Thanks Frank for writing such a thorough letter to the Minister. Great to have the facts clarified around the history and administration of ICTV.
As a video worker / facilitator I was in a few very remote communities in the NT just last year when ICTV finally hit their screens - the impact was just amazing. I was privileged to see groups of older women rivetted to the TV watching dances from neighbouring communities. There were TV programs made by communities and broadcast in language about identifying and getting help for domestic violence. We met with and worked with young men who saw the exciting possibilities of telling stories from their experience, and assisted a respected elder to make a stunning piece about the powerful and complex basis of Warlpiri culture... I felt I was witnessing the strengthening of culture, language, personal motivation, confidence, pride, communication skills, etc etc
NITV can never replace ICTV. How much money does ICTV need to run effectively? What will happen now to film and video projects being made on remote communities without ICTV?

CONT'D.

Topics which were extensively critiqued, up to three years previously, by non-maintream internet media, were significantly "peak oil" and alternative agendas for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mainstream news and current affairs have only recently examined these subjects seriously. One assumes that two significant national administrations look like reaching their useby dates very soon and new hedges must be built by broadcasters with likely replacement candidates of a different political persuasion.

Why should aboriginal viewers react any differently to the mainstream humble public? Okay, the ability of the traditional mob to see things outside of their own competencies might be assumed due to a more contained worldiness born out of geographical isolation. But never assume that they do not catch on eventually for their intuitiveness is keen.

The independent voice of ICTV has been made more subordinate than the original state based mainstream free-to-air providers, by simply being disappeared. The mainstream providers locally are now mere stripped out shells of their former selves and largely incapable of sustained, truly independent local content origination.

Much of what little there remains is outsourced. What centralised control cannot be achieved by corporate takeover and network integration is procured in the case of ICTV by a simple finger on a switch.

In this rather turbulent time, people with the power to cause these changes should be very careful. Aboriginal people are feeling an ongoing sense of disempowerment as never before because of social issues they were unable to prevent and the actions this has invited. Most of all, this circumstance attacks their own trust in themselves as a community.

ICTV has established a trust and faith in its credibility, significantly because the people have a say in the content. If there are flares, shaky cam or noisebars in the image, no one really cares.

CONT'D.

In this taxing time for the people, it is this very legitimate well known and trusted voice needed to help tide the people over this very challenging and emotional crisis and perhaps sow some seeds of reason in the minds of those more inclined toward ill-judged action over reason.

The people have experienced over the years, so much misinterpretation and misrepresentation by mainstream media, some genuinely innocent, some deliberate, that the new entity being thrust upon them will simply not be trusted.

It is not of them, but upon them, like every other external resource or authority that meddles in their lives and orders them about, one more mob to make satisfied. The timeframe of its implementation is so co-incident to the current crisis, that people can be expected to feel overwhelmed and distrustful as to motive. They do not need this furthur assault on their morale right now.

An independent ethos, robbed of its voice, can become crystallised into an organsed clandestine entity. It then is not so easily accessed to be subjected easily to reason, sensitive influence or controlled at all. Morevoer, a clandestine activity, by its very nature attracts into its power structure, people who have the least to lose, can become corrupted, criminalised and its objectives subverted. Do not confuse this comment as referring to people under investigation for harm to children.

Of much concern to me is the possibility of aboriginal communities or individuals becoming isolationist, cultist and compelled to go underground. Australia could then itself become the subject of interventionalist policy from our northern neighbours who historically have such connection by blood lineage and contact history with northern aboriginal culture, that a justification for intervention could be constructed.

That intervention could be as simple as allowing existing aboriginal voice to be diffused via northen neighbours' own domestic television satellite footprints. Nation Australia would become shamed. This activity would be interpreted as illegal, pirate or propaganda broadcast. The countermeasures seen to be needed, would be by their very nature necessarily oppressive.

Missing so much hearing language and language without subtitles; missing so much seeing country.

Be better if we can get the money spent providing decent internet connections and public access to everyone in all these communities.

The internet is where it is all at, both for producers and viewers.

Even more importantly with the internet, there will be a lot less control over what people as individuals decide is "culturally appropriate

OK polpak, I guess in your laissez-faire, cybertopian/libertarian universe unlimited access to porn would be what you consider culturally approriate then?

Maybe you could hang around to comfort the victims and bury the dead.

Or would you just leave that to others to do?

Cheers