The Silence of Broken Hill

Cafe Locked Out On The Road

It’s morning, and the breeze rising off the desert has a crisp chill to it, as though the night, which was full of unreachable stars, is trying to cling onto the last of the dark, as sun rescues this iconic town once again, with the warming brushes of dawn.

The only thing missing on the streets are the giants who built this town. We heard stories of previous generations crossing this desert with all they possessed piled into wheelbarrows. No GPS, no servos with toilets and cold bottles of coke. Just lean, sun tanned dreamers, chasing the possibility of a new life built on a discovery of gold and or silver.

A family, that was born and bred here, told us how the town was multicultural before the word had entered the vernacular. The Afghans came here ferrying water on camel trains. The Croatians, The Italians, The Irish and the Celts and others came here too, and vanished down the hole in the ground seeking, through risk and hard work, a better life for their families, that was simply not available to them back in their old countries.

BHP was born here, and then the union movement was formed here too, to protect the miners from the greed of the mine owners. The evidence of which can be found in the children’s names, on the shrine dedicated to the fallen miners. A twelve-year-old boy’s name is here.

There are other shrines planted around the town too. Dedicated to the men who left here to fight and die in the battles of the wars, that those they left behind simply couldn’t see from here. Even from the top of hill all that was visible then and now, is the desert who keeps her secrets hidden in ghosts whispering in this morning breeze.

The wheelbarrows have long been replaced by large, four-wheel drives, with bull bars, and CBs, and air conditioning. A mobile phone tower, towers over the town hall clock, and the locals and the tourists, the healthy majority of them overweight, and unusually pale despite the sun treating the town like her anvil.

That your bus? a woman asked.

Yeah, I’m an indy journo out here looking for the current Australia.

Hmmm, she replied and walked away.

Another man, asked me the same thing, but with his family waiting in his car, he nodded as he took in the images on the bus, then shook my hand and whispered, ‘Keep going.’ Even though there was no one here to hear him but me and the ghosts.

Wokeness was here.

Planting its flag in the middle of the town, is poster child a joyous young man with down syndrome playing with the rainbow braces holding up his jeans.

We’ve seen these banners in most towns, yet most of the people don’t appear to be transitioning. They are instead, just quiet.

One young man spoke to me, off camera about how he’d been violated. In order to keep his job, he’d taken three jabs. Previous to covid he had been relatively healthy. Now ever week he suffered from crippling migraines. And while he didn’t want to talk, for he didn’t want to risk losing the job, he already risked so much to keep, I could see in his disquiet eyes, the vast amounts of water he wanted to spill.

The Police had a chat to us in Broken Hill. They were cool, but this actually happened,

So, we were asked, "Where are you from?"

MGG: "We live on the road"

"Where have you come from"

MGG: "The road"

"Where are you going?"

MGG: "Back on the road"

And we got a laugh

Something has changed. We’ve seen it in other outback towns.

The warm, ‘G’day mate how yah going?’ Has gone. The ‘she’ll be right’ has also been blown away by covid, and when I ask anyone here who will talk, if they think the covid years have stolen our identity they all agree.

Once, men left here time and time again, to fight an enemy who never stood a chance of reaching this town. But they weren’t defending the pubs or the cafes, they were defending the freedom that the people had built their town upon.

Buy The Boo

We are trying to find ways to fund our work, so this is our first Coffee Table Book.

The Link to purchase it is here: THE BOOK

The freedom that their own government, and other forces have compromised. Their soldiers march the streets in invisible brigades, their subtextual signs reading, if you speak out there will be retribution. Better to remain safe by remaining silent.

And this is how it’s done.

Me hosting the Australian section of the 24 hour freedom Marathon in Florence The Freedom Bus. It was fun. Broken Hill

The weapon to defeat such invaders is the God Given right of Freedom of Speech, but if you can’t find the courage to pull it out of it’s sheath, then your town is no longer your town, but a museum piece celebrating a lost Australia, inhabited by who?

How will we ever know, if who you are now, Australia, is hidden in the silences, like the one the desert, that has always besieged this town, keeps?

Michael