There is a large rectangular concrete slab sitting in the corner of the boardroom of Noongar Radio in Perth. It was thrown at me, the station manager, not because we had denied someone’s song request. Instead it was thrown in the middle of a parking dispute outside in the station car park. Nothing to do with radio but who should the community blame? Them, of course. Those people who run the radio.
It was just one of the many unexpected – and often amusing –events that occur daily at an Indigenous radio station. Like many of my peers, I was excited to hear about the ABC comedy 8MMM, the story of a team of people working in Aboriginal radio, written, produced and directed by Indigenous TV-makers and filmed on location in Central Australia. We need as many programs as possible on national television showing our lives, our culture, our stories. And, ironically perhaps for a TV show, radio is a particularly rich subject for these stories.
Aboriginal radio has broadcast in Australia for about 35 years and its stations are exciting places, featuring diverse presenters and guests, intrigue and drama.
Alice Springs is a suitably dramatic setting for 8MMM: the rich heritage of its original inhabitants and the domination of the recently introduced culture make it an interesting place to capture. All the ingredients are there for entertaining television. And yet, while the 8MMM writer, Tricia Morton Thomas, and her team have done a great job, I would have liked them to go even further, to depict the radio station’s daily operations, warts and all.
There is plenty going inside – and outside – our station’s walls. As station manager, it usually falls to me to respond when sections of my Aboriginal community blame us for what the government is or isn’t doing: a social media protest, hand graffiti painted on the windows, the smoking/burning ceremony taking place at our front door that has significance only to the protesters themselves, the large protest sign placed opposite my window stating that the station manager is responsible for homelessness, the government’s lack of empathy and irresponsible action in public decision making.
Add to that the ongoing dilemma of how to tread the fine line between representing the views of the community yet ensuring we hold onto our radio licence? Where would I be without the governance of an all-Aboriginal board of directors, who run the place on behalf of our community? That community rightly knows what it wants. And if they aren’t happy, then we know about it.
What I’ve seen in Aboriginal radio stations over the years has been extraordinary. A community experiencing its own mass communication for the first time and embracing it to protect their culture and ensure their language and stories for country are heard. The old man, long since gone, who worked tirelessly to establish radio for his community. The elderly ladies who explained to the community how important the radio would be for sharing their history and educating their young people, before the station even went live. Or the young broadcaster way out of country who realised he’s the only person near the microphone at events such as the Uluru handover, and decided someone had to describe it for radio audiences.
These are the characters, the laughs, the sadness, the discussions and the music, always the music, that add to the colour of Aboriginal radio. It’s what I’d like to see fully represented on screen.
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8MMM airs on ABC1 on Wednesday nights at 9.30pm. It is also available to view on iview. Noongar Radio broadcasts in Perth on 100.9FM or via the station’s website
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