Speaker 1: This episode is the third part of a three part series.
Speaker 1: If you haven't yet, start with Children of the Intervention
Speaker 1: and then listen to the Coppers. Also, it contains some
Speaker 1: strong language.
Speaker 2: Most of us have lived in his camps all their life.
Speaker 2: I've moved out, I've come back, grew up in Charles Creek.
Speaker 1: So you got some kids on your own, yep, what
Speaker 1: are your hopes and dreams for them?
Speaker 2: They've got brains, they do go to school all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got my eldest daughter and who's almost finished year twelve,
Speaker 2: and she's straight into her health worker's course straight after
Speaker 2: school holidays and the other ones in year ten and yeah,
Speaker 2: she's pursuing what she wants to do now through the
Speaker 2: VET courses through school.
Speaker 1: I'm at Charles Creek Camp, just on the edge of
Speaker 1: Alice Springs. It's its own little community at the bottom
Speaker 1: of a hill. I'm talking to her an a while
Speaker 1: we talk. Her kids are playing nearby, still in their uniforms,
Speaker 1: just home from school. They're burning off that last bit
Speaker 1: of energy before dinner and settling in for the night.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know what it's been like to live here
Speaker 1: under the glaring spotlight of governments, but never to be seen,
Speaker 1: only monitored, to live a life within the ever tightening
Speaker 1: parameters decided by the state, the latest one being the
Speaker 1: curfews imposed earlier this year. Kids weren't allowed on the
Speaker 1: streets after six pm.
Speaker 2: It was horrible. Like I've just finished the season being
Speaker 2: an under seventies coach for the girl's side into Alice.
Speaker 2: It was a bit hard because we had to bring
Speaker 2: our training times earlier just so the kids could be
Speaker 2: home before the certain time, which was silly because none
Speaker 2: of my girls was involved with any of the rubbish
Speaker 2: that was going on around town and it really affected
Speaker 2: our training ways. So yeah, it was pretty stupid that
Speaker 2: we got affected from it really bad.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the typical thing that happens in
Speaker 1: the territory is that everyone gets tired with the same
Speaker 1: brush because you know, a certain number of people are
Speaker 1: playing up and then everyone has to suffer as a result.
Speaker 2: Is that the way you feel, Yep, exactly the way
Speaker 2: I feel. It's you know, it's not our problem. It
Speaker 2: should be brought upon their guardians, their parents or whatever
Speaker 2: with whoever's doing wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so no one's talking to each other. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what it seems to me. No one's actually you
Speaker 1: can sort of like enforce the law. You can bring
Speaker 1: in curfews, you can bring in the interventions through the
Speaker 1: army and stuff, but actually no one's actually sitting down
Speaker 1: and talking with people to find out what the problem
Speaker 1: is and what the solution is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'll be right if we could do that. But
Speaker 2: no one's game enough to get out and talk about it.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it must be pretty exhausting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is being locals and lived all our life.
Speaker 1: So yeah, do you see a long term future here
Speaker 1: for yourself and your family at the moment? No, So
Speaker 1: where would you.
Speaker 2: Go somewhere out of Alice Springs?
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's not so much the crime wave that's driving
Speaker 1: Renee out of Alice Springs. It's been the response to it.
Speaker 1: People who are trying their best are looked on with suspicion.
Speaker 1: It's tiring having to prove yourself time and time again
Speaker 1: to do the little things, go to the shops, drive
Speaker 1: a car, raise a family. Every Aboriginal person here is
Speaker 1: under the same pressure. The thing that needs fixing is
Speaker 1: not Renee or her family, but they continue or trespassing
Speaker 1: on their lives by clerks and coppers. She's not alone
Speaker 1: wanting to leave Alice. Those who can afford it are
Speaker 1: packing up and leaving. There are for sale signs everywhere
Speaker 1: you go in town. There's a glut of homes on
Speaker 1: the market. So what are the people that remain want?
Speaker 1: What's working or needs to happen to make things work,
Speaker 1: the little things that can make a big difference. I'm
Speaker 1: Daniel James and you're listening to seven am. This is
Speaker 1: Ala Springs Episode three in part way. This episode was
Speaker 1: first published in October last year.
Speaker 3: Thank you everyone. What an incredible group of dedicated, hard
Speaker 3: working Territorians. How good is it to be Territorian tonight?
Speaker 1: There's a new government in the territory and its leader
Speaker 1: has promised solutions. Earlier this year, Lea Finiguiaro became the
Speaker 1: new Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. She won on
Speaker 1: a landslide, almost completely wiping out the Labor Party from parliament,
Speaker 1: reinstalling the Country Liberal Party to power.
Speaker 3: As a born and bred's second generation Territory King, the
Speaker 3: granddaughter of Italian migrants, I grew up living in an
Speaker 3: iconic territory. Childhood camping, fishing and playing outside I always
Speaker 3: knew the territory was a special place, and I was
Speaker 3: lucky to be a Territorian growing up here.
Speaker 1: The new Chief Minister's just turned forty, but she's been
Speaker 1: in Parliament for thirteen years. She's clp through and through
Speaker 1: as much a part of the political establishment as you
Speaker 1: can get here. The dawn of this era looks strangely
Speaker 1: like the old one. It's another territory and looking back
Speaker 1: at this place as they remember to get back to
Speaker 1: those times. The new Chief Minister will be implementing her
Speaker 1: tough on crime agenda.
Speaker 3: Territorians have stood up against nearly two decades of escalating
Speaker 3: crime and economy going backwards, and the erosion of our
Speaker 3: once iconic lifestyle. But tomorrow is the start of a
Speaker 3: new day.
Speaker 4: And a new shutter.
Speaker 1: She's promised to lower the age of criminal responsibility to ten,
Speaker 1: tightening already type by all laws. Skills will have truancy officers,
Speaker 1: and there's the threat to restrict government benefits for parents
Speaker 1: of kids who misbehave. Police will be given more powers
Speaker 1: to search kids as young as ten if they're considered suspicious.
Speaker 1: The greyest of law enforcement criteria spit hoods banned after
Speaker 1: the dondal Ryal Commission will be back the prison itself
Speaker 1: in the midst of a makeover, new and improved the house,
Speaker 1: all the incarcerated children to come.
Speaker 5: CLP are proposing on the issue of you with crime
Speaker 5: to reducing the age of criminal responsibility back to ten
Speaker 5: from twelve years of age. Yes, what experts have said
Speaker 5: that this is a good idea? And what have they said?
Speaker 3: Well, the experts of the CLP listen to are the
Speaker 3: everyday territories who are out there sick and tired of
Speaker 3: being victims of crime. We had Holo promises.
Speaker 1: So they're her solutions. But what about the locals. Before
Speaker 1: we came to Waller Springs, we called a lot of people, elders, lawyers,
Speaker 1: health workers, a lot of people who have been fighting
Speaker 1: over decades to try and improve the plight of people
Speaker 1: living here. Blair McFarland's name kept on coming up, so
Speaker 1: we set up a meeting with him. We meet him
Speaker 1: at the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens, the desert gardens, nestled
Speaker 1: at the base of one of the hills of the
Speaker 1: East McDonald Rangers. The sky is blue and the morning
Speaker 1: sun is warm ay blaze. After decades of work on
Speaker 1: the front line. He's approaching retirement and is at the
Speaker 1: point where he can tell it like it is, Call
Speaker 1: that anyone or any agency that needs to be called out.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm Blair McFarland. One of my things is that
Speaker 6: I'm twenty twenty four inty Australian. Every year I say that,
Speaker 6: so you know, I've got a little bit of generally
Speaker 6: sort of acknowledged cred in case you've never heard of me, which,
Speaker 6: of course the vast majority of.
Speaker 1: Will never have. Blair arrived here in the mid eighties
Speaker 1: from Melbourne and fell in love with the place and
Speaker 1: the people. Petrol sniffing was a sporadic problem when he arrived,
Speaker 1: but by the start of the New millennium the problem
Speaker 1: became more and more prevalent, until it turned into an
Speaker 1: unrelenting wave with no sign of stopping.
Speaker 5: It's an issue that's plagued remote indigenous communities for decades
Speaker 5: and its effects are devastating.
Speaker 7: Petrol sniffing is on the rise. In the top of.
Speaker 1: Two thousand and two, Blair established the Central Australian Youth
Speaker 1: Linkup Service KALOS to support young people sniffing petrol. Blair
Speaker 1: himself had first hand encounters with people he'd attempted suicide
Speaker 1: as a result of sniffing. One man he saved went
Speaker 1: on to save another from a similar attempt.
Speaker 7: Blair McFarland is the manager of KALUS.
Speaker 1: He's speaking with Kathy van Extell.
Speaker 7: And so the youth are raming around with a real
Speaker 7: feeling as like nobody cares about us. It's definitely contributed
Speaker 7: to a feeling of unease on the street in our springs,
Speaker 7: like a lot of people are really concerned about it,
Speaker 7: like they're nice kids around it.
Speaker 1: Through KALs, he advocated for the Low Aromatic Fuel Act
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, which resulted in a ninety five percent
Speaker 1: drop in petrol sniffing. It was as close as you
Speaker 1: could get to ever solving a complex problem in this
Speaker 1: part of the world. But this is different. This crisis
Speaker 1: is much worse.
Speaker 6: It's really quite different because basically a petrol snipper is
Speaker 6: like a zombie, you know, they sort of they stumble around,
Speaker 6: They've got a can against their face. They that didn't
Speaker 6: seem to see anything. So that's what it was like. Then,
Speaker 6: I they're doing themselves serious damage. But now it's really
Speaker 6: contrasting to that. And then now is a bunch of
Speaker 6: kids with ADHD fas D global developmental delay. They're hungry,
Speaker 6: they're wired, they're sort of their traditional authority systems have
Speaker 6: been underblined by colonization for generations. And this is what
Speaker 6: Alice Springs is now facing, the karma that we're facing
Speaker 6: because of policy thats just made a generation.
Speaker 1: But no one in politics is talking about that, like
Speaker 1: they're only thinking as far ahead as the next electoral
Speaker 1: cycle will allow.
Speaker 6: I think that there are so many players here operating
Speaker 6: in their own on their own agendas, that it's actually
Speaker 6: what a mathematician will call a chaos field, a field
Speaker 6: where there are so many decisions being made that it's
Speaker 6: really unpredictable in which direction things will go. And that's
Speaker 6: I think what you're feeling here. There is no plan,
Speaker 6: like you know, the crime stuff. They're saying, oh, we'll
Speaker 6: put everybody in jail, so like, is that the plan
Speaker 6: that everybody in the Northern churchy will either be a
Speaker 6: prisoner or a warden by the year twenty fifty.
Speaker 1: Lowering the age of criminal responsibility back to ten.
Speaker 6: I know what, let you do six that'll be moore.
Speaker 6: Fut this is crazy.
Speaker 1: What do you got to say about it.
Speaker 6: Oh, it just it's a crazy, desperate, foolish thing that
Speaker 6: in no way affects you know, what's making those kids criminal.
Speaker 6: If they wanted to do something about that whole scene,
Speaker 6: you'd put a lot more resources into diagnosing and treating
Speaker 6: all of those things.
Speaker 1: His view echoes experts who say, not only does tough
Speaker 1: on crime not work, it's a potential breach of human
Speaker 1: rights when it comes to kids in prison or detention
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to call it. What the state's
Speaker 1: doing is swapping one culture for another one where the
Speaker 1: cycle of crime and punishment becomes the norm. Throwing children
Speaker 1: in detention and placing them in previously banned spit hoods
Speaker 1: can and will have psychological and cognitive impacts on kids development.
Speaker 1: Even though the strategies won't work, people have lost hope
Speaker 1: to fight against them. This is the mandate the government has.
Speaker 1: Despite less than forty five percent of enrolled voters in
Speaker 1: Bush electorates casting a ballot, Blair says the low voter
Speaker 1: turnout is linked to the outcome of the Voice referendum
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the referendum made Aboriginal people even more
Speaker 6: cynical than before. About what's the point because I think
Speaker 6: a whole lot of Aboriginal people became really this enheartened
Speaker 6: but the whole voting thing and didn't vote. Like in
Speaker 6: the electric I ran and there were six and a
Speaker 6: half thousand people registered to vote and two and a
Speaker 6: half thousand voted.
Speaker 1: Blair ran as a Greens candidate in the recent election
Speaker 1: and lost. Green threw a rare breed in the territory,
Speaker 1: perhaps his last attempt to force change in Alice Springs
Speaker 1: and beyond. So Blair, what needs to be done?
Speaker 8: I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I've tried everything, nothing nothing works.
Speaker 1: Blair contributed a lot more than most, but ultimately change
Speaker 1: here is going to come from somewhere else. After the
Speaker 1: break one man in his family in the middle of
Speaker 1: the desert, trying their best to help the children of
Speaker 1: him Bantua break the cycle. It means Ruby and I
Speaker 1: are going on country.
Speaker 7: There's the biggest forces you've ever seen.
Speaker 8: So have we seen Amy you the other day? Just
Speaker 8: over there, we just picked up a baby printy about
Speaker 8: that big. His head was stuck in a cairn, so
Speaker 8: we surrounded.
Speaker 1: Can you describe where we are? I mean we're surrounded
Speaker 1: by rocky escarments with McDonald Ranges.
Speaker 8: East of McDonald Ranges. I think this is the Onulia
Speaker 8: side of the Banto country. And over here there's a
Speaker 8: great significance of connection to this country. That's the three caterpillars.
Speaker 8: And Jelka is my great great great father, and he's
Speaker 8: not too far from here.
Speaker 1: We've come here at a cracking time of day, late afternoon,
Speaker 1: the sun low over the McDonald Rangers on the horizon.
Speaker 1: I'm with Damien, the fellow who's been our unofficial tour guide.
Speaker 1: We're out at his favorite place, the place where he
Speaker 1: tries to make a difference to what's happening here. His
Speaker 1: generosity helped us a great deal for this series. But
Speaker 1: now we're at his outstation, the spot that made us
Speaker 1: want to speak with him in the first place.
Speaker 8: All what you see is what I've accumulated out of
Speaker 8: my own pocket. This machiney, I've only bought that cheap,
Speaker 8: but it's done in me some some world of greatness.
Speaker 1: There's caravans for smokeo and to shelter from the weather.
Speaker 1: There's fences, gates and pens, and there's horses and this
Speaker 1: fellow's name.
Speaker 8: There's a malon.
Speaker 1: She's a mayor. How much I know about horses.
Speaker 8: That's my melon chopsticks.
Speaker 1: This is my my big ouse. He's a big fella
Speaker 1: many answers.
Speaker 8: Sixteen sixteen nuns. That's big funny and the other one's
Speaker 8: other side of the DJ and groom up the back.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest source of ever scene in my life.
Speaker 8: He's a most gentlest one.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, he's raised all the emma, melon and chopsticks.
Speaker 1: I looked after by kids who come here from town,
Speaker 1: kids who spent time in detention, or kids with substance issues.
Speaker 1: Damien calls the program all rounder.
Speaker 8: I've got a young black that I'm training justin and
Speaker 8: he's getting ready to race again, so he's probably going
Speaker 8: to raise chopstick or this big follow you. So we'd
Speaker 8: get kids out of here. Numbers of thirty twenty nine
Speaker 8: different different young fellows, different ages. We could either be
Speaker 8: doing identifying bush medicine or trees to make bush tools
Speaker 8: out of.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 8: What do you call it? A cultural conversation. Half of
Speaker 8: the group might want to do the horses, like brush
Speaker 8: them down, and we'll get the other half prepared to saddle,
Speaker 8: and then we'll switch so they both get two learning
Speaker 8: sessions out of one day, and that could be the mechanics,
Speaker 8: or that could be the fencing, or that could be
Speaker 8: the cooking or the artwork or the fitness side of things.
Speaker 8: So we break it down for the one day, but
Speaker 8: split it in two.
Speaker 1: So by the time the kids have come through the program,
Speaker 1: what will I know how to do that they didn't
Speaker 1: know how to do before I got eat. Well, here's
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 8: When you talk about pioneering days, everything was built on
Speaker 8: how much skills you had and how useful you could
Speaker 8: be on country. So we tried to give them all
Speaker 8: those skills. So I for job presented itself. They'll be
Speaker 8: trained in multiple ways, so a job wouldn't sort of
Speaker 8: cause them any fear to apply for one. Or We
Speaker 8: normally aim to explore their talents and expose out of
Speaker 8: talent and push them into that sort of workforce because
Speaker 8: then they'll stick at it because they love doing it.
Speaker 8: So we do you know, all sorts of stuff worlding, fencing, mechanics, cooking, artwork, horsemanship.
Speaker 8: I believe from what I've seen, I've seen a lot
Speaker 8: of change. I've seen a chemical here that actually works.
Speaker 8: Was that chemical the chemical is back on country and
Speaker 8: just being that peace with country and animals. It gives
Speaker 8: a different approach when you're trying to educate someone or
Speaker 8: talk to someone. They have the time to take it in.
Speaker 1: All round. Her is a working work in progress, and
Speaker 1: Damien's reasons for starting the program a deep.
Speaker 8: The origin behind it is my dad is a cattleman
Speaker 8: and a person before him grew up in a home
Speaker 8: starting generation and very resilient. Yeah, took on different skill
Speaker 8: set because that's what was required back in the day.
Speaker 1: As a kid, Damien's dad, Dennis, was forcibly removed from
Speaker 1: his family and sent to Darwin. Somehow he escaped and
Speaker 1: returned to his country, where he became a ringer on
Speaker 1: a cattle station. Through years of skilled and hard toil,
Speaker 1: he went on to become one of the first Aboriginal
Speaker 1: owners of a cattle station. I've seen footage of Deennis.
Speaker 1: Damien looks and sounds just like him.
Speaker 8: I was raised and bush on cattle stations seeing my
Speaker 8: dad doing it, but to be creative was the key
Speaker 8: for me in life.
Speaker 1: Damien, like many of us do, worked a series of jobs,
Speaker 1: many of them a long way from his true passion,
Speaker 1: but in aid of his people. Nonetheless, well we're doing
Speaker 1: Before you started the program.
Speaker 8: I was an officer Bailey facility called Sodwish and we're
Speaker 8: trying to keep him from not getting locked up and
Speaker 8: keep him from coming back. And then I heard about
Speaker 8: his other programs that's been delivered, but his kids were
Speaker 8: still re offending. But they was receiving so much funding
Speaker 8: every year. And come to think about it, where's all
Speaker 8: his money going? Because there's a lot of money getting
Speaker 8: chucked around, but there's no change. So I created an
Speaker 8: idea for my program that was based on my dad's
Speaker 8: upbringing from his pioneering days.
Speaker 1: To find the path forward, not only for himself but
Speaker 1: his community. Damien would be guided from within. He could
Speaker 1: look to his own flesh and blood for the trail
Speaker 1: out of the mess. He would look to his own father.
Speaker 1: Dennis passed away a couple of years ago, but his
Speaker 1: name and memory, Levonne Damien has called the land we're
Speaker 1: on r DK outstation after result Man Roy Dennis Kunos.
Speaker 1: It means that every kid that gets a helping hand
Speaker 1: here will have Dennis to think as much as Damien.
Speaker 1: He believes a small black run and own programs like
Speaker 1: this can help kids heal, reorientate their lives, and help
Speaker 1: them in a way that locking them up never will.
Speaker 8: I don't think there's too many programs like mine. I
Speaker 8: think it's pretty unique how it was designed and where
Speaker 8: the origin comes from.
Speaker 1: I've done a little bit of work. Most of my
Speaker 1: work's been pretty good.
Speaker 8: I'd like to expand. I like to have young people
Speaker 8: out here full time, just caretaken for the animals and
Speaker 8: getting a wage. At some point in time, eventually I
Speaker 8: can run a little bit of cattle. I can introduce
Speaker 8: that cattle industry back in to these young people's lives,
Speaker 8: giving them an opportunity to chase cattle in the yard,
Speaker 8: brand them and mark them, and just teach them a
Speaker 8: bunch of skill to be self sufficient. Back on down
Speaker 8: and I've seen a lot of programs like I was saying,
Speaker 8: they get a lot of funding, but there's no real outcome.
Speaker 8: I'd like to be the first that could create outcomes
Speaker 8: before I receive any type of funding.
Speaker 1: I was mesmerized by the setting and what Damian was doing,
Speaker 1: but there was one question I was dreading, would.
Speaker 8: You like to go for iron?
Speaker 1: Not a chance? I mean, it's not that I'm not
Speaker 1: a fan of horses. It's that I fear that they
Speaker 1: won't be a fan of me. Damien's son, Bison, is
Speaker 1: of a similar mindset. He's been with us all day,
Speaker 1: but he's quiet and shy, especially around the animals. Do
Speaker 1: you ride the do you want anything? Bison?
Speaker 4: I don't know for animals.
Speaker 8: Yeah, he'm hered my big one that was last year.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: This plug lives up and down. Yeah, but he occasionally
Speaker 8: come down and visit check out. I'm doing check out
Speaker 8: the program doing so.
Speaker 1: Bison's eighteen, but he's a young eighteen. Despite his shyness,
Speaker 1: he's been warm and friendly with us and has a
Speaker 1: dry sense of humor, well aware of his surroundings and
Speaker 1: mindful of what he has to say. What's it? What's
Speaker 1: it like living in al Springs?
Speaker 4: Slip messed up there?
Speaker 1: You're eighteen?
Speaker 4: Yea?
Speaker 1: And what do you want to do with your life
Speaker 1: from here? I haven't got to that point yet. It's
Speaker 1: a big question. What about what your old man does?
Speaker 4: Nah, I don't know, to ride horses and stuff.
Speaker 1: You feel lucky that you've got someone like your dad
Speaker 1: as a as a role model. That's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: been a bit of a beacon for you and your siblings.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1: In my mind, Bison was an example of a kid
Speaker 1: on the right path. If he played his cards right,
Speaker 1: he could stay at arms distance from the system, avoid
Speaker 1: becoming hoovered up by it, and part of the cycle.
Speaker 1: He has a loving family. His dad's a local leader
Speaker 1: and a role model. The outstation is an oasis in
Speaker 1: a desert of disarray, somewhere where you can point to
Speaker 1: the chaos elsewhere and know from where you stand you
Speaker 1: can keep it at bay. I thought he was one
Speaker 1: of the lucky ones. But it's wrong to assume any
Speaker 1: think about this place. Ruby, Bison and I were sitting
Speaker 1: in the car when we started chatting. At first, just
Speaker 1: small talk about life at the station.
Speaker 4: One time I came here because my dad was forcing
Speaker 4: me to come leave water for the horses, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: Yep, but I took the wrong track.
Speaker 4: And I just got stuck upshit on the other road.
Speaker 1: But as we drove on, Bison started telling me something
Speaker 1: that complicated all that.
Speaker 2: So when were you up in Darlin?
Speaker 4: I was coming back Wednesday.
Speaker 6: Oh really, why were you up there?
Speaker 4: Call issues?
Speaker 5: Yeah, as a.
Speaker 9: Youth, So wait were you You weren't in don Dale
Speaker 9: or anything.
Speaker 4: No, oh you were yeah, oh shit for nine months?
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 4: It was a little bit scary at the first part
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 1: It took a while that to sink in. This young
Speaker 1: fella that we're getting to know a gentle soul had
Speaker 1: just spent nine months, fifteen hours up the road in
Speaker 1: the infamous don Dale US detention facility. He says he
Speaker 1: felt pressured into crimes that landed him there.
Speaker 4: These people period, like people they don't like that. They'll
Speaker 4: be with that forcing stuff, you know, like forcing you
Speaker 4: to do this, forcing you to do that. That'll bring
Speaker 4: that like be weird onto you, you little female lague,
Speaker 4: you know, like you're scared, you know like that, and
Speaker 4: I like get more tempting. But that's more behind me now.
Speaker 1: Yep. In don Dale, Bison quickly learned to keep his
Speaker 1: head down and they even get rough.
Speaker 4: With you m first times. But I'm a little bit
Speaker 4: like a kind to them, yeah, cause I'm a wrong
Speaker 4: way from home and that's what I was thinking. I
Speaker 4: springed a little bit long way from me, Yeah, yes, right,
Speaker 4: small in town like.
Speaker 1: Bison's story is a reminder of the importance of programs
Speaker 1: like All Rounder and perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that
Speaker 1: Damien started the program around the same time Bison was
Speaker 1: sent to don Dale. Three generations of arunder Man, Dennis,
Speaker 1: Damien and Bison, somehow working together. The giant caterpillars that
Speaker 1: formed the McDonald Rangers in arunder culture can be seen
Speaker 1: the distance. The dreamtime stories are as beautiful as the
Speaker 1: landscape itself, But in twenty twenty four, the thought of
Speaker 1: what could happen to kids like Bison and the ten
Speaker 1: year olds that could serve time in the facility in
Speaker 1: which he just come from makes the beauty of the
Speaker 1: landscape and the people here ache that little bit more.
Speaker 9: Hello, Hello, Hello, Later, as the sun fell lower and
Speaker 9: the dust became redder, I was drawn by the side
Speaker 9: of Trimeria, Damien's youngest, just thirteen months old, blonde hair,
Speaker 9: olive skin, and.
Speaker 1: A cheeky smile. We would have dubbed a creamy back
Speaker 1: on order yorder country, But this is her land and
Speaker 1: it's where she's meant to be.
Speaker 9: So how long has he been looking for?
Speaker 5: Then it just started?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's good. Look at a couple of days now.
Speaker 1: As she tolls her way through the same dust, her
Speaker 1: ancestors plaguing through the millennia. It reminds me of what
Speaker 1: we've seen during our time. Here are more her problems
Speaker 1: than anyone else's. Even though she's born into a loving
Speaker 1: family with strong role models and big hearts, the fact
Speaker 1: that she's born and will be raised on her land
Speaker 1: means she will face a battle to become whatever she desires,
Speaker 1: a problem that children the same age but born elsewhere
Speaker 1: will never have. That is the great injustice of it all,
Speaker 1: and that's the heart of the problem, at the heart
Speaker 1: of this country. This is in Bartois. This Is Alice
Speaker 1: Springs has written, reported, and hosted by Me Daniel James
Speaker 1: Ruby Jones co reported and executive produced the series. Shane
Speaker 1: Anderson is our senior producer. Sarah McVeigh is our editor.
Speaker 1: Chris Dangate is our associate editor. Original compositions by Zolton Fetcho,
Speaker 1: mixing by Travis Evans. We had production support from Atticus
Speaker 1: Basto and Zaia Tangrao. Additional recording by Lloyd Barrett. This
Speaker 1: Is Alice Springs was made on Arranda Wagerie, where Andrei
Speaker 1: and Dary will land. Thanks to everyone who spoke to
Speaker 1: me on and off the record and welcomed me into
Speaker 1: their lives, so the sold