Talk:Oombulgurri Community, Western Australia

Authenticity of this page
I am suspicious about the authenticity of this page. Geoscience Australia has no record of a place name (town or otherwise) of Forest River Mission – although there is a Forest River in WA up near the NT border. The place does not have an Australian post code.

Googling I found a couple of references. The Battye library 1 has a collection of photos "3611B Photographs of Forest River Mission [Anglican Mission of St Michael] PUBLISHED: 1914-1967." on microfilm. I also found a bio 2 of a bloke who's father was born there, although it refers to it as being in the Northern Teritory.

The original entry was anon from an IP currently assigned to a North American ISP. The population of under 10,000 seems a bit odd as that is also the population of my office when no one is there.

Possibly it is a mission that has been abandoned, or it may have been renamed. I will probably have to go up there to check it out, but I am not sure where to submit Wikipedia travel expense claims.

I have added a 'not verified tag'. If it does turn out to be real it needs a link from the Forest River disambiguation. IanBailey 05:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite
I have rewritten the entry according to the few online sources I could find. It could probably do with some expansion. I moved it to "Forrest River", as that seems to be the actual name of the mission. I got the approximate location from this entry in the Geoscience Australia database. I wasn't sure what to do about the national park though, so I've left it as is, and left the unverified tag on the article, in case that is incorrect as well. Graham/pianoman87 talk 07:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Page move
I am going to move this page to Oombulgurri, Western Australia, as that is what the town is known as these days. See this government newsletter for a reference. I've expanded the article a little more as new information has come to light. Any comments would be appreciated: this is the first time I have tried to make an article like this. Graham/pianoman87 talk 10:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Graham, I have emailed the Rev Peter to see if there is any chance of a photo, and to see if he can add anything. Cheers IanBailey 06:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Did you get any response by email? My exams are over, so I can now concentrate on research, rather than just correcting typoes. Graham/pianoman87 talk 07:22, 24 November 2005 (UTC)


 * No, but by coincidence I have found one of my neigbours worked there for a while. I haven't had a chance to catch up with him about it but when I do I will hopefully scab a photo. I hope the exams went well. Cheers IanBailey(talk) 08:47, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Oombulgurri Association
I have just found out about the Oombulgurri Association, the association that manages the day-to-day running of the community of Oombulgurri. An entry about it can be found at this government site. I have emailed the address given there, and asked if there is more information, or the possibility of creating a photo for the place. As I said in the email, this could be an interesting opportunity. Graham/pianoman87 talk 09:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Human impact
Reading this bare-bones article, it's very hard for a non-Western Australian (like me) to understand the significance of the reported events, due to an almost complete lack of context.

It gets even stranger after reading some of the references, mostly news articles from the ABC, which talk of criticism of the state government for handling the removal of people from Oombulgurri badly, and putting them up in "dongas" that cost A$1.6 million. This raises all sorts of questions, for example:
 * 1) What is a donga? (At least Wikipedia helped in finding that one out.)
 * 2) What criticism was implied?
 * 3) Did the dongas cost too much?
 * 4) Or weren't the dongas good enough to serve as temporary housing?

Most importantly, there seems to be a disconnect between the articles given as references, and this WP page on the Oombulgurri community. Those articles seem to say much more than the WP page; yet still not enough to round out the story and its human implications.

Reading between the lines of the WP page, I'd like to know, for example:
 * 1) Do we have any statements by the community members that would shed some light on this?
 * 2) Were they happy, angry, or sad to leave?
 * 3) Did they have any say in the matter?
 * 4) Or have they become government welfare clients, mired in apathy or hopeless acquiescence to bureaucratic arrangements of their very lives, homes and futures?

I hope some knowledgeable Wikipedian will revise the article, giving a fuller picture of the reported events, most particularly on what they mean to the people concerned.

yoyo (talk) 17:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * As an ex-resident of Wyndham (just across the gulf) I will try to find some more information on the topic, but the Kimberley Land Council may have some press releases or statements on their website which may be of use, or we may be able to get more information from the Wyndham Historical Society.
 * The dongas referred to are transportable huts the size of a shipping container which are not appropriate to a tropical climate without an additional roof over the top and air-conditioning. They are generally used for temporary housing, but in this case are to be used at least semi-permanently. A cost of A$1.6 million is not unexpected in the Kimberley, but highly questionable in a town like Wyndham which already has surplus housing as the population dropped from about 4500 to about 1000 in the early 1990s when the meat works closed. I do not think the population has changed much since then.
 * There was a campaign by the Oombulgurri residents to stop the closure, so I think it is fair to say that the residents did not approve of the move, especially the non-drinkers who were forced to move into a town with bottle shops and a pub. As for how much say they had, the decision was made by bureaucrats in Perth who took little notice of what the residents thought.
 * I will call the historical society and see if they can help at all.   Djapa Owen 23:59, 16 September 2012 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djapa84 (talk • contribs)


 * Thanks, Djapa Owen. You've already shed some light!  yoyo (talk) 07:11, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I just came across a reference which looks interesting, but there are no libraries holding copies within a hundred km of here, if anyone else can access a copy and see what can be used that would be good: Neville Green. I will see if I can find out more.   Djapa Owen (talk) 04:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)    Djapa Owen (talk) 04:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Sexual abuse
I have been looking for more information on the child abuse cases, and have been unable to find more than three convictions. Those convictions were of two Wyndham residents (apparently relating to abuse at least some of which occurred at Oombulgurri) and a case relating to abuse during the 1980s. The only other reference I have found was to a high level of acquittals in the Kimberley sexual abuse cases. I have also found this article suggesting that the closure of Oombulgurri has actually resulted in bigger problems and more children under threat:. The transportable housing provided was only provided in January despite most of the residents having moved to Wyndham before September and many of them having to live in the marshes on the town's outskirts. Wyndham's marshes are mudflats and mangroves along the edges of Cambridge Gulf and are inhabited by hordes of mosquitoes and sand-flies (non-biting midges) as well as significant numbers of large crocodiles. The one line section on the child sex investigation is a significant over-simplification and I think it is probably very inappropriate to be reporting charges which have not resulted in convictions. I don't think any of the charge reports linked to actually relate to the two people convicted. I am also concerned that the complexity of this issue is not dealt with here, and we would probably be better to be cautious. I am not suggesting that a blind eye should be turned to sexual abuse of the type in the convicted cases (they were reported as an adult couple (in their late thirties) preying on a girl in her teens, and an adult now 70+ abusing a ten year old girl). What I am suggesting is that many of the cases being reported in the remote communities in Northern Australia in recent times have related to relationships between people in their late teens and early twenties which are considered acceptable by many of the people in the communities, but which contravene the Australian legal principle that the age difference must not exceed two years. I have known of one case where a boy was just over two years older than his partner and he was arrested within a week of turning eighteen. If they had been white and lived in the suburbs of a southern city I suspect people may have turned a blind eye despite the technical offence? I feel that we should be careful how we deal with this issue as we do not want to vilify the Aboriginal people of Australia who are not all paedophiles, and we do not want to hide the real offenders like the convicted cases I mentioned in a smoke screen of "everyone is doing it".

Now that I have said this, how do people think we should deal with this on the Oombulgurri page and all the others where it is relevant?   Djapa Owen (talk) 13:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)