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Speaker 1: Now joining me on the line is Scott McIntyre, the

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Speaker 1: chief executive of the SUMMERMA. I think I've pronounced that wrong,

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Speaker 1: but we'll double check Development Corporation out in What Air.

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Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Scott.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.

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Speaker 1: How are you not too bad? Mate? How are you

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Speaker 1: guys going? What's the situation in What Air at the moment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So, look, it's safe to say it's not a

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Speaker 2: happy place at the moment out there in What Air overnight,

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Speaker 2: I think things are relatively can't compared to the last

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Speaker 2: few weeks, but yeah, a lot of people displaced and

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Speaker 2: a lot of people feeling the look pact of a

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Speaker 2: lot of disturbance, and some nasty nights, sleepless nights, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: not a great time mate.

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Speaker 1: Tell me so with the Development Corporation that you are

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Speaker 1: the chief executive of, tell us what services you deliver

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Speaker 1: out there or the involvement within the community.

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Speaker 2: I look, so where do you want me to start? Really,

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Speaker 2: we do a whole range of things from where a

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Speaker 2: charity to start, charity established to try and breach the

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Speaker 2: gap for the people out there and improve health and

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Speaker 2: welfare and all things from education through the health and

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Speaker 2: everything else. We build and maintain most of the houses

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Speaker 2: out there. We run the range of program We run

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Speaker 2: the ah chair and NDIS programs, We run accommodation and

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Speaker 2: post office workshop, fuel and basically reinvest back into the

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Speaker 2: attempt to reinvest back into activities to improve the community.

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Speaker 1: So what's going on with the houses? Are these reports

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Speaker 1: that thirty seven homes have been destroyed?

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Speaker 2: Correct? Yeah, that's my understanding. That's correct. That there's been

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Speaker 2: over many weeks now, it has been ongoing disruptions and

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Speaker 2: violence and unfortunately that sometimes turns to property crime and

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Speaker 2: things like just destructive activity around house. To see how

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Speaker 2: my understanding is the thirty seven houses that are uninhabitable,

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Speaker 2: some of those are affected by art, some affected just

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Speaker 2: by other damage imaging activities and between anything from your

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Speaker 2: sort of guessing, but you could imagine that between four

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Speaker 2: to five hundred people displaced from those residents, and so

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Speaker 2: they're dispersed throughout the community other houses, and some out

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Speaker 2: of the bush and some out on homelands and things

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Speaker 2: like that, some even in here in town in Darwen.

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Speaker 1: What a terrible situation. And I know that historically over

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Speaker 1: the years there has been issues out in the community

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Speaker 1: at different times. My parents used to live out there

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Speaker 1: quite some time ago. I know that we have obviously

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Speaker 1: seen that it's been reported that one man died, others

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Speaker 1: have been injured over the last few weeks. You said

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Speaker 1: that it was a little bit quieter last night, But

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Speaker 1: what is the feeling in the community at the moment.

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Speaker 2: People are tired, people are exhausted at there. We tends. Really,

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Speaker 2: you know, nobody, nobody, including the people that are perpetrating

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Speaker 2: the damage and the violence, wants to be in a

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Speaker 2: situation like that, and it's draining, it's debilitating for many people.

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Speaker 2: It's a shameful thing. So people feel ashamed that that

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Speaker 2: sort of thing occurs in the community and they feel helpless.

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Speaker 2: They don't want to see it happening, but they really

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Speaker 2: don't know what they can do themselves to make any difference.

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Speaker 1: Have you guys had to pull your staff out of

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Speaker 1: the area.

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Speaker 2: No, we have, And that's one thing. One thing I

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Speaker 2: was just listening to you just before you're called, and

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Speaker 2: just earlier this week, we did a bit of a

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Speaker 2: survey of our staff just from a safety perspective. Now

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Speaker 2: we employ over one hundred local Cardo employees and so

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Speaker 2: for those guys and ladies. It's very problematic. Often it's

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Speaker 2: family involved in the violence. Sometimes they themselves get dragged

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Speaker 2: into it, and they can be directly impacted by the

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Speaker 2: violence by what goes on. So in terms of their

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Speaker 2: safety and their ability to keep coming to work and

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Speaker 2: do their job, that's very much compromised for us as

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Speaker 2: outside as to the community that the disturbances are never

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Speaker 2: about us. It's not about us, it's not it's not

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Speaker 2: our business. It's not stuff that we ever need to

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Speaker 2: be involved in or put ourselves in the way of.

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Speaker 2: And so to that end, for the most part, we

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Speaker 2: had the reports we had back from our staff was

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Speaker 2: that there was no concern for their safety. Now that

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Speaker 2: that I need to be very clear. That's just that's

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Speaker 2: just for our services and our employees, and it's reasonable

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Speaker 2: to expect that that perception or that reality might be

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Speaker 2: different for other service providers and particularly in other roles.

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Speaker 2: You know, one of our main areas of concern, for example,

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Speaker 2: is around our age care service. So we have nurses

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Speaker 2: on shift. We do shift change at eleven o'clock the night.

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Speaker 2: We've been very fortunate we have a process in place

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Speaker 2: to support staff and shift change and make sure they

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Speaker 2: feel safe and the companied and things like that. But

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Speaker 2: you can imagine that our scenarios where risk is greater.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what a terrible situation. I know that we are

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Speaker 1: fast running out of time. Unfortunately, I've got a head

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Speaker 1: to the national news, but I do still want to

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Speaker 1: ask you, do you have any idea at this point

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Speaker 1: if there's been much progress from those talks that involved well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm assuming and hoping the local elders, the council,

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Speaker 1: the police.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of people, Katie around this that are

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Speaker 2: putting a lot of effort in and the police are

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Speaker 2: doing everything they can on the ground. We've met with

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Speaker 2: with ministers and things over the last couple of days.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of effort going in. The key is

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Speaker 2: going to be long term, negotiated, mediated, strategic approach to this.

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Speaker 2: The short term stuff is terrible. The short term stuff

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Speaker 2: is what we deal with today and tomorrow. But the

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Speaker 2: answer to this is the long term strategy around listening

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Speaker 2: to people, supporting the growth of the region, investing in

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Speaker 2: the economy of the region, and helping organizations like ours,

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Speaker 2: the Council of the Store to let reach the local strength.

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Speaker 2: We have to make change and have the people themselves

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Speaker 2: need change, they can't do it without support.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we might try and catch up with you

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Speaker 1: again in the coming days, Scott, to just get a

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Speaker 1: better idea of how things are going. Can I just ask,

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Speaker 1: do you have any idea how many extra police have

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Speaker 1: been deployed to the area and has that helped to

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Speaker 1: calm things down a bit?

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Speaker 2: So my understanding was that some extra police were in

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Speaker 2: over the last few days. The police on the ground

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Speaker 2: do a great job. They my personal view is that

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Speaker 2: they're under resource. That's just my view, So having extra

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Speaker 2: people there to support them going to be a good thing.

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Speaker 2: And reports I had from overnight was that there had

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Speaker 2: been a calmer knight. Now that's not to say there's

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Speaker 2: still not issues there, and remember that that response is

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Speaker 2: always going to be just the immediate create the sort

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Speaker 2: of stability and piece that's needed in the community to

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Speaker 2: then start repairing and start taking some strategic action. Would

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Speaker 2: be fully supportive of the presidence of the police and

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Speaker 2: other agencies on the ground to be there to engage

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Speaker 2: and listen to people and have people feel about, feel

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Speaker 2: heard and cared about, because that's a big part of this.

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Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned some of the callers mentioning area

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Speaker 2: this is a cover up. Well, there's no cover up.

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Speaker 2: It's not unusual for stories from places I want to

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Speaker 2: not get any attention because I've done a lot of

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Speaker 2: interest in it. Now, unfortunately this is occurring. One of

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Speaker 2: the byproducts of that occurring is that attention gets focused,

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Speaker 2: and we'd like to be able to hope that the

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Speaker 2: visit improves people's understanding. Were laudy about the issues that

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Speaker 2: people out their face and help us all support a

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Speaker 2: better outcome.

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Speaker 1: Well, Scott, I really appreciate you taking the time to

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Speaker 1: have a chat with us this morning. I'm sorry we've

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Speaker 1: got to leave it there. Thank you so much for speaking.

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Speaker 2: No way is it all.

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Speaker 1: Thank you