WfHC - cover page (not to be used with pre-printed report ... - CSIRO

Figure 12. Oriners house during construction. Image © KALNRMO
Peoples‟ reasons for staying including both practical concerns and personal curiosity
Marcus Barber: Why did you want to stay up there?
Philip Yam: We wanted to stay there to look after the place, because then after when they
pulled us out of there, everything got stolen.
Marcus Barber: Yes. But that first year, was it just to look after the place, or what were you
thinking for yourself?
Philip Yam: I wanted to stay there to see what the wet like. I wanted to see how big the
flood going to be.
Marcus Barber: And what was it like?
Philip Yam: Well, the river was full! The flood flowed right to the front of that house, where
the big gum tree is standing there now. Right through there, all that other shed almost go
under water.
A stable wet season presence was established in the late 1990s following the construction of
the house, and this lasted for several years. However changes in leadership at the
KALNRMO and the KAC saw shifting priorities and levels of support and resourcing for wet
season and general residence at Oriners in those years. Of particular concern to KAC and
others were the helicopter costs associated with providing supplies and medical support in
the wet season, and the general logistical difficulties of supporting a site that is a long way
from Kowanyama along rough roads which are susceptible to flooding. Equally important
during this period was the explosive growth of outstations or homelands surrounding
Kowanyama in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Burdon Torzillo and Associates 2000). These
created significant pressure on existing Kowanyama resources and logistical support as Viv
Sinnamon recalls:
We succeeded in getting the place established and then it fell over to a certain extent.
When I first started, we didn‟t have to compete with all the other homelands and then
suddenly by 96-97 all these other homelands were popping up. Kowanyama took a while to
catch on because Aurukun had had homelands for a long time, a lot of the other
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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