http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/02/16/317677_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/02/16/317677_ntnews.html)
NT News journalist SARAH CRAWFORD spent a week staying at the notorious Kurringal Flats in Darwin's north - here is what she found.
TORRES Strait Islander Angie Mareko has a booming voice which echoes off the grimy walls of Kurringal Flats.
Right now her frightening bellow is directed at dopey-eyed Whitney Brinjen who has plonked herself down in the corridor with a dirty, big bong in her lap.
"F*** what are you doing? Take the c*** inside or I will tip it over the balcony," Angie, 38, roars.
Even in her supremely stoned state, Ms Brinjen does not need to be asked twice.
She scampers inside.
Lots of things are lobbed over the balconies of Kurringal Flats.
Lounge suites, mattresses, clothes and blades from pedestal fans.
Resident Fabian Yovich, 33, saw someone tip a heavy, analogue TV off the balcony of block four. It exploded on the steps near his front door.
"After that I stopped allowing my little nephews to stay over," he said.
Kurringal Flats are three, four-storey buildings of poverty, dysfunction and entrenched disadvantage dumped in the middle of one of Darwin's poshest suburbs, Fannie Bay.
Walking through the back gate past the no alcohol sign feels like you are stepping into an alternative universe.
The contrast between the leafy, picture-perfect townhouses of Fannie Bay and the grim, dirty white blocks of the Territory Housing complex is so extreme you feel disorientated.
Dozens of abandoned vehicles are in the car parks. Some vehicles have had their windows smashed or number plates removed. One car has had its engine and all the seats ripped out.
People sit on the stairs or in the corridors drinking port from plastic bottles all day - even though drinking in common areas carries a $500 fine.
Transvestite Ziggy Wilhelmsen, 50, believes people on the outside think he and all the residents of Kurringal Flats are creeps.
"The society around here thinks we are a big waste of time," he says sitting cross-legged on his couch in a shiny, dark brown wig.
"Sure we are poor and not much of us had a lot of education but we are a real mixed group here."
A 58-year-old disability pensioner who wants me to call her Mary tells me there is only one way to find out what Kurringal Flats is really like.
"You need to see it at night," she says.
Mary offers to let me stay on her couch in her one bedroom flat in block eight for a couple of nights.
I take up her offer and move in.
The Best Block
"Most of the people in this block are elderly, Christian and non-drinkers," Mary's friend Neil Williams, 53, tells me.
This block is pretty quiet it is the best block by far.
Mr Williams, also a disability pensioner, live upstairs from Mary in a two-bedroom apartment which he pays $160 a fortnight to rent. Both have been here for over a decade.
Block eight backs onto a quiet suburban street and Waratah oval where Kurringal residents regularly drink.
Kurringal Flats was built by the federal government in 1966. At its peak there were eight blocks which housed 350 people. Two blocks were demolished in 2001.
Another three were bulldozed two years later and Kurringal Court retirement village, for Territory Housing tenants aged over 55, was built on the land.
Now there are 91 tenants living in 78 units. A further six are empty. Everyone agrees the worst building is block six in the middle.
Mary's neighbour, John Mu, whose screen door was recently broken down in a police raid, tells me that block six is not safe.
"When you are going in there be careful. They can punch you or stab you. You can see the blood on the ground. Police go there all the time," he says.
Block four, on Dick Ward Drive, is considered to be somewhere in between not as safe as eight but far better than six...
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I read the entire article today and I just think the place would be like living with the Apes in a cage in a zoo! Not just Abbos but transvestite wierdos, and a dirty white guy on a disability support pension who is a "ladies man " with all the black women come his pension day. The article mentioned this race traitor "gin jockey" is the victim of jealous black baboons and gets regularly bashed and has had a fire hose flood his house through his kitchen window on multiple times.
What a lovely environment our taxes pay for? I really don't know why they don't just bulldoze the lot, hand them a tent each and ship them off to Australian Antarctic territoies? Do the community a favor, send the Zoo elsewhere and release some land for new families wanting to work in Darwin.
DISGUSTING!
look at the original URL and be sure to look at the video gallery pictures of this "lovely tropical establishment where you can experience indigenous culture at it's finest"... your hard earned tax dollars at work!
(http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2013/02/18/1226580/308361-flats.jpg)
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http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/02/321571_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/02/321571_ntnews.html)
A TOP End war memorial is being used as temporary bedding by the region's homeless population.
Residents have reported seeing itinerants sleeping on the Darwin Cenotaph at night.
The Cenotaph is a memorial dedicated to the men and women who gave their lives fighting for Australia in war.
Darwin RSL president Don Milford said he was disgusted.
"It's pretty crass,'' Mr Milford said.
"I would be totally against anyone using the Cenotaph for any sort of sleeping quarters - it's a memorial, not a place to have a kip.'' The RSL president said he had seen both itinerants and backpackers using the place of remembrance as a mattress.
"It's not what we want and it's not what the public wants,'' he said.
"(The Cenotaph is) a place of significant importance to all veterans and their families - it's a place to remember their mates.''
Darwin council community and culture general manager John Banks said the council was aware of the problem.
"We have a significant homelessness issue in Darwin - there is a lack of accommodation in Darwin for individuals,'' he said.
"We do not in any way condone sleeping around the Cenotaph.''
Mr Banks said the council had not received any complaints but he would send the Public Places Patrol to move anyone on found in the area.
"We will respond to any issues brought to our attention,'' he said.
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/01/321553_ntnews.html
MICHAEL Delaney scrambles down the bank of the billabong at One Mile Dam and points to the grassy spot where he last saw his friend alive.
"I went to the toilet for two seconds and when I came back I found his hat just sitting there," Mr Delaney says.
The body of his friend, Raymond Knight , was found floating in the dam two days later by a child looking for a lost football.
It was just a dozen metres from where more than 20 people live in two condemned buildings with no electricity.
A police investigation into the death concluded it was 'non-suspicious', police speak for someone who has committed suicide. But Mr Delaney, 42, thinks he was murdered by Aborigines that don't like white fellas at the camp.
He fears he will be next and sleeps with a knife. "I'm sitting here ready for the same deal. I just live here day by day," he says.
This is One Mile Dam. Where luxury means your shed has walls, electricity and running water. Where cars parked outside of houses are smashed and abandoned trolleys have rusted into unusual garden ornaments. Where camp dogs scratch around among the piles of empty beer cans and wine boxes that litter the public spaces.
It is a typical description of living conditions in many remote communities in the Northern Territory. But One Mile Dam is on the doorstep of Australia's most booming city - less than a kilometre from Darwin CBD.
The camp, tucked away on 3.5ha of bushland, is besieged by sky-rocketing real estate riding a resources boom that the residents of One Mile Dam are locked out of. From the top of the 33-storey Evolution building 700m away you can peer down into One Mile Dam's backyard.
While the city dwellers pay on average $552 a week for a two bedroom unit One Mile Dam residents pay between $40 and $80 for rent - if they pay at all.
Their other neighbours at Frances Park live behind a 2.5m grey wall in spacious houses that can fetch up to a million dollars.
"It is called One Mile Dam but it might as well be Nine Mile Dam," a Frances Park resident said who lives less than 20 metres from the camp's entrance.
The mother of two's only reminder that the camp is there is the intervention sign 'No Liquor, No Pornography' poking over the boundary wall.
One Mile Dam is the community that Darwin has deliberately forgotten. :'( :'(
Starved of funds it has degenerated into a shanty town for shifting homeless, drunks and refugees of violence in communities. :o ???
The only thing that holds the camp together is the community's president David Timber , 60, who despite being on kidney dialysis three times a week, is fighting for the camp to survive after he is gone.
He fears the NT Government will take back the land which was granted to the Aboriginal Development Foundation (ADF) 33 years ago.
"It is not hard to see," he says gesturing to the city skyline.
One Mile Dam is crown land that was handed to the ADF in 1979 as a special purpose lease to be held in perpetuity with a peppercorn rental paid. It was meant to be an aboriginal camp where people could set up without fear of being moved on by police.
But not much has happened since seven sheds and two toilet blocks were built there 33 years ago.
The ADF lost its funding when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was abolished in 2005.
Without funding ADF head Bernie Valadian never goes to the camp. Instead the NT Government funds an aboriginal housing company that empties the bins, mows the lawns and cleans the toilet blocks. It does not receive money for housing maintenance because the shelters don't qualify as houses.
The camp has been left in limbo and in the atmosphere of uncertainty rumours that it will be resumed by NT Government have festered.
Anthropologist Bill Day who was involved in the seven-year campaign to claim One Mile Dam describes successive government attitudes to the camp as "deliberate neglect."
"They are letting the place run down with the intention of reclaiming it," Mr Day said.
That is what One Mile Dam residents fear and their neighbours hope for.
A police officer tells me he wants the One Mile Dam residents evicted as he potters around the front garden of his Frances Park home on the May Day public holiday.
"I know how it sounds, I don't want to sound racist - it is nothing to do with black and white - but plenty of people want them gone," he said.
"Any other tenant would have been kicked out by now."
From his veranda the police officer watched the major crime investigation unit and paramedics enter the community the Friday before to investigate Mr Raymond's death.
He said it was a reminder why he did not let his kids venture into the bushland around One Mile Dam.
"I have kids but I will be damned if I would let them go down there and play," he said.
Sadly, the death of Raymond Knight, is not uncommon. Mr Timber does not appear shocked by the death.
"It is nothing known to me, a lot of people have died there before," he said.
IN a caged shed shared by several people I find rows of liquor bottles lining the walls. The carefully placed bottles look odd among the squalor of empty wine boxes and rubbish strewn over the concrete floor.
Ex prisoner Jake Barma watches as I count 116 bottles. He then tells me each bottle represents a person that has died.
"Memories sister girl. For all the people that have been drinking with us. They have a name on every bottle."
Mr Barma got out of jail along with his co-accused Sylvester Dumoo, 29, on February 25.
The pair were jailed for four months for breaking into a gun shop at Berrimah while drunk and stealing three firearms.
They were heading back to One Mile Dam armed with the guns to continue a drunken fight with another group of campers but police caught them first.
Despite the drunken clash which could have easily turned lethal Mr Dumoo tells me he likes One Mile Dam because it is peaceful.
"It is good, no fighting," he says.
It is not surprising One Mile Dam seems serene to Mr Dumoo.
He is a refugee from the Territory's most violent community, Wadeye (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/11/02/314788_ntnews.html), where gangs named after heavy metal songs and bands such as The Evil Warriors and the Judas Priests clash regularly.
He fled his town, 240 kms southwest of Darwin, after his older brother Lenny Dumoo allegedly killed the leader of the Judas Priests in September last year.
His brother has since been charged with murder.
Mr Dumoo fears if he returns he will be killed as payback for the gang leader's death.
Many One Mile Dam residents, like Mr Dumoo, have washed up at the camp fleeing violence in communities, the Federal Intervention, or homelessness.
The St Vincent de Paul Society estimated about 7000 stayed at One Mile Dam from the start of the Federal Intervention in 2007 until 2010. Mr Timber lets them stay.
"David has been very generous for 10 years or more welcoming homeless people," Mr Day said.
MR Timber has the weight of a community on his shoulders.
For 24 years he has watched the city march closer from the southwest and new housing estates sprout up to the north and east.
He fears he is living on borrowed land on borrowed time.
"I have felt that way for a long time," he said.
Colin Tidswell the head of Yilli Housing, that has the maintenance contract for One Mile Dam, said Mr Timber constantly worries about the camp's future.
"Quite frankly without David they would not have a strong voice and would be quite vulnerable to government," he said.
The boy from Belyuen joined the fight in the 70s to have the popular long-grassing spot at One Mile Dam turned into a permanent campsite for Aborigines.
He lives in a spacious shed with his wife Mindy and his grandchildren aged 11 and 8.
His home is the best of the seven houses by far and is right next to the toilet blocks.
"I like this place because of where it is situated. It is cool and there are a lot of trees," he says sitting on a plastic chair outside his shed while a plump great grandchild giggles next to him in a stroller.
"I fought for it back when I was young, doing all these protests and that. It has become more than a camp now. There are a lot of permanent residents here."
He corrects himself. "They should be called custodians not residents. We are all custodians as far as I am concerned."
Mr Timber may see himself as a custodian of the land but he does not hold the lease.
That is held by the reclusive Mr Valadian.
Although ADF has no funds Mr Valadian lives in a house on land in Berrimah purchased by the organisation in 1986. A land title search shows it is now worth $963,000.
Mr Timber has been at loggerheads with Mr Valadian and the ADF for many years.
"How come that bloke (Mr Valadian) holds the lease? He was not involved in the protests in the first place," Mr Timber said.
Not true according to Mr Valadian, 70, an Aboriginal man originally from Brisbane.
Mr Valadian said he arrived in Darwin in the 60s and was shocked by the way Aborigines were living under trees around Darwin.
"I thought people can't live like this, the only way we can change anything is to apply to the government. I found out that we would have to apply for a special purpose lease."
Besides One Mile Dam the ADF holds leases over Aboriginal communities at Knuckey Lagoon, Adelaide River and the Palmerston Indigenous Village.
Mr Valadian said he got on well with the residents when the ADF had funding.
"When we were working there and the whole place was looking really good people were quite happy with the organisation."
"Now the people down there think we are the ones that are holding them back but we can't do anything without the money."
Mr Valadian said despite not having any money to maintain and develop the properties he would not handover the lease to anyone else for fear the NT Government might take it back.
"No, if we released the lease we would be opening a door we don't want to open."
Mr Tidswell said it was difficult for Yilli Housing to manage the properties while ADF held the lease.
"We are like the LJ Hookers of the town camps. While we are property managers we don't have the power to evict people," he said.
This has become a problem at One Mile Dam where people broke into the two condemned buildings and are now living in them.
"They are in a dreadful state people should not be living there," Mr Tidswell said.
But should the ADF hand over the lease?
"That is a highly political question at the moment. I know the NT Government are looking at the lease arrangements."
Minister for regional development Alison Anderson has set up a taskforce to look at the state of Aboriginal town camps in Darwin - especially the lease arrangements.
"That is the very reason why the taskforce was set up we don't want fighting with people from different agencies.
"We need to look at the safety of people that live there. There is a lot of consumption of alcohol at the town camps and we want the woman and children to be safe.
The taskforce will be made up of NT Government departments, the federal Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and lease holders.
Ms Anderson said she would not comment on the future of One Mile Dam until the taskforce came back with its findings. But taskforce head and director of town camps Karl Dyason said NT Government was not considering taking One Mile Dam back.
"As far as I am aware it has no intention of doing that."
"The taskforce does have the backing of our Minister and it is certainly not in our scope to look at doing anything by force."
In fact the taskforce may look at building more dwellings at One Mile Dam to cope with the influxes of visitors, Mr Dyason said.
"There is sufficient land at One Mile Dam to increase the number and type of dwellings without extending the camp itself."
Mr Dyason said although the ADF was not directly funded the NT Government gave One Mile Dam the same funding as other communities.
The NT Government's position on One Mile Dam is an about face from Deputy Chief Minister Dave Tollner's provocative comments on the camp when he was in opposition. Boot them out, the Member for Fong Lim said.
"They are special purpose lease. You can move in there tomorrow and move them all out."
Public consultation conducted under the former Labor Government in 2007 found the overwhelming majority of residents surrounding One Mile Dam wanted it to be turned into a park. Mr Valadian scoffed at that proposal.
"It can be resumed but I think they have to have a better reason than just park land."
Mr Tidswell said he just wants a decision on the future of the camp.
"Either a commitment to One Mile Dam for its ongoing operation and provide a sufficient level of funding or not."
Back at the edge of the dam Michael Delaney and I scramble back up the grassy bank. We walk around the spot where Mr Knight's body was laid out by police. The spot is covered in ash from a fire lit by the residents.
Another fire is still smoking out the condemned building where Mr Knight sometimes stayed.
Despite Mr Delaney's insistence that Mr Knight did not commit suicide he concedes his friend had talked about dying here.
"He always said he would die at One Mile Dam," Mr Delaney said.
Mr Day said the original residents of One Mile Dam had a simple vision of what they wanted their camp to be - a safe place to gather and sleep.
"They were what we call nowadays longgrassers and they were just moved on from place to place and they wanted some security where they could stay and there was a little bit of vision to it.
"There was going to be a daily corroboree with strong connections to the other side of the harbour.
"I still feel it is a place of great potential I think David has done a great job of hanging in there... that is all they can do just hold their ground," Mr Day said.
::) :(
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http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/03/321595_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/03/321595_ntnews.html)
A MAN was stabbed eight times, including several times in the head, with a 30cm butcher's knife as he came home from the shop in the middle of the day.
Plasterer Ben Graham, 29, was returning to his home in block 4 of Kurringal flats in Fannie Bay, Darwin, when his neighbour allegedly attacked him in the building's stairwell.
"I had my hand in front of me, holding me up off the ground, and there was about half an inch of blood on the ground," he said.
"I've been stabbed before.
"But it was lots of blood that made me think I was going to die."
He lost up to three litres of blood after he was allegedly stabbed in the cheek, the sternum, twice in the side of the head, once in the side of the neck, and in his stomach about 2.30pm on Tuesday. He said he was unaware how many stitches he needed in his wounds.
Mr Graham's partner, who did not want to be named, and her daughter heard him scream and saw him after the altercation.
Neighbours put pressure on the wounds and called for an ambulance to take him to Royal Darwin Hospital.
He was in surgery for three hours and also had botox and cosmetic surgery.
"He got one straight up into my guts," he said.
"He's nicked a gland in my face and got an artery."
Mr Graham, who has a five-year-old son in Queensland, said the attack was unprovoked.
"He's constantly asking for Panadol or cigarette butts and I had lent him $50 about three or four weeks ago," he said.
Mr Graham said he was unsure when he would be able to return to work to provide for his family.
NT Police said the incident was being investigated but charges had not yet been laid.
See Pontifix! You aren't the only white bloke who knows about this sort of monkey business going down in stairwells. These dirty, bloody, COONS .... JUST HAVE TO PUT CRAP ON THIER NEIGHBOURS! &:( &:( &:(
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/06/321715_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/06/06/321715_ntnews.html)
THE Territory Government has almost doubled the rent at its most notorious address - Kurringal Flats - and will now charge $400 a week for a two-bedroom unit.
The Territory Housing block is dysfunctional, violent and run down and has been labelled too expensive to fix by Housing Minister Peter Chandler, who said it was on the list to be demolished.
But some residents have received letters from the NT Housing Department saying their rent would increase because their income put them above the eligibility criteria for public housing.
One resident had their two-bedroom flat increase from $230 a week to the Australian Valuation Office's estimated market value of $400 a week.
The resident, who did not want to be identified, said they could not believe that anyone would pay $400 a week to live in a dysfunctional complex where the paint was peeling off the walls, the roof leaked and tiles had fallen out of the shower.
"The thing that really irks me is this place was practically condemned by the Minister who was saying we're going to pull this place down because it is in such a state," the resident said. "It was just beyond me to believe that they would have the audacity to ask for that sort of money.
"I'm just incensed that they could go and put a value like that on a place that has been up in front of them for a while, and can be a hell hole."
The rent increases are being applied across all Territory Housing properties to tenants whose wage is higher than the eligibility criteria.
Mr Chandler did not say whether he thought $400 a week was a reasonable price, but said the Australian Valuation Office came to the decision by comparing the unit with privately owned properties of a similar standard.
"If a tenant is paying $400 for a two-bedroom flat in Fannie Bay their income has been assessed and shows they are ineligible for the public housing rate," he said.
"They will pay 30 per cent of their gross income or the market rate - whichever is lower.
"If a tenant has concerns they should immediately contact their tenancy manager, and provide their up-to-date income details."
(http://www.ntnews.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2013/06/06/kurringal_650.jpg)
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/violence-against-aboriginal-women-80-times-worse/story-fncz7kyc-1226661209335 (http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/violence-against-aboriginal-women-80-times-worse/story-fncz7kyc-1226661209335)
There's a place in the world where dreadful violence is regularly inflicted upon women - rape, terrifying assault and murder.
In this place, women of a certain ethnic group are 80 times more likely to be hospitalised for assault and injury.
Many of the assaults are perpetrated by the women's husbands or partners and include being raped with wooden or metal objects, or being murdered by being repeatedly punched and struck with a saucepan, stones, a wheel rim and a wheel brace.
Or there was the case of the man who used a hose to whip his 32-year-old wife, stomping on her abdomen and dragging her naked body over rough ground, before raping her, and then bashing her with either a stick or metal pole, causing severe internal injuries, before finishing her off with a rock.In this place, up to 20 people live in some houses and children are stressed out and neglected.
In remote areas, up to 65 per cent of children attend school for fewer than three days a week and up to 60 per cent of them fail the national early developmental index which measures a child's ability to cope with starting school.
Apart from the outrageously high rates of violence, unemployment is rife, and thousands of people are battling alcohol and gambling abuse.
Why allow them to breed?
Australians who were shocked over the last few months by violent attacks on women in India should be alarmed by this.
This place is in our backyard.
It is one-third the size of India, and has .0002 of India's population.
It is Central Australia, and in particular the Northern Territory.
"There is a tri-state area in the middle of Australia which is a Bermuda triangle for domestic violence against Aboriginal women," said South Australian university lecturer and anthropologist, Professor Peter Sutton.
"People don't want to know, but how about women being raped by a burning fire stick or by a star picket?
"After the incidents in India I had a stream of emails from people wanting something done about it, but there's no petitions hitting my in-tray about what goes on in Central Australia and has done so for a very long time."
"The society where this is going on is very different from the middle-class Aboriginal people that many people know.
"These are hair trigger communities where people fly into a rage in a second.
"People are under the influence of alcohol and there are beatings and stabbings.
"Resorting to physical violence is the norm."
Dr Howard Bath, the Northern Territory's Children's Commissioner said the most recent statistics from the NT's five major government hospitals showed that in 2010 the number of non-indigenous females hospitalised for assault was 0.3 for every thousand women in the population.
The rate for indigenous females was 24.1 per thousand, or 80 times the rate.
"In numbers, that was 27 non-indigenous females being admitted, compared with 842 indigenous women being treated for assault.
I think what they are saying here is that nobody likes Abbo women, not even the Abbo men :D
"What we are looking at is a disastrous situation in terms of the risk of violence to indigenous women.
"These numbers are mind boggling. The rate of abuse of these women is enormously high and children are being exposed to this, resulting in very, very high rates of child neglect."
Aboriginal men and to a lesser extent Aboriginal women and non-indigenous men were responsible for violence against Aboriginal women.
Let's face it who doesn't wanna cave their heads in?And tolerate their rubbish?
Dr Bath blamed alcohol and drug abuse, overcrowding and "consistent unemployment".
"Alcohol is the worst factor by a country mile," he said.
"Between 60 and 70 per cent of violence is directly related to alcohol.
How about getting off their bums and accepting the 70K/yr jobs on offer to them in the Nhullunbuy mines? :o ???
"The facts are generally known, but it's a delicate area.
"Most of the people who are familiar with the details don't want to put a set of shameful allegations against the Aboriginal community and in particular the menfolk."
Dr Bath agreed Australians seemed more sympathetic with cases of violence in other countries than in their own country.
Because deep deep down the rest of us know they are just backward animals that only have a use for :- sport, music and art.
"Where is the outrage?" he said.
"I think if it's close to home, it's harder to look at.
"People aren't comfortable with what is happening to women in the Northern Territory.
"And it's having devastating developmental impacts on children.
"The figures for children from very remote areas of the territory very high rates of developmental skills and school attendance rates of 65 per cent attending less than three days a week.
"That is outrageous. It's disastrous".
Northern Territory MP Bess Price said the Aboriginal and white communities had long known about the violence and done nothing.
DUH! try take them away and get "stolen generation!" thrown at you. They can't look after themselves.
She had been "routinely attacked", called "a liar" and "obscenely insulted on the internet" - in particular by people with left-wing political views - for raising the issue.
She told the NT Parliament last month that two of her relatives who were "young mothers" were killed in Alice Springs this year.
"One was injured mortally in the public, in front of several families," Ms Price said.
"Nobody acted to protect her.
"Dozens of my female relatives have been killed this way. Convictions usually lead to light sentences.
"I was told by a senior lawyer that no jury in Alice Springs will convict an Aboriginal person for murder if the victim is also Aboriginal and he or she is only stabbed once.
See! one law for them , one law for others! RACIST!
"We all have done nothing effective to stop this from happening. It has been going on for decades.
"Why hasn't there been the same outrage over the continuing killing of our women and abuse and neglect of our kids?
If these women victims were white, we would hear very loud outrage from feminists.
If their killers had been white, we would hear outrage from the Indigenous activists.
Why is there such a deafening silence when both victim and perpetrator are black?
Because it is always Whities fault! People don't wanna touch the "stolen generation" issue.. but really understand they are a backward and primitive minded lot.
"I believe that we can blame the politics of the progressive left and its comfortably middle class urban Indigenous supporters."
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/08/02/323533_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/08/02/323533_ntnews.html)
RESIDENTS at Darwin's notorious public housing complex, Kurringal Flats, have started to be moved out of one of the blocks so the dilapidated building can be demolished.
Steve Holliday, who suffers from a physical disability that prevents him from working, said he had lived in public housing in the area for almost 20 years.
He said Territory Housing staff told him he would have to apply for a transfer and then gave him five days to accept one of two other units or he would be taken off the public housing list.
He said all his friends were in Fannie Bay and it was stressful to be forced out so suddenly.
"It is totally out of character for the housing commission people to be so brutal and so seemingly uncaring," he said. "They said they were under pressure from the Minister to get everyone out as quickly as possible."
Housing Department acting deputy chief executive Sibylle Brautigam said Block 6, the most central of the three buildings, had been assessed and was "approaching the end of its economic life". She denied there was a rush to get the tenants out. "As opportunities in other public housing properties become available, tenants are being relocated from Block 6 while future opportunities for the site are explored," she said.
"There is no decision made on redevelopment of Kurringal specifically, however large parcels of land which can be redeveloped to provide housing options for Territorians are being considered."
Mr Holliday said he had been offered a unit in another block in Kurringal but was afraid to move there in case he was uprooted soon after. His other option was a unit in Nightcliff.
Fannie Bay MLA Michael Gunner has asked for an urgent briefing from Housing Minister Peter Chandler.
"We don't know exactly what the Government plans are other than to empty Block 6," he said.
"While it makes sense to look at Kurringal as a future development site you've got to do it in a way that looks after the people who are already living there."
Mr Chandler declined to comment but has always maintained Kurringal needed to be demolished.
Hmm Wonder where they are going to move all the vermin that live in these hell flats, no comment about that? When they smash them up they are gunna sell $400K flats to Chinks probably.
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/16/324943_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/16/324943_ntnews.html)
PRELIMINARY talks have begun between the NT Government and developers to turn Darwin's Bagot Aboriginal Community into a "normal'' suburb. :'( :'( :'(
Larrakia Development Corporation and Deputy Chief Minister Dave Tollner have discussed the development of the site, embedded on Bagot Rd in the posh suburb of Ludmilla.
There is not yet a formal arrangement in place and the issue has not yet been referred to the Development Consent Authority.
But the Member for Fong Lim said the NT Government wants to see Bagot redeveloped into a suburb.
"That's an election commitment,'' he said.
Mr Tollner said existing residents would be offered their houses on the condition they are brought up to an "acceptable'' community standard.
Ever see the Abbos do anything to acceptable community standards? looks like they won't be given a free place then!
"They'll basically be gifted to them,'' he said.
Damn discrimination! why can't non Abbos get a free place? Well If I want a deed from them I'll go there with Marbles and Mercury and trade it for my "magic man stuff pale face has".
Those that don't want to own their own home will rent them from Territory housing. Other, privately owned houses will be built in the community as well.
Larrakia Development Corporation (LDC) chairman Nigel Browne said there is not yet a formalised arrangement.
"We've simply made it known to the Government that being the commercial arm of the Traditional Owners of Darwin that when those areas are looked at in terms of development ... that we would be expecting to have as significant say in how it pans out.''
Mr Browne said other town camps were also on Larrakia land such as One Mile Dam, Knuckey Lagoon Indigenous Village (11 Mile) and Palmerston Indigenous Village (16 Mile).
"They're all on Larrakia country,'' he said.
O.K forget About them living in Australia they live in some parallel boong Australia!
Mr Browne said the LDC also expected to have a big say if there is the opportunity to develop and improve services and housing in these areas.
The LDC is a proprietary limited company wholly owned by the Northern Land Council.
The plan is likely to face significant opposition. A hundred angry protesters picketed Mr Tollner's office in August last year opposing the idea.
Some residents such as Gwendoline White, 45, who was born in Bagot and rents a house there for about $240 per week, have said they don't like Mr Tollner's plan.
Bagot Council holds the lease on Bagot community land, and Council president Helen Fejo-Frith said they had their own five-year plan developed with Yilli Rreung Housing Association which included more housing, a sports oval and club rooms.
Darwin barrister Lex Silvester has said there are major stumbling blocks that could cost millions and bog the process down for years in legal challenges.
One is the ability to resume the Crown lease for private housing. Another is the amount of compensation to be paid.
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/17/325028_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/17/325028_ntnews.html)
A MAKESHIFT volleyball court in the Todd River at Alice Springs has raised the ire of local indigenous people.
Local activist Natasha Craigie-Braun said she was appalled when she stopped by one of her favourite spots and saw a group of "foreigners" playing volleyball.
"My friends and I were going for a drive so I said to my friend we'll go down to the river to my favourite spot," Ms Braun said.
A drink out spot where the town Abbo bums go to get trashed and be a disgrace!
"It's a spot I stop at to gather my thoughts. We went for a drive and she raised the concern at first.
"She said straightaway, 'What are they doing?' and I understood how she felt."
Although Ms Braun chose not to approach the strangers, she returned the next day to have a look for herself. "I went down into the creek and they put big logs into the ground," she said.
"I was quite angry so I pulled one out, but I thought, 'Don't get angry - find out the story first and take photos.' "
Ms Braun said she was not the only one that would have raised the concern.
"I just happened to be there," she said.
"We have a lot of families coming here through immigration but they don't have any cultural awareness. It's just common sense.
"Have respect, have cultural awareness."
She also found the ground littered with water bottles.
"They're throwing their rubbish; they've got no cultural awareness," she said.
"It's a sacred site as far as I'm concerned. We don't mind people walking down there or whatever." :'(
Ms Braun believes it is a matter for the Government or the Foreign Affairs Minister to instil some sort of cultural awareness.
When asked if Aboriginal people contributed to the rubbish in the Todd River, Ms Braun said "absolutely". :o ??? :-\
"It would be my own people who are doing that because of the Intervention," she said. "They're hiding.
"The Government says to the people they're not dealing with the problem. The Government is creating an illusion; it's all undercover.
"That's why there is so much alcohol down the Todd River - because there are so many alcohol outlets."
Ms Braun welcomes "foreigners" but wants them to have respect.
"My people are very different to any other Aboriginal people in Australia," she said. "They are more cultured and traditional than anywhere else.
Yeah look at the Abbo crime thread and tell me how wonderful the centralian coons are to everyone!
The foreigners need to know; it's not their fault. The Government is making money out of sending them here."
... And just does how do the Abbo's get $ in Alice Springs? Where does the permit $ from visits to Ayres rock go?
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/26/325361_ntnews.html (http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/09/26/325361_ntnews.html)
Plans have emerged for a 242-bed hotel and an aged care facility at One Mile Dam - the indigenous community in the heart of Darwin.
Aboriginal service provider Larrakia Nation is negotiating with the Aboriginal Development Foundation for the leases on One Mile Dam, Knuckey Lagoon camp and the Palmerston Indigenous village .
Larrakia Nation chief executive Ilana Eldridge said they wanted to build a four-star modular hotel on the site that would be Aboriginal owned and staffed with an active partnership.
Allllrighty..... so you want them to have a building that looks like this as well as function as a 4 star hotel run by them:-
(http://www.ntnews.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2013/09/26/hotel.jpg)
When presently this is how these people reside on the site.. well wouldn't it be a good idea to splurge some money right now on a white elephant. I am pretty sure they'd be very good managers ??? :-\
(http://www.ntnews.com.au/images/uploadedfiles/editorial/pictures/2013/09/26/onemile.jpg)
http://www.ntnews.com.au/realestate/rosy-future-for-notorious-kurringal-flats/story-fnk4wt05-1226805659426 (http://www.ntnews.com.au/realestate/rosy-future-for-notorious-kurringal-flats/story-fnk4wt05-1226805659426)
THE most notorious Housing Commission site in the Territory is now on the 'for sale' block.
Housing Minister Matt Conlan is calling for expressions of interest from the private sector to buy and redevelop the Fannie Bay site, which was once
described as one of the worst public housing blocks in Australia by National Shelter head Adrian Pisarski.
In March last year the NT News revealed that Kurringal Flats in Fannie Bay would be demolished along with other Housing Commission sites such as at Runge St, Coconut Grove.
In December the NT Government said that Kurringal would be replaced with a mix of 200 private and public houses.
Mr Conlan said the site was zoned to accommodate double the current number of dwellings "from 84 to up to 200" but proposals must include a minimum of 15 per cent affordable rental and home ownership options.
"It will be a condition under the EOI that this percentage be set aside for affordable housing, with 15 per cent for affordable rental and home ownership opportunities," he said.
How can a coon get a mortgage if they don't work? When they move house you know because they are carrying either a carboard box or a sheet of galvanised tin!
He also said that any proposals must include strategies for the replacement of public housing.
Mr Conlan said the project would help ease housing cost pressures. But he did not say how many dwellings were zoned for the site nor how many public housing dwellings would be provided.
"The successful developer will need to provide a reasonable amount of public housing dwellings options," he said. He also did not state what the affordable options would be. Expressions of interest close on February 28.
(http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2014/01/20/1226805/656021-kurringal-flats.jpg)
What word starts with "N" and ends in "R" and you never want to call a black man?
NEIGHBOUR!
http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/bess-nungarrayi-price-has-lost-10-of-her-12-siblings-and-talks-about-life-in-an-aboriginal-town-camp/story-fnjbnxug-1226911875908 (http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/bess-nungarrayi-price-has-lost-10-of-her-12-siblings-and-talks-about-life-in-an-aboriginal-town-camp/story-fnjbnxug-1226911875908)
BESS Nungarrayi Price has only one younger brother left out of 12 siblings. All the others are dead.
It's a shocking statistic for a family that has not suffered through war, famine or disease. They did, however, grow up as Aborigines in the Northern Territory.
Ms Price, 53, the Country Liberals member for Stuart in central Australia, lost her sister Rosalie Nungarrayi through a stabbing in a Katherine town camp a fortnight ago.
Rosalie, aged 46, was a mother of five and a grandmother to 10, with another grandchild on the way. She had fallen into a life of roaming, drinking and sleeping in some of Australia's most dangerous addresses — the Territory's town camps.
She stopped over in Katherine's Warlpiri Camp, while waiting for a lift west to visit one of her daughters in Lajamanu.
Warlpiri Camp is used by Warlpiri people — Australia's largest tribal group — as a kind of halfway house, a place to sleep it off after savage drinking binges. A 31-year-old woman has been charged over Rosalie's death.
Ms Price took the unusual step of naming her dead sister, normally prohibited for cultural reasons. She said she did not want Rosalie to be another unnamed statistic.
"I know that people will think that I shouldn't have said her name, but I want to make sure that we can talk freely about our loved ones," Ms Price said.
The story of her siblings is a terrible one: four died as babies; three brothers died from alcohol; one from breast cancer; one died in her sleep for unknown reasons; and now there's Rosalie.
Only two of them made it past 50.
"It's not just me who has these stories," she says. "Lots more Aboriginal families who don't have the opportunity to speak encounter all sorts of problems with violence in our people's culture.
"They just think it's the norm and allow it to take over."
The story of Aboriginal violence is an unchanging one, despite attempts such as the federal intervention to force a new direction. Ms Price questioned why indigenous people were not campaigning against the emergency in their own society.
"The activists don't talk it up," she said. "What's wrong with them? They talk about reconciliation, Captain Cook's invasion, which is who they blame for our violence.
"We don't hear from them about the violence in our communities, the women that get killed. You just don't hear about it."
Ms Price grew up in Yuendumu, a large Aboriginal community northwest of Alice Springs. She says she has watched her home community, and others like it, deteriorating.
"I think it's worsened," she says. "The communities are unstable, people just don't believe in themselves any more.
"When I grew up in Yuendumu in the 70s, everybody had a job. Everybody had a role to play, or went to school. That's all changed. People are now free to move about, people now have this word we call 'choice'.
"They decide they can do whatever they want to do."
But even then, Yuendumu was not a safe place for Ms Price. After entering a marriage and having her first child by the age of 14, she made a very deliberate choice to get out, with the backing of her parents.
"I was sick and tired of being beaten up, for no reason," she says. "I had to leave and find a better life for myself, without violence. And I have done that."
Ms Price joined the Country Liberals, winning the seat of Stuart in a massive swing in the 2012 Territory election. It was an unusual political path given Labor's history of wrapping up the indigenous vote.
She is now the widely respected Minister for Community Services, Statehood, Women's Policy and Parks and Wildlife, but she found it hard to get through to her sister Rosalie.
"We encouraged her to stay put in Yuendumu or Old Timer's Camp (in Alice Springs)," Ms Price says. "We tried to explain to her, 'Look, settle down, ground your feet and stay put. You're at that age you need to settle down.'"
But she says there is a constant movement among Aboriginal people of the north, who travel from one place to the next, finding relatives and partying till it gets ugly.
"If you don't have a job, you can do that," she says. "You're free to travel wherever.
"I've got a job. And I think without employment, no jobs for our people, and education, Aboriginal people don't exist, more or less. Jobs create stability, family togetherness. But that's not the way Aboriginal people live."
She recalls Rosalie as her "smiling sister". And her last sister.
Ms Price wants her people to know it doesn't have to end that way. "You have a choice," she says.
(http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2014/05/09/1226911/877116-61eea6b2-d64f-11e3-b5be-ec06717bccf7.jpg)
http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/bess-nungarrayi-price-has-lost-10-of-her-12-siblings-and-talks-about-life-in-an-aboriginal-town-camp/story-fnjbnxug-1226911875908 (http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/national/bess-nungarrayi-price-has-lost-10-of-her-12-siblings-and-talks-about-life-in-an-aboriginal-town-camp/story-fnjbnxug-1226911875908)
BESS Nungarrayi Price has only one younger brother left out of 12 siblings. All the others are dead.
It's a shocking statistic for a family that has not suffered through war, famine or disease. They did, however, grow up as Aborigines in the Northern Territory.
Ms Price, 53, the Country Liberals member for Stuart in central Australia, lost her sister Rosalie Nungarrayi through a stabbing in a Katherine town camp a fortnight ago.
Rosalie, aged 46, was a mother of five and a grandmother to 10, with another grandchild on the way. She had fallen into a life of roaming, drinking and sleeping in some of Australia's most dangerous addresses — the Territory's town camps.
She stopped over in Katherine's Warlpiri Camp, while waiting for a lift west to visit one of her daughters in Lajamanu.
Warlpiri Camp is used by Warlpiri people — Australia's largest tribal group — as a kind of halfway house, a place to sleep it off after savage drinking binges. A 31-year-old woman has been charged over Rosalie's death.
Ms Price took the unusual step of naming her dead sister, normally prohibited for cultural reasons. She said she did not want Rosalie to be another unnamed statistic.
"I know that people will think that I shouldn't have said her name, but I want to make sure that we can talk freely about our loved ones," Ms Price said.
The story of her siblings is a terrible one: four died as babies; three brothers died from alcohol; one from breast cancer; one died in her sleep for unknown reasons; and now there's Rosalie.
Only two of them made it past 50.
"It's not just me who has these stories," she says. "Lots more Aboriginal families who don't have the opportunity to speak encounter all sorts of problems with violence in our people's culture.
"They just think it's the norm and allow it to take over."
The story of Aboriginal violence is an unchanging one, despite attempts such as the federal intervention to force a new direction. Ms Price questioned why indigenous people were not campaigning against the emergency in their own society.
"The activists don't talk it up," she said. "What's wrong with them? They talk about reconciliation, Captain Cook's invasion, which is who they blame for our violence.
"We don't hear from them about the violence in our communities, the women that get killed. You just don't hear about it."
Ms Price grew up in Yuendumu, a large Aboriginal community northwest of Alice Springs. She says she has watched her home community, and others like it, deteriorating.
"I think it's worsened," she says. "The communities are unstable, people just don't believe in themselves any more.
"When I grew up in Yuendumu in the 70s, everybody had a job. Everybody had a role to play, or went to school. That's all changed. People are now free to move about, people now have this word we call 'choice'.
"They decide they can do whatever they want to do."
But even then, Yuendumu was not a safe place for Ms Price. After entering a marriage and having her first child by the age of 14, she made a very deliberate choice to get out, with the backing of her parents.
"I was sick and tired of being beaten up, for no reason," she says. "I had to leave and find a better life for myself, without violence. And I have done that."
Ms Price joined the Country Liberals, winning the seat of Stuart in a massive swing in the 2012 Territory election. It was an unusual political path given Labor's history of wrapping up the indigenous vote.
She is now the widely respected Minister for Community Services, Statehood, Women's Policy and Parks and Wildlife, but she found it hard to get through to her sister Rosalie.
"We encouraged her to stay put in Yuendumu or Old Timer's Camp (in Alice Springs)," Ms Price says. "We tried to explain to her, 'Look, settle down, ground your feet and stay put. You're at that age you need to settle down.'"
But she says there is a constant movement among Aboriginal people of the north, who travel from one place to the next, finding relatives and partying till it gets ugly.
"If you don't have a job, you can do that," she says. "You're free to travel wherever.
"I've got a job. And I think without employment, no jobs for our people, and education, Aboriginal people don't exist, more or less. Jobs create stability, family togetherness. But that's not the way Aboriginal people live."
She recalls Rosalie as her "smiling sister". And her last sister.
Ms Price wants her people to know it doesn't have to end that way. "You have a choice," she says.
(http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2014/05/09/1226911/877116-61eea6b2-d64f-11e3-b5be-ec06717bccf7.jpg)
(http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080528154506/darkcrystal/images/c/cf/Aughra_photo.jpg)
http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/tough-love-for-youth-offenders-in-northern-territory/story-fnk0b1zt-1226912801644 (http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/tough-love-for-youth-offenders-in-northern-territory/story-fnk0b1zt-1226912801644)
JAMES is 16 years old; he hopes to finish high school, get reasonable grades and join the police or army – he explains he doesn't have "that much of a record". :o ??? ;D :-\ ???
He agrees he's been up to mischief. Only recently he was caught by police on a supermarket roof, but no big deal.
Most of his conversations with law enforcement have been as witness to 12 years of horrors growing up in the Kurringal Flats – Darwin's sorry refuge for the desolate amid the well-to-do townhouses of Fannie Bay.
"I've seen that many people bashed and stabbed – I'm just used to it," he says.
The flats will be torn down soon for new apartments.
These days, free of the flats, James spends nearly every afternoon at the Casuarina bus exchange with friends, where fights happen most days.
"If someone wants to talk big, I ask why," he says.
"If they don't have a good answer, I hit 'em in the jaw".
He says he doesn't hang around with the kids doing really bad things – break and enters, stealing cars – but he knows who some are.
And there are many.
This week alone, the NT News has reported on teen girls arrested after punching a great-grandmother in the chest and stealing her purse; 14-, 15- and 17-year-olds arrested after a break-in at Ludmilla; and, yesterday, a 17-year-old charged after stealing $6500 worth of property across Darwin.
"They're just drunk and stupid", James says. "I only drink at home".
Children as young as 10 fill the releases of police media with such regularity it seems barely noteworthy and has many on social media screaming the cliched catchcry of "young people out of control".
But that is too simple.
Offending rates of those aged 10-19 have actually been falling nationally since a peak in 2009-10.
The Northern Territory has followed the trend, dropping from 6905 youth offenders per 100,000 in 2009-10 to 4839 per 100,000 in 2012-13.
But it still tops the nation – rates per 100,000 in Western Australia and Victoria were 1812 and 2867, respectively.
Nationally, across age groups, the figures are significantly higher among indigenous populations.
Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Stringer heads up Strike Force Trident, NT Police's taskforce taking a zero-tolerance approach to property crime.
Much of his team's work is taken up with chasing down young offenders, many of them again and again – some of them as young as seven.
"Juveniles are an ongoing issue because of the leniency of the justice system," he says.
"They are probably 70-80 per cent of the problem ... you catch them, they get bail and then they're back out on the streets reoffending.
Good luck joining the Army or the Police if you think it is o.k to just belt people without sorting your problems out peacefully, James.
Sick of people trying to make coons look like they are of any worth !
Such dumb arses they never had a number that went over 3!(one , two or many) ....yet now even America wants everyone to think they can count to 5! ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsUOqvi2b4M (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsUOqvi2b4M)