Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“This town is a sad story, especially for blackfellas like us. For non-Indigenous people, It's a beautiful town. Look at the landscape, it's beautiful. But for us to live here as a local, it's a sad story.”

DANIEL:

This is Uncle Bryan, he’s an Arrernte man. This is his land, this is his town.

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“Well we wanna show Alice Springs in a different way, in a blackfella way not just whitefella way. Whitefella way you call 'Alice Springs' Alice. Who’s Alice? We don’t know Alice. It’s called Mparntwe.”

DANIEL:

We’re sitting in a park. It’s at the base of one of those age old rocky escarpments that surround this town. It’s mid afternoon, metres away is a children’s play area. Empty swings, empty slides.

With us is Damien, another Arrernte man.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Damien? Good to speak to ya.”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Yeah, likewise.”

DANIEL:

With him is his son Byson, tall and slender; eighteen years of age; dressed in a Nike hoodie. Too much for a southerner on a warm central Australian day, but suitable for a local.

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“That's my son, Byson.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“G’day Byson, how ya going mate?”

Audio Excerpt - Ruby:

“It’s heating up…”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Bit warmer up here than it is in Melbourne.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Tell me about it.”

DANIEL:

Together Uncle Bryan, Damien and Byson represent three generations of Arrernte men.

Damien is in his 30s, looks like he’s just jumped off the back of a steed. He’s wearing a checked shirt with the sleeves removed, jeans and boots covered in dust, red dust. The town we’re in now, the one his son Byson grew up in, has changed a lot since Damien was a kid.

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

Well, growing up here from a young person, it was a good little town. Loved it. Still love it today, but I think the sweet part of Alice is no longer here. I think it’s gone a bit sour to be honest.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Byson, what’s it like living in Alice Springs?”

Audio Excerpt - Byson:

“Pretty harsh. It looks good now but at night time it looks a little bit like trenches vibes, you know?”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“So you think it’s better to stay in your home?”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Yeah. It's too dangerous for non-Indigenous people like. And like me, being a local as an Arrernte man, I don't feel safe walking in the streets at night because I get attacked too."

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Yeah that’s sad.”

Audio Excerpt - Bryan:

“You get one kid walk up to you, a 12 year old asking for a cigarette and you tell him you’ve got nothing, and he sings out for his mates. All them little gangs and all that.”

DANIEL:

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.

[Theme Music Starts]

Audio Excerpt - Local 1:

“At this pub, the Todd Tavern, glass was smashed, bricks were just pelted at it, people were running up and fly-kicking…”

Audio Excerpt - Local 2:

“Mate they’re taking 20 metre jumps, jumping in the glass trying to smash it…”

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 1:

“A flying sidekick, punches, rocks and even bricks.”

Audio Excerpt - Local 3:

“oh, she’s got a brick!” [Sound of brick hitting wall]

DANIEL:

This is when the headlines started. In cities and towns across Australia, we read about “chaos” about “rampages”. One newspaper described the kids here as “tiny menaces - stuck on a turnstile of trouble”.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 2:

“A couple of youths, some of whom look younger than 10 years old, damaged more than 60 cars.”

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 3:

“They’re hanging out the window hooning through Alice Springs.”

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 4:

“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…”

DANIEL:

Police were given extraordinary powers to arrest the violence, to put an end to it.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 5:

“An emergency situation has been declared in Alice Springs following a wave of violence in the Northern Territory town.”

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 6:

“This curfew is for both adults and children and will be enforced from 10pm and 6am.

Audio Excerpt - Government Spokesperson:

“We will back our police to enact this curfew and do what is needed to improve community safety in Alice Springs.”

DANIEL:

Like fly-in and fly-out workers, politicians arrived to blame one another for the carnage. The people of Alice Springs became political footballs in the process.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“You’ve got kids here tonight who are going to be sexually abused, or families where domestic violence has now become a current occurrence.”

Audio Excerpt - Jacinta Price:

“Send in the riot squad, the ADF, whoever it takes to bring calm to our streets.”

DANIEL:

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/Mparntwe, to hear the voices of people here.

I want to know what happens when the great Australian silence 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 found is that almost all of it leads back to one thing.

I’m Daniel James, from Schwartz Media and 7am, This is Alice Springs.

Episode One: Children of the Intervention.

[Theme Music Ends]

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Lately it's um, there haven’t been a lot of tourists travelling through due to some of the issues in Alice Springs. People are a bit afraid.”

DANIEL:

Damien has offered to take us on a tour of the town. This is us driving around with him and Byson.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“The media reporting has been pretty full on, you think that’s had an effect on tourism?”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Yeah, look, I think it’s scared away a lot of even people with small businesses. A lot of local people…”

DANIEL:

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.

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“This is the main part of the CBD, Yeperenye Shopping Centre. This is where most people come for their shopping and…”

DANIEL:

We pass the Todd Tavern, opposite the footy ground. On the surface a 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.

As we round the corner, we see the heart of justice within the town. A triangle of imposing buildings; the cop shop; the Magistrates Court and, the biggest building of all, the Supreme Court.

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“That’s The big Supreme Court that just stands there and doesn't know what they're doing there.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“The Supreme Court building is a big one.”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Yeah it's, it's really big, but I don't know if there's any purpose for it.”

DANIEL:

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 higher rate in the Northern Territory than anywhere else in the country.

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“But here's the big one, right? You are, you got, you got nightclubs here. And our, we've got our young kids that are walking around up to no good, and we've got half of our elders and our leaders in the nightclub. And when they come out, they're seen as just as bad as the young people.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Right.”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“So, you know, every weekend some of our leaders are acting like children.”

DANIEL:

Inside the only shopping centre the bottle shops are open once again, and there are lines out the front with police checking IDs before people enter. There are two lines, with one copper each assigned to check where people live to make sure they don’t live somewhere where alcohol is forbidden. Middle-aged white people are waved through.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“What did you see, Unc?”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“Policeman they, whitefellas can walk straight in while blackfellas can’t. They ask you 100 questions just to get a six pack of beer.”

DANIEL:

There’s plenty of blackfellas on the street and they outnumber the whitefellas. They’re usually in groups just yarning up. It’s on these streets where you will hear some of the oldest languages known to humanity.

The true languages of this continent, yet they are 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 Byson their focus is on the problems here and now. I sense that, so I ask them about it.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“When did that sort of violence and running amok sort of start, do you think?”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“2000 when the intervention came through. It was a big joke. It was a big, shocking stuff where we were too ashamed to say we were from Alice Springs.”

DANIEL:

This is something I heard again and again as I spoke to locals in Alice Springs.

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.

[Advertisement]

Audio Excerpt - John Howard:

“Ahem..are we ready?

Well ladies and gentlemen, Mr Brough 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.”

DANIEL:

Far away from Alice Springs, in Canberra, John Howard stands in front of a pack of journalists.

It’s June, 2007.

Audio Excerpt - John Howard:

“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.”

DANIEL:

This moment will change the course of life for generations of people in Alice Springs and surrounds.

And it started with a report.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter:

“The Little Children Are 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…”

DANIEL:

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 seize control over the land again, stripping locals of any control over their lives, and sending in the military.

The popular CDEP program, a work for the dole scheme that acted as a pathway out of welfare, was scrapped forcing people back onto welfare.

Audio Excerpt - ABC News Reporter:

“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.”

DANIEL:

The swiftness of the response in all its clinical brutality took Howard and his Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, 48 hours to draw 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?

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“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.”

DANIEL:

We’ve driven out to the west side of town. We’ve graciously been invited into the home of Aunty Pat Ansell Dodds. She’s an artist and respected Arrernte elder.

Her family are from here. They were here at the point of first contact. This is her land. This is her town.

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Hey, little girl.”

RUBY:

“She’s gotten so shy.”

DANIEL:

Ruby, who has lined up the interview with Aunt, has her baby with her. Trying to find a quiet spot for them while we record our conversation.

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“I’ve got a few grandkids myself.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“How many do you have?”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“I have 8 boys and 3 girls. It’s a boxing match.”

Audio Excerpt - Ruby:

“I bet.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“And how long have you been in Alice Springs itself?”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Most of my life. I have worked very hard over the years to speak out for my people about what 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. To put the telegraph line through, from Adelaide to Darwin.”

DANIEL:

The Telegraph Station became a residential institution where Aboriginal children were taken when they were stolen from their families.

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Both my parents were put in there. And I didn't understand till I was a bit older all the things that happened to all the families around Australia taking their children away and brainwashing them about their own history, not ours.”

DANIEL:

Aunty Pat went onto become a nurse and, in the midst of her career, won a Native Title claim with her people.

Her personal and professional advancement and hard fought native title victory made her think for a time, things were improving. But the Intervention changed all that.

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“This younger generation is losing the plot. And the government did this to them.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“The government did this?”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Yeah.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“What do you think they were doing it?”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“It's just racism. It's an excuse to shut us down and take over the land and take over our communities. And then our people didn't have any, any rights anymore.”

DANIEL:

The intervention didn't end with Howard. Rudd and Gillard kept it in place, ironically rebranding it “stronger futures”.

Aunty Pat watched on as outsiders imposed a set of rules that removed the ability for her people to control their own lives.

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“When you have people come into 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 said, stuff them, we’ll run amok. And that's what they do.”

DANIEL:

In response Aunty 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.

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Well, we came together a few years ago and, 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 around the streets but they’d be thinking of smashing things, things like that.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“How long was the strong grandmother's group together for?”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

For a while. About 20 years. 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 tried to stop them, but it's not happening.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“You have eight grandchildren of your own.”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“I've got eight grandsons and three granddaughters.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“I see a photo of someone who graduated something up or something or other on the wall there.”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Yeah, me.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Who's that?”

Audio Excerpt - Aunty Pat:

“Yeah. I am just collecting a few things and start putting things away, because I’m going to Adelaide soon. That’s my thing, from La Trobe…”

DANIEL:

Aunty 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 Arrernte sisters being chased by a man, a story at the heart of Arrernte mythology. They will go with her when she heads south.

For those that remain, there are remnants of the Intervention all around. They are pillars of times past, which are still present today.

The next day Uncle Bryan and Damien take me to Charles Creek Town Camp to show me the remaining signs.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“So Unc, where are we?”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“Charles Creek and Kunoth Camp, Little Flower Mission. It’s where Arrernte people used to live.”

DANIEL:

Charles Creek is one of twenty 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 have arrived just after school finished. There’s are a couple of girls in 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 Bryan and Damien. First up, we meet young father Donald Kunoth.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“G’day mate, how you going? Daniel.”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Good to see you.”

Audio Excerpt - Donald Kunoth:

“One of the presidents of this block. So they wanted to come and check out some of them signs there and hear a little bit of truth about what happens in Alice Springs, how people get treated. How's the rent? And proving your Identification wherever you go and all that sort of jazz."

DANIEL:

Damien remembers when a sign was put up on his block during the intervention.

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

"And when I see it, cause I’ve got dyslexia, I couldn’t read it and someone was explaining it to me and I was like, what?"

Audio Excerpt - Donald:

“You know, 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 just written on there, it says that we can’t have it.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“And then there’s another sign here, do you wanna, can anyone read this sign for me?”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Byson you can read that, hey?”

Audio Excerpt - Byson:

“I can’t read.”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“It is an offence to drink or bring alcohol in this community or give alcohol to anyone.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“And again, this has been planted in front of people’s homes?”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“That’s right. How can you decorate your house and look respectable when you’ve got these sitting before you even enter your house?”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Do you think that people in the broader Australian community have any and any sort of understanding as to what's happening here?”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“No, right. People look at Alice Springs as a bad town.”

DANIEL:

Charles Creek is one of the more pristine camps. They are tended to by a number of housing associations on various types of leases.

They’re not suburbs, they’re not camps as we’d know. What they are is places of segregation. A reminder of the times before the Intervention when, from the earliest days of European settlement, Aboriginal people and families were discouraged from living in the township.

Uncle Bryan is scathing about the state of the camp in which he lives.

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“We’re living on top of rubbish. Don't even have a proper house, you know? We're happy with the roof over our head. A bit of power. Shower.”

Audio Excerpt - Damien:

“Majority of the time the son rings me because you don't have power, you don't have fuel. I'll be ringing him sometimes for power and for food and that's just, you know, 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 to visit my family but I haven’t really pulled up and looked at this. And today we really looked at it and we’re reading about it and it sort of brings back a lot of anger and distrust in the government and whatnot.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Where were you when you heard that the Intervention was going to come through?”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“I was at Loves Creek Station. I was working with Damien’s dad.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“And what was the reaction of you and some of the other fellas working?”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“Well, it was shocking and it's really sad for being an indigenous man, you know?”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Yeah.”

Audio Excerpt - Uncle Bryan:

“The Army come in with guns and everything and it freaked everybody out. Like, to hear all these stories when the intervention comes through with Mal Brough and all that.

I would love to see Mal Brough come back and sit down with me, because I got a lot of things to put in on the table for him. If you’re listening, Mal Brough, come back and meet Brian Young in Alice Springs.”

DANIEL:

These men are proud fathers, grandfathers and sons. The thought of harming their own flesh and blood is abhorrent to them.

But the shame of being cast as drunks, drug users and paedophiles still lingers all these years later. The picture that was painted of Aboriginal men here impacted mob 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 Alice Springs. The kids on the news being shown as out of control.

Audio Excerpt - Ruby:

“Hey.”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Hi, what’s up?”

Audio Excerpt - Ruby:

“Want to take a seat?”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

How are you going?"

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Good, whats up? Today we’re talking about.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“We’re talking about your life, brother.”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“I got no life.”

DANIEL:

We’ve come to a place where kids can rehabilitate. It’s called Bush Mob and its motto is - Grog, Sniffing, Drugs, Crime, Violence. No Good.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Where are we?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Bush Mob.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“And what’s Bush Mob?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Bush Mob is like drugs and alcohol.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“What’s your favourite part of it?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Anything, I don’t know, anything. What do we do? Bush trip, I like the bush trip.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Just going out in the bush?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Yeah, Tomorrow.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“What are you going to be doing out there?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Swimming, anything, swimming.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“What was it like being in juvenile?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“It’s alright, peaceful. Yeah, peaceful.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Yeah?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person:

“Yeah.”

DANIEL:

The facility is a bunch of demountables, or dongas as they call them up here I don’t know why.

It’s in 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.

Jock MacGregor is Bush Mob’s CEO.

Audio Excerpt - Jock MacGregor:

“The kids we're seeing now are the kids of the kids. So they're the guys who got marginalised when the intervention came in, who got shuffled to the side or put into a service or da da da, and then left with little to no support. And then if you don't know how to look after yourself, you don’t know how to look after kids. Or if you, like we're getting what, third, fourth generation of welfare kids. That's what happens.”

DANIEL:

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 blue-ish tinge. But it’s also an oasis. Kids will spend weeks detoxing, warned about the dangers of drugs and sniffing and given time to think about their place in the world.

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“You wanna come and have a yarn as well?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 2:

“Ok, what the hell?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“Hello!”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Hello, How old are you?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“I’m 14.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Cool, and how long have you been in here mate?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“I don’t know, from May. From May I was here.”

Audio Excerpt - Ruby:

“Do you want to tell us a bit more about what you do here?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“I do just like teasing the staff and annoying them.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Making them earn their money.”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“Annoying them, you know?”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“What do you want to do when you get out of here?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“I dunno, free.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Oh, be free?”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 2:

“He’s gonna be smoking drugs.”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“Nothing, he’s lying. I don’t smoke.”

DANIEL:

Staff at Bush Mob do their best, but they’re up against it.

It runs 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 Bush Mob.

Audio Excerpt - Jock MacGregor:

“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.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Yep.”

Audio Excerpt - Jock MacGregor:

“We can't fix that.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Yeah.”

Audio Excerpt - Jock MacGregor:

“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 of that for the time that they're here they're safe, they're fed, looked after.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Are things getting better or worse finally, Jock?”

Audio Excerpt - Jock MacGregor:

“I reckon it's getting worse.”

DANIEL:

In here, I feel the 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 the same fate?

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Is there anything, this 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.”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“Life is good. Hard sometimes. Like that. Yeah.”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

“Look after yourself, good to see you.”

Audio Excerpt - Young person 3:

“Take care.”

DANIEL:

In the next episode, the one agency tasked more than any other to arrest the problem here. The coppers.

Audio Excerpt - Crowd Chanting:

“We want justice for Walker! We want justice for Walker!”

Audio Excerpt - Daniel:

As we sit here now and 2024, just at the start of your journey in this role, would you say that the Northern Territory Police is a racist institution?”

Audio Excerpt - Interviewee 1:

“You see, once an Aboriginal person gets in the system, it's like glue. It’s a vortex. It's crazy shit.”

Audio Excerpt - Interviewee 2:

“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.”

[Theme Music Ends]