Speaker 1: This town is a sad story, especially for black fellows,
Speaker 1: I guess for no Indigenus 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 fellow way. You call Alice Springs Alice. You know
Speaker 1: who's Alice. We don't know Alice. It's called umband.
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.
Speaker 2: Goodness with him is his son by, tall and slender,
Speaker 2: eighteen years of age, dressed in a Nike hoodie too
Speaker 2: much for a Southerner and a warm Central Australian day,
Speaker 2: but suitable for a local.
Speaker 3: Does my son bison bison the gae?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a bit warmer up here than it is
Speaker 4: in Albourne.
Speaker 2: Tell me about together. Uncle Brian, Damien, and Bison represent
Speaker 2: three generations of arunder men. Damien is in his thirties,
Speaker 2: looks like he's just jumped off the back of a steed.
Speaker 2: He's wearing a check shirt with the sleeves removed, jeans
Speaker 2: and boots, boots covered in dust, red dust. The town
Speaker 2: we're in now, the one his son Bison grew up in,
Speaker 2: has changed a lot since Damien was a kid.
Speaker 3: Well, growing up here. From a young person, there's a
Speaker 3: good little town.
Speaker 5: 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 going a bit sour, to be honest.
Speaker 2: What's it like living in Alice Springs? Pretty nice?
Speaker 6: It looks good now, but night time it looks to
Speaker 6: him good like trenches.
Speaker 3: Some vibes, you know.
Speaker 2: So he thinks better stay stay in your home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's too dangerous. We're not indigenous people like you
Speaker 1: and like me, being a local as d and a man,
Speaker 1: I don't feel safe ORGANI streets at night because I
Speaker 1: give a tack tooo.
Speaker 2: That's sad.
Speaker 1: You get one kid, walk up to your little twelve
Speaker 1: and I'll ask you for a cigarette, and you tell
Speaker 1: me you got nothing, He sings out for his mates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the little gangs and all that.
Speaker 2: It's those gangs that have become infamous here and across
Speaker 2: the country. Kids roaming the streets looking for trouble and
Speaker 2: if they can't find it, making trouble. Things really kicked
Speaker 2: off earlier this year with what's been described as a
Speaker 2: riot in town. He started at the Todd Tavern not
Speaker 2: 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 it. People or
Speaker 2: running up and fly kicking.
Speaker 3: They've taken twenty meter jumps and jumping in the glass
Speaker 3: trying to smash it.
Speaker 1: A flying sidekick punches rocks and even bricks.
Speaker 2: What a brick this is. When the headline started in
Speaker 2: cities and towns across Australia, we read about chaos and rampages.
Speaker 2: One newspaper described the kids here as tiny menaces stuck
Speaker 2: on a 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 7: They're hanging out the window honing through Alice Springs this resource.
Speaker 7: She was startled, according to police, by the children breaking
Speaker 7: into her home. She was then attacked and hit in
Speaker 7: the face with a rock by one.
Speaker 2: Police were given extraordinary powers to arrest the violence to
Speaker 2: put an end to it.
Speaker 8: An emergency situation has been declared in Alice Springs following
Speaker 8: a wave of violence in the Northern Territory town.
Speaker 7: These curf ears for both adults and children and will
Speaker 7: be enforced from ten pm to six am between those
Speaker 7: who will back our police to enact this curfew and
Speaker 7: do what is needed to improve community safety in Alice Springs.
Speaker 2: Like fly in and fly out workers, politicians arrived to
Speaker 2: blame one another for the carnage. The people of Alice
Speaker 2: Springs became political footballs in the process.
Speaker 8: And you've got kids here tonight who are going to
Speaker 8: be sexually abused or families where domestic violence has now
Speaker 8: become a current occurrence.
Speaker 7: Sending the riot Squad the eightyf whoever it takes to
Speaker 7: bring calm to our streets.
Speaker 2: It 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 harder things Alice Springs ata to hear
Speaker 2: the voices of people here. I want to know what
Speaker 2: happens when the great Australian silence once again surrouds this
Speaker 2: town once the carnival of political debate heads down the road,
Speaker 2: and how all the interventions big and small by governments
Speaker 2: of or persuasions have led to this moment of chaos.
Speaker 2: What I found is that almost all of it leads
Speaker 2: back to one thing. I'm Daniel James and you're listening
Speaker 2: to seven AM. This is Alas Springs Episode one, Children
Speaker 2: of the Intervention. This episode was first published in October
Speaker 2: last year.
Speaker 3: Lately, as I 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 a bit afraid.
Speaker 2: Damien's offered to take us on a tour of the town.
Speaker 2: This is us driving around with him and Bison. The
Speaker 2: media reporting has been pretty full on Euck and that's
Speaker 2: had an effect on tourism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think it's scared away a lot of
Speaker 3: even people with small businesses, lot of local people.
Speaker 2: I have been here before and there's a noticeable change
Speaker 2: for starters. You can't buy a drink here to take
Speaker 2: away on Mondays and Tuesdays. The bars are empty. The
Speaker 2: thriving backpacker 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. 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 magistrates court, and the biggest building of all,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court's.
Speaker 3: A big Supreme court that just stands and I don't
Speaker 3: know what they're doing there.
Speaker 2: That's the prime. The Supreme Court building is a big one.
Speaker 3: It's it's really big, but I don't know if there's
Speaker 3: any purpose for them right now.
Speaker 2: These buildings look dormant, but this hides the fact that
Speaker 2: more Aboriginal people are being sentenced to prison than ever before.
Speaker 2: There's been a twenty three percent increase in Indigenous incarceration
Speaker 2: in the past five years. Children age between fourteen and
Speaker 2: seventeen are incarcerated at a higher rate in the Northern
Speaker 2: Territory than anywhere else in the country.
Speaker 3: But here's here's the 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 up to our good and we've
Speaker 3: got half of our elders and our leaders in the
Speaker 3: nightclub and when they come out, they're seeing as just
Speaker 3: as bad as the young people. So you know, every
Speaker 3: weekend some of our leaders are acting like children.
Speaker 2: Inside the only shopping center, the bottles are once again open,
Speaker 2: and there are lines out the front with police checking
Speaker 2: IDs before people enter. There are two lines with one
Speaker 2: copper each assigned to check where people live, to make
Speaker 2: sure they don't live somewhere where alcohol is forbidden. Middle
Speaker 2: aged white people are waved through. What did you see?
Speaker 1: Please relate White fans walks throight and black fives can't
Speaker 1: that has one hundred question you did to get a six.
Speaker 5: 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: their focus is on the problems here and now I
Speaker 2: sense that. So I asked them about it. When did
Speaker 2: that sort of violence and 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 we were
Speaker 1: from 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 9: Are we ready well, ladies and gentlemen, mister Bruff and
Speaker 9: I have called this new conference to announce a number
Speaker 9: of major measures to deal with what we can only
Speaker 9: describe as a national emergency in relation to the abuse
Speaker 9: 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.
Speaker 9: And we therefore believe that the action I'm about to
Speaker 9: outline is totally justified and warranted given our overarching responsibilities
Speaker 9: for 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 8: The Little Children of Sacred Report shun a light on
Speaker 8: the profound consequences of the breakdown of Aboriginal society. Most
Speaker 8: chilling of all was that child abuse was serious, widespread
Speaker 8: 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 10: Widespread alcohol restrictions were enforced, there were medical examinations for
Speaker 10: children under sixteen. School attendance was linked to family payments,
Speaker 10: and government business managers were imposed. The Commonwealth moved to
Speaker 10: take controlled townships through changes to the Land Act. Police
Speaker 10: numbers were increased, and most controversial of all, half of
Speaker 10: 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 Howard and its Indigenous Affairs Minister mel Braff forty
Speaker 2: eight hours was to draw up. We took everyone here
Speaker 2: by surprise, including the anti 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 6: Yes, I remember that when the army came here, it
Speaker 6: was pretty bad and they made an excuse to go
Speaker 6: to their communities, and they didn't care about whose place
Speaker 6: 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,
Speaker 2: rub 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 conversationes.
Speaker 6: Eight boys, three girls and it's a boxing match.
Speaker 2: And how long have you been in Alice Springs itself?
Speaker 6: I have worked very hard over the years to speak
Speaker 6: out for my people. But what's the government's been doing,
Speaker 6: especially the things about the kids. When you look at
Speaker 6: our history, the white men never came till later on,
Speaker 6: and we're the last place that they came to to
Speaker 6: put the telegraph line through from Adelaide to Darwin.
Speaker 2: The telegraph station became a residential institution where Aboriginal children
Speaker 2: were taken when they were stolen from their families.
Speaker 6: Both my parents were put in there and I didn't
Speaker 6: understand to lie was a bit older of all the
Speaker 6: things that happened to all the families around Australia, taking
Speaker 6: their children away and brainwashing them about their own history,
Speaker 6: not ours.
Speaker 2: Arniepat went on to become a nurse and in the
Speaker 2: midst of her career won a native title claim with
Speaker 2: their people. Her personal and professional advancement and Hartford Native
Speaker 2: title victory made a thing. For a time things were improving,
Speaker 2: but the Intervention changed all that.
Speaker 6: This younger generation is losing the plot and the government
Speaker 6: did this to them.
Speaker 2: The government did this, Yeah, why do you think they
Speaker 2: were doing it.
Speaker 6: It's just racism. It's an excuse to shut us down
Speaker 6: and a land and take over our communities and that
Speaker 6: our people didn't have any 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 6: When you have people come into another town and they
Speaker 6: don't come from here, they don't know what to do,
Speaker 6: and then they have the police on their backs watching
Speaker 6: them all the time. But the younger generation just stuffed
Speaker 6: them 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 ALUs 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 6: Well, we came together a few years ago, and we
Speaker 6: all came from here, this area, and we got together
Speaker 6: to fight for our rights to help these kids. We'd
Speaker 6: go out, especially at night, and go around the streets
Speaker 6: and talk to the kids and ask them what they're doing,
Speaker 6: because they'd walk around at night. But the worst thing
Speaker 6: was they'd be walking down the streets but they'd be
Speaker 6: thinking of smashing things, things like that.
Speaker 2: How long was the Strong Grandmothers group together for?
Speaker 6: Oh, for a while, about twenty years?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Wow, And a lot of us are in the eighties
Speaker 6: and nineties, and we're getting tired. We can't keep fighting.
Speaker 6: I still see kids walking around at night and playing
Speaker 6: up and the parents try to stop them, but it's
Speaker 6: not happening.
Speaker 2: You have eight grandchildren of your own.
Speaker 6: 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 4: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: I am just collecting few things and start putting things
Speaker 6: away because I'm going to let's say.
Speaker 2: That's my.
Speaker 6: Tribe.
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 leaving. Her paintings are leaning against cabinets and bookcases
Speaker 2: waiting to be packed. They depict the seven Arrander sisters
Speaker 2: being chased by a man, a story at the heart
Speaker 2: of the Arrander mythology. They'll go with it when she
Speaker 2: heads south.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: For those that remain, there are remnants of the intervention
Speaker 2: all around. They are pillars of times passed which are
Speaker 2: still present today. The next day, Uncle Brian and Damian
Speaker 2: tact me to Charles Creek town camp to show me
Speaker 2: the remaining signs. So where are we?
Speaker 1: We're Charles Creek, who not camp Little Blow missioned? There's
Speaker 1: where that 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 oboriginal 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 at
Speaker 2: the base of another rocky escarpment. We've arrived just after
Speaker 2: school's finished. There's a couple of girls in uniforms playing
Speaker 2: in one of the backyards. The fact that the town
Speaker 2: camps exists made it relatively easy during the intervention to
Speaker 2: control the people that live here. We're here to be
Speaker 2: introduced to some of the residents by Uncle Brian and Damien.
Speaker 2: First up, we meet young father Donald Kunos run here again, Daniel, So, yeah.
Speaker 3: One of the presidents here of this block. So they
Speaker 3: want to come and check out some of them signs
Speaker 3: down here. A little bit of truth about what happens
Speaker 3: in outa Springs. Here people get treated, how's the rent.
Speaker 1: 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 dyslection, I
Speaker 3: couldn't read it and I said, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: And someone was explaining it to me and I.
Speaker 2: Was like 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: written on there says 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 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: 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: No right, 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, our original people and families were
Speaker 2: discouraged from living in the township. Uncle Brian is scathing
Speaker 2: about the state of the camp in which he leaves.
Speaker 1: We living on Toba rubbish, don't even a proper house,
Speaker 1: you know. We're happy with the river red bit of
Speaker 1: power shower.
Speaker 3: Majority of the time. This unstrings me because you don't
Speaker 3: have power, you don't have food. I be ringing him
Speaker 3: sometimes for power and for food, and that's just you know,
Speaker 3: linking up and supporting each other. But like I was saying,
Speaker 3: it's like we are all handicapped with this rent system
Speaker 3: with everything you know.
Speaker 2: 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: back a lot of lot of anger and a lot
Speaker 3: 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. I was working with
Speaker 1: Dame instead.
Speaker 2: And what was the reaction of you and some of
Speaker 2: the other fellas well.
Speaker 1: It was shocking and it was really sad for being
Speaker 1: indiganous men, you know. Yeah, to see Army's coming with
Speaker 1: guns and everything in it that freaked everybody out. Like
Speaker 1: to hear all these stories, like when the indiventions come
Speaker 1: through with mal Broth and all that. I would love
Speaker 1: to see Malbrock 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: of harming their own flesh and blood is abhorrent to them.
Speaker 2: But the shame of being cast as drunks, drug users
Speaker 2: and head of philes 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. There
Speaker 2: you go.
Speaker 6: 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 mob? And what's what's
Speaker 2: bush mob?
Speaker 5: Bushamb is like drugs in that.
Speaker 2: Called what's your favorite part of it?
Speaker 5: Anything? I don't know anything.
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 5: Bus trip?
Speaker 2: I like the bush chip, just going out into the bush.
Speaker 5: Yeah tomorrow.
Speaker 2: What are you going to be doing out there?
Speaker 5: I'm swimming anything swimming?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What being in juvenile?
Speaker 5: It's so right peaceful. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The facility is a bunch of demountables or donglers as
Speaker 2: they call them up here. I don't know why. It's
Speaker 2: the industrial part of town. Like many NGOs here. The
Speaker 2: organization is broke. The pool table has sticky tape down
Speaker 2: as center to fix a tear. A few kids are
Speaker 2: playing pool, the others sitting around. There's lots of banter
Speaker 2: and not much to do. Jock McGregor is bush moob CEO.
Speaker 5: The kids we're seeing now are the kids? Are the kids?
Speaker 11: So they're the guys who got marginalized when the intervention
Speaker 11: came in, who got shuffled to the side or put
Speaker 11: into a service or do and then left with little
Speaker 11: to no support. And then if you don't know how
Speaker 11: to look after yourself, how to look after kids, or
Speaker 11: if you we're getting what third fourth generation of welfare kids.
Speaker 5: 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 Avenana as well?
Speaker 5: Okay, what the hell?
Speaker 2: Hello? How are do you you?
Speaker 6: Food?
Speaker 2: And how long have you been in here?
Speaker 9: I don't know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: For me?
Speaker 6: For me, hell is here? Mm hmm, I do just
Speaker 6: like teasing the stuff and making.
Speaker 2: Annoy longer, making them their money annoying, then't it. What
Speaker 2: do you want to do when you get out of here?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Free, I'll be free.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's going to be smoking diruction, nothing good like
Speaker 6: I'm half 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 5: Yeah, the kids come out fatter than they come in.
Speaker 5: That's the point.
Speaker 11: We're not fixing the problems at home, Surf. Young fella's
Speaker 11: got drama with family at home. We can't fix that.
Speaker 11: We can't go out to the community or where are
Speaker 11: the young fella's from and have it so that everything's safe.
Speaker 11: But what we can do is make sure for the
Speaker 11: 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.
Speaker 5: Finally, Jock, I think it's getting worse.
Speaker 2: In here. I feel the sense of frustration and hopelessness
Speaker 2: that permeates these walls as much as it does the
Speaker 2: streets of Alice Springs. Three generations of Aboriginal people have
Speaker 2: lived through it all. They are the children and grandchildren
Speaker 2: of the intervention. How many more generations are doomed to
Speaker 2: suffer the same fate.
Speaker 4: So you think this podcast goes out to everyone, Is
Speaker 4: there anything that you want to tell people of Australia
Speaker 4: about what your life is like and what your hopes
Speaker 4: are that sort.
Speaker 2: Of thing.
Speaker 5: Laces cook sometimes make that.
Speaker 2: DSA in the next episode. The one agency tasked more
Speaker 2: than any other to arrest the problem here, the coppers.
Speaker 2: We want to do any more want as we sit
Speaker 2: here now in twenty twenty four, just at the start
Speaker 2: of your journing in this role, would you say that
Speaker 2: the Northern Territory Police is a racist institution.
Speaker 7: You see, once an Aboriginal person gets in the system,
Speaker 7: it's like glue.
Speaker 8: You know, it's a vortex.
Speaker 6: 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.