OUTBACK

Starting this story, I have to fix a beginning on a certain campfire evening under the stare of the big rock, Uluru. The fire side banter although harmless, was important in understanding the past and future.

The meat from the kangaroo was cooked on the open fire, and also tough and chewy it was better than nothing in the middle of the desert. I sat down on a log and stated that whoever kills the Prime Minister Max Williams would get my vote.

Billy the tracker said, “ I will remember what you said Alan, when they find the old snake in a pool of blood. Jock, you heard him say it, here on this very spot,” as he sliced the meat from the kangaroo using a hunting knife.

Jock who is a crack boundary rider, just smiled and said, “ Just eat your dinner and shut up, you are always groaning about something !”

The tracker said, “ What’s eating you?”

Billy did not respond immediately, he just kept focused on the roo meat on the fire and sliced more onto a plate and left it for them to help themselves.

“I am sorry I am such a rubbish cook, maybe you can do better.”

“It’s not you per say, I am just sick of this land being ripped off and destroyed in Canberra, bunch of clowns in my view.”

I could not disagree with Billy, and said “climate change, and introduced plants and animals (invasives), are the agents of the radical changes that are tearing through Australia’s environment. The result? Dramatic declines in the distribution and abundance of many species, with natural resources such as water now going scarce.

When forests are cut, the salinity of the soil can greatly increase. As a result, saline water draining from such areas can affect downstream or downslope water quality. It is estimated that around 7% of the agricultural area of western Australia is suffering from this problem following deforestation.

Moreover, studies in Australia’s wet tropics show that soils have limited capacity to recover from deforestation. This adds to deforestation’s price tag. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) estimates that land degradation costs about $1 billion annually.”

“That’s just part of it I have been reading up because of clearing activities for agricultural land, around 13% of Australia’s original vegetation has been removed since European settlement.

Overgrazing is one of the main pressures on biodiversity in Australia. Grazing and various agricultural improvement strategies have modified vast areas of grasslands and open grassy woodlands. In temperate ecosystems, less than 2% of the original grasslands remain.

Moreover, overgrazing promotes desertification and erosion, and is also seen as one cause of the spread of invasive plants. Intensive agriculture is affecting Australia’s coasts and oceans, particularly estuaries and environments near the shore.

Modelling predictions estimate that each year almost 19,000 tonnes of phosphorus and 141,000 tonnes of nitrogen are discharged to rivers flowing to the coast.” A dingo howled in the background.

Jock chimed in, “You forgot the reef mate, half of it dead and the bloody cane toads are moving south destroying vegetation and wildlife.”

The air was getting cold as the sun dropped like a stone in the western sky, the three men drank whisky to keep warm and spirits high, they had been on the run from Holtze Prison, Darwin, for two months now.

The Northern Territory has not only four to five times more adult prisoners per head of population than any other state or territory in Australia; it has more prisoners per head of population than any other country in the world.

The country with the highest prison population in the world is the United States of America, which jails 716 people per 100,000 head of population.

The Australian national imprisonment rate is 194 per 100,000. The NT imprisonment rate is a mind-blowing 904 per 100,000.

What’s more, 85 percent of those prisoners are Aboriginal. For juveniles, the NT imprisonment rate is more than five times higher than any other state or territory in Australia – and 97 percent are Aboriginal or foreign.

Concomitant with this out-of-control, unprincipled approach to justice and law and order has been a marked deterioration in the way our Department of Correctional Services treats its prisoners, part and parcel of Australia’s moral and ethical decline.

Inhumane and medieval practices employed recently by the department towards detainees have been the subject of much national media attention. The spit-hooding and deliberate gassing of prisoners in detention was just part of it. The complex was hot with little ventilation, it was also over-crowded and non-whites were treated with disgust by guards. Illicit drugs oozed out of the walls causing friction and gang like groups.

The three inmates had become close in solitary and met in the library as there was nothing else to do. Reading and learning was the past time. All had converted to Islam and were members of al-Qaeda Jemaah Islamiyah Islamist a Southeast Asian militant extremist Islamist rebel group dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia.

Each were serving between ten and life sentences for the Bali bombing with two hundred dead. The three had supplied arms, denotators bombs smuggled in by boat from Darwin.

The living conditions in the gaol were terrible, the place was sparse and the cells were dark and dingy with no air conditioning which in the summer was a nightmare as temperatures reach 40 degrees plus. The place was full of drugs it was hard to keep away from them and that caused problems of its own with spaced out prison mates who were highly aggressive and would kill anybody on site. The food was poor and not very nutritious most prisoners went to bed feeling hungry with the pain in the stomach. The place was infested with rats and mice and other creepy crawlies including the biggest mosquitoes in the world who constantly bombarded presence at night and sucked blood leaving behind malaria and other infectious diseases.

The prison community was dominated by native aboriginals who joined their brothers in gangs and fought pitch battles against each other. They tolerated people of colour but hated white people and enjoyed seeing them suffer in fights, it was not personal but a general feeling the white man stole their land and it treated them badly over many centuries.

Being treated like second class citizens meant that most of them had no self-respect and came from broken homes we drink and drugs were common. Many had found it difficult to find employment and this of course caused some to enter the world of crime as a way of making a living.

It was a familiar story as the world was discovered and opened up and exploited by imperialists and countries wishing to exploit the natural wealth of new territories. This desire for dominance of many countries including Australia saw most native Australians shot and killed or taken by disease. They had no hope.

The trio had escaped when being transferred during the C19 virus outbreak. It was, so simple, just overpower the guards and steal the truck and keep moving, grabbing food, clothing and transport along the way.

The Bali attack was one of many attacks they had a hand in, it involved the detonation of three bombs: a backpack-mounted device carried by a suicide bomber; a large car bomb, both of which were detonated in or near popular nightclubs in Kuta; and a third much smaller device detonated outside the United States consulate in Denpasar, causing only minor damage. An audio-cassette purportedly carrying a recorded voice message from Osama bin Laden stated that the Bali bombings were in direct retaliation for support of the United States’ War on Terror and Australia’s role in the liberation of East Timor.

During their time inside the three prisoners had a common hates and belief, they hated the government from destroying the lucky country, and to their incarceration in an overcrowded shit hole. Thy also despised how people in Australia despised Muslims and their faith. Max Williams had to go. The seed of discontent grew as time passed.

They all agreed if they ever got free their goal was to assassinate the PM and save the country, they called themselves patriots and redeemers for Islam.

Jock said, “ We will head South stopping off at my grandma’s place, in Alice Springs we can rest, plan and change our appearance.

She owns and runs Kamboolah Station it occupies 2,000 square kilometres and drifters come and go. The cops will never find us, she is a 53-year-old anti-war activist and devout Catholic, who was convicted of trespassing at a top-secret military base operated by the United States and hidden in the Australian outback some years back.”

The station was huge thousands of acres as far as the eye could see filled with grassland scrub and thousands of heads of cattle, the station just received enough rainfall to keep it going although it had suffered drought over the decades. The road into the station went for miles and along its path we’re outbuildings and dams next to gated fields useful corralling cattle , branding and also checking for diseases. there were examples of at least 10 huge sheds some use for feedstock and others used to provide cover.

A landing strip and also helicopter pad we’re about a mile away from the station Homestead and provided a valuable link to the outside world including the flying doctor service. Groceries and provisions we’re flown every week, as there were over 50 Stockman to feed.

“Is it her place that is next to the base, known as the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap. The United States controls satellites that gather information used to pinpoint airstrikes around the world and target nuclear weapons, among other military and intelligence tasks, according to experts and leaked National Security Agency documents.

The facility is dotted with satellite dishes and isolated in the desert and has become a magnet for Australian anti-war protesters.” Asked Alan.

“Make a bloody good target for us maybe we hit two places at the same time, the PM and Pine Gap they would not know where to turn! The PM is due to visit the site in a couple of weeks. If we miss him there, we will get him in Canberra.” Said Jock.

The three collaborators drove silently in the truck stolen in Darwin. It was a simple job in Humpty Doo they waited in a road- side petrol station / diner for an opportunity.

Around midday an old fellow arrived in a Toyota land cruiser and went to the toilet and typically in this area left the keys in the car and the doors open no one stole anything in this area as everyone knew everybody.

Billy followed him into the Men’s and hit the pensioner over the head. The old man was out for it for hours and sent to hospital were his story was seen as a ‘rambling of an old man.’

The three escapees took their opportunity and jumped into the truck and drove off.

The journey from Darwin to Springs would take them approximately 15 hours on National Highway 1 and National Highway 87.

The Stuart Highway is one of Australia’s major highways. It runs from Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; a distance of 2,834 km (1,761 mi). Its northern and southern extremities are segments of Australia’s Highway 1. The principal north-south route through the central interior of mainland Australia, the highway is often referred to simply as “The Track”.

The highway is named after Scottish explorer John McDougall Stuart, who was the first European to cross Australia from south to north.

The highway approximates the route Stuart took.

The Northern Territory section of the Stuart Highway starts from the edge of the Darwin central business district at Daly Street and continues as a dual-carriageway to the Arnhem Highway in Howard Springs. The highway continues 317 km (197 mi) south passing the Kakadu Highway to the Victoria Highway at Katherine.

At Daly Waters, the route number changes from National Highway 1 to National Highway 87. The highway then continues 673 km (418 mi) south passing the Roper Highway, the Carpentaria Highway and the Buchanan Highway to the Barkly Highway at Tennant Creek.

The highway continues 508 km (316 mi) south into Alice Springs passing the Plenty Highway. It passes through Macdonnell Ranges and finally crosses the Northern Territory/South Australia border south of Kulgera.

The highway was only fully sealed in February 1987 as part of the Australian Bicentenary roadworks programme. There are no police patrolling the majority of this remote highway and until the end of 2006 there was no speed limit outside towns and other built-up areas on the Northern Territory part. The bulk of the Northern Territory’s population not living in Darwin lies along its track.

Katherine was the first stop after three hours.

There were cops and roadblocks on the way in just outside of town and the story of being drovers going to Kamboolah Station held up.

There was no escape in the road block the police had vehicles across the road and also placed roadblocks in a zig zag fashion. Billy was driving and as he approached the roadblock he slowed down in the queue like any normal citizen and got his wallet ready as they will surely ask for identification.

The traffic cop was young and lacked experience, “ good day fellas sorry for the intrusion but we have a couple of escaped convicts which we are trying to find. Could I see some form of identification ?” Billy took out his licence and handed it to the policeman who walked away to the police car to check it.

In a few minutes he was back. “Your licence cheques out could I ask why you guys are on the road were you heading?” ask the policeman.

“No worries mate on our way to Alice Springs for work on the grandmas place, here’s the number check it out. ” Billy had read offering information showed confidence in truth.

The policeman moved away from the vehicle and rang the number of the station. “ Your explanation cheques out, stick this on the front window it will show other roadblocks that you have been checked by us and cleared.”

Billy said thanks to the policeman and the two others chimed in the policeman did not see the huge relief on their faces he was too busy and traffic was starting to build up.

The policeman was sloppy and only asked for a drivers licence which was valid, he checked the data base it was clear. The three escapees sat in nervous worry for twenty minutes. When asked their business the story was very convincing, and grandma backed it up when the police called.

Alan said, “Allah is on our side, let us hope it stays that way, there will be more like this.”

The three travelled into Katherine and headed for the River where it was cool and they could go for a swim. They found a small cafe that served food and drink it was a pleasant relief; under huge Gumtree they relaxed and talked about the day’s events.

To the outsider the three were just a bunch of guys having a break no one bothered them apart from a stray dog who is seeking food and companionship.

The Gumtree was full of birds and they were singing their heart out as the temperature hit 45 degrees. The breeze off the River was just enough to keep the three in good spirit it was a long drive to Alice Springs.

The road South continued through the Bush with moderate traffic most of which were large freight trains full of cattle being transported. The land cruiser air conditioning was a God send as the temperature gauge for the outside continue to climb.

At Newcastle Waters the sun was starting to set in the west and with it the heat of the day started to drop quite dramatically, Billy pulled over in the Drovers Memorial Park which features a large bronze statue of a drover. The three men settled down in the Land Cruiser and we’re asleep in a matter of minutes.