Congratulations to Russell Skelton for his win at the Walkeys

28 November 2011

Congratulations to Russell Skelton for his long-form journalism win at The Walkeys for his book King Brown Country: The betrayal of Papunya.  Published by Allen & Unwin, the book presents a devastatingly revealing portrait of Papunya, a Western Desert community that once showed such promise, now a community in severe crisis.  "Why don’t you check out Papunya? It’s the (petrol) sniffing capital of Australia, it’s a Bermuda triangle for taxpayer funds. Nobody in the Northern Territory government gives a rats. The council just tossed out World Vision. People are frightened to talk.”  It was this tip-off, emailed from a trusted source, which set Russell Skelton on a five-year investigation.

Papunya in Central Australia had become world famous after an extraordinary period of creative energy from its talented artists. But as Skelton found, the reality on the ground would never attract such glowing publicity.  Skelton spares no-one in his painstaking examination. At the centre of the story is the powerful Anderson clan and the formidable and mercurial figure of Alison Anderson, who went from being town clerk to the Northern Territory’s most outspoken Indigenous member of parliament. Skelton dissects difficult issues of the use and misuse of community and government funds, and the interaction between the community and the white establishment. He uncovers examples of dysfunction, of financial mismanagement, allegations of corruption, power plays and unspeakable neglect. He also reveals how the failure of Indigenous policy over many years has betrayed this once secure community.

About the author
Russell Skelton is a contributing editor to The Age and was previously its deputy editor, foreign editor and a foreign correspondent. He has received the Grant Hattam Quill award for investigative journalism and a United Nations Association Peace award for his reports on Aboriginal disadvantage.