A Little Bit of Inspiration

I have always had a rather lofty set of ambitions and have a tendency to see the world through very rosy glasses. When, at the ripe old age of 18, I announced that I wanted to study law, my high school career advisor said there are four reasons why people study law: because they get the marks and can't work out what to do, because they get the marks and their parents think they should study law, because they want to make lots of money and because they want to change the world. She told me the first three were perfectly good reasons to study the law, but if I wanted to change the world I would wind up dissatisfied with the world, depressed and poor. I know she was joking and trying to shock me out of my state of ideal bliss, but by the time I got to 5^th year and still hadn't found the area of law that I was passionate about, I wondered if she might be right! I was turning into a jaded young lawyer who just wanted to find a graduate job and was about to throw away all of my principles simply to earn a living. Not great for the soul! Enter stage left: the Aurora Project.

The Aurora Project is a series of programs designed to relieve the pressure on Native Title Representative Bodies around Australia. They include all sorts of things from workshops and scholarships to Master's programs for lawyers, anthropologists and sociologists working in Native Title. I was interested in their legal internships. Similar to a clerkship, Aurora can arrange a 5 week winter placement (or longer summer placement) in a Native Title Representative Body. I was selected and spent 5 weeks working with the Northern Land Council (The NLC) in Darwin.

The NLC is one of the premier Native Title Representative Bodies in Australia. They work on cutting edge land claims in the top half of the Northern Territory. Some of the names you might have come across: Blue Mud Bay, McArthur River and the Vernon Islands to name but a few. They also help Indigenous People manage their lands through negotiating and drafting Indigenous land use agreements which are essentially licences to carry out activities on Aboriginal Land.

In my time with the NLC I drafted agreements for pastoral operations to occur on Aboriginal Land, I prepared appeal books for what will be this year's most significant piece of litigation in Native Title. I met with traditional owners who are currently in negotiations with the Federal and NT Governments regarding potential residential development on their lands. I flew in a very small plane to meet with traditional owners in a very remote community to give advice and seek instructions. I went to Court with Lawyers and in my spare time I researched the implications of draft water allocation plans in the NT. It was interesting work that really means something to the organisation and to their clients, Indigenous People.

Being in the 'Top End' also gave me the opportunity to explore a part of the country which is still not seen by many Australians. With the NLC I went to places tourists simply aren't able to get to: Indigenous communities where you need a permit to enter and working cattle stations literally in the middle of nowhere. And in my own time I explored Litchfield National Park, the Daly River region and Kakdu. It is a truly beautiful part of the world to live and work in.

Life working as a lawyer at the NLC is about passion and community with a bit of activism thrown in. At the NLC your tools are not just the words you put in a document or speak in Court. It's also about building public support, using the media to aid your cause and taping into people's inherent sense of justice. It's as much about converting hearts and minds as it is about sealing a deal or winning a Court case. When I was 18 and working out what I wanted to do with my life, I wanted a job where my actions could directly create positive change in the community. I chose the law because I thought this was my best opportunity to make a difference to peoples lives. However, somewhere along the way I got caught up in top tier firms, graduate salaries and prestige. Those things are all part of the law, and they are worthy ambitions. Yet, for me, those were not the things that drew me to being a student of the law in the first place.

The NLC and other rep bodies around Australia offer interested lawyers the opportunity to be involved directly with some of the most disenfranchised people in our country. They allow people who have had the privilege of education and opportunity the chance to give back to communities that desperately need assistance. It's one of those 'warm fuzzy' jobs, an alternate career path that utilises all the traditional legal skills and then something more. You have to be passionate to work in a Native Title body. You also have to be prepared to fail, to come up against barriers and to be criticised in some cased by the very people you are trying to help.

Despite all the challenges, my time as an Aurora intern with the NLC was very rewarding. It was a window into a world that I thought did not really exist in the Australian legal landscape. It restored my faith in the power of the law to (at least attempt to) create change. Yes, there are lots of problems with Native Title and with the representative bodies trying to help people, and if you work in these organisations you face more obstacles than you would in corporate law. And yes, some sacrifices have to be made (a large corporate salary being the first). But there are other rewards that cannot be quantified. A sense of purpose and self satisfaction being the big ones I found.

If you are a 4^th or 5^th year law student (or an anthropology or sociology student) with a passion for giving back to the community, you too should apply for this once in a life time experience. Like with most things that are different and challenging the effort that you put in is returned 10 fold.

The Appeal Books are Done

It has taken a week and a half but they are finished. All 48 volumes of the appeal book are copied and ready to be sent to the Court. If you don't know what an appeal book is, it is a wonderfully cruel administrative task often given to juniors in a legal office. It is sort of like re-writing a phone book from scratch. It involves putting together lots of documents that will be given to Judges prior to a legal appeal. Other than photocopying amazing numbers of documents it also involves drafting the indexes almost constantly and removing and adding documents as the Barristers change their minds about what should be in there (it happens - A LOT). It's a particularly annoying job and most often messy too.

 

In the course of the appeal books I sustained the usual injuries - paper cuts, cardboard cuts (paper cuts on steroids) and a bruise from when the photocopier attacked me. I got covered in ink when I was paginating (numbering) the pages with an old school printing machine. Once I washed the ink off I was clean enough to be covered in photocopying toner which has proved impossible to get off and I currently look like I am suffering from whatever turned the Blue Men blue.

 

Other than my guilt for cutting down a small forest I am now free from the joys of appeal books. Now they have to be bound (thankfully I have been relieved from that job or else I may have lost my mind) and then they will be sent off to the Court and the other parties in the litigation. So now I cross my fingers and hope that somebody doesn't have a giant issue with them and seek to have them amended. That would be a nightmare because the whole thing would start again!

 

And my clear conscious and I are heading out to Kakadu this Sunday to fly in a very small plane (again – let's hope the Territory's attempts to bring about my demise do not continue) to check out some Aboriginal rock art.

 

 

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When Another Place Becomes Home

So I am from Sydney. I love Sydney. I love café's and restaurants. I love that it is busy and full of people (mainly noisy people). I love that you get swept along with the pace of things and you walk quicker and talk in a series of incomprehensible abbreviations because it makes you sound like you fit in. When I am there I can't imagine being anywhere else in the world (generally anyway). Then I get sick of things being the same all the time and leave. And suddenly where ever else I am starts to feel like home.

 

I have been in Darwin now for a month. And Darwin is not busy (except perhaps Mindal). It is a lazy sort of city that is laid back and just cruises in its perpetual summer. People stand on street corners and talk. They don't get take away coffees - they sit and drink in café's. They don't walk quickly and sometimes it's hard to tell the locals and the tourists apart. And I am sort of melding into Darwin.

 

I still walk quickly. And I can't quite sit in a café for morning tea without feeling guilty, but I could get used to this.

 

I love that I walk home down the Esplanade and watch the ships go past. I like that in the middle of winter the only time I wear a jacket is inside because of the scary air conditioning that they seem to think is necessary up here. I like that all it takes is an hours drive from Darwin and you can be in the middle of nowhere.

 

If it wasn't so far away from home, this could be perfect.

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Yes I am actually working up here

All has been quiet of late in Darwin as I have spent all week in the office (well, except for Court twice, a meeting or two and lunches every day). So, yes people, despite my best efforts to make you all jealous, I confirm that I am actually working up here. In fact, I am working on two very interesting cases, but if I start talking about them I won't be able to stop so I will save you all from the boredom. Oh, except to say that one of the cases made the news up here in Darwin (though it is yet to reach the consciousness of anyone further south than Alice Springs). I felt like quite a celebrity when I was filmed walking into Court and had a microphone thrust into my face after leaving. My quizzical face even appeared on the news up here. But enough about work - more about play.

 

So it is acknowledged as a fact that everything up here is bordering on dangerous. And what may you ask is the latest event to get the deadly Darwin touch? The movies. Yep, bet you thought that was one of the safest things you could ever do. Not up here though.

 

I have been twice now to my new favourite cinema – the Deck Chair, which I am told is the longest running open air cinema in Australia/Southern Hemisphere/The world (still not sure which version is correct). It's basically a paddock, probably the size of two netball courts with a card table where you can buy alcohol and popcorn and about 100 deck chairs (hence the name), some speakers and a giant screen. When the sun goes down (about 7:30) they show art house films which I am taking a liking too…. Except so are the possums. And the gekos. And a thing that sounded like a man crashing through the bush, but I was assured by the lady sitting next to me that it was probably just a snake ('oh, just a snake, how nice' I think I said). Deck Chair turns watching a movie into an extreme sport as the wild life takes great pleasure in joining you. I tend to react badly. The possum that decided to sit on my foot on Saturday caused me to sit up straight in my deck chair causing issues (see reference to Grandpa below). And if the wildlife doesn't get you the mozzies will. I learnt my lesson though and wore jeans most recently. Also now that I have adapted to Darwin's regular 32 degrees I also have to take a jumper and a scarf because the chilly 20 degree nights make my hands turn blue. And before you say it, yes I know that it was 10 degrees in Sydney last week (I just don't care all that much).

 

Deck Chair is a bit of an institution up here with trendy people attending its screenings. The idea of sitting in a deck chair and watching an intellectual film is quite fantastic, but I am obviously a bit of a misfit. For starters, people get amazingly dressed up (by Darwin standards) to sit in the dark where you can't see each other and I just don't have the wardrobe available to me to compete. Also, I tend to wear items of clothing for their original intention. Unlike recent cinema goers I wear my skirts as skirts rather than dresses (not too out there I guess), I tend to wear headbands not tea towels tied around my head (though it could always come in handy I guess) and I still don't quite get what you are actually meant to do with fisherman pants. But luckily people sort of ignore you if you aren't appropriately dressed. And you can always wear green and blend in with the surrounding trees.

 

 Once I have quietly made it to my selected deck chair and ignored the stares that I receive for my conservatism there is the problem of the actual deck chair. I will let you in on a secret. They are not actually all that comfortable. Because I am short if I slump down in the comfy part of the chair I can only see the top third of the screen over people's heads. If I sit up straight I get a stiff neck (and nearly fall over which made the 80 year old grandpa sitting two seats down from me last Saturday burst out laughing). I tried taking a pillow (which was accompanied with lots of taunts of moving in/sleeping over/other crude remarks). And my latest tactic of taking up two seats only works if you go to something no one else is interested in seeing. I think I have found the solution though – I took both my pillow and my blanket last time. Surprisingly no one seemed to mind at all. One lady even complemented me on my shawl (it's the sort of gory tropical pattern that you would find in a cheap motel with scary carpets). It was perfect though and kept me comfy, warm and free from mosquito bites so it was a winner all round! And now people think of me as the in-crowd. The taxi driver thought I was crazy though.

 

And as I sign off you can add the price of tomatoes to my outrage list. They have reached $8 a kilo for red, watery things that have some many dents in them that they almost resemble golf balls. Good thing that the markets up here are amazing!

 

I went camping this weekend and climbed up a waterfall - stories on my rather pathetic princess behaviours to follow.

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Correction

The author of this blog wishes to correct this most honourable public record. She regrets the social stigma which has unfortunately been attached to an individual mentioned previously in this blog when the author dared to suggest that she consumes lattes. The author would like to advise that 'the certain individual' would never, ever consider drinking a latte and of course is a flat white drinker. My sincere apologies go to this individual for suggesting that she would drink such a beverage, but thanks go to her sister (you know who you are) for reading this blog even if it has sparked her horror.

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