record that the government was ostensibly WA government ostensibly on the cusp of making adjudication on water allocation for heavy industry irrigation out of the Maruara , out of the river that still hasn't been adjudicated upon .
So I'm wondering now has that emboldened people who have the narrative of extraction . Have they been emboldened in their narrative now of almost taming the river ? If you would ?
Well , I'm not sure I'm the right person because I have not been paying attention . That is still out there and that's definitely been thought through by particular people who want to be able to tame and all of those bits and pieces .
So , whether that comes out or whether that's just bad marketing , depending on which way things are going I mean you've got to look to got a new premier of WA and when that decision is going to be made and why that's been held off and the powers that are pushing different ways that maybe it wasn't going to go in the river's favor .
And at some point to now with this it really is interesting . I don't know . A lot of things are quiet on those fronts , but probably not in back room discussions and things like that .
But that's the whole thing of like the transparency of those kind of negotiations and where those discussions are taking place and who's involved with them , because it's not necessarily happening on the ground with the people here or all of those kind of things .
He did speak with the premier . He didn't hear .
Oh yeah he came up , but that was I don't know what . Oh , I hope with the welcome . Well , because I'm one of the custodians of this particular place and I did get a chance to stop and talk , but it was more about the flood recovery and the communication stuff that we were talking about so .
The immediate stuff .
Yeah , the immediate survival stuff .
Yeah , with clubs .
So it was what ? But I made sure I wore my unprotected fitro shirt that day . I could at least do that much Indeed .
It really . It's another flash point in the sense and you can hear in our conversation , we're looking to listen deeper and pick up the cues and to not , we should say , add fracking to the list of activities that they judge on out here .
Yeah exactly .
Yet on the other frame you could well imagine they're thinking see , we told you it's out of control .
Yeah , yeah , exactly , but it's that whole thing of like you're really not listening .
That's right To what's caused that . Yeah , exactly .
And it's , and again it's where that volume system is put into the creating of like wealth in our mainstream and our Western value system . So it's where the value is given .
Indeed , stripping one kind of wealth for another kind of wealth .
Yeah .
And there's one kind of wealth that's actually the functioning country .
Yeah , and it's really different kind of wealth and but if you take on those values , like there's a whole different kind of wealth that you get , but it's not in that Munda tree type thing , it's very different and it can be a foreign concept to be able to anytime we look at other cultures or other people or other ways they value family connections or places
and all of the like , oh , how could they do that with their children or how can they . It's like , well , you're putting your value and that over something else , so what you know , and sometimes that's easier because it's the devil you know ,
¶ It Could Be Amazing
and going outside that . But there can be just . I don't think you need to get rid of these ways of things working together in parallel , not doing the assimilation thing , but like going how rich if you've got all these different lines , all these different well , cultures or ideals that you can just enrich so many different things .
Oh , isn't it exciting yeah you could just the fabric and things that you could weave . Oh my God , it would be amazing oh it would be amazing . And that was one of my last .
Well , there's five paintings that I've sent for the art above the 26th , which is happening in Broome open nights the 14th , and it's the first five works that I just kind of got all these things out to do with sort of the summary of my flood experience .
And the last one was these people and I've always sketched this out , but I've never done it in a massive canvas like I did of these people , a family sitting around a fire , and they're all in these calming blues . It's a night .
It's so beautiful .
Yeah , but I've sort of done they don't have . Well , I can see their faces , but they've . I've done it with sort of lines to like the outline of woven or like like netting or anything like that .
Everybody is made up of a different kind of structure from your networks how you raise your personality , what your responsibility is , but also how everybody is connected and how those stories continue and all of those kind of things . And it's just that whole thing of like being able to connect and keep growing those networks .
And I love that one and I've made it . So there's a bit of a gap . So someone standing near it , you feel like you're at the fireplace too , and that's the whole point of it , like everybody is connected .
It's beautiful ,
¶ Turning Youth Crime Epidemics Around (and Q&A Proposal for Stan Grant)
you know , in coming to a close here , as it's sort of dark upon us , a little bit of twilight left over on the horizon and the light of our recording gear is just illuminating us in its own fire in a way . But it is amazing . The stuff towards that vision that you can see , I can imagine in varying ways . That is positively awesome .
There is so much of the building blocks already in play too , hey , like I think of . We mentioned the youth , next generations , and I mentioned the crime epidemics that you know back in Derby it's still front of mind for everybody .
But here in Fitzroy and not only in Fitzroy I've heard of other stories across the Kimberlith there's been different approaches that have made a massive impact .
And a part of those approaches is that all the different organisations are connecting and networking and supporting each other . That's the whole point . Like you can't just go , oh yeah , just have that mob tell them off .
It's like , well , yeah , they need telling off , they need disciplining , but they also need safe places to go and being able to explore other avenues and how you know all of those kinds of things as well , like that's the whole the family systems that we have in , like our skin lines .
There is the person who disciplines you , there is the person you are comforted , the person who makes sure you're fed .
There is all of those things like there is the full range of support , which is what we need in whether you're recovering from crisis or just your everyday , like you know , just , and that's the whole point of everybody being connected and talking and importance of that communication and making sure that , across the board , everybody has that support .
Yeah , it's interesting even hearing the senior sergeant here talk about relationships and trust . Ah , the main thing in this whole approach , and that it's working to a significant degree . It just goes to show there are ways that we can . We can confront major crisis , whether it be in that social sense or this natural quote , unquote sense .
There are ways we can do this ?
Yeah , oh , absolutely . Yeah oh , absolutely .
I fully believe that I really would love to do like a Q&A with like Stan Grant , to come back and do a Q&A about the recovery process and how valuable those connections and you know , on-ground knowledge of you know wherever it might be with you're flooded with , you know people , knowing their neighbors , knowing who got out , how to check on them , all of those
kind of things like how valuable that has to be included in the response by you know local , state , federal governments and how they respond , and the recovery process , making sure you know communication and the mental health of people being a core part of those processes .
That's a great idea that Kay and I , who might have to raise that with some people .
Yeah , I would love that . How good would it be . I would love that .
Totally yes , let it be Stan's comeback . See how we go .
Please Stan .
You had to let go of your chairmanship or chairperson-ship role with Imburans Kimberley , of course , through all this , completely understandably .
But it's been interesting too reading through some of their missives about some of the other work going on , like I took note of the Living Language Culture Project and the Bonobo Cultural Conservation Institute , therapeutic communities and , of course , care for country ranges and all that sort of stuff , cultural experiences in the name of what we might have called tourism
in the past , all these things that are coming on around here . I mean , obviously they've impacted by all this emergency stuff at the moment , I imagine , but that seems like a rich tapestry of stuff coming on around here .
Yeah , so a lot of those things have been going on for many , many years .
Really .
I mean whether it's environs can believe , whether it's all the things on the ground like there's a lot of things that are always been happening , but I guess just that highlight of how much you need all of those networks to be able to solve these problems and be able to support each other . So I think that's what it's highlighting really .
And yeah , stepping down , I mean one of my duties is to make sure that the river keeps running . My totem is the bare Monday and it has to keep coming up , but if it's too shallow or it's not , those are things that we need to explore . It's hopefully not forever . It's just that whole thing of health .
I cannot be able to support that role as much as I would like to when I've got to support my family and just processing stuff . I mean I opened up a case that used to have a solar panel and it's like wet mud in it and I literally walked away from it . That's seven months later . And so you know that's where we're at .
So being sort of truthful on where we're at , where I'm at , and not trying
¶ Farewell, Music and Concluding Words including Subscriber Offer
to overdo that , because I know I can help a lot more if I trust that 100% , that and , to tell you the truth , my hat dips to you .
It's remarkable who you are and what you do . Thanks for spending this time with me . It feels incredibly special to now be in starlight Speaking with you again on your country , on your patch , and I'm so glad you're back here and may next time we see you you'll be in the house too .
Hopefully . Oh , yes , yeah , who knows when that will happen ? But yeah , I've always enjoyed these chats and it's amazing how much comes out . So , yeah , till next time . We'll see what happens then .
What music's on your mind these days ?
I have actually been right into Johnny Cash's Hurt . It's one of my favourite of Johnny Cash , and it's just for those moments of when how I feel getting hit with it . It's so comforting to hear it . It's almost like , okay , yeah , you get where I'm at , and it's amazing how much when I'm driving in my car I go to that .
Bloody beautiful .
That's my go-to now at the moment .
Let's go to it now . Yeah , cheers Nat . That was broadcaster , artist and Traditional Custodian of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River , Natalie Davy . For more on Natalie , her work and how you can support the community there , see the links in the show notes . The episode webpage features a selection of photos too , including of the incredible artworks Natalie talks about .
You might recall the June rains I was recording in while we were in Derby ? Well , the BoM tells me that resulted in the highest so-called dry season river flow in 50 years . It delayed the new Fitzroy Crossing Bridge rebuild and washed away the temporary causeways too , as if to emphasise the value of investing as much as we can ahead of disaster .
And on that note , if you happen to have a direct line to Stan Grant, want to see if he'd be interested in dreaming Nat's idea into reality ? It could make for an exceptional and important podcast or other kind of community production . And yes , I did speak with Nat about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum happening next month here in Australia .
At that stage , a little over a month ago , unsurprisingly , she really hadn't been able to give it much thought , nor had others we spoke with , for that matter . One sentiment that came through with more certainty wherever we talked to people was the need to weave regional voices firmly into the Canberra Voice .
And that point seems universal , something this podcast hears a lot from people everywhere . I do want to say thanks very much to Bureau of Meteorology staff , Leanne Hollis and Senior Flood Hydrologist Robert Laurie for their wonderful assistance . And finally , the next big event .
I'm fortunate to be wearing the MC Guernsey at the RE:CONNECTION Festival in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales in November , featuring Zach Bush , Charles Eisenstein virtually , and a host of top shelf Aussies in conversation with each other and me . Podcast subscribers , you get a 10% discount .
Just see my last post on Patreon for the discount code , and if you donate separately from that to the podcast , just send me a message . I can share the code with you too . Subscribers also get behind-the-scenes footage , pics and other things as we get around the country , so if you've been thinking about becoming a subscriber , I'd love you to join us .
It's with thanks , as always , to this community of generous supporters that this episode was made possible . Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration . com forward slash support . And thanks again . The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden off the soundtrack to the film Regenerating Australia . My name's Anthony James . Thanks for listening .