Musical Dispatch from the Front – Headlines – August 2025

[Frank Baarda]

Hola amigos,

Mike Burgess is Australia’s chief spy. As such, one would expect him to keep a low profile, but no, he makes speeches and thrives in the limelight and often features in headlines. Be afraid, very afraid, he tells us. He enthrals us by boasting of how many calamities were nipped in the bud by his agency, all the time not naming but alluding to the dragon in the room. We are expected to take him at his word and any doubts we might harbour are considered un-Australian. We should arm ourselves to the teeth dragon-kujaku.

A Dispatchee helps me to avoid Murdoch Press paywalls by forwarding relevant articles to me. I don’t know if by doing so he risks arousing the interest of ASIO to eventually be rendered(?) to Guantanamo Bay.

The latest article from the Australian my anonymous friend sent me is headlined:

 

Anthony Albanese told to copy John Howard with NT intervention

As you can imagine, this gave me the same sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as when Peter Dutton and Jacinta Price, during the last election (that they looked like winning) campaign, threatened the NT with a second round enquiry into sexual abuse in Aboriginal society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD4Eo3KWx1k

Ray Charles feat. Norah Jones - Here We Go Again (Official Audio)

 

I needn’t have feared. True to form, The Australian headline didn’t come close to reflecting the content of the article. The family of the late Justice Muirhead had written to the PM urging him to use his federal powers to roll back the NT Government’s draconian ‘tough on crime’ legislation. Not exactly ‘copying John Howard,’ je pense. 

 

In 2001, Bill Jonas, the then Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, in his eulogy for Justice Muirhead included that Muirhead had ‘brought to his work a rigorous and inquisitive mind and a heartfelt commitment to justice for Indigenous Australians’. It is in that spirit that Justice Muirhead’s offspring had written to Anthony Albanese. Nothing could be further from the Howard intervention.

 

In response to the last Dispatch, Abigail Andersson sent me this speech she’d given to colleagues in Katherine NT (only slightly edited to fit the format):      

 

Yuendumu: What the Headlines Won’t Tell You

 

If you Google Yuendumu, chances are you’ll see headlines about violence, fear, and tragedy. You’ll read stories that make you wonder why anyone, let alone a whitefella, or kardiya, would choose to live and work there, 300 kilometres from Alice Springs, on a long, hot stretch of Tanami Desert road.

 

But what Google won’t tell you is what I’m here to say:

That Yuendumu is full of heart.

That the people are fiercely strong.

And that connection — real, deep, lasting connection — lives out there in the red dust.

 

I grew up on Wakka Wakka country, about 300 kilometres inland from Brisbane. So when I arrived in Yuendumu, it felt strangely familiar. The dirt was red but sandy. The winter nights were cold. The summer heat? Well … unlike anything I’d known. In Kingaroy, you don’t have to turn yourself like a rotisserie chicken just to walk 100 metres to work. But in the NT, the sun means it.

 

And the sky — my God — it seemed bigger in Yuendumu. The kind of sky that reminds you how small you are, and how beautiful that can be.

 

I arrived on Valentine’s Day, 2024 — the first Valentine’s in 20 years I hadn’t taken off to spend with my husband. What can I say? I’m a hopeful romantic. But that year, I was in Yuendumu. And it was day one.

 

It was busy. My colleague — another Queenslander — and I worked from open to close at the service centre, meeting a steady stream of community members.

 

We told them:

“We’re here. We’re staying. We’re living in Yuendumu for the year.”

And just like that — the doors opened.

 

We were taken out bush by the local Night Patrol. We saw wild brumbies and bulls, desert landscapes that stop you in mid-sentence. We were invited to eat kangaroo tail, cooked in coals on a riverbed. Two shops in town, both closed at 5pm. No cafes. No after-work hangouts. So when you live and work together in Yuendumu — you really live and work together.

 

And soon, funny little conversations began.

 

Like any small town, people told me who I had to meet if I wanted to understand anything — bush medicine, painting, catching a brumby. I started to build relationships, not just through my job, but through shared life.

 

I remember rolling into Sunday Mass at the local church and sitting beside Lottie, one of the elders. We sang a hymn together, then she leaned over and asked, “Are you Abby from Centrelink?”

I smiled and said, “Yep.”

She nodded. “I’m Lottie.”

And we just… kept singing.

 

That moment has stayed with me — because it speaks to the kind of trust that is so rarely given, but so deeply sacred when it is. Trust built not on promises or policies, but on being present.

 

Because you don’t just see me at work.

You see me at the pool. At school breakfast. At the art gallery. At the shop buying my bread. At the working bee. At church.

I’m you. You’re me.

We’re all just wondering what’s for dinner tonight.

 

Yuendumu gave me the chance to live my best life — a life of purposeful service. A life where time and money don’t even rank in the top ten things that matter. A place where the only question in summer is:

“Wanna go to the pool?”

And the only question in winter is:

“Wanna climb that mountain?”

 

It reminded me of my values — the ones that had been quietly pushed aside by the rush of “real life.”

That everyone is an artist.

That we only stop creating when we start pretending to be adults.

That women do run the world — and I loved seeing them leading across Yuendumu, strong and unapologetic.

That nature and children are still our greatest teachers.

 

I got very good at saying goodbye — because in Yuendumu, the kardiya often came and went on 6-week contracts. But those endings weren’t always sad.

Sometimes, they were just that — an end. And that’s okay.

 

There’s a clarity that comes when you strip everything back.

A quiet sort of wisdom.

A knowing that what truly matters … can’t be bought or earned or scheduled.

It’s in the way a community gathers. The way an elder remembers your name. The way a child or a puppy races you to the gate and beats you every time.

 

So yes — if you Google Yuendumu, you’ll see the headlines. The ones full of fear and finality. But those stories aren’t the story.

 

The truth of Yuendumu lives in the space between people.

In the laughter over tea.

In the lessons shared without words.

In the connections that don’t need translation.

 

And if you ever feel overwhelmed by the noise of the world — the media, the scrolling, the constant pressure to be everywhere and everything — maybe what you really need …

 

Is a year in the desert.

Thank you.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf-jHCdafZY

Yothu Yindi - Treaty (Original Version)

 

Well I heard it on the radio
And I saw it on the television
Back in 1988
All those talking politicians
Words are easy, words are cheap
Much cheaper than our priceless land
But promises can disappear
Just like writing in the sand

 

Frank