My journalistic work in the Territory began early on Christmas Day 1974, looking down from the aircraft of Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns onto the Northern Territory capital that had been all but annihilated by Cyclone Tracy.
In four hours of filming on the ground I recorded some of Australia’s most dramatic news footage. A public service clown told me it the public must not see it. I found an Ansett pilot flying to Perth. He took my movies and a note from a young Darwin couple, who had driven me around. It was for their parents, telling them they were OK.
I syndicated my film through Nine TV to all Australian television networks as well as overseas. It was broadcast a few hours after the disaster.
That was seven days and half a century ago.
Tracey put a stop to our plans of moving to Cairns in Queensland from Streaky Bay in SA where I had been the editor of the weekly Sentinel newspaper for five years. Scuba diving with mates along one of the nation’s most beautiful coastlines, rich in ocean creatures, had been on the agenda for most weekends. Two of my kids spent the first years of their lives there.
By late December 1974 my family and I had reached Alice Springs, having stopped on the way at Lake Eyre which, at six metres deep, had reached its high water mark. It hasn’t done so since.
It took us no time at all to pick Central Australia as our new home. Here it is, seen through my eyes.
It was a country with endless news, current affairs and magazine stories, beginning with the extraordinary generosity of the town’s people to the Darwin evacuees streaming south.
There was a booming tourist industry. Imminent Territory self-government and Aboriginal land rights were seen a path to inter-racial understanding as well as commercial development.
I photographed Gough Whitlam pouring sand into Vincent Lingiari’s hand at Daguragu on August 16. 1975.
This was a region bursting with promise.
The living space was sparse only with respect to population, but full of yarns, sunshine, clean air, stars in the sky, colours on the ground, wilderness embracing you, creating a sense of freedom rare in the world.
The Northern Territory is 16 times the size of Austria, population seven million, my country of birth.
Respect and enjoyment of fellow human beings was never in doubt but apart from that you could do whatever you liked in “the bush” which included The Alice.
Camping and trekking in pristine wilderness. Thronging to the Yuendumu Sports Day, to the breakthrough art shows out of the Western Desert.
As an aviation fanatic I was soaring in gliders in some of the world’s best thermal lifts. Light aircraft flying in usually perfect weather and in uncrowded airspace. Skydiving in almost permanently suitable conditions.
Add to that the later avalanche of GST money from Canberra, five times the national per capita amount, not counting the Federal spending on Aborigines, and you’re in paradise.
So how come in 2024 Alice Springs had the highest crime rate in the nation, the highest imprisonment rate, endless reports about health and education shortfalls, the doubling of homes for sale, the halving of tourism, shops shutting down and people armed with “edged” weapons breaking into aged peoples’ dwellings, demanding the keys to their cars to use them for life threatening joyrides around town?
How come Aboriginal people who have freehold ownership of half the Territory – that’s eight times the size of Austria – can’t make a living from it?
In 2025 that must change. As the region’s only locally owned news medium, in our 31st year of publication, with a story archive of seven million words, with 28,425 readers’ comments since 2011 making it a prime, moderated medium for public debate, the Alice Springs News will do its best to provide the public with the information to make that happen.
We have a hundred or so children running rings around a police force 2.7 times greater per capita than the nation’s.
We have police and Territory Families returning young repeat offenders to supposedly responsible adults.
We asked the police to let us know about the follow-up processes: Are those kids getting food? A bed to sleep in? A shower? Clean clothes? Are they taken to the school bus? Are they prevented from galavanting around town in the middle of the night?
Do the cops have a network of contacts able to signal trouble ahead? Or are they relegated to wait until a crime has been committed? Are they equipped to prevent crimes? These are the issues fundamental to the crime spree that seems set to destroy the town.
We got no answers. We will keep demanding them.
Our sources will be the elected politicians, not their minders from whom journalists are usually usually expected to get information.
Over the years this has become a practice that is completely unacceptable, a bastardisation of the journalistic craft. If politicians do not make themselves available then that is a “no comment” and we find a way to obtain the information for our readers in another way, acting in compliance with the Journalists’ Code of Ethics and professionalism.
The out-of-control crime not only has locals in fear for their lives, it discourages people the town needs – in all sorts of professionals and trades – from moving in.
Misery has become the town’s principal industry, keeping afloat NGOs competing with each other for taxpayers’ cash whilst not being compelled to provide value for money assessments of their activities nor transparency about them.
And when the Mayor gives the Alice’s reputation the coup de grace by calling for the armed forces or the Federal police to restore order, the Prime Minister just forks out a further few million.
The change we need must happen right now.
The system where a handful of people behind closed doors pick mates without particular skills and let them run up a Government a debt of $11 billion has not served us well.
During our four year terms the Opposition is usually sitting on its hands instead of examining blow by blow every step the government is taking.
There is very little new in the world and every move is likely to have a forerunner. Has it worked? Has it failed?
That is what the people, who in democracies have the power, and especially the media and the academics, need to be probing.
That means the governments must provide absolute transparency.
If that is withheld the alarm bells need to ring.
“Commercial in confidence” just doesn’t cut it. When governments spend public money the public has an absolute right to know how.
Bland bumph issued by minders on behalf of ministers is unacceptable. The elected ministers are the proper source and must make themselves available personally to give answers, so long as the questions are reasonable. If they don’t that is a sign they have something to hide, and the public needs to redouble its efforts to find out, until they are fully informed.
NT Oppositions need to develop proven and costed policies that are known to the voters and are set to go. Oppositions rarely do that kind of homework. Then they spend their first six months in power blaming the former regime for actions they should have taken to task when they took place. Then they settle smugly into the usual government incompetence, oblivious to the region’s fabulous opportunities.
After half a century it’s time for the Territory, with its natural beauty, immense resources and inspiring ethnic diversity to be governed competently.
It’s up to all of us to make sure it happens. Starting today [1 January 2025].
Update 5pm
Hi Erwin, I note that Alice Springs is still dealing with excessive juvenile misbehaviour and criminality.
As you know the Commonwealth has the responsibility for Aboriginals and any agreed plans to reduce and eliminate bad behaviour rests with funding from the Commonwealth. The NT money box is empty?
I have not seen any plans that will save the general population of Alice Springs and after 60 years of failed Aboriginal policies I don’t expect any new plan will automatically fix the juvenile criminality problem.
I believe that there pockets of success with Bush Camps, carefully located and managed with care and patience.
As an orphan thrown in to the outback and given a real opportunity, I support and endorse the intervention for selected youngsters.
Going bush is the recipe for improvement.
It would be helpful if the residents of Alice Springs, people Ted Egan and Donna AhChee, were co-opted to help.
Regards, Roger (Stainless) Steele OAM
Mr Steele was a Country Liberal Party Member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1974 to 1987.
Update 3/1/24 at 12.30pm
Police media release: Police has arrested three youths in relation to an aggravated robbery that occurred in Alice Springs yesterday evening.
At 8.10pm, the Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre received reports that a 65-year-old female had been assaulted and robbed at a residence on Lyndavale Drive in Larapinta.
The victim was returning home when she was allegedly assaulted by two youths who stole her handbag containing her car keys and personal items. The two offenders were joined by an additional offender and fled the scene in the victim’s vehicle.
Members from Operation Ludlow, the Territory Response Group, the Drone Unit, and general duties responded, and the stolen motor vehicle was apprehended on Blain Street in Araluen 11 minutes after being reported stolen.
A 12-year-old female, a 13-year-old male and a 14-year-old female were arrested without incident.
The 13-year-old and 14-year-old are expected to be charged with using a motor vehicle without consent.
The 12-year-old will be dealt with under the provisions of the Youth Justice Act (2005).
Police are urging anyone with information about the incident to make contact on 131 444.
Update 4/1/24
The NT Police has sought assistance from the South Australia Police “to continue an increased police presence in Alice Springs and transition NT Officers out of Central Australia and back to the Top End, particularly in Katherine,” according to a media release.
Ten SA Police officers will be sent for the first eight-day rotation. They are expected to leave Adelaide on Monday and be sworn in as officers of the NT Police. It is expected the deployment will end in early February.
Each South Australian officer will be partnered with an NT police officer, and be utilised for patrolling high risk locations, licensed premises and engaging with unaccompanied youth.
“The officers have received full cultural awareness training, with South Australian Police having assisted Alice Springs in a similar capacity in April 2024,” states the release.
Commissioner Michael Murphy said: “I have made the decision to draw our members back to their various locations to ensure policing operations are continued throughout the Top End.
“The assistance of SA Police will … ensure the good work we have seen in Alice Springs over the past few months is continued.”
See all the comments to this story at Alice Springs News.
This article appeared on Alice Springs News on 1 January 2025.
