Dream of pooling resources for 300 kids
13.09.2004

By: Tony Koch

THE newly appointed chairman of the tiny Hopevale Aboriginal community on eastern Cape York has a dream.
Greg McLean would like to give the 300 local children a swimming pool for Christmas, as a diversion from petrol-sniffing, alcohol and marijuana, and as a safer alternative to swimming with crocodiles, box jellyfish and sharks.
And the money is available, thanks to the Cape Flattery silica mine, which employs about a dozen locals, provides training for dozens more and pays royalties of about $1million a year.
``In the last decade, some $8million in royalties has been paid and used on roads and houses but, realistically, there is little to show for it,'' Mr McLean said.
``The situation now is when the quarterly cheques come in, it is my council's policy to announce where the money is going and have something to show for it. Quotes for the pool are around $300,000 and, with government assistance, we can get this for the children.'' Having the money is one thing and getting the job done is another in this community, selected and set up for the Lutheran Church by Joh Bjelke-Petersen during the 1940s. But state government alcohol management plans are attacking the problem of alcohol abuse in the community, whose new chairman took the abstinence pledge when elected last April.
Mr McLean and his council inherited plenty of problems. The Mitsubishi-owned silica mine wanted to sack some local people, so there was a strike.
The council accounts received bad audits, and explanations are being sought on what happened to grant funds.
And irregular work practices have evolved -- such as the council's permanent employment of 12 building tradesmen and three apprentices, who are paid even though there is no work for extended periods.
``Three years ago, an abattoir was built here, but it has never operated,'' Mr McLean said. ``We were told it was built in the wrong place ...
``And we need a bakery. The state Government said they have spent $160,000 on a feasibility study for the bakery and provided us with a similar amount to build one.'' The bakery is a sore point with locals, and a graphic illustration of what bureaucratic bungling can do to impede progress on remote Aboriginal and Islander communities in Australia.
In 2000, inspired by Noel Pearson's call for businesses to build partnerships with communities, former Wallaby David Bedgood, whose family had operated bakeries for 75 years, offered a bakery at Hopevale, which he would set up, train staff and help to operate -- for no charge.
Hopevale could support a business selling 2000 loaves of bread a week and turn over about $10,000, he estimated.
Start-up costs would be $15,000 and infrastructure costs would be kept down to about $80,000 by using a butchery that had never been used.
The state bureaucracy thought it was a good idea, so commissioned a feasibility study costing $22,000. That study proposed three options: a state-of-the-art computerised bakery for $200,000; or others costing $160,000 down to $115,000. Meanwhile, the Hopevale Council had allocated the butchery to another project, so the building was not available.
The State Development Department sought quotes for the new building, but nobody put in for the job, which the department said in July 2003 would now cost $300,000.
Given this history, it will take a superhuman effort by Mr McLean to deliver his Christmas wish to the needy kids on Hopevale.