WEBVTT - Daniel James on the children of the Intervention 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:05.000 Hey there, I'm Ruby Jones. This week on seven AM, 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:07.080 some of the best writers in the country are reading 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:11.960 out their long form stories. Today we have my co host, Yorder, 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:16.600 writer and broadcaster Daniel James. Last year, Daniel and I 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.600 traveled to Alie Springs together to report out the series 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.400 This Is Alice Springs. We wanted to look behind the 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.799 shocking headlines to find out why this town at the 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.880 heart of Australia had become a place of segregation and chaos. 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.240 We spoke with elders, community workers, the police and the 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:37.920 children at the center of these stories. And what we 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:39.800 found is that a lot of the trouble in Alice 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.000 Springs can be traced back to one thing. On the 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.360 last night that we were there, Daniel reflected on his 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.000 experience writing this essay for the October edition of the Monthly. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:51.839 Next week, Daniel and I will be back with our 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:56.240 usual programming. But now here's Daniel James reading Children of 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:22.800 the Intervention. It's Friday, January tenth. 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.959 They did this, not us. It's what Arnie pat Ansel 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.040 Dodds tells me in the living room of her small 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.440 flat on the west side of Alice Springs. She's a 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.520 gentlewoman seventy six years old and a grandmother to twelve. 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.520 She's an accomplished and recognized artist. Her work has been 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.040 projected onto the Sydney Opera House. She's a lecturer and 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:46.679 a guardian to generations of children on the streets of 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.160 the town where she grew up, on land that has 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.840 belonged to her people, the Arranda for thousands of generations. 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.520 Yet when talk turns from her art and the glowing 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.320 reminiscences of her grandchildren to the state of things in 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.480 Alice Spring in twenty twenty four, and the myriad of 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.520 intertwined events, contemporary and historical, that have led to this point, 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:11.040 she gets angry, real angry that this, she refers to, 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.200 is the state between listlessness and chaos that has overcome 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.760 her town, a place now almost unrecognizable to her. She 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.560 is tired the pace have changed, The erosion of civility 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:24.680 and openness in a place that has always had its 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.840 problems can't be tolerated anymore. She has tried. She established 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.280 a grandmother's group to patrol Alice Springs in the wake 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.440 of the intervention, to assist and look after kids wandering 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.799 the streets. But now the crime the poverty and the 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.919 racism in all its guisers are all too much. Kids 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.160 are running a muck in a town rife with fetal 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:50.000 alcohol spectrum disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, and boredom. A 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:54.600 generation that can't see any prospects, no way forward. They 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.320 are jaded and angry, and they're not interested in the 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.679 social contract. Playing by the rules in posed on them 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.760 hasn't worked, and they've had more rules dictate their lives 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:08.840 than most. They are the children of the intervention. Arni 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.480 Pat will head south to Adelaide by the year's end, 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.440 unlikely to return. It's a sad end for the community 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:19.600 she has spent a lifetime serving. The thea she refers 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.880 to is the government territorian and federal, but mainly federal. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.960 It was the tear that used its powers to override 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.440 the Aboriginal people, families and communities of the Northern Territory. 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.120 It was the level of government that set the army 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.880 in and suspended the Racial Discrimination Act, making the knife 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.640 that was the intervention cut deeper. There was nothing refined 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.240 about what was imposed on the people here. The bipartisan 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.240 support that saw any semblance of self determination obliterated in 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.880 the Northern territory was decided upon a political class during 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.800 the Howard era, so far removed from the lives it 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.720 would impact. This is where so much of the anger 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.640 was directed, because that's where so much of the stems 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.880 from from the outside. The town is the ultimate real 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.440 world example of the great Australian silence, that cloak that 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.920 shrouds all when the problem becomes too big, too hard, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.680 out of line with the tanned bronze and odsy blue 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.640 image we've pained for ourselves. I came to Alice Springs 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.200 determined not to be swayed by the meati's betrayal of 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.480 a lawless and out of controlled town, a place where 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.280 curfews have been the only way to arrest the havoc 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.160 wreaked upon the streets by youth crime. I came expecting 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.680 to hear those stories, but I also anticipated speaking to 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.600 people who are willing to defend their patch, the place 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.080 where they grew up and raise their family. What I 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:45.279 heard was to spare anger and distrust. The spike in crime, theft, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.320 aggravated burglaries, home invasions, assaults goes a long way to 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.279 explaining the tense atmosphere. There's an undertone about the place 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.520 from afar. Alice Springs is a whirlpool of myth and truth. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.200 Chaos is how Alice spread of the past few years 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.680 was described to me by nt Australian of the Year, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.800 Blair McFarlane, someone instrumental in solving the petrol sniffing crisis 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.720 that played the territory for decades. He describes the town 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:17.360 with competing interests but few solutions, a regional center. We're 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.440 on the surface nobody can readily explain what's going on, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.800 but deep down everyone knows what's happening and has theories 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.800 about as underlying causes. The theorizing isn't spoken about in 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.960 public in meetings of the citizenry, thoughts and feelings become 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.880 pent up and are blurted out in the safe confines 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.560 of their gated social media communities. Taking a look at 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.840 local Facebook pages, it's easy to see why Alice Springs 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.360 seems brooding. The following posts, the most recent I read 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:49.000 upon my arrival in town, are from a page that 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.919 describes themselves as action for Alice Springs. Absolute disgrace to 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:57.760 see caretakers of the land destroy Alice Springs. These indigenous 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.839 people have no respect for any other race themselves. Another 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.480 one read it's easy fix, just get the shotgun out 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.560 and put a few way over their heads. Waste of 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:13.360 a cartridge. There are thousands of more posts along these lines, racist, hateful, 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.919 and angry, as scary and horrific, as many of the 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.680 instances of crime have been, everyone I spoke to acknowledges 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.440 that what's being committed are crimes of poverty. There are 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.800 no master criminals here. Most of the kids get caught 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.719 and know they're going to get caught. They're sent to 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:35.520 detention and watchhouses and then released to invariably reoffend because 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.560 that's all they know to do. Plus, as a sixteen 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.279 year old fresh added don Dale US Detention Center told me, 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.320 the food is good in jail. The intervention through thousands 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:49.840 of Aboriginal Territorians under welfare overnight. The abolishment of the 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.040 Community Development Employment Projects Program, a work for the dole 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.839 type arrangement that allowed flexibility and a potential career path, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.960 particularly for people in remote community, was a huge disruptor. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.640 Now it's all badged as enhanced income management and cashless 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.840 welfare cards. McFarlan explains how the cards created a link 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.160 between poverty and youth crime. Before the intervention, a hungry 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.400 kick could go to any adult and the adult would 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.480 have cash in their pocket, even if it's only five bucks. 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.480 That's all you need, and that's all you give a kid. 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:25.960 But now you've only got a car with all your 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.160 money on it, you're not going to give that to 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.840 a hungry kid. So those kids used to be able 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.200 to get a feed anywhere anytime. They were held up 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.040 by the sort of social net in that way, but 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.240 the welfare card unraveled that net, and so the kids 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:44.240 are now hunting for themselves and breaking in and stealing food. 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.560 To live on welfare in Australia is to live below 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.400 the poverty line. In cities and suburbs. That results in 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.560 thousands barely keeping their head above water. In the Northern Territory, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.520 to live below the poverty line is to drown. Poverty 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.200 runs deep here. The cost of living here is astronomical, 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.640 and it becomes more expensive the more remote you are. 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.400 Ten dollars for two liters of milk, thirty dollars for 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.560 five hundred grams of mints. Capitalism's models of supply and 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.400 deman don't work in this expanse. The supply chain is 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.960 so vast factors impacting upon the price of things are 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.720 beyond people's control. This is why Aboriginal people from all 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.360 over Australia have come to well Springs as economic refugees. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.920 People from remote bush communities have arrived seeking relief and 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.559 access to services, housing, and the labor market that they 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.360 can't get anywhere else. Like in the early colonial days 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.719 in the glowing embers of first contact, the displacement of 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.600 traditional owner groups and their forts, encroachment onto the land 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:51.680 of others has in itself resulted intension. Lateral violence is 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.600 prevalent here and is thought to be responsible for some 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.320 of the brawls and fights in recent years. Resentment, the 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.559 loss of any sense of self determined nation, and alcohol 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.080 are a toxic combination. Most simply see it as an 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.560 alcohol problem. Foreign tourists may not notice any of this. 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.480 The troubles aren't printed on the brochures, and the town 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.800 is in the burning wreck. Chaos is sometimes like that, 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:20.360 still anominous. It isn't always fires and crashing windows. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.400 Coming up after the break. The impact of the voice 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.560 debate on this already segregated town. 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.480 I've spoken to teenagers and diversion programs the people who 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.160 run those programs. Three generations of arunder men. Members of 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.000 the police force, worry young mothers. Frontline drug and alcohol 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.840 workers are residents of some of the camps just outside 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.080 the town. Everyone is tried their best in their own 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.440 small way to arrest the decline, but the sense of 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.559 hopelessness is never too far away from any given conversation 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.040 about what's happening to them. It hangs in the fresh 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.280 desert air. The town I visited in the past is 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:18.080 long gone. It's still a bustling civic center, and the 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.800 traffic from the highway and other materials rolls through the day. 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.000 In this part of the world, all roads lead Towell 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.400 the Springs, but that distinct. This is where we landed. 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.079 Let's make the most of it. Feel with bars full 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.200 of backpackers and tourists has vanished. There's a glood of 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.120 houses on the property market, at least two hundred listed 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.720 a fact. Local real estate agents are trying to hush up. 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:46.360 People might start asking why night spots have closed and 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.240 the ones that remain are more or less empty. That 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.040 couldn't care less demeanor has been replaced by a caution. 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.480 People are watchful and reserved it makes a rife hunting 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.800 ground for cynical politicians looking to make a point. Last year, 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.480 the year of the doomed referendum on the Voice to Parliament, 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.360 the political class with Metior in tow, once again descended 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.679 on Alice Springs like fly in fly out workers. The 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.120 town became a political tumble dryer, used to churn up 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.120 the news cycle with stories of crime waves, alcohol and 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.200 drug issues, betraying a place in the heart of Australia 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.000 that was only just clinging on to civilization. The argument 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:26.920 went that the Voice would do nothing to help the 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.120 people of Alice Springs and Central Australia. The problems were 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:35.440 too complex for a distant, constitutionally enshrined Canberra Voice. No 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:40.280 real alternatives were tabled as solutions, just outrage and stagnation. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.000 Many locals resented the spotlight. Others thought the cavalry were 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.960 on their way again. But from an Aboriginal perspective, it 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.160 was another case of being spoken about, not spoken too. 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.200 They felt like specimens picked up, held against the light 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.679 and examined from every angle. And for what. In the 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.360 years since, nothing has changed. It was a cold intervention. 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.560 The Voice is now just a distant memory. The people 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.319 in the town camps are dismissive of it. Their problems 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.199 are real and present. In twenty twenty four, the effects 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.680 of the hot Intervention of two thousand and seven to 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.080 twenty twenty two are still deeply felt. Reminders of it 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.560 are everywhere. The signage in front of the Charles Creek 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.680 town Camp, erected in the early days of the army's 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:32.480 incursion in mt still stands. It warns of the penalties 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.560 for domestic violence, sexual abuse, being caught with alcohol, and 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:41.160 so on. The placards are directly outside family homes, and 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.360 they bring great shame to the men and women of 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:47.800 the camps and embarrassment to the children. White kids don't 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.440 have to deal with the same humiliation. The intervention is 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.200 the ultimate exemplar of the top down approach. It's the 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.440 worst way to plan and implement policy, and it results 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.559 in a road of trust between government and Aboriginal communities, 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.160 making it impossible to achieve the long terms social and 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.720 economic improvements the intervention ostensibly sought to bring about. The 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.240 picture is bleak, there's no getting around it, but there 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.400 is good here. It resides in the generosity of the 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.119 people I've spoken to. They have shared their time and stories, 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.920 and they have made themselves vulnerable in their despair and anger. 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.600 They want a way forward out of the mess imposed 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.640 on them, but they need help from the same systems 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:35.480 and apparatus that obliterated their independence, sense of self, and 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.200 a generation's future. So much of the anger lives in 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.240 that realization. For every trial the Intervention may have saved, 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.040 there are now thousands across two generations who have been 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.240 shaped by its shock waves, forced into dark places, a 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.200 place where self determination is seen as the good old days. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.600 The old people who fought to reign control of their 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.960 lives are now mostly gone. They were part of the 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.520 generations that could have woven perspective into the current dismay, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.800 but they can't help navigate what's happening here from beyond 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.480 the grave. As for the children of our springs, there 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.800 are many whose parents are themselves children of the Intervention. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.520 This is the only world they've known. The chances of 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.320 breaking the cycle are slim. The sad reality may be 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.600 that the world will have to wait until the children 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:28.440 of the Intervention, if they make it, become elders themselves. 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:34.160 A generation valued by black and white Australia, The survivors 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:36.920 of what is happening here, may, in the decades to come, 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.920 have merge to caution us not to come this way again. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:43.880 To deprive people of their independence and their ability to 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.360 move beyond their appointed station, To thrust them onto welfare, 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.840 and then blame them for what ensued is careless, cruel, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:56.200 and unforgivable. Their children and grandchildren will thank them for 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.960 their wisdom and their strength, and they will come to 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.640 know us here in twenty twenty four, more than we 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:03.760 are willing to know ourselves.