Speaker 1: This town is a sad story, especially for black fellows,
Speaker 1: I guess for non Indigenous people. It's a beautiful town.
Speaker 1: Not in the landscape it's beautiful, but for us to
Speaker 1: live here as a local, it's a sad story.
Speaker 2: This is Uncle Brian. He's an arunder man. This is
Speaker 2: his land, this is his town.
Speaker 1: Well, we want to shoulders allis Springs in a different way,
Speaker 1: in a black fellow way, not just white fellow way,
Speaker 1: white flow way. You call Alice Springs Alice. You know
Speaker 1: who's Alice. We don't know Alice. It's called Umbando.
Speaker 2: We're sitting in a park. It's at the base of
Speaker 2: one of those age old Rockier scarments that surround this town.
Speaker 2: It's mid afternoon. Meet his Way as a children's play area,
Speaker 2: empty swings, empty slides. With us is Damien, another arunder man. Goodness. Yeah,
Speaker 2: with him is his son by, tall and slender, eighteen
Speaker 2: years of age, dressed in a Nike hoodie too much
Speaker 2: for a Southerner and a warm Central Australian day, but
Speaker 2: suitable for a local.
Speaker 3: That's my son, Bison.
Speaker 2: Bison there go. Yeah, a bit warmer up here than
Speaker 2: it is in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Tell me about.
Speaker 2: Together. Uncle, Brian, Damien, and Bison represent three generations of
Speaker 2: arunder men. Damien is in his thirties. Looks like he's
Speaker 2: just jumped off the back of a steed. He's wearing
Speaker 2: a check shirt with the sleeves removed, jeans and boots,
Speaker 2: boots covered in dust, red dust. The town we're in now,
Speaker 2: the one his son Bison grew up in, has changed
Speaker 2: a lot since Damien was a kid.
Speaker 3: Well growing up here. From a young person, there's goodly
Speaker 3: in town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 3: I still love it today, but I think some of
Speaker 3: them the sweet part of Alice is no longer here.
Speaker 3: I think it's worn a bit sour to be hones.
Speaker 2: What's it like living in Alice Springs? Pretty hush?
Speaker 3: It looks good now, but my time it looks a
Speaker 3: little good, like trenchous vibes.
Speaker 2: You know these things better stay stay in your home.
Speaker 1: It's too dangerous for non Indigenous people. And like me,
Speaker 1: being a local, as I and a man, I don't
Speaker 1: feel safe organ streets at night because I.
Speaker 2: Get a tack tooo.
Speaker 1: That's that you can one kid walk up to your
Speaker 1: little twelve ye, I'll ask you for a cigarette and
Speaker 1: you tell you that nothing he sings out for his mates.
Speaker 1: They only them gangs and all that.
Speaker 2: It's those gangs that have become infamous here and across
Speaker 2: the country. Kids roaming in the streets looking for trouble
Speaker 2: and if they can't find it, making trouble. Things really
Speaker 2: kicked off earlier this year with what's been described as
Speaker 2: a riot in town. He started at the Todd Tavern,
Speaker 2: not too far from where we are now, within Alice Springs,
Speaker 2: nowhere as far away. At this pub, the Todd glass
Speaker 2: was smashed. Bricks were just pelted out of people or
Speaker 2: running up and fly kicking.
Speaker 3: They've taken twenty meter jumps and jumping in the glass trying.
Speaker 4: To smash it.
Speaker 1: A flying sidekick punches rocks and even bricks rick.
Speaker 2: This is when the headline started. In cities and towns
Speaker 2: across Australia, we read about chaos and rampages. One newspaper
Speaker 2: described the kids here as tiny menaces stuck on a
Speaker 2: turnstile of trouble.
Speaker 3: A couple of views, some of who look younger than
Speaker 3: ten years old, damage more than sixty cars.
Speaker 5: They're hanging out the window, hooning through Alice Springs.
Speaker 2: This resource.
Speaker 6: She was startled, according to police, by the children breaking.
Speaker 2: Into her home.
Speaker 7: She was then attacked and hit in the face with
Speaker 7: a rock by one.
Speaker 2: Police were given extraordinary powers to arrest the violence to
Speaker 2: put an end to it.
Speaker 5: An emergency situation has been declared in Alice Springs following
Speaker 5: a wave of violence in the Northern Territory town.
Speaker 1: These curf ears for both adults and children and will
Speaker 1: be enforced from ten pm to six am between those
Speaker 1: We will.
Speaker 6: Back our police to enact this curfew and do what
Speaker 6: is needed to improve community safety in Alice Springs.
Speaker 2: Like fly in and fly out, workers politicians derived to
Speaker 2: blame one another for the carnage. The people of Alice
Speaker 2: Springs became political footballs in the process.
Speaker 3: And you've got kids here tonight who are going to
Speaker 3: be sexually abused, or families where domestic violence has now
Speaker 3: become a current occurrence.
Speaker 2: Send in the.
Speaker 6: Riot Squad, the eightyf whoever it takes.
Speaker 4: To bring calm to our streets.
Speaker 2: That came on the back of one of the most
Speaker 2: divisive debates in the country's history, the referendum on the
Speaker 2: Voice to Parliament. There was yet another time when Aboriginal
Speaker 2: people were spoken about more than we were spoken to.
Speaker 2: It's been twelve months since that debate and I've come
Speaker 2: here to the heart of things, Alice Springs, Arta to
Speaker 2: hear the voices of people here. I want to know
Speaker 2: what happens when the great Australian silence once again surrouds
Speaker 2: this town once the carnival of political debate heads down
Speaker 2: the road, and how all the interventions big and small
Speaker 2: by governments of or persuasions have led to this moment
Speaker 2: of chaos. What I found is that almost all of
Speaker 2: it leads back to one thing. I'm Daniel James from
Speaker 2: Schwartz Media and seven AM. This is Alice Springs Episode one,
Speaker 2: Children of the Intervention.
Speaker 3: Lately, as i'm there haven't been a lot of tourists
Speaker 3: traveling through due to some of the issues and Alice
Speaker 3: Springs people are afraid.
Speaker 2: And Damien's offered to take us on a tour of
Speaker 2: the town. This is us driving around with him and Bison.
Speaker 2: The media reporting has been pretty full on youreck, and
Speaker 2: that's in an effect on tourism. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I think it's scared away a lot of even
Speaker 3: people with small businesses.
Speaker 2: I've been here before and there's a noticeable change for starters.
Speaker 2: You can't buy a drink here to take away. On
Speaker 2: Mondays and Tuesdays, the bars are empty. The thriving backpacker
Speaker 2: scene seems to have shrunk.
Speaker 3: There's a main part of the CBD. Yeah, bring your
Speaker 3: shopping center. That's where most people come for their shopping.
Speaker 2: And we passed the Todd Tavern opposite the footy ground.
Speaker 2: On the surface, the spread of a pub typical of
Speaker 2: a country town. In broad daylight, it's hard to picture
Speaker 2: it as a place of unrest and violence.
Speaker 3: Do a full loop.
Speaker 2: As we round the corner, we see the heart of
Speaker 2: justice within the town, a triangle of imposing buildings. The
Speaker 2: cop shop, the magistrate's court, and the biggest building of all,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: There's a big Supreme Court that just stands there and
Speaker 3: don't know what they're doing there.
Speaker 2: The Supreme the Supreme Court building is a big one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's really big, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: there's any purpose.
Speaker 2: For it right now. These buildings look dormant, but this
Speaker 2: hides the fact that more Aboriginal people are being sentenced
Speaker 2: to prison than ever before. There's been a twenty three
Speaker 2: percent increase in Indigenous incarceration in the past five years.
Speaker 2: Children aged between fourteen and seventeen are incarcerated at a
Speaker 2: high rate in the Northern Territory than anywhere else in
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 3: But here's here's a big one, right right, you got
Speaker 3: You've got nightclubs here, and we've got our young kids
Speaker 3: that are walking around and do up to our good
Speaker 3: And we've got half of our elders and our leaders
Speaker 3: in the nightclub and when they come out, they're seeing
Speaker 3: as just as bad as the young people. So you know,
Speaker 3: every weekend some of our leaders are acting like children.
Speaker 2: Inside the only shopping center, the bottle shops are once
Speaker 2: again open, and there are lines out the front with
Speaker 2: police checking IDs before people enter. There are two lines
Speaker 2: with one copper each assigned to check where people live,
Speaker 2: to make sure they don't live somewhere where alcohol is forbidden.
Speaker 2: Middle aged white people are waved through. So what did
Speaker 2: you say, please?
Speaker 1: White fans walks through Black fives. Can't that adds one
Speaker 1: hundred qus you need to get a six back of beer.
Speaker 2: There are plenty of black fellows on the street and
Speaker 2: they outnumber the white fellows. They're usually in groups just
Speaker 2: yarning up. It's on these streets you'll hear some of
Speaker 2: the oldest languages known to humanity, the true languages of
Speaker 2: the continent. Yet they're more foreign to us than Italian,
Speaker 2: or French or even millennial. The wonder of that is
Speaker 2: really something for an outsider. But for Damien and Bison,
Speaker 2: They're focus is on the problems here and now. I
Speaker 2: sensed that, so I asked them about it. When did
Speaker 2: that sort of violence and running a mark sort of start?
Speaker 1: Do you think two thousand when the intervention came through,
Speaker 1: It was a big joke. It was a big shocking
Speaker 1: stuff for we were too shamed to say will from
Speaker 1: Alice Springs.
Speaker 2: This is something I heard again and again as I
Speaker 2: spoke to locals and Alice Springs. They still remember the
Speaker 2: army rolling into town, the announcements over town, Camp PA's
Speaker 2: warning people to stay in their homes. They tell me
Speaker 2: about the confusion, the terror, about how the blunt force
Speaker 2: of the intervention affected every part of their lives, and
Speaker 2: how they're still dealing with the consequences all these years later.
Speaker 2: That's after the break.
Speaker 5: Are we ready, well, ladies and gentlemen, Mister Bruff and
Speaker 5: I have called this news conference to announce a number
Speaker 5: of major measures to deal with what we can only
Speaker 5: describe as a national emergency in relation to the abuse
Speaker 5: of children in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.
Speaker 2: Far away from Alice Springs in Canberra, John Howard stands
Speaker 2: in front of a pack of journalists. It's June two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, and.
Speaker 5: We therefore believe that the action I'm about to outline
Speaker 5: is totally justified and warranted given our overarching responsibilities for
Speaker 5: the welfare of children throughout Australia.
Speaker 2: This moment will change the course of life for generations
Speaker 2: of people in l Springs and surrounds. And it started
Speaker 2: with a report.
Speaker 6: The Little Children of Sacred Report shun a light on
Speaker 6: the profound consequences of the breakdown of Aboriginal society. Most
Speaker 6: chilling of all was that child abuse was serious, widespread,
Speaker 6: and often unreported.
Speaker 2: In the shadows of the report made a series of
Speaker 2: recommendations around the government supporting and empowering Aboriginal people to
Speaker 2: address any abuse within their communities, but the government tossed
Speaker 2: that aside, instead using the allegations as a pretext to
Speaker 2: seizing control over the land, again stripping locals of any
Speaker 2: control over their lives. And sending in the military. The
Speaker 2: popular CDP program, a work for the Dull scheme that
Speaker 2: acted as a pathway out of welfare, was scrapped, forcing
Speaker 2: people back onto welfare.
Speaker 7: Widespread alcohol restrictions were enforced, there were medical examinations for
Speaker 7: children under sixteen. School attendance was linked to family payments,
Speaker 7: and government business managers were imposed. The Commonwealth moved to
Speaker 7: take controlled townships through changes to the Land Act. Police
Speaker 7: numbers were increased, and most controversial of all, half of
Speaker 7: welfare payments were quarantined for buying food and other essentials.
Speaker 2: The swiftness of the response, in all its clinical brutality,
Speaker 2: took how It and its Indigenous Affairs Minister mel Braff
Speaker 2: forty eight hours to draw up. We took everyone here
Speaker 2: by surprise, including the NTE government. No one living in
Speaker 2: the communities up here knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 2: It was scary. Were the army invading? Were they here
Speaker 2: to take the children away? To lock up all the men?
Speaker 4: Yes, I remember that when the army came here, it
Speaker 4: was pretty bad, and they made an excuse to go
Speaker 4: to the communities and they didn't care about whose place
Speaker 4: it was or anything.
Speaker 2: We've driven out to the west side of town. We've
Speaker 2: graciously been invited into the home of Arnie pat Ansel Dodds.
Speaker 2: She's an artist and respected Arunda elder. Her family are
Speaker 2: from here, but we're here at the point of first contact.
Speaker 2: This is her land, this is her town. Hello and yeah, Shame, Ruby,
Speaker 2: who's lined up the interview with Aunt, has her baby
Speaker 2: with her, trying to find a quiet spot for them
Speaker 2: while we record our conversation.
Speaker 8: A few grades.
Speaker 4: I have eight boys, three girls, and it's a boxing match.
Speaker 2: And how long have you been in Alice Springs itself?
Speaker 4: I have worked very hard over the years to speak
Speaker 4: out for my people. But what's the government's been doing,
Speaker 4: especially the things about the kids. When you look at
Speaker 4: our history, the white men never came till later on,
Speaker 4: and we're the last place that they came to to
Speaker 4: put the telegraph line through from Adelaide.
Speaker 2: Today, the telegraph station became a residential institution where Aboriginal
Speaker 2: children were taken when they were stolen from their families.
Speaker 4: Both my parents were put in there, and I didn't
Speaker 4: understand to lie was a bit older of all the
Speaker 4: things that happened to all the families around Australia, taking
Speaker 4: their children away and brainwashing them about their own history.
Speaker 2: Not ours. Arni Pat went on to become a nurse
Speaker 2: and in the midst of her career won a native
Speaker 2: title claim with their people. Her personal and professional advancement
Speaker 2: and Hartford Native Title victory made a thing. For a
Speaker 2: time things were improving, but the intervention changed all that.
Speaker 4: This younger generation is losing the plot and the government
Speaker 4: did this to them.
Speaker 2: The government did this, Yeah, why do you think they
Speaker 2: were doing it.
Speaker 4: It's just racism. It's an excuse to shut us down
Speaker 4: and take over the land and take over our communities,
Speaker 4: and that our people didn't have any rights anymore.
Speaker 2: The Intervention didn't end with Howard rud and Gillard kept
Speaker 2: it in place, ironically rebranding it Stronger Futures. Arni Pat
Speaker 2: watched on as outside as imposed a set of rules
Speaker 2: that removed the ability for her people to control their
Speaker 2: own lives.
Speaker 4: When you have people come into another town and they
Speaker 4: don't come from here, they don't know what to do,
Speaker 4: and then they have the police on their backs watching
Speaker 4: them all the time. But the younger generation just stuffed them.
Speaker 4: We will run amuck and that's what they do.
Speaker 2: In response, Anipat and other grandmothers established a group to
Speaker 2: patrol the streets of Alice at night to look for
Speaker 2: and look after kids on the streets in fear they'd
Speaker 2: be picked up by the police or the army.
Speaker 4: Well, we came together a few years ago, and we
Speaker 4: all came from here, this area, and we got together
Speaker 4: to fight for our rights to help these kids. We'd
Speaker 4: go out, especially at night, and go around the streets
Speaker 4: and talk to the kids and ask them what they're doing,
Speaker 4: because they'd walk around at night. But the worst thing
Speaker 4: was they'd be walking down the streets, but they'd be
Speaker 4: thinking of smashing things, things like that.
Speaker 2: How long was this strong grandmother's group together for?
Speaker 4: Oh, for a while, about twenty years?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow, And a lot of us are in the eighties
Speaker 4: and nineties, and we're getting tired. I an't keep fighting.
Speaker 4: I still see kids walking around at night and playing
Speaker 4: app and the parents try to stop them, but it's
Speaker 4: not happening.
Speaker 2: You have eight grandchildren of your own.
Speaker 4: Eight grandsons and three granddaughters.
Speaker 2: I see a photo of someone who graduated something up
Speaker 2: or something rather on the wall there. Yeah, yeah, who's that?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am just collecting few things and start putting
Speaker 4: things away because I'm going to Adelat's say that's my tripe.
Speaker 2: Only pat spent decades trying to protect the children of
Speaker 2: Old Springs from the government and his intervention. But now
Speaker 2: she's leading her. Paintings are leaning against cabinets and bookcases
Speaker 2: waiting to be packed. They depict the seven Arranda sisters
Speaker 2: being chased by a man, a story at the heart
Speaker 2: of the Arunda mythology. They'll go with her when she
Speaker 2: heads south. Right. For those that remain, there are remnants
Speaker 2: of the intervention all around. They're pillars of times passed
Speaker 2: which are still present today. The next day, Uncle Brian
Speaker 2: and Dami intact me to Charles Creek Town Camp to
Speaker 2: show me the remaining signs. So up, where are we?
Speaker 1: We're Charles Kreekkuno Camp, Little Blow Mission. There's where that
Speaker 1: under people need to live.
Speaker 2: Charles Creek is one of twenty or so camps in
Speaker 2: and around the town that the government officially calls Alll
Speaker 2: Springs Community Living areas. Some of the camps, such as
Speaker 2: Charles Creek, are old missions. It was where Aboriginal people
Speaker 2: were assigned patches of land when Europeans first settled here.
Speaker 2: People have called this place home for generations. The camp
Speaker 2: is fenced in a series of neatly kept homes are
Speaker 2: at the base of another rocky escarpment. We've arrived just
Speaker 2: after school's finished. There's a couple of girls in uniforms
Speaker 2: playing in one of the backyards. The fact that the
Speaker 2: town camps exist made it relatively easy during the intervention
Speaker 2: to control the people that live here. We're here to
Speaker 2: be introduced to some of the residents by Uncle Brian
Speaker 2: and Damien. First up, we meet young father Donald Kunos
Speaker 2: run here again. Daniel so Yah, one.
Speaker 3: Of the presidents of this block. So they wanted to
Speaker 3: come and check out some of them signs down here.
Speaker 3: A little bit of truth about what happens in Ana Springs.
Speaker 3: Here people get treated, how's the rent.
Speaker 2: Proven?
Speaker 3: Your identification? Everywhere you going on that side of Jazz.
Speaker 2: Damien remembers when a sign was put up on his
Speaker 2: block during the intervention.
Speaker 3: And when I see it, because I got dyslexty, I
Speaker 3: couldn't read it and I said, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: And someone was explaining it to me and.
Speaker 2: Know that what Yeah, No, it's always been like that.
Speaker 1: Some signs up there they're just saying that we can't
Speaker 1: have any alcohol or any pornography or any other stuff
Speaker 1: that's written on there so that we can't have it.
Speaker 2: And then there's another sign here. Do you want to
Speaker 2: Can anyone read this sign for me? You can read
Speaker 2: that it.
Speaker 3: Is an offense to drink or bring alcohol into this
Speaker 3: community or give alcohol to anyone.
Speaker 2: And again this has been planted in front of people's homes.
Speaker 2: That's right shame.
Speaker 3: How can you decorate your house and look respectable when
Speaker 3: you've got these sitting before you even enter your house.
Speaker 2: Do you think that people in the broader Australian community
Speaker 2: have any sort of understanding as to what's happening here?
Speaker 1: Nor people look at Ali Springer as a bad town.
Speaker 2: Charles Creek is one of the more pristine camps. They're
Speaker 2: tended to by a number of housing associations of various
Speaker 2: types of leases. They're not suburbs, they're not camps as
Speaker 2: weed know. What they are is places of segregation, a
Speaker 2: reminder of times before the intervention, when from the earliest
Speaker 2: days of European settlement, Ooriginal people and families were discouraged
Speaker 2: from living in the township. Uncle Brian is scathing about
Speaker 2: the state of the camp in which he lives.
Speaker 1: We living on Toba rubbish, not even a proper house,
Speaker 1: you know. We're happy with the river. Read been of
Speaker 1: power shower majority of the time.
Speaker 3: The sunstrings me because you don't have power, you don't
Speaker 3: have food, be ringing him sometimes for power and for food.
Speaker 3: And that's just linking up and supporting each other. But
Speaker 3: like I was saying, it's like we are all handicapped
Speaker 3: with this rent system.
Speaker 2: With everything you know. Lately.
Speaker 3: To be honest, I come in here and visit my family,
Speaker 3: but I haven't really pulled up and looked at this.
Speaker 3: And today we really looked at it, and actually reading
Speaker 3: about it, I'm thinking this sort of yeah, I bring
Speaker 3: it back a lot of a lot of anger and
Speaker 3: a lot of distrust within the government and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Where were you when you heard that the intervention was
Speaker 2: going to come through.
Speaker 1: I was at Loves Creek Station and I was working
Speaker 1: with name instead.
Speaker 2: And what was the reaction of you and some of
Speaker 2: the other fellows.
Speaker 1: Well, it was shocking and it was really sad for
Speaker 1: being indiganous men, you know. Yeah, to see Army's coming
Speaker 1: with guns and everything in it that freaked everybody out.
Speaker 1: Like to hear all these stories like when the indiventions
Speaker 1: come through mail Broth and all that. I would love
Speaker 1: to see Malbrook come back and say that it would
Speaker 1: be but you know, I've got a lot of things
Speaker 1: to put it on the table for him. If you're listening,
Speaker 1: mail Brock, come back and meet Brian Young in other springs.
Speaker 2: These men are proud fathers, grandfathers, and sons. The thought
Speaker 2: sort of harming their own flesh and blood is abhorrent
Speaker 2: to them. But the shame of being cast as drunks,
Speaker 2: drug users and pedophiles still lingers all these years later.
Speaker 2: The picture that was painted of Ourboriginal men here impacted
Speaker 2: mob right across the country. Now it's the next generation
Speaker 2: being impacted. I wanted to speak to some of the
Speaker 2: kids who brought me to all the springs, the kids
Speaker 2: on the news being shown as out of control. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 4: Today we're talking about I've got no life.
Speaker 2: We've come to a place where kids can rehabilitate. It's
Speaker 2: called bush mob, and it's motto is grog sniffing, drugs, crime, violence,
Speaker 2: no good. Where are we bush mod? And what's what's
Speaker 2: bush mob?
Speaker 4: Bush is like directing ned.
Speaker 2: What's your favorite part of it? Anything? Anything? What do
Speaker 2: you do?
Speaker 3: Bus trip?
Speaker 1: I like the bush tip just going out in the
Speaker 1: bush tomorrow.
Speaker 2: What are you going to be doing out there?
Speaker 8: Swimming?
Speaker 3: Anythink swimming?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What was it like being in juvenile.
Speaker 4: It's all right?
Speaker 8: Peaceful peace.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The facility is a bunch of demountables or donglas
Speaker 2: as they call them up here. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: It's the industrial part of town, like many n g
Speaker 2: O s here. The organization is broke. The pool table
Speaker 2: has sticky tape down its center to fix a tear.
Speaker 2: A few kids are playing pool, the others sitting around.
Speaker 2: There's lots of banter and not much to do. Jock
Speaker 2: McGregor is Bush Mob CEO.
Speaker 8: The kids we're seeing now are the kids?
Speaker 2: Are the kids?
Speaker 8: So they're the guys who got marginalize when the intervention
Speaker 8: came in, who got shuffled to the side or put
Speaker 8: into a service or DoD and then left with little
Speaker 8: to nose support. And then if you don't know how
Speaker 8: to look after yourself, you know how to look after kids,
Speaker 8: or if you will, we're getting what third fourth generation
Speaker 8: of welfare kids. That's what happens.
Speaker 2: Most of the kids here are Aboriginal and have either
Speaker 2: had brushes with the law or have been locked up.
Speaker 2: People can't walk in and kids can't walk out. It's
Speaker 2: harshly lit, with flickering fluorescent lights, giving everything a bluish tinge,
Speaker 2: but it's also an oasis. Kids will spend weeks to toxing,
Speaker 2: warned about the dangers of drugs and sniffing, and given
Speaker 2: time to think about their place in the world. You
Speaker 2: want to come in Avenan as well?
Speaker 5: Okay, what the hell's your mix?
Speaker 2: H Hello? How are you be cool? And how long
Speaker 2: are you? Then?
Speaker 4: I don't know?
Speaker 2: Yeah? For me? For me? Hell he mm hmm?
Speaker 1: Do you tell us a bit more about what you do?
Speaker 4: I do just like teasing the stuff and making annoying.
Speaker 2: Longer, making them their money making annoying there. What do
Speaker 2: you want to do when you get out of here?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Free, I'll be free.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he's going to be smoking direction.
Speaker 5: Nothing, I'm not smoke.
Speaker 2: Staff at bush Mob do their best, but the rap
Speaker 2: against it. It's run on a skeleton staff and therefore,
Speaker 2: in some circumstances can't provide enough support to the kids
Speaker 2: that are here the social and political environment is no
Speaker 2: longer conducing for the soft touch of organizations like bush Mob.
Speaker 8: Yeah, the kids come out fatter than they come in.
Speaker 2: That's the point.
Speaker 8: We're not fixing the problems at home. So young fella's
Speaker 8: got drama with family at home. We can't fix that.
Speaker 8: We can't go out to the community or where are
Speaker 8: the young fellow's from and have it so that everything's safe.
Speaker 8: But what we can do is make sure for the
Speaker 8: time that they're here, they're safe, they're fared, they're looked after.
Speaker 2: I think it's getting better or worse. Finally, Jock, I
Speaker 2: think think it's getting worse in here. I feel the
Speaker 2: sense of frustration and hopelessness that permeates these walls as
Speaker 2: much as it does the streets of our springs. Three
Speaker 2: generations of Aboriginal people have lived through it all. They
Speaker 2: are the children and grandchildren of the intervention. How many
Speaker 2: more generations are doomed to suffer the same fate. So
Speaker 2: anything this podcast goes out to everyone? Is there anything
Speaker 2: that you want to tell people of Australia about what
Speaker 2: your life is like and what your hopes are that
Speaker 2: sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Lafe is good.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think that good to see in the next
Speaker 2: episode the one agency tasked more than any other to
Speaker 2: arrest the problem here, the coppers. We want to do
Speaker 2: any want. As we sit here now in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: just at the start of your journey in this role,
Speaker 2: would you say that the Northern Territory Police is a
Speaker 2: racist institution.
Speaker 5: You see, once an Aboriginal person gets in the system,
Speaker 5: it's like glue.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a vortex. It's crazy shit.
Speaker 3: No matter how will I dress, no matter how high
Speaker 3: I am as a position title, no matter what sort
Speaker 3: of car I drive, I'm still an Aboriginal person.