Policeman from outback

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 27

Policeman from outback

Compared with most policemen, Senior Constable Gordon Thomas has an easy job. The crime rate in Bridsville, Queensland, where he lives, presents him with few problems. Last year he arrested only three persons, all for minor offences.

The job, however, has its disadvantages. Birdsville sits in the middle of the Australian outback, on the edge of the Simpson Desert and cut off from the rest of the country by vast areas of scorched semi-desert.

His beat, in terms of population, is small. There are only 75 people in the area. Most of them work for the three cattle stations nearby, or are council workers.

Apart from a few scattered houses, the town consists of just a hospital, a post office, a police station, a school, and, most important of all a hotel. The closest settlement is Bedcurie, a town the same size as Birdsville, about 100 miles to the north. It. wasi

aptly named — “Bedourie” is an Aboriginal word, meaning dust storm, said Constable Thomas in Christchurch, during a holiday in New Zealand.

Like everybody else, he relies on a radio-telephone and the town's airport to keep him in touch with the outside world. Twice a week planes flying between Alice Springs and Brisbane stop in Birdsville for half an hour to land supplies and tourists.

Luxuries city dwellers have become accustomed to do not exist. There are no telephones, newspapers, or television sets, and the local people must rely on each other for entertainment and company.

Constable Thomas’s role in Birdsville is quite different from that of the average policeman in a large town or city.

There is no real crime, and most of his work involves protecting people from the elements rather than from each other.

His main daily chores include taking weather readings for the Meteorological Service, keeping an eye on

the height of nearby rivers, and making contact with other outback stations on his radio-telephone. Watching the weather is important, for when the rains come Birdsville can be cut off from the rest of Australia.

It might rain for only one night, but in that time more than 120 mm of rain can fall. The elements can combine to make the area dangerous for travellers who enter it unprepared. Constable Thomas said a number of people had died because they had become stranded without adequate provisions Or equipment to make repairs. When people are stranded — and, he says, it happens quite frequently — it is his job to find them. The closest large towns are more than 250 miles away, and if somebody sets out to travel to Birdsville from one of them Constable Thomas is told on the radio. If the travellers have not arrived on time he goes out to look for them.

One man was recently stranded by his vehicle for two weeks, after he was

caught by flooding. Extra supplies were airdropped to him, and it was not until he was able to walk about 30 miles to the closest station that he could be flown home. It was another five or six weeks before he could retrieve his vehicle, said Constable Thomas. He said that although he enjoyed living in Birdsville, he would not like to settle there permanently. “You tend to get a bit out of touch with society,” he said. When he visited some of the larger cities it took a while to adjust to the noise and activity. The big event of the year in Birdsville is the two-day races, which are held in September. At this time the township is flooded with visitors. More than 450 people arrived last year, in light aiicratt trom all over the outback. The township was turned into one big hotel, and many of the visitors slept under their aircraft on the tarmac. During the festivities, which lasted for three days and a half, 90 tons of beer and two tons of soft-drink were drunk.