Holding Court In Ouyen An Open Affair
The Age
Saturday December 26, 1998
Where two roads meet deep in the sunset scrub, there's a town where lovers are given odds at the pub. That is, the chances of various men and women around town becoming engaged are rated in the manner of a horse race. On a blackboard above the bar.
They call it the 1998 Engagement Cup. The odds are changed as news, gossip and rumor come to hand. For example, Nath and Kylee were the favorites a week ago at two to one, before slipping to second spot at five to one.
``They had a blue and she dumped all his clothes on the front lawn," says the fellow behind the bar. How does he know this? ``Everybody knows. She came here looking for him. Ouyen's a small town."
Ouyen, population 1200, tidy outpost on the hot red plains of the Mallee. It calls out its position in the dark with a lighted star fixed atop the radio tower. It's the kind of place where everybody knows what's been going on with everybody else, where there is a burning enthusiasm for something new to happen and something new to talk about.
Given the right opportunity, the Ouyenites can translate an item of interest (like Jeff Kennett stopping by a year ago for a vanilla slice at the local bakery) into national news (Jeff Kennett returning a couple of months ago to judge the Great Australian Vanilla Slice Triumph, as seen on TV).
Another item of interest is the magistrates court, held five times a year. Usually for two-and-a-half hours a session. There are, on the day The Age sits in, 22 hearings listed; only eight have turned up, seven of them local. All will plead guilty, all will ask or argue for leniency.
For the Ouyen seven, perhaps the toughest trial of the day is standing on the grass in the morning sun, waiting to be called inside, as the people who know them pass by.
Taking part in this sorry muster on the lawn is like being locked in the stocks; it feels punishment enough, although no shopper or shepherd has the bad taste to stop and gawk. Talk may be a thriving sport in Ouyen, but mercy and good manners prevail.
Besides, by the time his worship hears their pleas, it's all old news. Everybody knows. There's the bloke who did a donut in the main street at four in the morning. Took out a few trees. Done his best to replace them. But today he must settle things with the law. ($500 costs and penalties.)
There's the woman on the pension caught up in the missing generator debacle. Everybody else involved has shot through, including her partner. Her kids sold the thing to fund their flight to Queensland and she's been left to face the music. Close to crying, she fidgets with her ring finger, as if there is something itching it to distraction. (More than $900 in penalties and reparations.)
Standing to the side is a fellow nobody knows. The eighth man. He's driven the 760 kilometres from Whyalla to plead for his driver's licence. There are seven speeding tickets being contested today.
Mr Whyalla is the only one to show; the other six are making their pleas by letter from towns far away. None claim innocence, all want to be let off lightly. ``I haven't been in trouble with the law before," one letter begins. ``I know I've done the wrong thing, I just can't afford to lose my licence at the moment," says another.
Five times a year, the court sees many such letters.
Planted at the junction of the Mallee and Calder Highways - four hours north-east of Adelaide, four-and-a-half hours north-west of Melbourne, an hour south of Mildura - Ouyen is a notorious speed trap. ``Watch out for Ouyen," is a common murmur from petrol pumpers, north and south.
They speak as if the town itself would do you harm. Ouyen has no courthouse as such. Sessions are held in a big modern hall at the council offices. Chocolate bricks, skylights at the top of each side wall. By the accordion door that opens to the court is a long table set with cups, biscuits and an urn. They remain untouched.
The public and players sit in green and white striped armchairs. Recliners. They remain mostly empty throughout. Everybody stays outside with their cigarettes and worried eyes, looking up each time Senior Constable Michael Walsh pops his head out, turns it left and right, and calls out another name.
He does so with the pleasant cheer of a bellboy paging a hotel guest, and keeps an earnest expression when the grass clears of all humanity.
Senior Constable Walsh has been stationed at Ouyen for about 12 months, after two-and-a-half years with the road safety task force. He's a very pleasant man but reportedly most dogged. The police prosecutor, Sergeant Tim Edgeworth says: ``It used to be a bit quieter here. Young Michael goes about his job with a lot of diligence and we've seen the court list increased dramatically. So much so that we're allocating another day."
Sergeant Edgeworth, a man of shaved crown and walrus moustache, goes pretty hard himself. Consider the Whyalla man. He pleads guilty to clocking 142kmh while overtaking a truck, with two speed points deducted for radar error. He tells a tough story about family tragedy, personal illness and a business that requires him to drive.
When the magistrate, Malcolm Walter, asks if there are any priors, Sergeant Edgeworth pulls out a conviction for dangerous driving at Parramatta. From 1963; fined 30.
Mr Walter, who seems literally to weigh and turn the facts presented in his hands, takes this story as a sign of the Whyalla man's good behavior. He quietly consoles the Whyalla man for his bad luck, for the rotten circumstances. ``But the law's the law. My only discretion is to keep suspension to a minimum."
The man from Whyalla asks if the suspension can be held off until he drives home. As he leaves, he looks thankful that no one in this town knows him.
© 1998 The Age