20 February 2024 It was a select but sold out crowd that saw a great show from Emily Wurramara at the Railway Club in Darwin earlier tonight. We were all happy to see her back on stage in Darwin on a hot February night. Emily was ably supported by local duo Reverie at what for [...]
Part 3: Munkara v Santos NA Barossa Pty Ltd (No 3) Not the Tiwi Island Crocodile called "Elvis". But a nice one nonetheless ... At paragraph 312 of Justice Natalie Charlesworth’s decision in Munkara v Santos NA Barossa Pty Ltd (No 3) witness Tony Pilakui said in his statement that he disputed the truth of [...]
Part Two: … and a crocodile called Elvis. Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher. Darwin, February 2024 By Bob Gosford In the first part of this seriesI looked at the recent Federal Court decision of Justice Charlesworth in Munkara v Santos NA Barossa Pty Ltd (No 3) [2024] (Munkara) and briefly explored the judicial history of principles [...]
Part One: Why Alderson v Northern Land Council (still) rules after forty years. Tiwi lead applicant Simon Munkara By Bob Gosford After two weeks of hearings in late December, in mid-January 2024 Justice Charlesworth of the Federal Court of Australia delivered her 258-page demolition of the application for a permanent injunction by three Tiwi Island [...]
By Mark Butler* FARRAGO 9 – Waterman: A Picaresque Tale of Old Sydney I HAVE always wanted to write something to live up (or down) to that headline which, throughout my many years as a newspaper subeditor never lost its place as one of the top five banned hackneyed puns, so i hope this makes [...]
Part Two – The lights at the end of the tunnel are … “remarkable achievements” In part one of this article we looked at some of the facts arising from the recent “discovery” of the Gouldian Finch at a Defence Housing Australia housing project in Darwin’s northern suburbs and asked the question, “So, how to [...]
This is a guest post by legal commentator Hector Lung. Jack Karczewski KC was admitted to practice in the NT in 1984 and provided almost 40 years of service to the Territory’s criminal justice system. He passed away in late 2023. In early 2024 a few rather brief and underwhelming notices appeared to mark his [...]
A few weeks back I went for a drive down to Batchelor, an old uranium mining town an hour’s drive south of Darwin that remade itself as a town dedicated to tourism—the wonderful Litchfield National Park is nearby—and education—the town is home to the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. Here are some photographs from [...]
This Musical Dispatch from the Front is a guest post by my old—in both senses of that word—friend Frank Baarda,* a long-term resident of Yuendumu. For decades we have made our annual trek up and down the Stuart Highway. I recall some memorable road: signs: Ki Ki – Australia’s Pistachio Capital Bordertown – Bob Hawke’s [...]
2024 will be a big year for elections, with some estimates stating that half (really?) the world population will get the opportunity to vote in 2024. Time magazine reckons that 64 countries—and the European Union—will conduct national elections this year with elections in Taiwan, Bangladesh, Russia and Ukraine all must-watch events for a variety of [...]
