Patanga: an intentional community

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Radio National
Life Matters with Julie McCrossin On Monday 02/06/2003
Re-imagining Utopia 5 - Alternative Economics

In the fifth program in our series on Re-imagining Utopia, Kath Duncan and Fiona Martin add up the economic effects of intentional communities on Australia's regional landscape. The cost of living out a social alternative is always a hot topic on communities. In this program we look at the issues which community residents face in supporting themselves, the type of businesses they run and what impact alternative lifestyles can have on traditional rural areas.

Today, Alternative Economics.

Fiona Martin: So Brechia, where's your family?

Brechia: In New Zealand, Invercargill. I don't have any immediate family around me at all. And Avi's the same. All his family's in Israel. And he hasn't seen them for what, seven years now. I think if we weren't living in a community with people around us, I don't think we would be coping very well, because we do need that group of people around us as an extended family. Yeah, they're not our blood family, but they are our friends—just like a family, really.

Fiona Martin: Is this like a sanctuary to you?

Brechia: It is. For me it's very much like a sanctuary.

Kath Duncan: Brechia lives at the Patanga community in the Thora Valley near Bellingen in northern NSW. Patanga is a land-sharing community where everyone works, and the aim of the community from the beginning was to be self-supporting. All the current residents have worked hard at economic and personal cooperation. Patanga's been running for nearly twenty years and was started up by a bunch of ex-Balmain residents from Sydney. Over time people have come and gone, so there are only a handful of the original communards left. Fiona Martin tracked down one almost original, Tim Aitken, who runs his photography business from home.

Tim Aitken: In the very beginning nobody really lived here, and of all the people that started, only a couple came to live here. They were a very idealistic little crowd and gradually sold their shares to the more practical crowd.

Fiona Martin: What sort of ideals drove people?

Tim Aitken: They saw the place as a place of healing and the first thing they did was tear down all the fences, which have cost us thousands to put back up again. Only a few people wanted to have a tractor. Well, out here, if you don't have a tractor and slasher, you just disappear into the jungle in a year or so. It would be uninhabitable. And there were all sorts of struggles like that, of really getting the place on a practical level.

Fiona Martin: How do you think Patanga is different from some of the other communities in this valley?

Tim Aitken: First of all we had a totally solid structure. Those idealistic people weren't just idealists, some of them are experienced businesspeople. And they came up with the idea that the best vehicle would be to form a company rather than a coop, because with a company, we're bound by company law and share transfers are strictly controlled and so we had a very strong structure. And we've stuck with that. We've discussed several times changing our format into something else but it's always been a very good bottom line.

Fiona Martin: Okay, we're here at Brechia and Avi's garden. I can see in front of me—what, zucchinis?

Brechia: Yup. Basil, and all that's parsley, and we had all our garlic over there.

Fiona Martin: How long have you been doing the garden?

Brechia: About three years. We had a fifty-year flood, a hundred-year drought; and we had like a sixty-year hardest frost last winter, so… and we're still here gardening…[laughs]

Fiona Martin: Why did you choose to grow these things: basil and parsley and the zucchinis, garlic and so on?

Brechia: Mainly because we've got a bird problem here where the birds just love the vegetables. They will eat beans and lettuces and things like that. So we turned to growing herbs because they don't actually eat them, and the zucchinis are mainly just for like the local market. We specialise in herbs for sending away to Sydney. It's just been trial and error over the last three years.

Kath Duncan: Avi and Brechia cultivate less than an acre and just get by. The demand for their produce is greater than their capacity to supply. When the herbs are in season, other residents help them pick in exchange for a box of vegetables. Although the business is starting to be successful, raising the finances to expand is proving difficult, because banks won't lend to a business on a community like Patanga.

Fiona Martin: Do you resent the fact that the banks won't lend you money simply because you land-share with other people?

Brechia: I don't think it's very fair. We're like any other small business, we're trying to support ourselves, and it just makes it more difficult for us to do that. It's going to take us a lot more time when really we shouldn't have to spend years and years trying to make money and finally have an income and support ourselves. We should be able to get a loan and be able to build all in one go, basically; not just take years and years.

It's a bit disheartening for us, as well. Every year you look at your books and think, oh, we haven't made much money at all this year. You think, well, is it really worth it? We calculated the other day we're working for 40 cents an hour at the moment. That's how much we're getting ourselves. And we work seven days a week, nearly, so that's really disheartening, if you think of it like that.

But we think ahead, we think, oh, next year we can do better. We grow all our own food, we're growing for other people as well. And we're living in a great place, so I'm pretty happy to slave my guts out.

Kath Duncan: While Patanga residents can't get loans from banks, they have been successful in getting a land-share grant of $12,000, some of which will go to a nursery on site and the rest will be put into planting out the river bank, which was damaged in a flood.

The economics of scale affect every aspect of life on community. Shares at Patanga were originally $9,000 each. Now a share is $50,000. But that's just for the share itself. A house costs around $70,000 to $100,000 on top of that. But before you think that's a steal for a slice of rural paradise, and you can spend your days lounging about watching the grass grow; think again.

Jessica runs a jewellery import and export business from her shed at Patanga and has double duties.

Fiona Martin: Looking out from your verandah I can see this beautiful pastoral landscape, nicely mown lawns, lovely natives… do you actually have working bees, regularly?

Jessica: One day a month minimum. It's this thing of one plus one is more than two. A lot more gets done when there's a few people working together. And they're good catch-up times when we stop for lunch.

Fiona Martin: Do most people work full-time or just part-time here?

Jessica: Oh, we've got both. We've got full-time school teachers. We had a nurse, but he's moved on. I think most people would prefer to work part-time, but some people don't have that choice.

Fiona Martin: So there's a mix of self-employed people and people who are working off community?

Jessica: Yes.

Fiona Martin: Would you prefer to have everyone working on the community, or is it quite nice to have that external contact?

Jessica: I think it's essential. I think you become too insular if you stay and don't go out. I go to Sydney on business trips sometimes, or Brisbane, and while I'm glad to get home, I'm really glad to go and touch the outside world and see what's going on and talk to people.

I think more important than whether you're working at home or away from home is the fact that you're working, I think the work ethic is part of what makes our community so fabulous. And I don't just mean in a job. I mean the work on the land as well as the work to earn money. You know, the old thing of ‘if you want something done, ask a busy person.’ I think it's really important here for us. It helps keep the place really alive and happening. Not to say that we don't enjoy relaxing and having a good time, either.