G-G visits 'worst address in Australia'

(AAP) - Sitting in the cockpit of a fighter jet one day, wiping a child's nose the next - the life of Australia's chief ceremonial ribbon-cutter is anything but dull.

Governor-General Quentin Bryce was unperturbed by the play-dough under her
fingernails and the flea-bitten camp dogs at her heels when she visited Binjari, the
Aboriginal community just outside Katherine, on Tuesday.
Impeccably dressed, the Queen's Australian representative spent an hour talking to
women in the community about their lives as Aboriginal mothers.
Ms Bryce said their concerns had not changed since she last visited Katherine more
than 30 years ago.
"What mothers and grandmothers care about ... no matter what country or community,
they're always the same things, and they stem from our bonds of child-bearing," she
told reporters on Tuesday.
"Their concerns are about the future, about the health, the education and the
employment futures of their children."
Ms Bryce said her visit to the community - home to about 200 people who share 40
houses - had nothing to do with the bad publicity Binjari has been subjected to in
recent months.
The mood in Binjari on Tuesday could not have been further removed from the image
portrayed in the NT News earlier this year, when the newspaper described it as
"worst address in Australia".
In the four months to March 10 there were reportedly three homicides, one suicide,
multiple domestic violence incidents and three alleged cases of child sex abuse in
Binjari.
"All this in one of the 73 Northern Territory communities that is supposedly being
'stabilised' under the federal government's almost $1.2 billion intervention," the
News Ltd paper said.
Ms Bryce said she was in Binjari to see firsthand the work being done by Good
Beginnings Australia to educate children under the age of five.
Local resident Barbara Raymond told AAP that life in Binjari had improved
dramatically in recent months.
Ms Raymond said local residents looked after each other.
"People who drink go into town to drink ... and come back when they are sober."
Ms Bryce said she would pass on to the federal government the community's
housing-related concerns recounted by Ms Raymond.
"You can't be healthy and well and have true equality of opportunity when in crowded
housing," Ms Bryce said.
"We are all deeply concerned to do what we can to close that life-expectancy gap
between black and white Australians."
Ms Bryce's visit to Binjari is part of a week-long tour of northern NT and WA.
Ms Bryce and her husband visited Tindal RAAF base on Monday and will be in Kununurra
on Wednesday before travelling through Gregory National Park on Thursday.