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Speaker 1: If you want to know what's happening on the local

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Speaker 1: political landscape, Katie Wolf has it covered on three sixty.

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Speaker 2: Every one is listening Mix one oh four point nine.

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Speaker 1: You are listening to Mix one oh four point nine's

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Speaker 1: three sixty.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 1: Over the last few weeks, we have certainly had plenty

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Speaker 1: of discussions about the situation with territorians traveling around the

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Speaker 1: territory and people coming in to Darwin. I guess you'd say,

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Speaker 1: from different communities and maybe not behaving in a way.

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Speaker 4: That we would expect or that we would like.

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Speaker 1: Now joining us in the studio to talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about some of the concerns that we've had,

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Speaker 1: but certainly more about some of the options and potentially

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Speaker 1: some of these solutions to these concerns. From Larachie Nation,

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Speaker 1: we have got the CEO Robert Cooper, Good morning to you.

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Speaker 3: Morning, Katy.

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Speaker 1: And we've also got from Mission Australia, Regional Leader of

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory, Michael Solar, Good morning, Michael Key. Great

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Speaker 1: to have you both in the studio and I was

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Speaker 1: really keen to get you both back on because over

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Speaker 1: the last few weeks I've had you both on individually

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Speaker 1: to talk about some of the issues that we are

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Speaker 1: experiencing here in the top end. And I know that

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Speaker 1: you'd flagged with us that there is going to be

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Speaker 1: a forum. It's actually happening tomorrow. Firstly, can you tell

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Speaker 1: us a little bit more about what this forum is

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Speaker 1: all about?

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Speaker 3: Well, on behalf of the Larachie people, We've come to

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Speaker 3: the unavoidable conclusion that the Larachia need to start asserting

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Speaker 3: their rights as the traditional custodians of this country, and

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Speaker 3: the people that we've had visiting have not been showing

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Speaker 3: appropriate respect. So the catalyst for us was several hundred

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Speaker 3: people on Middle Beach last week. We've seen this morning

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Speaker 3: the c Darwin's response. Our response is to get a

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Speaker 3: conversation going amongst all the interest parties about how we

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Speaker 3: can deal with the issue. Rather than simply moving it

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Speaker 3: from one part of day on to the other. We

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Speaker 3: need to think about how we deal with it in

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Speaker 3: the longer tim and that's the conversation starter for tomorrow.

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Speaker 4: So Robert, you know, I'll just go to that first

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Speaker 4: bit first.

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Speaker 1: About the Darwin City Council obviously banning alcohol there at Mendel,

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Speaker 1: you said that how many how many people were there sleeping.

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Speaker 3: Rough the beginning of last week, so a week ago

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Speaker 3: a day, they were between we think two and three

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Speaker 3: hundred people. Significant number. We've had to focus with the

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Speaker 3: police and joined operation to move those people on. But

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Speaker 3: the issue is we haven't stopped the drinking. We've moved

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Speaker 3: the people on, and that's the number the problem for

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Speaker 3: us as.

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Speaker 1: Lerrik here, and that is a I mean, when you

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Speaker 1: talk about the sheer volume of people sleeping in one

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Speaker 1: particular spot in one week, that's actually a massive number.

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Speaker 3: That's only one place part of Darwin.

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Speaker 1: Now are they when we say sleeping rough, are we

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Speaker 1: talking about people that are homeless here or are we

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Speaker 1: talking about people who've maybe traveled in from other communities.

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Speaker 3: Most of the people at Mendel last week were community visitors.

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Speaker 3: We have actually this morning kicked off again in our

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Speaker 3: rough sleeper survey to try and identify how many community

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Speaker 3: visitors we've got, how many permanent rough sleepers we've got,

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Speaker 3: how many people are part of the urban drift from

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Speaker 3: community in today and on a permanent basis.

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Speaker 1: Goodness may that is you know, that's a really big number.

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Speaker 1: And then when you talk about trying to help people

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Speaker 1: to get home, are you finding that many are prepared

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Speaker 1: or keen to go home.

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Speaker 3: We're actually working in collaboration within TI government and the

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Speaker 3: Commonwealth now to send people back and we've spent just

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Speaker 3: in the last week my recollection is somewhere around about

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Speaker 3: eighteen to twenty thousand dollars on returning people back to

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Speaker 3: the communities they come from.

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Speaker 4: Wow.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's a massive amount of money as well, Michael.

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Speaker 1: When you then take a look at the Sobering Up

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Speaker 1: Shelter that Mission Australia managers, are you seeing large numbers

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Speaker 1: through there as well.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I've spoke to you a couple of months ago

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Speaker 5: that we were hitting record numbers out of December into

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Speaker 5: January and February. It seems to be that where those

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Speaker 5: numbers are continuing. I mentioned at the time that we've

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Speaker 5: gone out of this period of peaks and troughs, so

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Speaker 5: we're now into plateaus and that's pretty much where we've been.

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Speaker 5: We still have several nights a week where we get

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Speaker 5: full very quickly at the Serving Up Shelter. It's a

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Speaker 5: forty bed facility, the largest in the territory of its kind.

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Speaker 5: But we are often finding that there are times there

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Speaker 5: where we're having to turn people away just through shee

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Speaker 5: volume of clients that are in there, and the turnaround

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Speaker 5: on that is basically something that pushes the service to

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Speaker 5: the limit and also then pushes other services such as

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Speaker 5: Laraka patrols police who drop people at the facility, So

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Speaker 5: then that starts to really push those services. We're seeing

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Speaker 5: those numbers are not waning like they usually would as

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Speaker 5: much as there was a football game in town last week.

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Speaker 5: It was a rugby league game, doesn't tend to usually

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Speaker 5: bring too many people out of community. So the huge

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Speaker 5: numbers that we're seeing out of communities at the moment

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Speaker 5: are attributable to a number of probably reasons, but the

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Speaker 5: main thing is we just need to have a conversation

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Speaker 5: about how we deal with it better.

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Speaker 1: So this conversation tomorrow is going to come in the

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Speaker 1: form of a forum.

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Speaker 4: Who is attending the forum.

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Speaker 5: We've got at this stage upwards of thirty close to

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Speaker 5: forty organizations, and that's organizations right across the sector they're

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Speaker 5: dealing with, from homelessness to health and all sorts of

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Speaker 5: other services in between.

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Speaker 3: Ess actually very gratifying. We have representatives of all three

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Speaker 3: tiers of government, so call them off Territory and City Darwin.

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Speaker 3: We have other people that we're briefing who can't be there,

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Speaker 3: like Malandery McCarthy who's very interested in what's going on,

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Speaker 3: so I'm talking to her today. We have the land

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Speaker 3: Council's going to be representative, so they now realize that

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Speaker 3: this is an issue for them to face up. And

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Speaker 3: we have people who have money coming. But we also

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Speaker 3: have people who understand I really need to back up

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Speaker 3: a step. Valerie cannot do it on there. We have

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Speaker 3: now our elders coming to us saying we need to

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Speaker 3: do something about this as a Valericie people, So I've

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Speaker 3: reached out to fifty odd people to come and have

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Speaker 3: a conversation. That's all it is starting the conversation, and

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Speaker 3: you forty people across the sector, across all the tiers

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Speaker 3: of government, and people who actually have some ability to

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Speaker 3: influence what happens in the longer term.

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Speaker 4: I think it's fantastic.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a wonderful initiative that you guys have

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Speaker 1: organized this, that there is actually going to be this

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Speaker 1: forum now with decision makers and with those that work in.

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Speaker 4: The sector, those who are impacted as well.

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Speaker 1: You know, everybody's going to come together and have what

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Speaker 1: I hope is a really constructive conversation to try to

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Speaker 1: make some change in this space. And I'm assuming that

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Speaker 1: that's really the aim tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.

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Speaker 5: I think that if we continue on the same path

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Speaker 5: that we are, we're really going to achieve nothing. It's

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Speaker 5: just going to be the same thing for generation after generation.

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Speaker 5: This is probably the one point in time where we

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Speaker 5: can actually pull a circuit breaker on the situation and

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Speaker 5: actually try and make a change for generations to come

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Speaker 5: to actually think about how the second as a whole

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Speaker 5: and government as a whole can really come together and

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Speaker 5: try and promote a change for the better to look at.

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Speaker 2: And this is again, this is not about banning something.

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Speaker 5: It's not about trying to change the world or bring

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Speaker 5: in a facility or doing anything like that. This is

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Speaker 5: quite honestly just a conversation. Piece of a conversation started

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Speaker 5: to get to get that everyone around the table that

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Speaker 5: needs to be there, and there's probably going to be

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Speaker 5: people that aren't there, and there's going to be plenty

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Speaker 5: of people that will have an opinion, and we're welcome

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Speaker 5: to those as well, because this is something that has

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Speaker 5: to be formulated right across. It can't just be one

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Speaker 5: person's idea that drives it. Otherwise we'll just it'll go nowhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I know that we've you know, I've spoken

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Speaker 1: to both of you before about wet camps and things

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Speaker 1: like that. But I mean, I guess the situation here

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Speaker 1: is that we actually need an immediate response. We then

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Speaker 1: need to sort of be looking medium term about some

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Speaker 1: of the changes that we can make, and then we

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Speaker 1: also need to look long term so that we don't

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Speaker 1: wind up in this situation again hopefully. Yeah.

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Speaker 5: And if you look at the last probably ten years

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Speaker 5: in the territory, there's been such ups and downs. You know,

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Speaker 5: we've seen the impacts projects sort of wrap up, and

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Speaker 5: we've seen real down spike in a whole lot of things.

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Speaker 5: We've then seen in the last twelve months with COVID

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Speaker 5: and all that sort of stuff, the effects that that's

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Speaker 5: had mental health, wellbeing, jobs, all.

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Speaker 2: Sorts of things.

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Speaker 5: It basically it puts us in a situation that we're

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Speaker 5: right now in a really good place to start a

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Speaker 5: conversation to make change, and that's I think really important.

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Speaker 1: I know some people will be listening this morning and

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Speaker 1: thinking to themselves.

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Speaker 4: You know, it is really good that there's a.

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Speaker 1: Conversation, but we need to see some immediate action, I

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Speaker 1: guess to set some of those minds at ease. There

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Speaker 1: is actually action being taken right now, isn't there? I mean, Robert,

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Speaker 1: there's been a phenomenal number of people who have actually

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Speaker 1: been returned to country in the recent months as well,

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Speaker 1: hasn't there?

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Speaker 3: We're returning at the moment around about six hundred people

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Speaker 3: a month back to community. That's twenty forty percent up

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Speaker 3: on last year, and as a trend, and then on

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Speaker 3: top of that, we're sending that people who we've identified

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Speaker 3: as being frail or elderly or in need of getting

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Speaker 3: to a safe place.

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Speaker 1: What are people saying to you when they are returning

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Speaker 1: to country in terms of are they here for medical treatment?

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Speaker 1: Are they here to access alcohol? Are they here for

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Speaker 1: a holiday? What are a lot of people sort of

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Speaker 1: saying when you do when larochie, a nation does indeed

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Speaker 1: engage and help them to get home.

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Speaker 3: Generally speaking, the people who are here to access alcohol

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Speaker 3: are not the people who are going back to community,

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Speaker 3: certainly not with us, because there are controls over what

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Speaker 3: they can take with them. So The people we're sending

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Speaker 3: back are those who have missed the patient transport, have

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Speaker 3: been here visiting family, have come here and don't have

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Speaker 3: any financial literacy skills and a run out of money.

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Speaker 3: People who realize that they've made a mistake in coming

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Speaker 3: to town.

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Speaker 1: Robert, what kind of impact is this having on the

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Speaker 1: Larakia people into you know, they are our traditional custodians.

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Speaker 4: How are they feeling at the moment.

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Speaker 1: You know, as you said right at the start of

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Speaker 1: the interview, there are some cases where we are seeing

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Speaker 1: disrespect for their land.

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Speaker 3: The first time in my tenure at Larikiir, we've had

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Speaker 3: elders coming to us saying it's not about the money,

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Speaker 3: it's about our respect and our duty as cares for

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Speaker 3: the land. We are here to help you talk to

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Speaker 3: the people who are visiting and they've been out of

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Speaker 3: their own bat talking to people about what it means

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Speaker 3: to be on Laryciere country. We've had the endorsement of

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Speaker 3: the larache protocols that have been waving at you over

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Speaker 3: the monitor, and we're about to launch a bigger publicity

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Speaker 3: campaign about Larachie protocols, respect for country and that the

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Speaker 3: two hit men that I talked to you about last

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Speaker 3: time I was in the studio with Russell and Michael Villaflor,

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Speaker 3: who were starring on the seven thirty Report on Sunday night.

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Speaker 3: They moved two hundred people off Middle Beach in the

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Speaker 3: course of a week with their one on one efforts

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Speaker 3: and talking to people and talking to them about what

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Speaker 3: it means to be on their country. This size might

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Speaker 3: have had something to do with it, but I think

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Speaker 3: it was more there.

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Speaker 1: Have you and have you had to increase the number

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Speaker 1: of people that you have working for you and sort

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Speaker 1: of try, you know, doing that patrolling.

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Speaker 3: No, we are working smarter rather than more people. So

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Speaker 3: we're now running a call center so that we reduce

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Speaker 3: the number of k's we're doing, and we're altering the

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Speaker 3: time of day and like the patrol with Russell and Michael,

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Speaker 3: so that they go out and target specific areas or

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Speaker 3: specific people.

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Speaker 1: I do just want to read from this little book

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Speaker 1: mark that you have passed over to me, and it

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Speaker 1: says it is it's a quote from Bundilla Barbara Mills Raymond,

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Speaker 1: and it says we talk to country, our country talks

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Speaker 1: to us. This is Larakia country. We're Larakia people and

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Speaker 1: we will always be here, please respect our and I

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Speaker 1: think that that is such a beautiful quote, and it's

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Speaker 1: something that you know, all of us try our best

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Speaker 1: or should be trying our best to do, no matter

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Speaker 1: where we come from, and that.

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Speaker 3: Speaks to the heart of what most of the larriche

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Speaker 3: of people understand as being their role in this place.

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Speaker 4: Now, I do want to ask.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that obviously the Darwin City Council have

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Speaker 1: made moves to ban alcohol at at mindle Beach. Michael,

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Speaker 1: from your perspective, do you think that that's going to

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Speaker 1: make much of a difference. I know that we said

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Speaker 1: earlier that it will just move the problem. Do you

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Speaker 1: think that that is the case here?

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Speaker 5: We're kind of an end user in that process. So

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Speaker 5: the sobering upshelter will get people once they're picked up

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Speaker 5: by services, so bends or changes. We saw something similar

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Speaker 5: I think the other side of Christmas with Palmeston Council

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Speaker 5: removing some of the restrictions or sorry, removing some of

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Speaker 5: the alcohol availability around Marlow's the Goon. You can give

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Speaker 5: some changes made, they're the same again. What that does

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Speaker 5: is tends to shift the problem. My esteemed colleague to

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Speaker 5: my left likes to refer to it as the water

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Speaker 5: balloon effect. So you squeeze the water bloon at the bottom,

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Speaker 5: it just goes to the top. When you do shift

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Speaker 5: a problem like that, you always the outcome is going

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Speaker 5: to be the same. At a service like ours, we

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Speaker 5: tend to get the fact that we're seeing numbers over

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Speaker 5: twelve hundred each month would indicate to us that those

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Speaker 5: numbers aren't budging, which means that they're still a lot

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Speaker 5: of people who are utilizing that service, and a large majority,

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Speaker 5: well over ninety percent of those are itinerant. So they

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Speaker 5: are homeless, but homeless from the perspective of their visitors

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Speaker 5: to town that they've come from elsewhere and they have

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Speaker 5: nowhere to stay, so they're rough, sleeping, intoxicated our tinerant.

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Speaker 5: So they get picked up and brought to the serving upshelter.

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Speaker 5: For us, the endgame is still the same. We engage

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Speaker 5: with those people. We try and get them, have a

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Speaker 5: brief intervention, try and get them to change what's going on,

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Speaker 5: and try and give them the option.

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Speaker 2: Is there something we can do? Do you want to

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Speaker 2: break the cycle.

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Speaker 1: When we talk about where people have, you know, where

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Speaker 1: they can actually go, And let's say there is somebody

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Speaker 1: drinking and in a way that's not acceptable in a

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Speaker 1: public space, but they're not necessarily doing something that is illegal.

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Speaker 1: Are the options here the watchhouse, the sobering up shelter,

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Speaker 1: or continuing to sort of be in that public place.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on the circumstances.

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Speaker 5: It may also be that if they are so intoxicated

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Speaker 5: but not up to you know, not causing the mischief

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Speaker 5: that you would expect, but they're so intoxicate, they might

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Speaker 5: be taken to the emergency department and be looked after

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Speaker 5: until such time as they're safe to come to the

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Speaker 5: sabering up shelter and then But quite honestly, yeah, the

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Speaker 5: options are it's either changing behavior on the spot, come

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Speaker 5: to the saving up shelter, or you go to the

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Speaker 5: watchhouse if you're displaying signs of violence, or if you

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Speaker 5: can't be taking it the saving up shelter.

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Speaker 1: From both of your perspectives, are there any changes that

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Speaker 1: we could sort of look at making here fairly immediately

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Speaker 1: to see a positive change in this space.

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Speaker 3: One of the things we're working on is reducing visibility,

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Speaker 3: and that's really what the short term part of tomorrow's

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Speaker 3: conversation will be about. We can work on the underlying

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Speaker 3: issues about why people drink, but it's very difficult to

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Speaker 3: do that in the public space because people see the

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Speaker 3: any social behavior and the alcoholism. They don't see the

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Speaker 3: trauma that's underneath it. So from our perspective, short term

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Speaker 3: strategy really is to reduce visibility. There are an excess

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Speaker 3: of one hundred dry weather camps in and around the

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Speaker 3: Darwin region. So not all of those camps draw attension,

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Speaker 3: and not all of those camps feature antisocial behavior. So

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Speaker 3: if we can in the short term it assist people

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Speaker 3: to get to places where they are safe in the

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Speaker 3: absence of one of these visitor camps, that's a good

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Speaker 3: start for us.

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Speaker 1: Are those dry where the camps being utilized as well

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Speaker 1: as they could be at this point.

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Speaker 3: They're all unofficial yep. Some are illegal because they camp

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Speaker 3: behind signs where it says no camping allowed. Right, we

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Speaker 3: think that relatively well used because we know the communities

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Speaker 3: that camp there and we have access to them. We

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Speaker 3: can take in Robert Peggs and get them to clean

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Speaker 3: up after themselves. We can take people there because they

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Speaker 3: know they'll be safe, or we can avoid taking people

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Speaker 3: there because we know they're not so it's a useful

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Speaker 3: part of our toolbox, if you like, for dealing with

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Speaker 3: people that we pick up when they are in more

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Speaker 3: public places.

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Speaker 1: And Michael, the same question to you, do you think

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Speaker 1: that there's other things that we could be doing, you know,

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Speaker 1: fairly quickly, fairly immediately, to try and to try and

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Speaker 1: make some inroads in this space.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Look, I think again, conversations about collaboration, about services working together,

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Speaker 5: government working with NGOs at all levels, and I think

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Speaker 5: the ability to just put discussion on the table because

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Speaker 5: I think every time I've come in to talk to you,

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Speaker 5: I think I spoke to you a while back around

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Speaker 5: particularly around you stuff, and there's never any good use stories.

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Speaker 5: And this is one of those situations that we know

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Speaker 5: that this is by far a minority of people that

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Speaker 5: are pausing any social behavior issues. But quite honestly, it's

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Speaker 5: about starting the conversation, getting the right people around the

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Speaker 5: table so that we're actually all heading in the same direction.

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Speaker 5: I often used to use an analogy when I train

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Speaker 5: new staff around the fact that if you consider life

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Speaker 5: an eight lane highway, and this conversation is a lane

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Speaker 5: an eight lane highway, all traffic's going to be moving

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Speaker 5: in the same direction. You might have slow cars on

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Speaker 5: the left, fast cars on the right. The minute somewhere

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Speaker 5: in the right lane decides to turn left ninety degrees.

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Speaker 2: You get a pile up.

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Speaker 5: Everything just crumples and crashes, and then it takes forever

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Speaker 5: to pull that apart. And that's what we're at risk

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Speaker 5: of right now, is all these services basically just piling up,

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Speaker 5: going their own way, trying to do their own thing,

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Speaker 5: and no one taking control of a situation. I'm not,

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Speaker 5: by any stretch saying that Robert or I are the

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Speaker 5: ones to take control of this. I think we're just

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Speaker 5: the ones that have been pushed forward in a sense

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Speaker 5: through some of the results that we've reported over time

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Speaker 5: around the fact that something different needs to be done.

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Speaker 5: We can't just continue down the same path. And as

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Speaker 5: a result, we've sort of got together and let's start

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Speaker 5: a conversation. Let's let's pull people together and start something.

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Speaker 5: If we continue down that path, we're really just going

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Speaker 5: to be on hiding to nothing.

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Speaker 1: Well, and I think I think it's so incredibly important

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Speaker 1: we can't just continue on the path that we're currently on.

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Speaker 1: I mean, right at the start of this conversation this morning,

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Speaker 1: you both. You know, you both spoke to me about

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Speaker 1: those numbers. I mean, Robert what you had said that

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Speaker 1: really we've had record numbers down at Mindle Beach over.

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Speaker 4: The past week.

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Speaker 1: You know that in itself demonstrates that we've got to

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Speaker 1: make some change in this space. And Michael, you've spoken

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Speaker 1: to me on numerous occasions, but you know, even this

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Speaker 1: morning saying that there's been record numbers through the sobering upshelter,

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Speaker 1: if that in itself doesn't really demonstrate that we've got

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Speaker 1: to try to make some change here that I don't know,

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Speaker 1: what does.

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Speaker 3: You need to take some accountability for that?

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Speaker 4: Oh.

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Speaker 3: One of the fact probably the first interview I had

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Speaker 3: with you after I started, I talked about the work

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Speaker 3: that their acunation was doing, and then we had a

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Speaker 3: woman who had a shop and per rep I think

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Speaker 3: it was, come on straight afterwards and say you're saying

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Speaker 3: the same thing. You we're five years ago, so we

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Speaker 3: have four years and three months later actually got around

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Speaker 3: to taking your words and who's doing something to change

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Speaker 3: the paradigm. And we've had the conversation with the First

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Speaker 3: Nation's Caucus with an MTG and they've said come to

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Speaker 3: us with a solution, don't wait for us to come

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Speaker 3: to you with a policy position. So we've taken the initiative.

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Speaker 3: We're going to go to them and we're going to

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Speaker 3: say we had a conversation, we think we can make

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Speaker 3: this work. Now let's find the money, the resources and

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Speaker 3: the energy and make it happen.

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Speaker 1: Well, and you know what, this is community lead, which

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Speaker 1: I think is incredibly important, and I really appreciate the

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Speaker 1: fact that both of you are taking that step out

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Speaker 1: to do that and making sure that this forum happens.

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Speaker 4: I always appreciate.

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Speaker 1: Both of you coming into the studio, particularly this morning,

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Speaker 1: taking the time to do that together and have an

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Speaker 1: extensive discussion with us. Please let me know how things

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Speaker 1: go tomorrow. Absolutely, yeah, thank you both so very much

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Speaker 1: of your time.

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Speaker 4: I really appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Michael Soler from Well from Mission Australia, the Regional leader

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Speaker 1: of the Northern Territory and also Larichian Nation CEO.

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Speaker 4: Robert Cooper