This episode is the third part of the three part series. If you haven't yet, start with children on the intervention and then listen to the coppers. Also, it contains some strong language. Most of us have lived in these camps all their life. I've moved out, I've come back, grew up in Charles Creek. So you've got some kids of your own? Yep. What are your hopes and dreams for them? They've got brains, they do go to school all the time. Yeah. I've got my eldest daughter now who's almost finished year 12 and she's straight into her health work is course straight after school holidays and the other ones in year 10. And yeah, she's pursuing what she wants to do now through the vet courses through school. I'm at Charles Creek camp just on the edge of Alice Springs. It's its own little community at the bottom of a hill. I'm talking to Renee. While we talk, her kids are playing nearby, still in their uniforms to tone from school. They're burning off that last bit of energy before dinner and settling in for the night. I wouldn't know what it's been like to live here, under the glaring spotlight of governments, but never to be seen, only monitored. To live a life within the ever tightening parameters decided by the state. The latest one, being the curfews imposed earlier this year. Kids weren't allowed on the streets after 6 pm. It was horrible like I've just finished the season being an underseventing coach for the girls side into Alice. It was a bit hard because we had to bring our training times earlier just so the kids could be home before the certain time, which was silly because none of my girls was involved with any of the rubbish that was going on around town and it really affected our training ways. So yeah, it was pretty stupid that we got affected from it really bad. It's kind of the typical thing that happens in the territories that everyone gets taught with the same brush because I was certain number of people applying up and then everyone has to suffer as a result. Is that the way you feel? Yep, exactly the way I feel. It's not a problem, it should be brought upon their guardians, their parents or whatever, with whoever's doing wrong. And so no one's talking to each other. I mean, that's what it seems to me. No one's actually, you can sort of like enforce the law, you can bring in curfews, you can bring in the interventions through the army and stuff, but actually no one's actually sitting down and talking with people to find out what the problem is and what the solution is. Yeah, that'd be right if we could do that, but no one's game enough to get out and talk about it. So yeah, it must be pretty exhausting. Yeah, it is. Being locals and living all our life, so yeah. You see a long-term future here for yourself and your family? At the moment, no. So where would you go? Somewhere out of Alice Springs, hopefully. It's not so much the crime wave that's driving Renee out of Alice Springs. It's been the response to it. People who are trying their best are looked on with suspicion. It's tiring having to prove yourself time and time again to do the little things. Go to the shops, drive a car, raise a family. Every Aboriginal person here is under the same pressure. The thing that needs fixing is not Renee or her family, but the continual trespassing on their lives by clerks and coppers. She's not alone wanting to leave Alice. Those who can afford it are packing up and leaving. There are for sale signs everywhere you go in town. There's a glut of homes on the market. So what are the people that remain one? What's working or needs to happen to make things work? The little things that can make a big difference. I'm Daniel James from Schwartz Media and 7 a.m. This is Alice Springs, episode three in Bartwey. Thank you everyone. What an incredible group of dedicated hardworking territoryans. How good is it to be territoryans tonight? There's a new government in the territory and its leader has promised solutions. Earlier this year, Leah Finigiarro became the new Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. She won on a landslide, almost completely wiping out the Labor Party from Parliament, reinstalling the country's legal party to power. As a born and bred second-generation territory king, the granddaughter of Italian migrants, I grew up living in iconic territory childhood, hunting, camping, fishing and playing outside. I always knew the territory was a special place and I was lucky to be a territoryan. Growing up here, the new Chief Minister just turned 40, but she's been in Parliament for 13 years. She's CLP through and through as much a part of the political establishment as you can get here. The dawn of this era looks strangely like the old one. It's another territory and looking back at this place as they remember. To get back to those times, the new Chief Minister will be implementing her tough on crime agenda. Territories have stood up against nearly two decades of escalating crime and economy going backwards and the erosion of our once iconic lifestyle. But tomorrow is the start of a new day and a new chapter. She's promised to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10, tightening already tight by all laws. Schools will have truancy officers and there's the threat to restrict government benefits for parents of kids who misbehave. Police will be given more powers to search kids as young as 10 if they're considered suspicious. The greyest of law enforcement criteria. Spithoods, banned after the Don Dale Royal Commission, will be back. The prison itself, in the midst of a makeover, you will improve to house all the incarcerated children to come. CLP are proposing on the issue of youth crime to reducing the age of criminal responsibility back to 10 from 12 years of age. What experts have said this is a good idea and what have they said? Well, the experts at the CLP listened to are the everyday territories who are out there sick and tired of being victims of crime. We had hollow promises from chance of age. So they're her solutions. But what about the locals? Before we came to Weller Springs, we called a lot of people, elders, lawyers, health workers. A lot of people who have been fighting over decades to try and prove the plight of people living here. Blaire McPhalen's name kept on coming up. So we set up a meeting with him. We meet him at the Olive Pink Botanical Gardens. The desert gardens nestled at the base of one of the hills of the Eastern McDonald Rangers. The sky is blue and the morning sun is warm. After decades of work on the front line, he's approaching retirement and is at the point where he can tell it like it is. Call that anyone or any agency that needs to be called out. Yes, I'm Blaire McPhalen. One of my things is that I'm 20, 24 or NT Australian of the year. I say that so, you know, sort of I've got a little bit of generally sort of acknowledged cred in case you've never heard of me, which of course the past majority will never have. Blaire arrived here in the mid-80s from Melbourne and fell in love with the place and the people. Petrel sniffing was a sporadic problem when he arrived, but by the start of the new millennium, the problem became more and more prevalent until it turned into an unrelenting wave with no sign of stopping. It's an issue that's plagued remote Indigenous communities for decades and its effects are devastating. Petrel sniffing is on the rise in the topic. In 2002, Blaire established the Central Australian Youth Link Up Service, Kaylas, to support young people sniffing Petrel. Blaire himself had first-hand encounters with people he'd attempted suicide as a result of sniffing. One man he saved went on to save another from a similar attempt. Blaire McPhalen is the manager of Kaylas. He's speaking with Kathy Van Eckstel. And so the youth are running around with a real feeling of like nobody cares about it. It's definitely contributed to a feeling of unease on the street in Alice Springs, like a lot of people are really concerned about it like they're nice kids, but they roam around it. Through Kaylas, he advocated for the low aromatic fuel act in 2013, which resulted in a 95% drop in Petrel sniffing. It was as close as you could get to ever solving a complex problem in this part of the world. But this is different. This crisis is much worse. It's really quite different because basically a Petrel sniffer is like a zombie. You know, they sort of, they stumble around, they've got a can against their face. They didn't seem to see anything. So that's what it was like then. And they were doing themselves serious damage. The now is really contrasting to that. And the now is a bunch of kids with ADHD, FASD, global developmental delay, they're hungry, they're wired. They're sort of, their traditional authority systems have been undermined by colonization for generations. And this is what Alice Springs is now facing there, the karma that we're facing because of policy decisions made of generation ago. But no one in politics is talking about that. It seems like they're only thinking as far ahead as the next electoral cycle will allow. I think that there are so many players here operating on their own agendas, that it's actually what a mathematician would call a chaos field, a field where there are so many decisions being made that it's really unpredictable in which direction things will go. And that's, I think, what you're feeling here. There is no plan. Like, you know, the crime stuff, they're saying, oh, we'll put everybody in jail. So like, is that the plan? That everybody in the Northern Church will either be a prisoner or a warden by the year 2050? Lowering the age of criminal responsibility back to 10. I know what they should do, six. That'll be a bit more fun. It's just crazy. What do you got to say about it? Oh, it's just, it's a crazy desperate foolish thing that in no way affects, you know, what's making those kids criminal. If they wanted to do something about that whole scene, you'd put a lot more resources into diagnosing and treating all of those things. His view echoes experts, you say, not only does tough on crime not work, it's a potential breach of human rights. When it comes to kids in prison or detention or whatever you want to call it, what the state's doing is swapping one culture for another. One where the cycle of crime and punishment becomes the norm. Throwing children in detention and placing them in previously banned spit hoods can and will have psychological and cognitive impacts on kids development. Even though the strategies won't work, people have lost hope to fight against them. This is the mandate the government has, despite less than 45% of enrolled voters in Bush electorates casting a ballot. Blair says the low voter turnout is linked to the outcome of the voice referendum as well. Yeah, I think the referendum made Aboriginal people even more cynical than before about what's the point? Because I think a whole lot of Aboriginal people became really disinheartened about the whole voting thing and didn't vote. Like in the electorate I ran in, there were six and a half thousand people registered to vote and two and a half thousand voted. Blair ran as a Greens candidate in the recent election and lost. Greens were a rare breed in the territory. Perhaps his last attempt to force change in our springs and beyond. So Blair, what needs to be done? I don't know what, I don't know. I've tried, I've tried everything, nothing, nothing works. Blair contributed a lot more than most but ultimately change here is going to come from somewhere else. After the break, one man in his family in the middle of the desert trying their best to help the children of Zimbabwe break the cycle. That means Ruby and I are going on country. At least the biggest forces you've ever seen. Your front row seat to international premieres, iconic classics and exclusive new productions. Melbourne Theatre Company's season 2025 is world-class theatre. The new season includes the five-time Tony Award-winning new musical, Kimberly Kimbo, that took Broadway by storm. And the wrong gods, the next work from Es Shakti Darin, the acclaimed playwright and director of counting and cracking. Get the best seats at the best price when you bundle multiple plays in a subscription. Visit MTC.com.au to book now. So we see an emir down the day, just over there, running around, we just picked up a baby printy about that big. His head was stuck under a can. So we're surrounding, can you describe where we are? I mean, we're surrounded by rocking his garments with McDonald Ranges. East of McDonald Ranges, I think. This is the undulya side of the unbaunter country. And over here, there's a great significance of connection to this country. That's the three caterpillars. And y'all guys, my great, great, great grandfather. He's not too far from here. We've come here at a cracking time of day, late afternoon, the sun low over the McDonald Ranges on the horizon. I'm with Damien, the fellow who's been our unofficial tour guide. We're out at his favourite place, the place where he tries to make a difference to what's happening here. His generosity helped us a great deal for this series. But now we're at his outstation, the spot that made us want to speak with him in the first place. All what you see is whatever accumulated out of my own pocket. This old machine you have only bought that cheap, but it's done in me some, you know, some world of greatness. There's caravans for smokow and the shelter from the weather. There's fences, gates and pens. And there's horses. What's this fellow's name? This is Mallon. She's a mayor. That's right. How much I know about horses? That's ammo. Mallon chopsticks. This is my big horse. He's a big feller. How many hands? 16, 16 hands. That's pretty funny. And the other side of the side of his DJ and that's grim up the back. All right, that's the biggest horse I've ever seen in my life. He's the most gentlest one. Yeah, right. He's raced all the- Emma, Mallon and chopsticks. I looked after by kids who come here from town. Kids who've spent time with detention or kids with substance issues. Damien calls the program all-rounder. I've got a young black that I'm training, Justin. And he's getting ready to race again. So he's probably going to race chopstick or this big foliar. So we'd get kids out here. Numbers of 30, 29, different young fathers, different ages. We could either be doing identifying bush medicine or trees to make bush tools out of. We do a what do you call a cultural conversation. Half of the group might want to do the horses, like brush them down and we get the other half preparing to settle. And then we'll switch. So they both get two learning sessions out of one day. And that could be the mechanics, or that could be the fencing, or that could be the cooking, or the artwork, or the fitness style side of things. So we break it down for the one day. We split it in twos. So by the time the kids have come through the program, what will they know how to do, that they didn't know how to do before they got in? Well here's the thing. When you talk about pioneering days, everything was built on how much skills you had and how useful you could be on country. So we tried to give them all those skills. So if a job presented itself, they'd be trained in multiple ways. So a job wouldn't sort of cause them any fear to apply for one. But we normally aim to explore their talents, and expose their talent, and push them into that sort of workforce, because they'll stick at it because they love doing it. So we do all sorts of stuff, welding, fencing, mechanics, cooking, artwork, horsemanship. I believe from what I've seen, I've seen a lot of change. I've seen a chemical here that actually works. What's that chemical? The chemical is back on country. And just being at peace with country and animals, it gives a different approach when you're trying to educate someone or talk to someone. They have the time to take it in. All rounder is a working work in progress, and Damien's reasons for starting the program are deep. The origin behind it is my dad. He was a cattleman and a person before him. Grew up in a home, start in generation, very resilient. Yeah, it took on different skill set, because that's what was required back in the day. As a kid, Damien's dad, Dennis, was forcibly removed from his family and sent to Darwin. Somehow he escaped and returned to his country where he became a ringer on a cattle station. Through years of skilled and hard toil, he went on to become one of the first Aboriginal owners of a cattle station. I've seen footage of Dennis. Damien looks and sounds just like him. I was raised on a cattle station, seeing my dad doing it. But to be creative was the key for me. In life, Damien, like many of us do, worked a series of jobs, many of them a long way from his true passion. But in eight of his people nonetheless. What were you doing before you started the program? I was an officer at a bailing facility called Solbush, and we were trying to keep him from not getting locked up and keep him from coming back. And then I heard about these other programs that's been delivered, but these kids are still reoffending. But that was receiving so much funding every year. And I come to think about it. I want to whistle this money going because there's a lot of money getting chucked around, but there's no change. So I created an idea for my program that was based on my dad's upbringing from his pioneering days. To find the path forward, not only for himself, but his community, Damien would be guided from within. He could look to his own flesh and blood for the trail out of the mess. He would look to his own father. Dennis passed away a couple of years ago, but his name and memory live on. Damien has called the land moron RDK outstation after his old man, Roy Dennis Kunos. It means that every kid that gets a helping hand here will have Dennis to thank as much as Damien. He believes that small black running owned programs like this can help kids heal, reorientate their lives, and help them in a way that locking them up never will. I don't think there's too many programs like mine. I think it's pretty unique how it's designed and where the origin comes from. I've done a little bit of work. Most of my work's been pretty good. I'd like to expand. I'd like to have young people out here full-time, just care taken for the animals and getting a wage at some point in time. Eventually I want to run a little bit of cattle. I can introduce that cattle industry back in, you know, to these young people's lives, giving them an opportunity to chase cattle in the yard, brand them, and mark them, and just teach them a bunch of skills to be self-sufficient back on their own country. I've seen a lot of programs like I was saying. They get a lot of funding, but there's no real outcome. I'd like to be the first that could create outcomes before I receive any type of funding. I was mesmerised by the setting, and what Damien was doing, but there was one question I was dreading. Would you like to go for iron on, sir? Not a chance. I mean... It's not that I'm not a fan of horses. It's that I fear that they won't be a fan of me. Damien's son, Bison, is of a similar mindset. He's been with us all day, but he's quiet and shy, especially around the animals. Do you ride the... Do you want any of him, Bison? I don't know for anyone. Yeah, he, um, he rode my big one dollars last year. Yeah, this plug lives up and down. Yeah, yeah. But he occasionally come down and visit, check out what I'm doing, check out the program's doing, sir. Bison's 18, but he's a young 18. Despite his shyness, he's been warm and friendly with us, and has a dry sense of humour, well aware of his surroundings, and mindful of what he has to say. What's it, um, what's it like living an owl's springs? Just a little bit messed up here and there. You were 18? Yeah. And what do you want to do with your life from here? I haven't got to that point, good. Yeah, it's a big question, isn't it? What about what your old man does? Nah, nah, I don't know to ride horses and stuff. You feel lucky that you've got someone like your dad as a role model that's kind of, you know, been a bit of a beacon for you and your siblings? Yeah, pretty much. In my mind, Bison was an example of a kid on the right path. If he played his cards right, he could stay at arm's distance from the system, avoid becoming hovered up by it, and part of the cycle. He has a loving family, his dad's a local leader, and a role model. The outstation is an oasis in a desert of disarray. Somewhere where you can point to the chaos elsewhere and know from where you stand, you can keep it at bay. I thought he was one of the lucky ones, but it's wrong to assume anything about this place. Ruby, Bison and I were sitting in the car when we started chatting. At first, just small talk about life at the station. One time I came here, got my dad forcing me to, like, come leave water and for the horses and that, you know? Yep. But I took the wrong track and I just got stuck. Oh, shit. On the other road. But as we drove on, Bison started telling me something that complicated all back. So when were you up in Darwin? I was coming back Wednesday. Oh, really? Yeah. And so why were you up there? I caught these shoes. Yeah. That's a youth. So wait, were you, you weren't in Dondale or anything, were you? No, I was. Oh, you were? Yeah. Oh, shit. All right, nine months. What was that like? A little bit scary at the first part of it. It took a while for that to sink in. This young fellow that were getting to know, a gentle soul, had just spent nine months, 15 hours up the road in the infamous Dondale used detention facility. He says he felt pressured into crimes that landed in there. Those people, like, period, like, people that are, like, they'll be with that forcing stuff, you know? Like, forcing you to do this, forcing you to do that. They'll bring, like, be with you onto your little female dog, you know? Like, you're scared, you know, like that. And they'll, like, make it more tempting. But that's what's behind me now. Yep. In Dondale, Bison quickly learned to keep his head down. Will they even get rough with you? First times. But I'm a little bit like, I kind of am now, you know? Yeah. Because I'm the wrong way from home, that's what I was thinking. I understand a little bit of a long way from, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Small town, dude. Like, different different ways. Bison stories are a reminder of the importance of programs like Oranda. And perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that Damien started the program around the same time Bison was sent to Dondale. Three generations of Oranda men, Dennis, Damien, and Bison, somehow working together. The giant caterpillars that form the McDonald Rangers in Oranda culture can be seen in the distance. The dream time stories are as beautiful as the landscape itself. But in 2024, the thought of what can happen to kids like Bison and the 10-year-olds that could serve time in the facility in which he just come from makes the beauty of the landscape and the people here ache that little bit more. [MUSIC] Hello. Hello. Hello. Later, as the sun fell lower and the dust became redder, I was drawn by the side of Trimeria, Damien's youngest, just 13 months old, blonde hair, olive skin, and a cheeky smile. We would have dubbed her creamy back on your order country. But this is her land and it's where she's meant to be. She told us her way through the same dust her ancestors played in through the millennia. It reminds me of what we've seen during our time here are more her problems than anyone else's. Even though she's born into a loving family with strong role models and big hearts, the fact that she's born and will be raised on her land means she'll face a battle to become whatever she desires. A problem that children the same age but born elsewhere will never have. That is the great injustice of it all and that's the heart of the problem at the heart of this country. This is in Bartwell. [Music] This is how our Springs is written, reported, and hosted by me, Daniel James. Ruby Jones co-reported and executive produced the series. Shane Anderson is our senior producer. Sarah McVee is our editor. Chris Dangate is our associate editor. Original compositions by Zolt and Fetchow, mixing by Traverse Evans. We have production support from Atticus Bastow and Zaya Tungarell, additional recording by Lloyd Barrett. This is how the Springs was made on Arendelle, Wiradjuri, Wirundri, and Dara will land. Thanks to everyone he spoke to me on and off the record and welcome me into their lives. 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