Cover story

Brothers in building

Three consortiums are well advanced to commence this dry season with an emphasis on training and jobs for Indigenous people. Earth Connect Alliance, New Future Alliance and Territory Alliance are all groups of major construction firms united with Indigenous companies to produce the ambitious housing results. They will act as contractors for the work taking place on the ground.

Aboriginal participation in the building of the Aboriginal housing is an essential element of the program. “The program’s measures will ensure Indigenous Territorians have access to job and training opportunities in their own communities,” explained Territory Minister for Housing Rob Knight. “When the program is finished, these Territorians will have new skills and training that will open the door to future job opportunities, including construction, delivering long lasting benefits for their community.”

While this large scale job creation is initiated with positive intent, the practical results in the communities will not be easy to achieve. Indigenous education and trade skill levels in the Territory’s remote areas are remarkably low, and decades of welfare dependence make it difficult to develop the work ethic required for regular job attendance. If Aboriginal workers are to produce the bulk of the construction, creative management and training techniques will be essential.

One such alliance has surfaced in Nhulunbuy, with a partnership initiated by three long time East Arnhem Land contractors. The Djerrkura Construction Alliance is made up of Scott Chapman of East Arm Civil, a heavy equipment civil engineering contractor; Michael Martin of Deltareef, a housing construction contractor; and Damien Djerrkura, an Indigenous training specialist with a flair for civil engineering. Their local alliance will endeavour to win some of the SIHIP housing work earmarked for the Nhulunbuy area, budgeted at $17.9 million.

Both Chapman and Martin have made strong efforts in the past to hire and train Aboriginal labour, with varying degrees of success. Djerrkura was one of the principal trainers at Rio Tinto Alcan's Alert program, aimed at training Indigenous workers for employment at its Gove facility. The three all were confronted by similar, ongoing problems: poor attendance, lack of literacy and numeracy, a poor work ethic. “Sometimes employing Indigenous people actually takes a lot of time and resources to manage them,” explains Chapman. “The last couple of years I haven’t had as much luck finding the right people and I haven’t employed as many.”

The alliance that includes Djerrkura is set to remedy that situation. The 31 year old is the son of the former national director of ATSIC. He is a future leader of his people whose experience in regional training is significant. He knows that, while clients are happy to see Indigenous workers employed, they do not want to pay more or accept second class work. “When you’re running a company you want qualified trades to make your dollar worthwhile,” says Djerrkura. “From a training aspect, I can take the pressure of that off my two partners, and while I focus on that while they can focus on getting the work.”

The alliance creates real opportunities for the three partners. “From Deltareef’s point of view, we go from being a small time Indigenous employee construction firm, to a group that is an Indigenous owned, with Indigenous employees, civil and construction company,” says Martin. “We have increased our capacity so the big boys give us the Nhulunbuy contracts so they don’t have to send their people here at great expense.”

The Djerrkura Construction Alliance has already formed a relationship with a major building industry consortium, the New Future Alliance, made up of Leighton’s Contractors, Broad Construction Service, Opus Qantec McWilliam, and Ngarda Civil and Mining, another Indigenous owned firm started by Djerrkura’s father when he ran ATSIC. Djerrkura believes partnerships like this between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people will help keep the benefits of programs like SIHIP in the community. “What Damien brings is real life experience in training local people, communicating with them, and getting them organised so we can go out and get a job done,” says Chapman. “On the technical side, whether it’s civil or building, I can look after my side, Michael can look after his and Damien’s training of Indigenous people brings it all together.”

A bed among the butterflies

Ulterior motives aside, Horne’s Batchelor Butterfly and Petting Farm has become a major tourism attraction for the shady township that calls itself ‘the Gateway to Litchfield Park’. Building it himself and putting all his earnings back into it, Horne has also constructed four accommodation units and eight new cabins, catering for the growing numbers passing through to have a swim below Litchfield’s lush waterfalls. Besides the butterfly enclosure there’s a small animal petting zoo and swimming pool for the kids and an open-air restaurant, guarded by statues of Hindu deities, Vanuatu masks and busts of American Indians.

The Butterfly Farm restaurant has become a regional favourite. Qantas in-flight magazine reviewed it saying: “Prepare to be charmed by the happy-hippy vibe at the Butterfly Farm, about 100 km south-west of Darwin. Host Chris Horne, ex-army cook and passionate butterfly breeder, will bowl you over with his ebullience as he welcomes you onto the broad shady verandah. The menu is brief, with meat and vegetarian versions of basics like curries, burgers and lasagne. Some dishes may be unorthodox - eggplant in your nasi goreng, anyone? - but the food is prettily presented and much of it is organically grown on the premises. Even better, the chips come from actual potatoes instead of plastic bags. If you have kids, allow time to meet the butterflies, birds, rabbits and guinea pigs.”

A visit to the butterfly enclosure is a sloppy event in the wet season, but a rewarding one. Ten species of butterflies are in residence, lighting on plants, many of which are grown because they are the favoured plants of the butterflies’ diet. Horne collects the eggs and puts them in Styrofoam boxes for 14 to 20 days for them to hatch into caterpillars then butterflies, or he simply buys the butterflies from breeders.

“Prepare to be charmed by the happy-hippy vibe at the Butterfly Farm, about 100 km south-west of Darwin."

They remain a challenge to propagate because they are eaten by a variety of predators and susceptible to extremes in climate over their two-week lifespan. “Even in the high season when the butterflies are out, it gets too cold, so the butterflies stay in the cocoon,” explains Horne. “Then you have to heat the cocoons up by putting them in a warmer room to try and get them to come out. Don’t they know there’s hundreds of people coming to see them?”

Horne employs local help and is joined by an ever-changing number of Australian and international WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). WWOOF started in England in 1972 when the first WWOOFers spent a weekend helping on an organic farm in exchange for their keep. Today there are 31 WWOOF groups all over the world, including France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Korea, Italy, the USA, UK, Ghana, New Zealand and Canada. Throughout the world the WWOOF philosophy is the same: WWOOF hosts provide food and lodging to travellers and students in exchange for between four and six hours work a day.

The Batchelor Butterfly Farm has been a lively stop for many a wandering WWOOFer for years and now Horne is set to join their ranks. No longer will he be a WWOOFer host but he will be a volunteer himself. He has leased out the Butterfly Farm to Ian Bergman and his partner Judy Brennan, who will change the name to the Batchelor Butterfly Farm and Tropical Retreat.

They will also gradually make other subtle changes like phasing out the petting zoo, putting less emphasis on children and upgrading the dining opportunities for patrons. They will retain the farm’s Bohemian feel with a new emphasis on yoga and massage. “We’ll be more of a retreat,” says Brennan. “It’ll be somewhere to go outdoor-indoor dining café style, and for relaxing leisure weekends.”

The Batchelor Butterfly Farm is here to stay but Chris Horne and his fiancée are not. They will hit the international highway looking for international WWOOFer sites to lend a hand. It’s the pay-off for over a decade’s work. “I always thought that it would take 10 or 15 years to build a place like this - a restaurant that looks like a house, then a butterfly house, and gradually you build cabins, then you can lease the whole thing out for ten years. And on the first of April my dream will come true – and I’m going to get a compass and a pair of walking boots.”