Video: Horrific scenes of public violence in Alice

Labor’s MP in Alice Springs says alcohol bans need to be brought back to curb the spiralling violence and crime | WATCH

Young Indigenous Australians on the street in Alice Springs. Police say lawlessness in the area amoung its youth is reaching unprecedented levels.

On any given night, more than 200 children, some as young as five, roam the streets of Alice Springs looking for trouble – and almost always find it.

Many of those kids are drinking alcohol, sometimes in the form of hand sanitiser diluted in soft drinks, or consuming deodorant, petrol or glue.

When the Northern Territory Police Minister and police commissioner flew in to Alice Springs on Thursday, police launched a crime blitz – arresting locals for drinking in public, picking up young children in the back of their caged trucks, where they would then be bussed by a community organisation back to their town camps.

Only for the children to walk straight back into town.

Labor’s MP in Alice Springs says alcohol bans need to be brought back to curb the spiralling violence and crime.

Marion Scrymgour, federal MP in the seat of Lingiari, says she has watched “lawlessness and disrespect” in the town grow exponentially since the Stronger Futures laws lapsed in July last year, making alcohol legal in many Aboriginal town camps for the first time in 15 years.

A group of a dozen men and women engage in conflict brandishing weapons - including machetes and baseball bats - outside The Gap View Hotel in Alice Springs just in September, 2022.

The former NT deputy chief minister says the removal of the grog ban has led to a level of violence she had never encountered.

“I just find it unacceptable in this day and age that the violence against Aboriginal women in this town raises very little urgency from anyone – it’s appalling,” Ms Scrymgour said.

“There’s the issue of young people and the level of lawlessness and disrespect amongst those young people; to put it quite bluntly, they don’t give a shit.

“They don’t respect law or ­culture anymore and then there’s the adults and the level of violence, and it’s not just male on male or male on female, there’s a really bad level of violence of female on female and particularly under the influence of alcohol.

“I’ve seen some horrific fights in and around the town area of Alice Springs where women are just drunk and just stomping on (other women’s) heads.”

Young Indigenous Australians on the street late at night in Alice Springs.

Daylight home invasions, ­vehicle theft, and a constant stream of physical violence and damage to property mean residents feel unsafe even in their homes. In one incident witnessed by The Australian, a caucasian man is set upon by a young Indigenous man wielding a wheel brace and beaten. After falling to the ground, he is kicked three times in the head.

“I’m at wits’ end,” said Ms Scrymgour. “I’ve participated in a number of roundtables trying to get a sense of urgency.

“The Northern Territory government does have responsibility for policing but trying to get them to see that there has to be some level of restrictions come back in, in terms of alcohol … (it) has been quite a feat just to get them to realise it’s a problem.”

On Thursday and Friday night, The Australian witnessed police conducting a rare operation to round up children.

Alice Springs mayor Matt Patterson says there can be more than a couple of hundred children roaming around every night. “It is hard to believe that this is the case in Australia in 2023 and I’m not sure what needs to happen or how much worse things can possibly get for people to start listening to us,” Mr Patterson said.

A man is set upon by a young Indigenous man wielding a wheel brace where he is viciously beaten after falling to the ground.

Due to high levels of domestic violence and sexual assault as well as lack of food, “it is probably safer for these kids to be on the street”, he added.

“What hope are we giving these children for their lives?” Mr Patterson said. “There is no accountability of parents and we are all too scared to have the difficult conversations. Alice Springs needs help; the kids need help.”

Many of the problems begin in the early afternoon, when the perpetrators return after staying awake all night and sleeping until late morning. It’s not just children and teenagers.

Just past midday at the Gap View hotel, an Indigenous man chases another into the pub, one brandishing a machete and the other a large metal pole.

A bouncer pushes the man holding the machete in a nonchalant manner out of the pub, where he’s met by a group of a dozen men and women, all brandishing similar weapons.

What happens next is a scene now normalised in Alice Springs – crowbars, bats, and machetes are thrown in what locals say is a disagreement between families.