ONE GIG, TWO NEEDLES AND NO PLACE TO GO

Written by Andrew Chambers

This story starts with a cancelled gig for Sorry Day in Broome. The Family Shoveller Band is a group of musicians from the Aboriginal remote community of Bidyadanga, 170km South of Broome. Father of the Band is Frankie Shoveller, a legend of Kimberley teaching, music making and power generation. Along with his wife Christine Farrer they have bought up a band or two with sons Billy Jo and Francis standing at the centre of the band some in Perth know as FSB. They have worked hard at becoming a rare example of musical excellence, on being successful, in a region where Aboriginal bands have little hope or opportunity to rise above the occasional pub gig and a load of parties and appearances.

The boys have recently returned to Bidyadanga from a successful few years in Perth and touring around the regions, it’s time to get their families to the relative safety and sanity of Bidyi. This meant leaving behind not only a successful and growing musical career but also work in professions they had both trained for. They both have growing young families so the need to earn a crust is an imperative, they’re loving, proud and able men who want to work but face a world of shrinking possibilities, COVID and the fast expanding world of mandates around their vaccination status.

All was going well with the Sorry Day Event for the 26th , the show had been announced, they were second on the bill, tickets were on-sale, advertising was running on social media, everyone was excited at the prospect of a gig on home turf, then someone wanted them to sign the contract.

Chief among the “requirements” was the need to prove double vaccination. It’s important to stress here that the venue chose, voluntarily, to apply the condition. It is not a mandated state requirement, it is not Federal law, in fact it’s not legal to discriminate against someone for not being vaccinated. The audience is under no such obligation, no proof required. Just the bands and the staff. Francis is vaccinated, he had to to remain employed in his public service job, but he’s the only member who is vaccinated so the band is unable to play.

The venue is within its rights to make any condition it wants for entry to its venue. It can insist that only people wearing bright green crocs can perform on a stage if they like, in this case it’s proof of double vax which, as it happens, is a cause of major confusion and alarm around the entire Kimberley region.

In an attempt to clarify their legal rights and to answer some really important questions Frankie called a meeting of his community and invited the leading indigenous health service provider, the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Service Council (KAMSC), to sit and discuss the issues.

On Tuesday 18th January a light plane brought Dr Lorraine Anderson, Medical Director of KAMSC, to sit under the shade of the trees outside Bidyadanga with a group of Traditional owners, elders, countrymen and women, family members and interested parties.

The Police and CEO of the Community had been invited but declined to attend which is a great shame, as much of the confusion and anxiety rests with the actions of these two offices in responding to COVID.

We sat under a tree, as my presence and that of another guest caused some concern for the CEO so the meeting couldn’t take place in the settlement area. For the record, I am certifiably double vaxed.

After introductions by all Frankie opened the meeting with his deeply held concerns about the need for free passage by visiting relatives and others when the need for law business comes around, or when families must come together to grieve the death of a relative.

Bidyadanga is at the heart of law for the Karajarri people and annually hosts large parties of men, boys, women and girls at law time. It is a place of strong traditional practice and belief where traditional healing, foods and medicines are in use. Many among the group shared a deep worry about friction and anger when these parties arrive and find their way barred by restrictions and proof of vaccination requirements posted up on boards as you enter the community.

Dr Anderson explained, at length and repeatedly, that these conditions are ONLY those imposed by the community and are intended to minimise the intrusion of tourists and others from outside the community, outside the region, that the restrictions are not the mandate of the State, that Police cannot enforce any restriction unless it’s been put in place by Parliament or State executive authority.

It became apparent that community executives have the discretion to allow these activities with the obvious need to keep in place testing and isolation procedures for those who present with symptoms of COVID. The important requirement is to communicate and respect the needs of communities to protect themselves before committing to a plan or starting a journey.

Others expressed concerns for the problems being faced across the desert communities between state and territory borders, borders are meaningless in the context of law, family and culture with families traditionally moving fluidly from one state to the other as law and need arose. Unfortunately, this is a State based law and is enforceable by the Police as a means to limit the transfer of active COVID cases from Territory communities to the relatively vulnerable communities of WA.

Dr Andersen then revealed some statistics as to just how vulnerable the Aboriginal population is, since the most recent COVID outbreak at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 approximately 30,000 Aboriginal people have been diagnosed with COVID. More than 30 of those people died and many more have been hospitalised and required ICU admission with a need for intensive medical intervention, the majority of deaths and people admitted to hospital were among the unvaccinated.

To add an even more alarming note she revealed that if COVID hits as it has in the Eastern States, the Kimberley will have the resources and human power to withstand the first 24 – 48 hours and supply adequate medical attention to the sick and dying. After that it’ll be airlifting to Perth and wherever there’s any capacity to treat.

I queried why this was the case given the two years of warning that the State has had as to the severity of any outbreak; where are the stockpiles of oxygen, the ventilators, the staff and facilities?

Evidently we would need about 1000 extra staff, an entire new hospital and without either of those there’s little point in all the equipment and supply. KAMS has tried to recruit additional staff but has been unsuccessful, some of that attributed to the closed borders, which is a sad reflection of this State’s general attitude to staffing – hire from over there rather than train from here.

The take home message here is “get the vaccine to reduce the harm and death rate”.

Many among the group are very suspicious of what’s in the vaccine. “It only took a year”, “It has strange ingredients”, much of this suspicion is driven by religious leaders, social media and the swapping of information person to person. Stories of side effects and deaths, everyone was spooked, everyone is very suspicious of the government and its motives.

It takes a brave executive to answer these questions and attempt to dig through the bullshit to find the facts. I had to admire the quiet, patient and considered response by Dr Anderson as she answered all these concerns in the best way she could, surrounded by 12 people of a generally sceptical nature.

In summary:

1. After more than 30,000 doses administered locally, no reported serious side effects or deaths.

Injections do produce a reaction as the body’s immune system responds to the injection, people do feel lethargic, sore, achy, like the flu. These are normal and expected results of the injection.

2. The injection consists of water, salt, sugars and fats, the equivalent in content to a crumb of bread. The active ingredient is RNA. This is not like traditional vaccines which use dead or inert versions of the virus, it’s a snippet of genetic code manufactured in the laboratory which gives the “instruction set” for your immune system to respond to the virus.

It doesn’t utilise any form of organic matter to create the component, so no eggs or fetuses or any other thing is used.

3. The seven-year-old kid who died after an injection turned out to be a conspiracy created by a white supremacist in the US which is a conspiracy to kill Black people by making them distrust the vaccine…

4. The Government is involved in a conspiracy: of giving its own people a vaccine that has proven benefits in reducing harm and death, it is a conspiracy to save lives. Which saves the economy.

5. Every virus changes your DNA, your mobile phone use can change your DNA, many chemicals in common use can change your DNA. DNA changes all the time, it’s evolution.

If it didn’t we wouldn’t have survived the eons of onslaught by viruses, now we have science that helps us to tweak that change to our advantage, most of the time.

6. Without exception everyone at the meeting had been given or taken vaccines for the huge variety of disease we no longer die of or are crippled by. Many take the annual flu virus vaccine which also has the swine flu vaccine in it. The future of dealing with COVID, until we reach a coverage of 95% of the populations, looks like the flu virus, at least one a year with the mutation of the virus. The likelihood is that one shot will contain multiple vaccines including COVID.

7. There’s every likelihood that there will be another contagion, a virus, at some point that may be as deadly or worse than COVID. Scientists had predicted the outbreak of something like COVID for decades, Hollywood made movies about it, and novelists wrote books on it. Disease is with us forever, we cannot avoid it, we can simply fight its ravages with whatever science and means we have. It only works if we cooperate and share knowledge, not rumour or gossip

8. A vaccine is not a superpower, it doesn’t make anyone safe from catching and spreading the disease. Cover your airways with a mask, maintain physical distance, use hand washes and avoid touching hands to your face. If you’re symptomatic, get tested, isolate, do not go past the door, stay away from your friends and family. You do not want to be the one to deliver a death sentence.

9. Being healthy, not overweight, eat a good balanced diet, lots of fresh air and sunlight are the best ways to avoid serious illness and death, no guarantee, but it improves the odds.

10. The big one – it’s not legal, under Federal law, to discriminate against the unvaccinated, you can’t refuse service or sack them for the choice not to. BUT, state based and local / company mandates, rules and restrictions are severely limiting the opportunity to continue carrying on a life without a vaccination record. Personally, I find this segregation of the unvaccinated to be a grim over reach by the government, it tramples on what most of us consider our rights to freedom of association. However, given the use of such “rewards” as fishing reels, $30 a shot followed by $50 a shot, seem to have failed to lift vaccination rates then it’s time for the stick and it’s a big one. I know friends and associates who have given up jobs, careers, housing for their belief in their  right not to vaccinate. This is the choice my friends in the Shoveller Band must make for themselves and their families, as of 31st of January they will be unable to play anywhere, live, in public without proof of double vaccination and any boosters. They face unemployment because of these restrictions, they are dreading the mandating of vaccines for their children and the restrictions that may seem them barred from school bringing back the spectre of forced removals, something too many have been scarred by and have no wish to see again.

The meeting ended with greater clarity for those who attended, it was a good and necessary thing to do and is a tribute to the wisdom of leadership in bringing together those who need answers with those who can provide them. In working together to provide

better solutions, such as getting policemen on the border who have a cultural understanding of the dynamics of the desert clans. It demonstrated that bad communication leads to misinformation and unnecessary harms, both real and perceived.

Let’s hope the management of the venue reconsider the situation and use the event to announce the forthcoming legal requirement for all attendees to be fully vaxed to enjoy a social life and to celebrate the survival of a race who have endured some of the most horrific plagues ever inflicted on a human population, who have survived through natural immunity but at dreadful, almost unimaginable cost. Lest we forget.