I haven't said much about the aboriginal people of Meekatharra, mainly because I am trying to compare daily experience with what locals tell me, and because it seems so complicated that I don't know where to start. Are Meeka's aboriginal problems typical of outback towns? I don't know.
Locals - black and white - will tell you pretty terrible stories of juveniles "wrecking everything" - slingshotting windows, streetlights etc, setting fire to trees, various vandalism. You also hear of domestic violence, child abuse and alcoholism being rife. Everyone is paranoid about leaving windows open or exposed, leaving anything outside or inviting aboriginal people on to their property. The most consistent opinion I have heard is that the huge amounts of government welfare money & programs only exacerbate the problems of a damaged culture; this is most strongly expressed by people (black and white) who work closely with those programs and the aboriginal community.
People will also talk about how the land rights issue has become a "joke", with stories of aboriginal communities and individuals basically rorting the system to obtain large payouts from mining companies etc in exchange for accessing "sacred sites" or aboriginal land. There is clearly a huge welfare dependency, and Meekatharra's main "industry" as a town is not mining, but government services, mainly for the aboriginal community.
Are these things true? I don't know. What I see every day are many aboriginal people shuffling up the street to stand and wait for the pub to open. Kids roam the streets until the small hours of the morning - and that includes toddlers in diapers, on their own, in the middle of the street, at midnight. Most nights you can hear, somewhere, aboriginal people literally screaming and roaring from their houses, fighting, and this can go on for hours. The police are constantly busy. The child protection agency has a vehicle and personnel on call every night to take children from households where there is fighting; the kids are taken to a safe house to sleep for the night. After three such rescues, the kids are taken permanently from the parent/s. This happens every single night of the week.
Many of the aboriginal people who pass by can barely look you in the eye; they look battered and depressed. Every woman over her mid teens seems to have babies and children in tow. Usually one or two will greet me back if I wave or say hello, but generally they pass by like ghosts. The feeling you get in the town is of two separate worlds. There are clearly aboriginal people who are not welfare cases, who are working to improve things and share some friendship & work relationships with the white community, but walking the street you could swear you're in a third world country. I've had aboriginal people wait outside my gate to ask me if I have any beer; every trip up to the shops you encounter people and children asking you for a couple of dollars or cigarettes. Begging. I have no way to describe the look in their eyes, the air of hopelessness that surrounds them. They seem to only exist.
For all the talk you hear of "respect for the land", the importance of "law" (aboriginal tradition) and so on, what you see are people simply throwing beer cans and rubbish everywhere; the state of many of the houses is unbelievable. It doesn't look like different cultural values, it looks like utter despair and lack of hope or purpose. There are a bazillion programs for social services, activities and education; the school is amazingly resourced with teachers who work hard with the kids, but the kids go home to alcoholism, violence, abuse and welfare dependency; it's safer to wander the street all night than stay home.
So it's interesting, challenging and sad.
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