A Visit to Australia

by Euan Temple

Abuse can occur anywhere and take many forms, especially in the context of care homes. A shocking catalogue of abuse at nursing and care homes, frequently exposed by secret filming showing hundreds of incidents of restraint and dozens of assaults on patients, has featured regularly in the press and on radio and TV. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has closed residential homes where similar concerns were raised.

In the Southern half of Australia, the summer months (December to February) bring hot weather. Autumn (March to May) is also a lovely time, with numerous festivals and the busy grape harvest. Winter (June to August) is less busy and generally attracts a temperate climate that’s ideal for hiking, while spring (September to November) often sees more wildlife activity. Australia is vast. The flying time from West to East is the same 5 hour time that it takes from London to Moscow. The flying time from North to South is the same 3.5 hour time that it takes from London to Athens. I went in November with a guided tour party, round the coast, with a trip to the centre to see Alice Springs and Ayers Rock. Most of the time the temperature was in the upper 30sC, except for one cool day when it ‘dropped’ to 29C! Perth in the West is a spacious, green, temperate city, in some ways like cities of Southern Europe. Fremantle to the South is a little gem and easily walkable. Access from Perth is down the mighty Swan River, where the river balloons out to a great harbour basin used by the Australian Navy, with a narrow protective entrance to the Ocean at Fremantle. The Old Court House Law Museum is housed in the City of Perth’s oldest building, constructed in 1836, next to the Supreme Court of Western Australia. A ‘must’ for lawyers to visit and the courtroom is identical to many village courtrooms in England from the same period. The Museum’s interpretive displays, Small Court House, Big Stories, and People and The Law, are accompanied by an audio overview and take visitors on a journey through Western Australia’s legal history. One of the exhibits relates to the difficulties encountered in the early 20C by aspiring women lawyers. Darwin in the North West is closest to Asia and was bombed by the Japanese in February 1942, (two months after Pearl Harbour), while Australian troops were away with the British fighting Hitler. Small and a

“How much has changed?”

8 www.northamptonshirelawsociety.co.uk jumping off point for other wonderfully scenic visits. Alice Springs, small and a base for seeing Aboriginal rock art. Nearby Ayers Rock changes colours dramatically as the sun sets and as the sun rises, and we saw both. The tour visited the HQ of the Flying Doctor Service. Also the inspiring School of the Air, which is rather like teaching by Skype class, the children staying at home on isolated farms, but participating actively on the internet, in a class structure. Cairns in the North East is enchanting. Also a base for exploring the Great Barrier Reef in glass- bottomed boats or doing own snorkelling. A real favourite.

”Climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge at sunrise”

Sydney, a massive cosmopolitan multi-national city. Plenty to see by The Rocks/Circular Quay area and the restaurants area by Darling Harbour. And of course a visit to the Opera House and a boat trip round the Harbour. Canberra, the small national capital and memorable. One highlight was visiting the Parliament and another the National War Memorial. This is Australia’s national memorial to the members of its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died, or participated, in wars involving Australia, and some conflicts involving personnel from the Australian colonies prior to Federation. The Memorial includes an extensive National Military Museum. The Australian War Memorial was opened in 1941, and is widely regarded as one of the most significant memorials of its type in the world. Because Australia’s military expeditions overseas started in the Boer War, two World Wars and later Malaya, Vietnam and Iraq, many of the exhibits in the Museum derive from within living memory. In fact one of the tour party was an ex-army very senior officer who saw moving displays about engagements in Iraq in

which he had been personally involved. He saw records of Australians who he had known well and had died in battle, sometimes in the same engagement as his. At 5pm every day of the year, apart from Christmas Day, there is a Tribute Ceremony outside. Schoolchildren are bussed in, the many visitors stand in side galleries as a different military hero, each day, has a tribute read out by a current serving Officer about him or her in the last battle. His or her descendants are flown in by the Government to attend. Wreaths are laid. The “Last Post” is played, followed by a bagpipe Lament “The Flowers of the Forest”. Emotional moments. Melbourne, another large multi-national city, plenty to see, and Adelaide, much smaller, more compact and in some ways more digestible for tourists. The South East is also a great wine centre, and we seemed to have frequent wine-tasting visits to vineyards such as “Barossa Valley”, “Wolf Blass” and “Jacobs Creek” “to assist the Australian economy”. We tried to be very helpful! The closing moments of the Ceremony

Two points first spring to mind that do not form part of the usual tour information. First, the recent bush fires. They were just starting out when we visited and inevitably the locals blamed the Government for the climate change! They have naturally sparked bush fires every year, which regenerates growth in just the same way as we deliberately burn harvest stubble. But a 2-3 year drought meant that everything was overgrown and tinder-dry. December /January is usually the peak thunder and lightning season, and when the lightning sparks hit dry leaves of a tree , it sparks off a small fire. The fire then races from dry treetop to dry treetop, and keeps dropping bits on the ground on the way. In desert parts of Australia, eg in the very dry Northwest, the fires do not cause so much damage because there is relatively little to burn. But in leafy, lush, fertile, green South East (Sydney area) it has caused substantial damage to land, buildings, and wild animals. We did not encounter bush fires but read about them in the papers and saw them on TV. Except in the last day, before flying back to the UK, flying back into Sydney, through a pall of new smoke, we could smell it inside the aircraft cabin! Second, the Aboriginal people who at 450,000 number a tiny percentage of Australia’s 27m population but exert a powerful influence. When visiting famous sites such as the rock art in the North West and at Ayers Rock, the guide always starts off by acknowledgement to “the original custodians of this land, and to the elders, past, present and emerging”. That may be obvious, but when visiting the Australian Parliament in Canberra, or the Old Treasury Building in Melbourne, the same acknowledgment was given, and on many other sites too. The Aboriginals view colonisation of Australia by Europeans as Invasion. And as the Europeans shot kangaroos for meat, so the locals took the Europeans’ sheep for food, and were tried for theft and sometime executed by the invaders. A view that some Aboriginal people are still living in the Stone Age is still held by some people in Australia today, though vigorously contested by most others. But it is clear that many of the Aboriginal peoples of today perceive Western European values and ways of life as inherently incompatible with their traditional cultures.

A wonderful country.

“Flying in above the bush fires”

Australia is vast. The flying time from West to East is the same 5 hour time that it takes from London to Moscow. The flying time from North to South is the same 3.5 hour time that it takes from London to Athens.