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Bowditch, far left, at Press Conference with ALP Minister for NT , Dr Rex Patterson , with tie , Government House. To his left is Peter Simon, author of this biography, and Gene Janes . Other journalists include Bruce Brammall, aka Warty J. Warthog-a long and involved story which has been covered in this blog ; Dave Molesworth (ABC); John Meeking, with back to camera , at right end of lounge , who replaced Bowditch as editor of the NT News.
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No longer editor of the Northern Territory News , it did
not take long for Bowditch to break another major news story which caused a sensation in Australia and attracted much overseas media coverage. An Aboriginal girl,Nola Bambiaga, who had
been placed with white foster parents in Darwin , was spirited back to her
father in Arnhem Land with the involvement of
a white social worker, John Tomlinson. The distraught foster parents contacted
Bowditch,who broke the story .
There were many wild
claims about what would happen to
the girl including one that she would be digitally deflowered. Americans
offered to buy back the girl.Bowditch personally felt removal of the child had been wrong. He said the girl’s mother had not been mentally capable to look after the girl
and the father had been a heavy drinker.
Tomlinson subsequently wrote two books in one-entitled Betrayed
by Bureaucracy and Social Work:Community Work-in which he defended his actions and pointed out
what he maintained were shortcomings in the
NT social welfare system . On the book’s cover was a photograph of a
struggling and grimacing Tomlinson
being manhandled by police. A tongue in cheek caption said it was the author “ helping police with their
enquiries”.
(Tomlinson's involvement in Territory civil liberties , the East Timor Struggle , environment protection and a plan to improve the finances of the poor in East Timor and elsewhere has been covered in this blog.)
With help and advice from his friend Bob Freeden in Sydney, Bowditch started a newsletter , North News , sold by subscription, which provided economic and political news from the NT .
In l974 Bowditch
helped Darwin lawyer John Waters , secretary of the NT ALP
in his unsuccessful bid to win the Territory Federal seat. Waters ,
who had defended Bowditch , no charge , in several court
appearances , then asked Jim to
represent the ALP for the seat of Fannie Bay in the NT Legislative Assembly elections , the first fully-
elected poll. Bowditch agreed to do so, and Waters even
paid his membership in the ALP to
make him eligible to stand as a candidate.
Another Labor candidate was Jeff Loveday who came from a
political family in SA .
The ALP team was
headed by Jim’s longtime friend , lawyer Dick
Ward, nicknamed the Clarence Darrow of the NT , after the famous American lawyer who figured in the so-called John Scopes Monkey Trial. The election was a disaster for the ALP, it failing to win one seat
. Some of the reasons for
the whitewash were attributed to perceived shortcomings of the Whitlam Government, Territory Minister Kep
Enderby’s treatment of the Territory as
a social laboratory , the dramatic changes in Aboriginal Affairs brought about by Minister Gordon Bryant which upset many whites.
A great blow to
Labor prospects had been the
announcement , four weeks before the
election, that Dick Ward would be
appointed a judge . The
announcement was made without any
prior consultation with the local ALP
branch. Bowditch’s campaigning
was said to have been negligible. Candidate Jeff Loveday used his
connections to get SA Premier Don Dunstan to come to
Darwin and help the ALP campaign. At
the official launch of the l974 ALP
campaign Bowditch kicked in a
glass door at the Don Hotel. He was whisked away by Frank Martin, a former boxer and manager of an Aboriginal hostel.
Senator Graham Richardson ,the ALP federal numbers man , happened to be in Darwin
and took part in election activities. He delivered a colourful account of the event in his autography As Much As It Takes which
angered Territory ALP leaders.Richardson wrote that he had
spent a day at the
Bowditch residence working on an ALP election newspaper and during that time Jim consumed a flagon and a half of white wine. NEXT: Darwin destroyed.
