DREAMS, THINK BIG, THERE ARE UNSEEN FORCES READY TO SUPPORT YOUR DREAMS.
 
THIS STORY REALLY SADDENS ME. WHY WOMEN CONTINUE TO LIVE WITH DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS TRULY BEYOND ME. THERE IS SO MUCH HELP OUT THERE NOW, YET PEOPLE STILL CHOOSE TO IGNORE THE PROBLEMS, HAPPY ENOUGH BEING STEPFORD WIVES.



Paradise lost to murderBy Louise MilliganJuly 21, 2004
FOR the second time in two years, there has been a murder in broad daylight on Norfolk Island - a place once considered a South Pacific paradise. Yet again, no one saw any warning signs or heard anything to alert them to the death.But this time the inhabitants of the tiny territory must confront the fact that the man police have charged is one of their own and his alleged victim is his father.
There is nothing to suggest that Norfolk's first recorded murder - the gruesome and unsolved stabbing of Janelle Patton, 29, on Easter Sunday 2002 - is connected to the shooting of the island's Land and Environment Minister, Ivens "Toon" Buffett, 60.
Buffett's son Leith Buffett, 25, appeared in the island's Court of Petty Sessions yesterday, charged with his father's murder. But The Australian understands Leith, who recently returned to Norfolk from Queensland, is said to be suffering from mental illness and was not on the island when Patton went missing.
It's all the more devastating for locals on the tiny island of 1800 people. At last month's inquest into Patton's death, when 16 "persons of interest" were named, residents at Norfolk's waterholes insisted an islander of Pitcairn descent couldn't have committed such an awful crime.

But unlike Patton, a hospitality worker from Sydney, Toon Buffett was Norfolk establishment. The Buffetts are one of the original families to arrive from Pitcairn Island and Toon was one of just four ministers in the island's Government.
Norfolk Island seems an idyllic place, built on the ruins of a convict hell and the hopes of Pitcairners who descended from Fletcher Christian and his Bounty mutineers. "It's the safest place in the world and I wouldn't live anywhere else," Christian's descendant John Christian said on Bounty Day last month. But Toon Buffett's death and Patton's inquest suggests the bucolic idyll may be a mask for dysfunction.
"It's devastating - it has ruined an island and it has ruined a family," says Ruth McCoy of Buffett's death. McCoy was Patton's landlady and Toon Buffett's lifelong friend. "I just don't know what we are going to do. You can't say it [Toon's death] didn't happen. It happened and we can't pretend any more."
When the chairman of the federal parliamentary territories commission, senator Ross Lightfoot, recently said the Australian Federal Police knew Patton's killer but couldn't convict because of Norfolk's culture of silence, the island's internet forum exploded in vitriol.
"These people wouldn't know anything about our island, the people or our cultures," wrote "Fradey". "Australia have got more problems than what they can poke a stick at. Maybe Norfolk Islanders should start Joint Standing Committee investigations into Lightfoot and his band of merry men. They are a JOKE."
But now one of the Bounty descendants is in the dock and Norfolk cannot escape it.
Delivering a speech for the Queen's Birthday, Peter Maywald, the secretary to the Norfolk Government, added a brief footnote about challenges facing the island - including domestic violence and drug abuse.
"It was regarded as radical - pushing the envelope," he said. "The prevailing view is that this is the Queen's birthday - you say how wonderful Her Majesty is and leave it at that. I think there is great resistance to change here. It's a natural conservatism. Speaking your mind is not expected - islanders will ask your opinion, but won't be too thrilled if you disagree."
It doesn't pay to be critical in a place where arson was traditionally used as a weapon. Norfolk Islander newspaper editor Tom Lloyd claims his printing facility was once razed to the ground after a critical story.
In the joint standing committee's report looking into Norfolk's affairs last year, "fear of reprisal" was blamed for the lack of political and social reform. "Beneath the surface, informal mechanisms are being allowed to operate with impunity," the report says. "[We have] grave concerns a culture of fear and intimidation has taken root on the island to the detriment of the majority of the community."
It says arson and assault are used to pressure residents to leave or to "gain financial advantage or cover up illegal dealings". Abuse of political power is "commonplace" and "more subtle forms of intimidation", such as interference with email and phones, are used against people who "disturb the status quo".
"The undercurrent of intimidation and the overt criticism of those who express a different view do not sit well with the image of a participatory, consensual style of politics or cohesive community life."
Adrian Cook QC, a former Sydney judge who lives on Norfolk, says dissidents are "sent to coventry or isolated". "Anything that puts you apart from the rest of the community's perceived attitude about things means you run the risk of being isolated," Cook says.
If Patton's two years on Norfolk and her disputes with islanders are any indication, intimidation, violence and stalking are regular features of island life. One woman, who remains anonymous for safety reasons, says domestic violence is rife. She says men think it's normal to approach young female newcomers at the Leagues Club, saying: "Do you want to f--- me?"
"Don't get me started on violence in this place," she says, adding that she was a battered wife and is not alone. Although she says Norfolk is great for young children, teenagers are another thing. She always takes young women aside to warn them. "They usually last six weeks because they can't stand it any more. It's pretty intimidating."
ISLAND counsellor Adrienne Coles takes a "softly, softly approach". She won't give statistics about family violence because of privacy issues. She says it happens everywhere, but Norfolk is a "very Yang, very male place".
Until recently, counselling facilities were scarce. Maywald describes Norfolk as "very chauvinist", adding that "you don't dob people in and that had implications for Janelle". But McCoy says islanders have little confidence in psychologists because in such a tiny community they worry about confidentiality.
Rather than horror at Patton's injuries, the more palpable feeling of distress among islanders last month was how this murder spoiled an island utopia. Horrified at media intrusion, islanders agonised about the implications of an unsolved crime on an economy that derives 90per cent of its gross domestic product from tourism.
Toon Buffett's murder can only exacerbate the tourism concerns, but islanders will also have to confront the grief of losing one of their own. Will this break the silence or the curb the self-deception? Many locals still tell The Australian they believe an outsider killed Patton, citing the fact she was left out in the open rather than dumped over a Norfolk cliff as "proof" it was not an islander.
During the inquest, Radio Norfolk's bulletin each morning was filled with lost tabby cat and Bounty Day rehearsal reports, with not a single mention of Patton. Maywald says murder is "too controversial" for the station. "It's a sort of self-censorship," he says.
Police Minister David Buffett's broadcast on the inquest was strangely anodyne. There was no direct and impassioned appeal, nor a denunciation of the crime. "He's been sitting on the fence for so many years, I'm surprised he hasn't been cut in half," one islander wryly notes. David Buffett and the rest of the Norfolk Island administration are now reeling.
Chief Minister Geoff Gardner spent all of yesterday in interviews. "[Toon's] loss will be deeply felt by all who knew and loved him. He was a greatly valued member of the Norfolk Island Government," Gardner says.
Despite the false stereotypes of yokels with a shallow gene pool, islanders are patriotic, educated and enterprising. Unemployment is zero. But Norfolk must confront its demons. "These things have got to be said, whether they make us uncomfortable or not," says Alice Buffett, a distant relative of Toon and community elder.

SOUNDS TO ME LIKE A GRUBBY CLOSED MINDED LITTLE TOWN.