How wheels fell off ‘insane’ plan to bus 50 elderly Aboriginal artists to Adelaide

As the first Covid cases were being reported in Adelaide, arts centre chief Skye O’Meara came up with a plan to bring 50 Indigenous painters from remote APY Lands to Adelaide.

Artist Mrs Curley, front left, Joanna Byrne and Skye O’Meara. Picture Dean Martin

As Covid circled like a crow and panic set in, the APY Arts Centre Collective faced the possible prospect of a long, hard dry. If its arts centres on the APY Lands were closed, along with its Adelaide studio, its rivers of paintings could possibly turn to a trickle.

In March 2020, just as the first Covid cases were being reported in Adelaide, Skye O’Meara, the general manager of the APYACC, came up with a plan which she says was to protect the health of the artists.

She pushed a proposal to bus 50 elderly Anangu artists 1400km from their homelands – one of the most remote and isolated places on earth and where there had been zero cases of Covid – down to the empty Anangu boarding school, Wiltja, in Adelaide.

“It should be noted,” the Covid-19 APYACC response said, “many of these individuals are national cultural assets”.

The APYACC would provide the painters, some of them internationally renowned artists, with “a creative program similar to that offered by the APY Arts Centres on the Lands”.

It was a plan that Richard King, the Indigenous general manager of APY Lands (the government administrators) ­described as “just insane”. “Bussing elderly people to ­Adelaide in the middle of a pandemic was possibly the worst idea I had ever heard,” he told The Australian.

The 2020 Covid-19 APYACC response stated: “This initiative has the 100 per cent support and endorsement of the seven APY Art Centres – directors, staff and artists.”

This was not true.

The Australian has spoken to two of the APY arts centres on the Lands who say that when this proposal was put to their Indigenous boards it was completely rejected.

Pukatja resident Russell Kickett in April 2020.

A person from another organisation the APYACC claimed it was “partnering” with, said the first he heard about the collective’s Covid plan, and his organisation’s supposed “partnering”, was when people from three other organisations, also said to be “partnering”, rang in a panic in quick succession “while I was in Bunnings”.

The response on the APY Lands at the time was anything but 100 per cent endorsement. Art centre managers and other workers in the community were aghast, as were many Anangu leaders. The proposal caused enormous panic. Who would go, who would stay? Who would make the decision on who to put on the buses?

The response became known as Schindler’s List, which in the dry, bleak humour of the desert became Skye’s Ark.

“I was getting phone calls from all the other arts centre managers who were in a complete and utter panic,” said one former arts staffer. “None of them had even had a chance to discuss it with their boards.”

She claimed there appeared to be an ulterior motive: “Her business model was basically turning to shit,” she claimed. The staffer said it seemed “that she wanted to send a bus up to the APY Lands and take these artists down to her little factory in Adelaide so they could pump out paintings”.

“I couldn’t sleep at night,” said another arts worker. “If I put someone on the bus, and they died, the community would hold me responsible and that could place me in very real danger.”

She added: “The Covid thing was absolutely crazy … We got this letter, or a phone call, saying they were going to take busloads of elderly painters down to Wiltja … she (O’Meara) was trying to pressure people into these huge things very quickly.”

The APYACC’s proposal said: “Nganampa Health will close medical clinics in the APY communities once 2-4 staff test positive to Covid-19.

“Once clinics close, the ­capacity for Anangu to 1. receive treatment and support for other conditions; 2. be evacuated; 3. combat Covid-19 symptoms – become significantly compromised.” The letter went on to say: “It will be impossible to slow the spread of the virus on APY Lands.”

One arts centre worker says she called a person in SA Health, whom the collective was supposedly liaising with, and this person couldn’t give her any information about the plan.

“Skye had created an action plan with everyone’s name on it, saying everyone had endorsed the plan, and yet we hadn’t.”

The plan did, however, have an endorsement from the Director of Nganampa Health, Professor Paul Torzillo, who said in an email at the time, obtained by The Australian, that while the community probably didn’t have any cases of Covid, “in this situation elderly or vulnerable people would be better off if they were already in a major centre with some chance of high- level hospital care”.

“If they can be supported for a period of months they should go now and get settled in Adelaide. There is no reason they need ‘permission’ from SA Health,” Professor Torzillo said in the letter.

Mr King disagreed. In a 2020 email he said: “The decisions to move people must be guided by science and the Public Health team in charge of South Australia’s response. The current situation around the world tells us that smaller, more remote populations are peaking after major populations.

“Taking vulnerable people to a major population centre puts them in the front line for contracting this virus. We all want the same thing for Anangu. We need to be guided by science and not emotion.”

Mr King said that removing “50 key people” from their families in the APY weakened the community and put families and children at unnecessary risk.

“As we know, the outbreak has started and no one will be travelling back to and from the Lands, so if these groups are moving to ­Adelaide those people organising this need to take full responsibility until such time that this issue resolves itself and it is safe to return,” he said. “No one can be allowed to return and put people on the Lands at risk until it is over.”

In the end Mr King’s assessment was proved right. O’Meara’s plan to bus the artists to Adelaide was scrapped and the APY Lands went into a strict lockdown.

The first case of Covid would not be detected in the Lands until December 2021.

In a response to questions from The Australian, Ms O’Meara said: “The (Covid Response) document was accurate at the time it was provided to the government. Our strategy was developed to protect health and safety … while artists could continue contributing during a time of immense difficulty for First Nations People.”

The emails from Mr King and Professor Torzillo indicate there was disagreement about the correct approach, and it was undoubtedly a time of much distress and confusion.

But Ms O’Meara’s plan did not have the “100 per cent support and endorsement of the seven APY arts centres – directors, staff and artists”, as she claimed in her letter which was widely distributed, including to the South Australian government.

This is an email from one arts centre sent on March 22, 2020, ­obtained by The Australian: “This is an incredibly tense time … we recently received a copy of APYACC’s proposal listing (our arts centre) as a member and that we have endorsed this proposal. It should be noted that we are not a member organisation of the APY Collective.

“In fact, we are the victims of constant bullying from the staff of APYACC … We have had one rushed five-minute phone call from Skye regarding this, AFTER this proposal was submitted …”

It went on: “There has been no discussions or input from the community. I have spoken to the ­directors and they do not support this proposal in any way, shape or form. We are NOT a partner for this proposal.”

It appears that the Anangu elders on the boards of these APY community arts centres, and the artists, were verballed by a white arts administrator.

The Australian asked the APYACC board, at a meeting in Adelaide, how it could have the 100 per cent support and endorsement of the seven APY arts centres – directors, staff and artists – when some of the APY art centre boards had ­rejected it.

Board member Sally Scales said: “There were members and representatives of those communities who said ‘Yes’.”