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Katie Woolf spoke with Larrakia Nation CEO Robert Cooper · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: Three sixty with Katie Wolf Thanks to Joyce Main, Darwin
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  Speaker 1: homes Own Stuart Highway Beerrimer. You are listening to Mixed
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  Speaker 1: Bono four point nine's three sixty now. A report in
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory News today that Larakiir patrollers have seen
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  Speaker 1: a massive sixty percent spike in alcohol related callouts earlier
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  Speaker 1: this year, and well it's been reported that things could
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  Speaker 1: get worse due to huge amounts of royalty back pay
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  Speaker 1: now flowing through. Joining me in the studio right now
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  Speaker 1: is the CEO of Larichia Nation, Robert Cooper. Good morning
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  Speaker 1: to you, Ron.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie. Good to be back.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, good to see you, Robert. I know that it's
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  Speaker 1: been reported that a Larachia Nation spokesperson said that groups
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  Speaker 1: of people will that have got quite a substantial amount
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  Speaker 1: of cash playing card games for well five thousand dollars
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  Speaker 1: a hand down at East Point and Bundilla Beach. Is
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  Speaker 1: this happening often?
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  Speaker 2: It's been happening for all of the twenty odd years
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  Speaker 2: been working my way across the top. In every community
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  Speaker 2: has card games and they always have more in the
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  Speaker 2: pot when there's royalties or large payments. So what we're
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  Speaker 2: seeing is nothing unusual for us.
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  Speaker 1: Now are those I mean, how big an increase I
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  Speaker 1: suppose in royalty payments at the moment? Are we talking
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  Speaker 1: or why is it something that's sort of flared up
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  Speaker 1: at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: We don't know because they're not very key of people,
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  Speaker 2: so the money's coming in from out of town. Our
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  Speaker 2: understanding is that for some of the people from down south,
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  Speaker 2: they've had two years of royalties paid in one because
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  Speaker 2: there was a moratory input on them during COVID during
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  Speaker 2: the pandemic. But that's unsubstantiated. But we certainly we're aware
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  Speaker 2: that there are large tons of money expected. We discussed
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  Speaker 2: that with the police a couple of weeks ago with Daniel,
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  Speaker 2: so we're expecting it to happen now.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it does seem as though there's quite a
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  Speaker 1: large number of people in town at the moment from
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  Speaker 1: different communities. I know that we just caught up with
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  Speaker 1: Nai ra Kit, the local member obviously in Karama, and
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  Speaker 1: she said that they've seen hundreds upon hundreds of visitors
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  Speaker 1: in recent time. Would you say that it's a similar situation.
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  Speaker 2: We're certainly from the meetings we've had with Naria Kat
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  Speaker 2: and with Lauren Moss and with the Chief Minister about
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  Speaker 2: issues in their electorates in recent weeks. It is definitely
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  Speaker 2: a problem. We are definitely seeing more visibility of people.
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  Speaker 2: We're not sure whether it's because there are more people
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  Speaker 2: in town or because there is a shift of people
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  Speaker 2: out of accommodation like the housing complexes and into rough
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  Speaker 2: sleeping with the change in the weather. So we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: more people and we're taking more people from the city
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  Speaker 2: out into bush camps, so of course those people are
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  Speaker 2: going to be more visible.
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  Speaker 1: So it could actually be not just people visiting from
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  Speaker 1: remote communities, but in some cases people who have previously
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  Speaker 1: been in public housing or.
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  Speaker 2: People who have been camping with their family and publication,
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  Speaker 2: maybe because of the wet because we had a very
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  Speaker 2: wet wet not a lot of accommodation out in the
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  Speaker 2: regular bush camps. We last i seas encountered an excess
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  Speaker 2: of one hundred camps, and of course a lot of
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  Speaker 2: those are largely invisible because the people don't misbehave. So
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  Speaker 2: it could be all that we see now is visibility
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  Speaker 2: rather than increase in numbers, but we don't know, so
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  Speaker 2: we are about to re visit the number of people
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  Speaker 2: we've got here on the back of trying to convince
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  Speaker 2: our clients to be vaccinated for COVID nineteen to keep
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  Speaker 2: them healthy. We're going to go through and count all
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  Speaker 2: of those people and identify where they are, where they're from,
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  Speaker 2: how long they're here for.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so a bit of a different campaign, I guess,
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  Speaker 1: and NRI did mention this earlier as well, that you
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  Speaker 1: know about talking to them about about sort of the
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  Speaker 1: COVID vaccination and hopefully getting them home safely if they
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  Speaker 1: are here from another community. Well, when you talk about
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  Speaker 1: some of these numbers, I mean, how many people have
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  Speaker 1: been returned to country this year?
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  Speaker 2: Certainly up for the first two months it was over
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  Speaker 2: six hundred a month. It dropped back to about four
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  Speaker 2: point fifty I think for March. So those numbers are
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  Speaker 2: probably twenty percent up on what they've been in previous years.
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  Speaker 1: Why do you reckon at the moment it seems as
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  Speaker 1: though there's a real issueing Karama in terms of trying
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  Speaker 1: to return people home.
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  Speaker 2: No, I wish you wouldn't ask me the hard questions.
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  Speaker 2: We are seeing generally larger groups of people. So it's
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  Speaker 2: my assumption is and we yet to test it is
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  Speaker 2: that if you have a larger group of people, they
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  Speaker 2: become more visible. We had a conversation with one of
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  Speaker 2: our social support staff a couple of weeks ago where
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  Speaker 2: they'd been handing out bottles of water and blankets at night,
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  Speaker 2: and where there were normally two or three people, there'd
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  Speaker 2: be people coming around from the backs of the buildings.
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  Speaker 2: So larger groups. Whether it's because of safety all those
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  Speaker 2: community groups stay together or they they like to socialize,
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  Speaker 2: I can't answer that question. I'm not from their communities,
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  Speaker 2: but we are certainly seeing larger groups of people.
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  Speaker 1: Are our Larakia people concerned with some of the behavior
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  Speaker 1: that's going on at the moment?
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  Speaker 2: Funny you should say that, Katie, because I have I'll
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  Speaker 2: leave with you in the studio a new copy of
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  Speaker 2: the Larachie Protocols that we are about to combine with
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  Speaker 2: the Respected Driver campaign and put on buses. We're putting
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  Speaker 2: them up out at the airport City of Dwen, putting
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  Speaker 2: them up on digital signage. We're including a message on
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  Speaker 2: visited behavior into our welcomes to country. So the Larachie
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  Speaker 2: people are concerned. We expect community visitors to behave the
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  Speaker 2: same way in our community as we would be expected
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  Speaker 2: to behave in theirs and we've just in fact, we've
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  Speaker 2: just created a patrol of two of my biggest earliest
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  Speaker 2: patrollers to deal with targeted people or targeted hotspots, to
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  Speaker 2: explain to them in Laricie terms what it means to
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  Speaker 2: be on Larachiere country and how to behave. And they
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  Speaker 2: are taking a more non aggressive but assertive approach to
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  Speaker 2: dealing with people and trying to resolve issues without having
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  Speaker 2: to go into call the police for example.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it must be frustrating, Like it must
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  Speaker 1: be frustrating for them when you know the majority of
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  Speaker 1: people treat Larakiair country with such respect, but then you
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  Speaker 1: do have a small cohort who are doing the wrong thing.
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  Speaker 2: And it is a small cohort. The issue for us
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  Speaker 2: is the visibility of that cohort. So we are changing
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  Speaker 2: our tactics. We are as I had a conversation with
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  Speaker 2: one of the chiefs of staff last week and we
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  Speaker 2: talked about a circuit breaker, finding ways to deal with
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  Speaker 2: the particular problem people so that we can break the
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  Speaker 2: tension there, and finding different ways to deal with the
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  Speaker 2: kids because obviously there's some serious youth issues at the
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  Speaker 2: moment so we're getting into the after school program and
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  Speaker 2: the school holiday program next to work to find ways
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  Speaker 2: to get them back on too straight and narrow, get
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  Speaker 2: them away from chroming all those things that we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: at the moment that are really horrendous.
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  Speaker 1: How big an issue is this chroming?
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  Speaker 2: It's a shocker. Nari will have said she had a
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  Speaker 2: direct conversation with a group of twelve year old girls
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  Speaker 2: outside her electorate office. One of my staff, my pa,
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  Speaker 2: actually was in chemists warehouse day before yesterday. Young girls
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  Speaker 2: in there sticking the rexanadiodoran down their shirts and when
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  Speaker 2: leone headed out with them that you shouldn't be doing this.
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  Speaker 2: I can't repeat what they said to were on Talley,
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  Speaker 2: but her response was, Hey, I'm the same as you.
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  Speaker 2: You need to cut out their behavior and it's giving
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  Speaker 2: them an immediate high and making them crock.
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  Speaker 1: That is bloody frightening and yeah, really concerning. I think
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  Speaker 1: for all of us, Robert, you and I could always
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  Speaker 1: speak for ages. I've always got so much that I'm
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  Speaker 1: interested and keen to talk to you about. But we
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  Speaker 1: are going to have to wrap up. Just on finally,
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  Speaker 1: just sort of finally, you did mention that you want
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a circuit breaker. I mean, what do
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  Speaker 1: you think we need to do here as a community
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  Speaker 1: to sort of find that circuit breaker and try to
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  Speaker 1: turn things around a bit.
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  Speaker 2: So we've got the short stay accommodation at Marara at
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  Speaker 2: the moment. Myself and a couple of the other NGOs
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  Speaker 2: have actually convened a workshop on the twenty ninth of April,
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  Speaker 2: and we've invited all of the NGOs and the government
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  Speaker 2: agencies and interested people to come together and talk about
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  Speaker 2: how we can provide a safe place for people who
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  Speaker 2: want to come to town and want to have a drink.
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  Speaker 2: Because you and I can get on the turfs, we
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  Speaker 2: can go home, not an issue if you don't have
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  Speaker 2: a home to go to gain it's that visibility thing.
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  Speaker 2: So we're going to work together and we're going to
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  Speaker 2: go to the government and say we've got a solution.
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  Speaker 2: Rather than complaining, we're actually going to get off our asses,
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  Speaker 2: have a conversation and see where we can take it
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  Speaker 2: so that we can go to with an ARI supporting
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  Speaker 2: must in it and seleni Ubo and had conversations with them,
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  Speaker 2: what can we do.
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  Speaker 1: To help good on you? And look, we might try
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  Speaker 1: and catch up again before the twenty ninth, and if
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  Speaker 1: we can help you to sort of, you know, to
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  Speaker 1: encourage more people to be there to try and find
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  Speaker 1: a solution. We'll do what we can, and if there's
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  Speaker 1: something we can do, you know, to try and help,
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  Speaker 1: let us know. Robert always good to catch up with you.
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate your time.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks Katie, Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Robert Cooper there the CEO of Larichia Nation,