This town is a sad story, especially for blackfellas like us, for non-indigenous people. It's a beautiful town, it's a beautiful landscape, it's beautiful. But for us to live here as a local, it's a sad story. This is Uncle Brian. He's an Ironman. This is his land, this is his town. Well, we want to show this Alice Springs in a different way, in a blackfellaway, not just whitefellaway, whitefellaway you call Alice Springs. Alice, you know, who's Alice? We don't know Alice, it's cool I'm bound to it. We're sitting in a park, it's at the base of one of those age-old Rocky escarmans that surround this town. It's mid-afternoon, meters away as a children's play area, empty swings, empty slides. This is Damien, another Ironman. Damien, good to speak to you. With him as his son Bison, tall and slender, 18 years of age, dressed in a Nike hoodie, too much for a southerner on a warm Central Australian day, but suitable for a local. This is my son Bison, good day Bison, there you go mate. A bit warmer up here than it is in Melbourne. Tell me about it. Together Uncle Brian, Damien and Bison represent three generations of Ironman. Damien is in his thirties, looks like he's just jumped off the back of a steed. He's wearing a check shirt with a sleeves removed, jeans and boots, boots covered in dust, red dust. The town we're in now, the one his son Bison grew up in, has changed a lot since Damien was a kid. Well, growing up here from a young person, it's a good little town, yeah, love it. I still love it today, but I think some of the sweet part of Alice is no longer here. I think it's worn a bit sour, to be honest. What's it like living in Alice Springs? Pretty harsh. It looks good now, but at night time it looks a little bit like trenches, vibes, you know? I use things better than staying at home. It's true danger for not only indigenous people, like me being a local, as Ironman, but I don't feel safe walking the streets at night because I'll give it back to you. Yeah, that's sad. You can one kid walk up to you, a little 12-year-old, I'll ask you for a cigarette, and you tell him you've got nothing, he sings out for his mates. Yeah, only little gangs and all that. It's those gangs that have become infamous here and across the country. Kids roaming the streets looking for trouble, and if they can't find it, making trouble. Things really kicked off earlier this year with what's been described as a riot in town. It started at the Todd Tavern, not too far from where we are now. Within Alice Springs, nowhere is far away. At this pub, the Todd Tavern, glass was smashed bricks were just pelted out at people or running up and fly kicking. Mate, they're taking 20-meter jumps and jumping in the glass from the smashing. A flying sidekick punches, rocks, and even bricks. This is when the headline started. In cities and towns across Australia, we read about chaos and rampages. One newspaper described the kids here as tiny menaces stuck on a turnstile of trouble. A couple of years, some of who look younger than 10 years old, damaged more than 60 cars. They're hanging out the window, honing through Alice Springs, this was all start. She was startled, according to police, by the children breaking into her home. She was then attacked and hit in the face with a rock by one of them. Police were given extraordinary powers to arrest the violence, to put an end to it. An emergency situation has been declared in Alice Springs following a wave of violence in the Northern Territory town. This curfew is for both adults and children and will be enforced from 10pm to 6am. We will back our police to enact this curfew and do what is needed to improve community safety in Alice Springs. Like flying and fly-out workers, politicians derived a blame one another for the carnage. The people of Alice Springs became political footballs in the process. You've got kids here tonight who are going to be sexually abused or families where domestic violence has now become a current occurrence. They send in the riot squad at the 80th, whoever it takes, to bring calm to our streets. It came on the back of one of the most divisive debates in the country's history, the referendum on the voice to parliament. It was yet another time when Aboriginal people were spoken about, more than we were spoken to. It's been 12 months since that debate and I've come here to the heart of things, Alice Springs, in Batwa, to hear the voices of people here. I want to know what happens when the great Australian signs once again shrouds this town. Once the carnival of political debate heads down the road. And how all the interventions, big and small, by governments of all persuasions have led to this moment of chaos. What I've found is that almost all of it leads back to one thing. I'm Daniel James from Schwartz Media and 7 a.m. This is Alice Springs. Episode 1, Children of the Intervention. Lately, there haven't been a lot of tourists travelling through due to some of the issues in Alice Springs. People are a bit afraid. Damien's offered to take us on a tour of the town. This is us driving around with him in Bison. The media reporting has been pretty full-on, you reckon, that's in an effect on tourism? Yeah, look, I think it's scared away a lot of even people with small businesses. I've been here before and there's a noticeable change. For starters, you can't buy a drink here to take away on Mondays and Tuesdays. The bars are empty. The thriving backpacker scene seems to have shrunk. This is our main part of CBD. Yippee Ring and shopping centre. This is where most people come for their shopping. We passed the Todd Tavern opposite the footy ground. On the surface is spread of a pub, typical of a country town. In broad daylight, it's hard to picture it as a place of unrest and violence. Which way from here? I'll do a full loop. As we round the corner, we see the heart of justice within the town. A triangle of imposing buildings, the cop shop, the magistrate's court, and the biggest building of all, the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court just stands there and doesn't know what it's doing there. The Supreme Court building is a big one. Yeah, it's really big, but I don't know if there's any purpose for it. Right now, these buildings look dormant. But this hides the fact that more Aboriginal people are being sentenced to prison than ever before. There's been a 23% increase in Indigenous incarceration in the past five years. Children aged between 14 and 17 are incarcerated at a high rate in the Northern Territory than anywhere else in the country. But here's the big one, right? You've got nine clubs here. And we've got our young kids that are walking around up to no good. We've got half of our elders and our leaders in the nightclub here. And when they come out, they're seen as just as bad as the young people. Right. So, you know, every weekend, some of our leaders are acting like children. Inside the only shopping centre, the bottle shops are once again open. And there are lions out the front. With police checking IDs before people enter. There are two lions, with one cop at each, assigned to check where people live, to make sure they don't live somewhere where alcohol is forbidden. Middle age white people are waved through. So what do you just see, aren't you? They're pleased with them. White fellas can walk straight in, black fellas can't. They'll ask you a hundred questions and get a six-minute beer. There are plenty of black fellas on the street, and they outnumber the white fellas. They're usually in groups just yarning up. It's on these streets you'll hear some of the oldest languages known to humanity. The true languages of the continent, yet they're more foreign to us than Italian or French or even millennial. The wonder of that is really something for an outsider. But for Damien and Bison, their focus is on the problems here and now. I sensed that, so I asked them about it. When did that sort of violence and running amok sort of start? Do you think? 2000, when the intervention came through, it was a big joke. It was a big shocking stuff for us. We were too ashamed to say we were from Alisprings. This is something I heard again and again as I spoke to locals in Alisprings. They still remember the army rolling into town. The announcements over town camp PAs warning people to stay in their homes. They tell me about the confusion, the terror, about how the blunt force of the intervention affected every part of their lives, and how they're still dealing with the consequences all these years later. That's after the break. Melbourne Recital Centre celebrates 15 years of living and breathing live music with performances by local powerhouses and international stars. Melbourne Recital Centre, where live music lives. Explore the program at MelbourneRecital.com.au Are we ready? Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Braff and I have called this news conference to announce a number of major measures to deal with what we can only describe as a national emergency in relation to the abuse of children in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Far away from Alisprings in Canberra, John Howard stands in front of a pack of journalists. It's June 2007. And we therefore believe that the action I'm about to outline is totally justified and warranted given our overarching responsibilities for the welfare of children throughout Australia. This moment will change the course of life for generations of people in Alisprings and surrounds. And it started with a report. The Little Children of Sacred Report shone a light on the profound consequences of the breakdown of Aboriginal society. Most chilling of all was that child abuse was serious, widespread, and often unreported. In the shadows of the... The report made a series of recommendations around the government supporting and empowering Aboriginal people to address any abuse within their communities. But the government tossed that aside. Instead, using the allegations as a pretext to seizing control over the land, again, stripping locals of any control over their lives and sending in the military. The popular CDEP program, I worked for the dull scheme that acted as a pathway out of welfare, was scrapped, forcing people back onto welfare. Widespread alcohol restrictions were enforced. There were medical examinations for children under 16. School attendance was linked to family payments, and government business managers were imposed. The Commonwealth moved to take control of townships through changes to the land act. Police numbers were increased, and, most controversial of all, half of welfare payments were quarantined for buying food and other essentials. The swiftness of the response in all its clinical brutality took out any indigenous affairs minister, Mel Bruff, 48 hours to draw her up. It took everyone here by surprise, including the NT government. No one living in the communities up here knew what was going to happen. It was scary. Were the army invading? Were they here to take the children away? To lock up all the men? Yes, I remember that when the army came here. It was pretty bad, and they made an excuse to go to them communities. And they didn't care about whose place it was or anything. We've driven out to the west side of town. We've graciously been invited into the home of only Pat Ansel Dodds. She's an artist and respected Arunder Alder. Her family are from here. Though we're here at the point of first contact. This is her land. This is her town. Hello, little gal. You're so so shame. Ruby, who's lined up the interview with Aunt, has her baby with her. Trying to find a quiet spot for them while we record our conversation. We've got a few grands. There you go. Hi. There we go. I've got eight boys. Oh my gosh. And three girls. And it's a boxing match. [LAUGHTER] And how long have you been in Alice Springs itself if you need to take a haul off? Yep. I have worked very hard over the years to speak out for my people about what's the government's been doing, especially the things about the kids. When you look at our history, white men never came till later on. And we're the last place that they came to put the telegraph line through from Adelaide to Darwin. The telegraph station became a residential institution where Aboriginal children were taken when they were stolen from their families. Both my parents were put in there. And I didn't understand till I was a bit older of all the things that happened to all the families around Australia taking their children away and brainwashing them about their own history, not ours. Ari Pat went on to become a nurse. And in the midst of her career, one a native title claim with their people. Her personal and professional advancement and heart-fort native title victory made us think for a time things were improving. But the intervention changed all of that. This younger generation is losing the plot. And the government did this to them. The government did this. Yeah. Why do you think they were doing it? It's just racism. It's an excuse to shut us down and take over land and take over our communities. And that our people didn't have any rights anymore. The intervention didn't end with Howard. Writing Gillard kept it in place. Ironically, rebranding it stronger futures. Ari Pat watched on as outside as opposed to set of rules that removed the ability for her people to control their own lives. When you have people coming to another town and they don't come from here, they don't know what to do. And then they have the police on their backs watching them all the time. But the younger generation just stuff them. We'll run them back. And that's what they do. In response, Ari Pat and other grandmothers established a group to patrol the streets of Alice at Night to look for and look after kids on the streets. In fear they'd be picked up by the police or the army. Well, we came together a few years ago. And we all came from here, this area. And we got together to fight for our rights to help these kids. We'd go out, especially at night, and go around the streets and talk to the kids and ask them what they're doing. Because they'd walk around at night. But the worst thing was they'd be walking down the streets, but they'd be thinking of smashing things, things like that. How long was the strong grandmothers group together for? Oh, for a while, about 20 years. Yeah, well. And a lot of us are in the '80s and '90s. And we're getting tired. We can't keep fighting. I still see kids walking around at night and playing up. And the parents try to stop them, but it's not happening. You have eight grandchildren of your own. I got eight grandsons and three grand orders. I see a photo of someone who graduated something up, or something rather on the wall there. Yeah, who's that? Yeah, yeah. I am just collecting a few things and putting things away because I'm going there. That's my thing, the Trove University. The only Pat spent decades trying to protect the children of Alice Springs from the government and its intervention. But now, she's leaving. Her paintings are leaning against cabinets and bookcases, waiting to be packed. They depict the seven Arendor sisters being chased by a man, a story at the heart of the Arendor mythology. They'll go with her when she heads south. For those that remain, there are remnants of the intervention all around. They're pillars of times past, which are still present today. The next day, Uncle Brian and Damien take me to Charles Creek Town Camp to show me the remaining signs. So, look, where are we? We have Charles Creek Lunar Camp. That's where the Arendor people live. Charles Creek is one of 20 or so camps in and around the town that the government officially calls Alice Springs Community Living Areas. Some of the camps, such as Charles Creek, are old missions. It was where Aboriginal people were assigned patches of land when Europeans first settled here. People have called this place home for generations. The camp is fenced in. A series of neatly-kept homes are at the base of another rocky escarpment. We've arrived just after schools finished. There's a couple of girls and uniforms playing in one of the backyards. The fact that the town camps exist made it relatively easy during the intervention to control the people that live here. We're here to be introduced to some of the residents by Uncle Brian and Damien. First up, we meet young father Donald Koonos. Can I run here again? Daniel. One of the presidents here of this block. They want to come and check out some of them signs down here. They're a little bit of truth about what happens. And Alice Springs here, people get treated, how's the rent? Yeah. Proving your identification everywhere you go, and on that sort of yes. Damien remembers when a sign was put up on his block during the intervention. And when I see it, because I got dyslexia, I couldn't read it. And I said, "What does that mean?" And someone was explaining it to me and I was like, "What?" Yeah, it's always been like that. Some signs up there that are saying that we can't have any alcohol or any like pornography or any other stuff that's written on there says that we can't have it. And then there's another sign here. Do you want to, can anyone read this sign for me? Why isn't you going to read that out? It is an offence to drink or bring alcohol into this community or give alcohol to anyone. And again, this has been planted in front of people's homes. That's right. That's for you to change. How can you decorate your house and look respectable when you've got these sitting before you've been into your house? Do you think that people in the broader Australian community have any sort of understanding as to what's happening here? No. Like, people look at Alistair as a bad town. Charles Creek is one of the more pristine camps. They're tended to by a number of housing associations of various types of leases. If they're not suburbs, they're not camps as weed, no. What they are is places of segregation. A reminder of times before the intervention, when from the earliest days of European settlement, Aboriginal people and families were discouraged from living in the township. Uncle Brian is scathing about the state of the camp in which he lives. We're living on top of rubbish. Don't even have proper house, you know. We're happy with the river I read. Bit of power, shower. Majority of the time the sun springs me because you don't have power, you don't have food. I'll be ringing in sometimes for power and for food. And that's just jitter. Linking up and supporting each other. But like I was saying, it's like we are all handicapped with this rent system, with everything. You know, lately, to be honest, I come in here and visit my family, but I haven't really pulled up and looked at this. And today we really looked at it and actually reading about it, I'm thinking this sort of brings back a lot of anger and a lot of distrust within the government and whatnot. Yeah, where were you when you heard that the intervention was going to come through? I was at Loves Creek station, I was working with Damon's dad. And what was the reaction of you and some of the other fellas were? Well, it was shocking and it was really sad for being an Indigenous man, you know. Yeah. The sea armies coming with guns and everything in it, that freaked everybody out. Like to hear all these stories, like the wind and the wind coming through, you may have a broth and all that. I would love to see Malbrok come back and sit there with me, because I've got a lot of things to put it on the table for him. If you're listening, Malbrok can come back and meet Brian Yang in other springs. These men are proud fathers, grandfathers and sons. The thought of harming their own flesh and blood is apparent to them. But the shame of being cast as drunks, drug users and pedophiles still lingers, all these years later. The picture that was painted of Aboriginal men here impacted Mal right across the country. Now it's the next generation being impacted. I wanted to speak to some of the kids who brought me to Ella Springs. The kids on the news, being shown as out of control. We've come to a place where kids can rehabilitate. It's called bush mob and it's motto is, "Grog sniffing, drugs, crime, violence, no good. Where are we?" Bush mob. Bush mob. What's bush mob? Bush mob is like dragged to the net called. What's your favorite part of it? Anything, I don't know anything. What do you do? The bush trip, I like the bush trip. Just going out into the bush? Yeah, tomorrow. What are you going to be doing out there? Swimming, anything, swimming. Yeah. What was a lot of being in juvenile? It's alright, peaceful. You're peaceful. Yeah. Yeah. The facility is a bunch of demand to pools or dongles as they call them up here. I don't know why. It's the industrial part of town. Like many NGOs here, the organisation is broke. The pool table has sticky tape down its centre to fix a tear. A few kids are playing pool, the others sitting around. There's lots of banter and not much to do. Chuck McGregor is bush mob CEO. The kids we're seeing now are the kids of the kids. So there are the guys who got marginalised when the intervention came in, who got shuffled to the side or put into a service or do that and then left with little to no support. And then if you don't know how to look after yourself, you know how to look after kids. For a few, we're getting the third, fourth generation of welfare kids. That's what happens. Most of the kids here are Aboriginal and have either had brushes with the law or have been locked up. People can't walk in and kids can't walk out. It's harshly lit with flickering fluorescent lights giving everything a bluish tinge. But it's also an oasis. Kids will spend weeks detoxing, wander about the dangers of drugs and sniffing and give them time to think about their place in the world. You want to come and have a yarn as well? Okay. Yeah. What the hell? What's up? You're next. Hello. Hello. How old are you? I'm 40. Cool. Here. And how long have you been in here, you know? I don't know. Yeah. For me? For me? Healthier. Hmm. Do you tell us a bit more about what you do? I do. It's like teaching the staff and making a noise. Making them their money. Yeah. Making noise. Like knowing them, isn't it? What do you want to do when you get out of here? I don't know. Free? I'll be free. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to be smoking drugs for nothing, he'd like my heart smoke. Staff at Bushmob do their best, but they rap against it. It's run on a skeleton staff, and therefore in some circumstances, can't provide enough support to the kids that are here. The social and political environment is no longer conducive for the soft touch of organisations like Bushmob. Yeah. The kids come out fatter than they come in. That's the point. We're not fixing the problems at home, so if young fellas got drama with family at home, we can't fix that. We can't go out to the community or where the young fellas from and have it so that everything's safe. But what we can do is make sure for the time that they're here, they're safe, they're fed, they're looked after. I think it's getting better or worse, finally, Jack. I think it's getting worse. In here I feel a sense of frustration and hopelessness that permeates these walls as much as it does the streets of Alice Springs. Three generations of Aboriginal people have lived through it all. They are the children and grandchildren of the intervention. How many more generations are doomed to suffer the same fate? So anything, just podcast goes out to everyone. Is there anything that you want to tell people of Australia about what your life is like and what your hopes are? That sort of thing. Life is good, hard, sometimes, like that. You got a piece of it, good to see you. In the next episode, the one agency tasked more than any other to arrest the problem here, the Coppers. As we sit here now in 2024, just at the start of your journey in this role, would you say that the Northern Territory police is a racist institution? You see, once an Aboriginal person gets in the system, it's like glued. You know, it's a vortex, it's crazy shit. No matter how well I dress, no matter how high I am as a position title, no matter what sort of car I drive, I'm still an Aboriginal person. I'm still an Aboriginal person. I'm still an Aboriginal person, I'm still an Aboriginal person, I'm still an Aboriginal
