By Jordan Baker
Grey clouds hung low, threatening rain, as my car bounced along a dirt road to a riverside hamlet south of Port Stephens. I followed broken signs to Fisherman’s Village, a tourist resort that’s having a protracted identity crisis. With its ’90s glory now faded, some of its cabins house patients undergoing drug and alcohol rehabilitation, while other cabins are for private tenants. It’s a perilous mix.
I was full of curiosity when I arrived at the isolated, eerie bay. I ended up leaving in a hurry.
Connect Global is the heavily Christian facility to which former television star Andrew O’Keefe was once bailed, after allegations (later dropped) he grabbed a sex worker by the throat. It mostly takes men drying out as they await judgment by the courts, often for serious charges. Many of Connect Global’s neighbours don’t want them there. Nor does the council. The Land and Environment Court recently ordered everyone to try to live together.
The facility says it’s doing important work. There’s an acute shortage of rehabilitation beds statewide, and it argues it’s turning troubled, addicted men into responsible, mature citizens over six months or more. “If it wasn’t for this unique rehab I would still be in jail,” Connect Global’s Facebook page quotes one patient, Ritchie, as saying after staying for three weeks.
But many locals aren’t happy. A court has heard their concerns range from “anxiousness, fear and unease” about their neighbours’ backgrounds to the exposure of tenants’ children to accused criminals. There have also been years of tension between the owner of the private cabins and Ross Pene, who runs Connect Global.
Those granted bail to Swan Bay include a man who had already bashed someone with a sandwich press in jail, a man facing dozens of drugs and firearms charges, and a man convicted of stabbing his best mate’s wife while in a drug-induced delirium. There has been both conflict and close fraternisation between patients and renters (the rehab clients are ordered to be courteous and avoid “jail talk”; residents concede they’re mostly polite).
The bigger picture is that there’s little regulation of private rehab facilities beyond a national accreditation more about policies than practice. Connect Global is meeting these obligations.
However, its role in the criminal justice system has raised concerns. As this masthead revealed on Sunday, police are worried about bail breaches at Connect Global. A Supreme Court judge has expressed unease about its use as an alternative to prison remand. NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley has ordered an urgent investigation into Connect Global’s use as a facility for people facing serious charges.
With the permission of a non-rehab resident, I visited one weekend to see for myself (the founder and chief executive, Ross Pene, did not respond to numerous requests for an interview). Pene has given many journalists official tours of the property over the years, but I wanted to know what it was like for people without Connect Global’s imprimatur.
The road to the isolated bay was almost empty. The site, too, was eerily quiet that afternoon as rain drizzled over the bay. I’d been told which areas were common property; the boardwalk, the pool, the tennis court, certain sections of road. But, controversially for private residents, not the old Oyster Barn restaurant, which is now the rehab’s meeting centre. I was advised to stick to those areas closely, or risk being told off by someone from Connect Global.
I began walking the boardwalk, which connects a row of cabins. Two men stood smoking at the end, watching me. They were tall and burly. As I passed them, one asked how I was going. I told him I wanted to see the pool. He asked me why I was there. I told him I’d been invited to visit by an acquaintance. They watched me as I knelt down to test the water temperature. One began explaining to the other, loudly, which areas were the private property of the rehab.
I walked towards the road, past a cabin with a child’s swing and a pram, then past a tennis court with a basketball hoop at one end. There were boats, cars and bikes sitting beside cabins. The bigger ones had verandahs, where non-rehab residents could relax with a beer. There was no signage to suggest which cabins were used by patients, and which were for tenants.
The following morning I explored again, on a morning jog. I ran along the common path towards the pool and was stopped by a different man.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “This place is a rehab.”
I said I’d been told the rehab did not occupy the whole property. “It’s all rehab,” he said. I backed away and began jogging up the public road, past a rotting boat that once told tourists they’d arrived for their holiday.
Moments later, a black SUV drove past. It did a U-turn and pulled up alongside me. The driver called out: “What are you doing here?” I told him I’d been invited by an acquaintance. He asked for the number of my cabin. My heart raced. I said I couldn’t remember. I would have been within my rights to tell him it was none of his business, but I felt intimidated.
He drove off, back towards the cabins. I climbed into my car and drove off too, back towards the highway. At least I could put the eerie, lonely hamlet behind me as fast as the speed limit would allow. The people stuck in the tense drama of Fisherman’s Village – the tenants who need the cheap accommodation and the troubled men battling their demons – don’t have the same choice.
For help with drug and alcohol addiction, contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015
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