Artist Statement
‘We knew the cyclone was going to come and maybe smash us. Many of us wanted to get out early. “Time to go” some said. But we heard nothing from the government.
When the cyclone was real close, we all got rounded up. Not by the government or the Roper Gulf Council. They kept their motorcars in their compounds, all nice and white. It was us Aboriginal people using our vehicles and boats to get the families out of the camps across the flooded river to the airstrip. Government finally said: ‘A plane is going to come and rescue everyone’.
We got to the airstrip at 7.30 am and waited. No one told us nothing. Hundreds of us, wet cold and hungry all trying to keep calm and still no one told us nothing. I felt that the way we were being treated just the same as the way government rounded us up off our country and yarded us up in town. It’s our country, our families, our community yet government treats us like cattle.
We waited all day and no plane came to rescue us. Government said, “It’s too late now, not safe to land”. And that was it. How about in the future government talks with us, let us organise and look after ourselves in a disaster and no more of this yardin’ us up like cattle.’