Alice Springs...

Alice Springs is the third largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Surrounded by several deserts and situated in central Australia, or the Red Centre, as it is called. It is an arid often harsh environment.

It has a population of around 32,000 surrounded by 17 communities and is constantly in the news lately and not in a good way!

Aboriginal Australians make up approximately 20% of the population but take up most, if not all, of the daily news with bad behavior, rampant violence due to alcohol where they self-medicate the only way they know how and getting drunk hides ongoing problems and helps them forget.

Suffering from a lack of work, lack of home life, schooling..lack of things to do and most of all a lack of purpose children often are safer on the streets than they are at home we are told. 

Every hour of the night it seems, when they should be home in bed, children and youths run rampant causing trouble. Many coming from families where alcohol and family violence are normal. Abuse is sadly prevalent.

I can only look at it from an outside perspective of course and there is no easy solution as we see it almost daily lately on our TV screens. A ban on alcohol for a couple of days a week, now suggested, won't be the answer as it can be purchased and stored.

Up until last year I understand only food could be purchased on welfare cards. Now for some reason this was reversed supposedly to give people choices. A choice for alcohol. A disaster just waiting to happen and only making things worse it seems. 

There are well meaning groups trying to get children involved in sports and boxing clubs. They need an alternative something to do. At the moment there doesn't seem to be any alternative but to get drunk and get into drugs. Those often too young to get alcohol petrol and glue sniffing is yet another problem.

A friend of my parents some years ago that owned a couple of hotels out that way (dare I say a white man) said, no boasted, that he became rich off the backs of aboriginals that drank too much and had no self-control over the white man's "grog" as it's referred to. To them it is an addiction that is strong and dangerous leading to a generational problem.

Only have to look who owns the liquer outlets...it's all there to see. I feel sad for the people..not sad for the shareholders that make profits out of their debilitating illness.... as that is what it is an illness. Maybe the shareholders should speak up more!

It's a terribly sad situation and instead of just throwing money at it as has been the usual thing in the past and hoping it will just go away the people need help. Today there is more positive talk. We can only hope it works for they need to get back to their roots...back to who they are...their proud origins on the land and their knowledge of country.

People with more knowledge than I have said they, the lost aboriginal children, need somewhere to go where they can learn life skills, play sports, learn a trade. the power to get jobs, give them pride and self-esteem.  Something that is sorely lacking. 

It is said sixty thousand years the aboriginal people have laid claim to this ancient land. A total re-think has to take place and a "back to basics" of where they are from.

Too easy to round them up and put them in jail...the jails are full to overflowing with sadness. A proud people need to be shown just how beautiful they are and how they survived on this land for so long before white settlement.

It makes me angry...and also very sad...

+Update... Blanket alcohol bans have now been put in place in Alice Springs to curb a crime wave where each community will have to vote to opt out of.