Alice Springs curfew a short-term solution to a far deeper malady

Vacant streets in Alice Springs after the NT government implemented a 14 day curfew for youths in the wake of spiralling crime. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

While the Northern Territory government’s curfew for anyone under the age of 18 in the Alice Springs CBD may seem like a drastic measure, readers of this newspaper will not be surprised that the youth crime problem in Alice Springs has come to this.

For decades, The Australian has reported on the poor living conditions and dysfunction in too many Aboriginal communities resulting from limited access to education and employment opportunities, modern services, and safe homes to live in.

When these fundamental needs are not met, youth are often most impacted. The impacts include a lack of direction, self-respect and hope for the future. All this often results in boredom, anger, violence, self-harm and disrespect for others. I collectively call these the deadly five; not “deadly” in the modern Aboriginal usage of the word where it means “great”, but by the standard definition of the word – lethal.

Of course, the deadly five apply not only to Alice Springs’ youth but to the youth in any area of Australia that is under-resourced and its people highly politicised. And no group in Australia is more politicised than our Aboriginal people. But I focus on Alice Springs here because I have a very positive connection with it.

Last year, I travelled to Alice Springs to visit children at Yipirinya School. This opportunity was available to me because I am close friends with Bess Price, the school’s language and culture assistant principal. Bess and her husband, Dave, and now their daughter, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, have fought for decades to help Aboriginal people – not only in Central Australia, but across this continent – attain a standard of living that most Australians take for granted.

I met many beautiful children in the school who were full of energy and life. Bess told me some of these children have it rough outside school, but when at school, they are safe and they learn. I contrast their lives with the tragic stories of Aboriginal kids told in these pages over the years. I do not want to see the enormous potential of today’s Aboriginal children wasted.

Will the curfew be effective? Like alcohol bans, by itself, likely no. Such emergency strategies must be accompanied by other strategies. The problems facing Aboriginal Australians are like a boat sinking because it has several holes in it. Each hole must be sealed to prevent the boat from sinking; if only half or even 90 per cent of the holes are sealed, the boat still sinks. I am saying that while a curfew may be a necessary strategy in the short term, it must be part of a more comprehensive solution.

NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler

If managed properly, the Albanese government’s commitment of $4bn for housing in remote communities and $738m over five years for improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal students in the Territory may be a comprehensive solution. Of course, such investment must be matched with similar investments in health, education and employment.

To properly manage this investment, a new mindset is required. Large sums of money, unless spent wisely, are not only a huge waste, but create more problems. We have several decades of evidence of this.

The new mindset I’ve advocated for many years would see Aboriginal children as Australian children, who just happen to have Aboriginal ancestry. With this view, we can abandon the debilitating rhetoric of colonisation, racism, and trans-generational trauma as the cause of problems facing Aboriginal children and their families today.

Such rhetoric has resulted in a view that Aboriginal children are vastly different to other Australian children. While it may have served some academics, political leaders, and consultants well, it has not helped Aboriginal children and their families.

It has only further promoted the dangerous us-them mentality that characterises Aboriginal affairs.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

The us-them mentality has resulted in a wedge being driven between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to the point where they see each other as the enemy. Subsequently, it is common for some left-leaning media to publish stories where an Aboriginal person had died in a “white” facility such as custody or a hospital, and racism is suggested as the cause of death. Such nonsense is harmful to reconciliation and must stop.

John Robson, a writer for Canada’s National Post, stated in 2017: “Canadians feel for Aboriginals, but our patience for too many insults has limits.” I believe the same is currently true in the Australian context. The new mindset I’ve advocated for here is essentially the abandonment of identity politics. Instead, we must embrace the truth that we are all Australians; some of us have Aboriginal ancestry and some of us do not. Adopt this new mindset, and places such as Alice Springs will become places of hope and inspiration.

Anthony Dillon is an honorary fellow of the Australian Catholic University.