More than 200 Aboriginal people across Central Australia have gathered at an Indigenous-only meeting in Alice Springs to discuss strategies to combat rising crime and community unrest and anti-social behaviour.
Key points:
- Aboriginal people from the local community say today’s meeting allowed for “grassroots-led community development”
- The national spotlight has been focused on Alice Springs amid an increase in crime in the region
- The meeting highlighted ways to support and empower young Indigenous people
It comes amid weeks of national attention on the Red Centre, where a recent surge in alcohol-fuelled violence has prompted the Northern Territory government to reinstate liquor bans in Aboriginal town camps and remote communities.
Thousands of Alice Springs residents attended a separate community meeting last week, where a local business owner pushed to sue the NT government for crime-related damages on behalf of residents.
Que Kenny, a Western Arrernte woman from the remote community of Hermannsburg, said she wanted to organise a separate meeting that brought Indigenous leaders together.
“We are so proud that this meeting has happened,” she told the ABC outside the meeting.
“This is the beginning of a new journey for us.
“Please be patient with us as this is a very lengthy process.”
Ahead of the meeting, Ms Kenny told ABC Radio Alice Springs on Wednesday that she wanted attendees to discuss ways to better support disadvantaged children, and to help empower the next generation of Aboriginal leaders.
“In all honesty, these kids that are running amok in Alice Springs, they grew up under the Intervention,” she said.
“They’ve seen their parents being rejected everywhere in Mparntwe, so this is the effect.”
The Indigenous-only meeting was closed to media, but several people spoke to the ABC outside.
Arrernte man Declan Furber Gillick was among those who attended.
He said it was important for those who live “closest to our young people and closest to the reality of our town” to gather, adding it needed to happen more often.
“A broad collection of Aboriginal people from across this country came together to speak and to air views that are hard to air, and to ask questions of one another that are hard to ask,” he said.
“It was done really in the spirit of progress and of togetherness and of unity and of a view to the future.
“This is the beginning of … grassroots-led community development and conversation led by First Nations people.”
Warlpiri-Luritja woman Anyupa Butcher, who also attended the meeting, said she wanted to recognise the hard work of previous generations undertaken already.
“There have been a lot of people in this community who have been working tirelessly for many years to make Mparntwe a better place,” she said.
“For instance, the Strong Grandmothers Group are an incredible bunch of women based in Alice Springs who walk the streets at night and who come together and … support the next generation of people coming through.”
Outside the meeting, Ms Kenny said she wanted remote Territorians to know that people cared about them.
“We do care, and we do want to bring changes to Mparntwe (Alice Springs),” Ms Kenny said.
“There are two different issues here: We’ve got the town problem, and the community problems coming into town.”
Ms Kenny also said the group had chosen to ignore “the negative stuff being said about us in the media”.
“Stop demonising our men, stop demonising our children,” she said.
“We are the oldest living culture in this country and we are never going to give up.”