“We Live in the Long grass” The film is dedicated to all those Aborigines and their friends, who since the coming of white man to Darwin 100 years ago, have both resisted and persisted. In this film, the ‘homeless’ Aboriginal people of Darwin or, the long grass people, have come together outside Parliament House to protest against the constant persecution they face each day.

It is August 3rd 2001 and the long grass people are telling how they are being discriminated against, and harassed by the NT Government and its legislation, Night Patrol, the Darwin City Council and both the Conservation and Housing Commissions.

Homeless Aboriginal people have, since the foundation of Darwin, had to fight for their rights. This film shows the courage they still possess. Made by Mousetrap Films Duration: 40 minutes. Contact:mousetrapfilms@hotmail.com Cost: $20.00 (includes 3 copies of KUJUK: long grass newspaper).

Darwin May 1999 - from The Australian

A different kind of sleeping sickness in the Top End

Darwin City Council is jailing locals who like to sleep in public parks, reports Paul Toohey*

WHEN writing out infringement notices, Darwin City Council rangers are given a box to tick. One is marked 'by-law', the other 'dogs'.

In the case of By-Law 103, which fines people for 'sleeping in a public place between sunset and sunrise', rangers may as well tick the dog box. The people on the receiving end of 103 - mostly homeless people - feel that council treats them no better.

On most mornings in the Darwin pre-dawn, council rangers prowl the foreshore parks where they know they will find the long grass people sleeping in groups of 20 or more. They are woken and issued $50 on-the-spot fines. If they have any sleeping gear, it is confiscated.

The long-grassers are mostly homeless Aborigines who live on foreshore and park areas around town. They are homeless only in the sense that they do not have roofs over their heads. Many of them have lived outside for years and consider themselves residents of Darwin, not vagrants.

The intended purpose of the by-law is the same as in any other city or town - to stop people from living in public-use parks. No one. of course, likes a long-haired surfie from flaunting his freedom in the working public's face by living out the back of a Sandman and hanging up his Quicksilvers in a barbecue area.

But when poverty-line people end up repeatedly jailed for non-payment of 'sleeping warrants', the question must be: What profit is there in giving homeless people a free roof in Berrimah Jail?

The long grass camps are nothing more than places - a certain patch of ground, or a tree by a creek. Long-grassers drink, most of them, in spots hidden - as the name suggests - by long grass or bushes. Police do not regard them as trouble makers or hasslers, just rowdy at times.

The most common problems are crimes of unsightliness, which begin when the cask wine and afternoon sun meet in a reluctant brain. Darwin Lord Mayor George Brown told of walking on the Esplanade a few weeks ago when a man "pulled down his daks and had a crap" on a pathway within his view.

The council feels the best way to correct such behaviour is to sneak up on sleeping long-grassers and fine them in the hope they'll disappear. But after five years of By-Law 103, it is clear the fines neither raise revenue nor deter people from returning to their camps.

Richard Gumbaduck, a Darwin long-grasser most of his life, has been fined four times in the last six months for sleeping between sunset and sunrise. He couldn't pay and has twice been jailed. The three people he was sitting with had also been jailed for sleeping fines that had gone to warrant.

"I have been in jail for it," he said. "I was imprisoned. First one I went for three days, the second one I went for seven days. They wake us in the middle of the night or early hours of the morning. Council. They threw our swags and everything away. Even our clothes. We didn't get them back.

"I just live long grass. My family living here, I gotta stay with them. We gotta stick together. This is a free country, isn't it? I feel very upset. I don't think it's right. My people, we all sleep anywhere. We got no place to stay. I don't know what this situation is."

Darwin City Council Lord Mayor George Brown said he was surprised to hear that so many long-grassers were ending up in jail. "I don't think it's satisfactory," he said, "but it's a fact of life. What do you want me to do about it?"

Mr Brown did not agree groups of long-grassers had a legitimate place in Darwin. "No, they don't," he said. "Let me tell you that several times I have sat down with them and made an offer that if council provided basic accommodation, free, would you use it? The answer is always no. Because they always say, 'We're free agents'.

"I feel for them, but they've got alternatives. Aboriginal people, for instance - why don't they go back to their communities? We get the problems the communities don't want."

Asked what the point was in continually fining the people who couldn't pay, Mr Brown said, "It's just like cutting coffee bush, isn't it. It just comes up again."

A woman who didn't want to be named due to her outstanding "sleeping warrants", spends her days by an inner-city creek and at nights wanders with her friends up to an esplanade park to sleep.

"I like staying in Darwin with them long grass people," she said. "I find it good with them, sharing and caring together, we don't rubbish each other. They got what we got. And the city council comes around, throw our swag (away) or book us ticket, and we don't like that.

"I been booked twice. We don't like city council to come here. This is our place - we like staying under the Starlight Motel."

At any long-grass camp, people need only reach into their back pockets to produce the pink infringement notices. Long grassers now believe they are part of a council game, whereby rangers issue tickets to people who haven't had one for a few weeks.

"Is there a policy saying within Australia Aboriginal people are not allowed to light a fire or camp in a public area?" asks Mary Dhamarranydji. "I'm allowed to camp out here, light a fire. Every day they come around, about six o'clock every morning. We want to be left alone."

Her friend David Mayay has been to jail. "Yeah, I was locked up for sleeping in a public area," he said. "I was Berrimah for 18 days. That's all I want to say."

His friend Barry Gundi has been to jail. "I slept in public area - I went to jail for 14 days. The city council wrote my name, gave me ticket."

Daniel Dhamarrandji, from the same group, has been jailed. "The council might have a policy, but my policy is right here in the ground," he said. "We are not Aboriginal drifters - they are drifters with their law. We do not drift. We belong to Aboriginal people."

All over Australia, people are supposedly working to keep Aborigines out of jail. But when an infringement notice goes to warrant and police locate the person, they ask whether he or she wants the fine or the time. And the long-grassers pockets are invariably empty.

* Paul Toohey is The Australian's Darwin correspondent.

From Darwin, Green Left Weekly has reported more evictions of homeless Aboriginal people, known as 'long grassers'. The evictions followed a successful sleep-in of homeless Aboriginal people and their supporters outside NT Parliament House on October 7-8, 2001.

On August 3, 2001, one hundred 'long grassers' in Darwin protested outside the NT Parliament House and occupied the Darwin City Council building. Now the VIDEO of those events is available for a small charge (to help towards costs).

This is your chance to organise FIRST SHOWINGS of this sensational documentation of Aboriginal activism. Contact - http://www.bill.day.20m.com/contact.htm

The team who have produced this video have done so at their own expense, working closely with the Aboriginal people involved. Having just completed a PhD thesis (entitled "Aboriginal fringe dwellers in Darwin:cultural persistence or a culture of resistance?"), I endorse their work.

Bill Day.

Bill Day's Thesis: 'Aboriginal fringe dwellers in Darwin: a culture of resistance or cultural persistence?'

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