‘Judicial System Is Not the Answer’: Indigenous Minister on Alice Springs’s 2nd Curfew

Curfew is a crucial short-term response, but it should not be the only solution to the youth crime crisis, Linda Burney said.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney (2nd R) in Darwin, Australia, on April 13, 2022. AAP Image/Annette Lin

Linda Burney, the minister for Indigenous Australians, has weighed in on the Alice Springs’s three-day curfew.

On July 8, the Northern Territory (NT) Police enacted a public disorder declaration following a string of violent incidents in the outback town, including the assault of four police officers by 20 youths.

The order ran from 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. each day, with police having powers to control the movement of people to prevent, stop or reduce public disorder in the declared area.

Areas subjected to the snap curfew include the town centre between Anzac Hill, the Alice Springs Hospital, the Stuart Highway, and Leichhardt Terrace, which runs along the Todd River.

Ms. Burney said while the curfew is a crucial short-term response, it should not be the only solution to the youth crime crisis.

“You can’t arrest your way out of this,” she told ABC News Breakfast on July 9. “The judicial system is not the answer, but the community working with government is the answer.”

“And that’s very much the way in which I’m pursuing the issues.”

Ms. Burney argued that politics should be taken out of the issue, expressing empathy towards the Alice Springs youth, who, she noted, had been struggling with poverty, poor living conditions, and alcohol abuse.

“I always try to put myself into the shoes of people involved in the situation,” she added.

“If you imagine you’re a 15-year-old Aboriginal person in Alice Springs living in shocking conditions where the poverty is absolutely grinding and you can’t see a future, probably with FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder), then they’re the shoes that we need to stand in.”

FASD refers to the range of conditions caused by exposure to alcohol during pregnancy.

“Everyone’s views are important, everyone’s views should be listened to, but we cannot get away from the poverty, the deprivation, the shocking living conditions and, quite frankly, young people not being able to see a future.”

The comment was echoed by NT Coalition Senator and former Alice Springs deputy mayor Jacinta Price, who said the community’s children and adolescents are “some of our most marginalised.”

“More needs to be done, basically, to improve town camps. The children that are vulnerable—they should be allowed to grow up in environments that aren’t harmful for them and that aren’t dysfunctional,” she told the ABC.

“These kids come from town camps and they’re some of our most marginalised.

“We need to look at the problem starting with them before they head down the road toward incarceration and the sorts of behaviour we’re seeing carried out on our streets.”

Punitive Measures Are Not The Answer, SNAICC CEO Said

Meanwhile, Catherine Liddle, the CEO of SNAICC, the national voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, argued there is “no evidence that snap curfews like this work.”

She said the government needed to invest into early education and care rather than juvenile diversion activities.

“I do understand the need ... to have short-term responses, but this isn’t it. Having curfews in a tool kit for police to use is not a sensible response … We need to be investing into the solutions,” she told ABC News Breakfast on July 9.

“You increase punitive measures, what you get is more crime. That is what the trends show.”

Previously in April, police also enacted a three-week curfew on Alice Springs’s residents following an extended period of social unrest in the remote community after a teenager died when a stolen car crashed.

At the time, NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler said past experience showed this measure could effectively work as “circuit breaker,” but Ms. Liddle argued they are not the same thing.

“A circuit breaker is significantly different to a curfew,” she added, noting that the circuit breaker in April saw support workers on the street and authorities offering help to families.

“And what [police] found during that period of time was that every child that they came into contact with had a family who said, ‘thank you for coming, let’s talk to you about what we need to do to help our children.’ That was the response that needed to be invested in.”