Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visits Tennant Creek, Northern Territory

IT’S the town where kids are raped every week and forced to ram-raid shops just to eat. Its leaders have a bold idea to turn things around.

FOUR decades since an Australian Prime Minister has visited Tennant Creek, Malcolm Turnbull has landed in the troubled Northern Territory town for a first-hand look.

Tennant Creek landed itself in the national spotlight in February when a two-year-old girl was raped so severely she had to be placed in a coma and flown down to South Australia to receive lifesaving medical treatment.

Since then, leaders from all levels of government have vowed to get to the bottom of why the rate of alcohol-fuelled violence is so high.

The federal government is now in the process of reviewing a plan put forward by Tennant Creek elders which would give them overarching powers to banish troublemakers from the town.

According to The Australian, local elders have asked to incorporate some of their traditional punishments into Australia’s legal system.

Elders in Tennant Creek have asked the government for greater powers to expel troublemakers from their town. Picture: Dan Himbrechts

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion told the publication elders have asked for permission to expel anyone that doesn’t comply with a code of conduct curated by local clans.

“Part of the conversation the cultural authority is having with me is about to what extent … they can have authority to ensure ­people on their country behave in an appropriate way, and how we can work together to ensure that these people who are not behaving appropriately are expelled,” Mr Scullion told The Australian.

“It used to happen, and I will be looking to see if a type of apprehended violence order or something similar can be put in place by the courts or whatever to ensure what they (the authority) say should happen does happen. This is one of their big priorities.”

Similar laws are already in place in Queensland and Western Australia where elders are permitted to temporarily kick someone out of the community if they break the code of conduct.

‘CORRUPTION, LIES AND $11,000 BRIBES’

Landing in Tennant Creek yesterday, the Prime Minister was welcomed by some of the 3000-strong town before being heckled by someone from the crowd.

According to The Guardian, immediately after Mr Turnbull told the crowd he was “here to listen”, a man yelled: “Prime Minister, where’s our 20 and 50-year plan for Australia? When are we going to stop selling our infrastructure to foreigners, and our minerals? When are we going to look after our country rather than yourself and your business mates?”

At a dinner last night, Mr Turnbull said the biggest problem Tennant Creek residents faced was a place to sleep.

“The lack of housing is the biggest single issue that has been described in every encounter,” the Prime Minister said.

Mr Turnbull highlighted an arrangement similar to those in Townsville, Geelong and Western Sydney, where federal, territory and local government would consult with indigenous and cultural groups on housing, economic growth, health and education priorities.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull meets with a local indigenous dance troupe after his welcome at Tennant Creek airport. Picture: Dan Himbrechts

The Northern Territory government has committed to building nine public houses over the next year which local leaders say will do little to fix the problem.

“That won’t go far because we have a four-to-six-year waiting list for a three-bedroom house at the moment,” Barkly Regional Council Mayor Steve Edgington told AAP.

The lack of housing also increases the level of danger kids face in the town.

In the past month alone, 15 children were taken from their families around Tennant Creek because the NT government believed they were at risk.

Social Services Minister Dan Tehan agreed more houses were needed but that there had to be rules in place to keep them in good condition.

“If we just throw money at new housing, and then that housing isn’t in a state in five years time that it can be used, we haven’t solved anything,” he told ABC radio on Monday.

Mr Turnbull spent his Sunday night driving around with the Youth Night Patrol which picks up young children wandering the streets alone and takes them home.

Earlier this month, Mr Tehan and Mr Scullion toured Tennant Creek and were told by officials working to improve the town that kids often commit crimes just to get something to eat.

“Young people are now escalating their behaviour very quickly to stealing cars, and our experience in Alice Springs is they’re going from stealing bikes to doing ram raids in a very short time frame for a 10 or 11-year-old,” Police Assistant Commissioner Michael White told the NT News.

The state’s Education Department Barkly regional manager Lynette English said child offenders were often doing it out of hunger.

“They go in and there’s nothing damaged except for where they’ve entered perhaps, and they’ve taken food, sometimes they’ve just sat at the table and eaten that food, and then they’ve left,” she said.

Since arriving in the town, locals have used various methods to get the Prime Minister’s attention.

In a live cross yesterday afternoon, a Sky News reporter filmed a Tennant Creek local painting a fence.

“Corruption, lies and $11,000 bribes,” the writing read, referring to the amount of money each Tennant Creek resident is given.

The government forks out $30 million a year for the 3000 person town.

In a separate interview, a group of boys told Sky News officials getting rid of the bottle shop was the solution to the town’s problems.

“There’s too many alcoholics anyway. They should just close up (the bottle shop) and make everybody be healthy,” he said.

When questioned by the reporter if any of the boys knew people who drank, the same boy responded, “My cousin does, he’s 11”.

.@ljayes spoke with some of the children in Tennant Creek about how alcohol is affecting the community.

MORE: https://t.co/ykweMevBOK #SkyLiveNow pic.twitter.com/lkJmec1wpI

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) July 23, 2018

— With Wires