Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Katie Woolf spoke with Larrakia Nation CEO Robert Cooper and Mission Australia Regional Leader Northern Territory Michael Soler

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Katie Woolf spoke with Larrakia Nation CEO Robert Cooper and Mission Australia Regional Leader Northern Territory Michael Soler · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: If you want to know what's happening on the local
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: political landscape, Katie Wolf has it covered on three sixty.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Every one is listening Mix one oh four point nine.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You are listening to Mix one oh four point nine's
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  Speaker 1: three sixty.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Over the last few weeks, we have certainly had plenty
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of discussions about the situation with territorians traveling around the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: territory and people coming in to Darwin. I guess you'd say,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: from different communities and maybe not behaving in a way.
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  Speaker 4: That we would expect or that we would like.
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  Speaker 1: Now joining us in the studio to talk a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more about some of the concerns that we've had,
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  Speaker 1: but certainly more about some of the options and potentially
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: some of these solutions to these concerns. From Larachie Nation,
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  Speaker 1: we have got the CEO Robert Cooper, Good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Morning, Katy.
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  Speaker 1: And we've also got from Mission Australia, Regional Leader of
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory, Michael Solar, Good morning, Michael Key. Great
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to have you both in the studio and I was
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  Speaker 1: really keen to get you both back on because over
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  Speaker 1: the last few weeks I've had you both on individually
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  Speaker 1: to talk about some of the issues that we are
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: experiencing here in the top end. And I know that
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: you'd flagged with us that there is going to be
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  Speaker 1: a forum. It's actually happening tomorrow. Firstly, can you tell
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  Speaker 1: us a little bit more about what this forum is
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  Speaker 1: all about?
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  Speaker 3: Well, on behalf of the Larachie people, We've come to
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  Speaker 3: the unavoidable conclusion that the Larachia need to start asserting
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: their rights as the traditional custodians of this country, and
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  Speaker 3: the people that we've had visiting have not been showing
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: appropriate respect. So the catalyst for us was several hundred
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: people on Middle Beach last week. We've seen this morning
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  Speaker 3: the c Darwin's response. Our response is to get a
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  Speaker 3: conversation going amongst all the interest parties about how we
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: can deal with the issue. Rather than simply moving it
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  Speaker 3: from one part of day on to the other. We
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: need to think about how we deal with it in
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: the longer tim and that's the conversation starter for tomorrow.
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  Speaker 4: So Robert, you know, I'll just go to that first
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  Speaker 4: bit first.
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  Speaker 1: About the Darwin City Council obviously banning alcohol there at Mendel,
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  Speaker 1: you said that how many how many people were there sleeping.
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  Speaker 3: Rough the beginning of last week, so a week ago
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  Speaker 3: a day, they were between we think two and three
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  Speaker 3: hundred people. Significant number. We've had to focus with the
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: police and joined operation to move those people on. But
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  Speaker 3: the issue is we haven't stopped the drinking. We've moved
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: the people on, and that's the number the problem for
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  Speaker 3: us as.
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  Speaker 1: Lerrik here, and that is a I mean, when you
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: talk about the sheer volume of people sleeping in one
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: particular spot in one week, that's actually a massive number.
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  Speaker 3: That's only one place part of Darwin.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Now are they when we say sleeping rough, are we
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: talking about people that are homeless here or are we
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: talking about people who've maybe traveled in from other communities.
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  Speaker 3: Most of the people at Mendel last week were community visitors.
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  Speaker 3: We have actually this morning kicked off again in our
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: rough sleeper survey to try and identify how many community
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  Speaker 3: visitors we've got, how many permanent rough sleepers we've got,
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  Speaker 3: how many people are part of the urban drift from
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  Speaker 3: community in today and on a permanent basis.
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  Speaker 1: Goodness may that is you know, that's a really big number.
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  Speaker 1: And then when you talk about trying to help people
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  Speaker 1: to get home, are you finding that many are prepared
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  Speaker 1: or keen to go home.
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  Speaker 3: We're actually working in collaboration within TI government and the
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Commonwealth now to send people back and we've spent just
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  Speaker 3: in the last week my recollection is somewhere around about
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: eighteen to twenty thousand dollars on returning people back to
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  Speaker 3: the communities they come from.
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  Speaker 4: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: I mean that's a massive amount of money as well, Michael.
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  Speaker 1: When you then take a look at the Sobering Up
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  Speaker 1: Shelter that Mission Australia managers, are you seeing large numbers
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  Speaker 1: through there as well.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've spoke to you a couple of months ago
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  Speaker 5: that we were hitting record numbers out of December into
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  Speaker 5: January and February. It seems to be that where those
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  Speaker 5: numbers are continuing. I mentioned at the time that we've
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: gone out of this period of peaks and troughs, so
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: we're now into plateaus and that's pretty much where we've been.
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  Speaker 5: We still have several nights a week where we get
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  Speaker 5: full very quickly at the Serving Up Shelter. It's a
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  Speaker 5: forty bed facility, the largest in the territory of its kind.
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  Speaker 5: But we are often finding that there are times there
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  Speaker 5: where we're having to turn people away just through shee
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  Speaker 5: volume of clients that are in there, and the turnaround
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  Speaker 5: on that is basically something that pushes the service to
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  Speaker 5: the limit and also then pushes other services such as
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  Speaker 5: Laraka patrols police who drop people at the facility, So
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  Speaker 5: then that starts to really push those services. We're seeing
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  Speaker 5: those numbers are not waning like they usually would as
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  Speaker 5: much as there was a football game in town last week.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: It was a rugby league game, doesn't tend to usually
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  Speaker 5: bring too many people out of community. So the huge
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  Speaker 5: numbers that we're seeing out of communities at the moment
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  Speaker 5: are attributable to a number of probably reasons, but the
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  Speaker 5: main thing is we just need to have a conversation
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  Speaker 5: about how we deal with it better.
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  Speaker 1: So this conversation tomorrow is going to come in the
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  Speaker 1: form of a forum.
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  Speaker 4: Who is attending the forum.
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  Speaker 5: We've got at this stage upwards of thirty close to
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  Speaker 5: forty organizations, and that's organizations right across the sector they're
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  Speaker 5: dealing with, from homelessness to health and all sorts of
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  Speaker 5: other services in between.
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  Speaker 3: Ess actually very gratifying. We have representatives of all three
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  Speaker 3: tiers of government, so call them off Territory and City Darwin.
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  Speaker 3: We have other people that we're briefing who can't be there,
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  Speaker 3: like Malandery McCarthy who's very interested in what's going on,
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  Speaker 3: so I'm talking to her today. We have the land
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  Speaker 3: Council's going to be representative, so they now realize that
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  Speaker 3: this is an issue for them to face up. And
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  Speaker 3: we have people who have money coming. But we also
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: have people who understand I really need to back up
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  Speaker 3: a step. Valerie cannot do it on there. We have
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  Speaker 3: now our elders coming to us saying we need to
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  Speaker 3: do something about this as a Valericie people, So I've
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: reached out to fifty odd people to come and have
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  Speaker 3: a conversation. That's all it is starting the conversation, and
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  Speaker 3: you forty people across the sector, across all the tiers
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  Speaker 3: of government, and people who actually have some ability to
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  Speaker 3: influence what happens in the longer term.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's fantastic.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's a wonderful initiative that you guys have
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  Speaker 1: organized this, that there is actually going to be this
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  Speaker 1: forum now with decision makers and with those that work in.
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  Speaker 4: The sector, those who are impacted as well.
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  Speaker 1: You know, everybody's going to come together and have what
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  Speaker 1: I hope is a really constructive conversation to try to
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  Speaker 1: make some change in this space. And I'm assuming that
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  Speaker 1: that's really the aim tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
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  Speaker 5: I think that if we continue on the same path
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  Speaker 5: that we are, we're really going to achieve nothing. It's
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  Speaker 5: just going to be the same thing for generation after generation.
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  Speaker 5: This is probably the one point in time where we
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  Speaker 5: can actually pull a circuit breaker on the situation and
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  Speaker 5: actually try and make a change for generations to come
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  Speaker 5: to actually think about how the second as a whole
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  Speaker 5: and government as a whole can really come together and
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  Speaker 5: try and promote a change for the better to look at.
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  Speaker 2: And this is again, this is not about banning something.
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  Speaker 5: It's not about trying to change the world or bring
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  Speaker 5: in a facility or doing anything like that. This is
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  Speaker 5: quite honestly just a conversation. Piece of a conversation started
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  Speaker 5: to get to get that everyone around the table that
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  Speaker 5: needs to be there, and there's probably going to be
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  Speaker 5: people that aren't there, and there's going to be plenty
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  Speaker 5: of people that will have an opinion, and we're welcome
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  Speaker 5: to those as well, because this is something that has
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  Speaker 5: to be formulated right across. It can't just be one
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  Speaker 5: person's idea that drives it. Otherwise we'll just it'll go nowhere.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I know that we've you know, I've spoken
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  Speaker 1: to both of you before about wet camps and things
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  Speaker 1: like that. But I mean, I guess the situation here
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  Speaker 1: is that we actually need an immediate response. We then
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  Speaker 1: need to sort of be looking medium term about some
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  Speaker 1: of the changes that we can make, and then we
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  Speaker 1: also need to look long term so that we don't
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  Speaker 1: wind up in this situation again hopefully. Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: And if you look at the last probably ten years
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  Speaker 5: in the territory, there's been such ups and downs. You know,
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  Speaker 5: we've seen the impacts projects sort of wrap up, and
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  Speaker 5: we've seen real down spike in a whole lot of things.
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  Speaker 5: We've then seen in the last twelve months with COVID
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  Speaker 5: and all that sort of stuff, the effects that that's
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  Speaker 5: had mental health, wellbeing, jobs, all.
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  Speaker 2: Sorts of things.
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  Speaker 5: It basically it puts us in a situation that we're
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  Speaker 5: right now in a really good place to start a
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  Speaker 5: conversation to make change, and that's I think really important.
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  Speaker 1: I know some people will be listening this morning and
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  Speaker 1: thinking to themselves.
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  Speaker 4: You know, it is really good that there's a.
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  Speaker 1: Conversation, but we need to see some immediate action, I
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  Speaker 1: guess to set some of those minds at ease. There
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  Speaker 1: is actually action being taken right now, isn't there? I mean, Robert,
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  Speaker 1: there's been a phenomenal number of people who have actually
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  Speaker 1: been returned to country in the recent months as well,
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  Speaker 1: hasn't there?
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  Speaker 3: We're returning at the moment around about six hundred people
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  Speaker 3: a month back to community. That's twenty forty percent up
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  Speaker 3: on last year, and as a trend, and then on
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  Speaker 3: top of that, we're sending that people who we've identified
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  Speaker 3: as being frail or elderly or in need of getting
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  Speaker 3: to a safe place.
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  Speaker 1: What are people saying to you when they are returning
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  Speaker 1: to country in terms of are they here for medical treatment?
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  Speaker 1: Are they here to access alcohol? Are they here for
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a holiday? What are a lot of people sort of
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  Speaker 1: saying when you do when larochie, a nation does indeed
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: engage and help them to get home.
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  Speaker 3: Generally speaking, the people who are here to access alcohol
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  Speaker 3: are not the people who are going back to community,
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  Speaker 3: certainly not with us, because there are controls over what
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  Speaker 3: they can take with them. So The people we're sending
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: back are those who have missed the patient transport, have
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: been here visiting family, have come here and don't have
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: any financial literacy skills and a run out of money.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: People who realize that they've made a mistake in coming
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: to town.
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  Speaker 1: Robert, what kind of impact is this having on the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Larakia people into you know, they are our traditional custodians.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: How are they feeling at the moment.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: You know, as you said right at the start of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the interview, there are some cases where we are seeing
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  Speaker 1: disrespect for their land.
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  Speaker 3: The first time in my tenure at Larikiir, we've had
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  Speaker 3: elders coming to us saying it's not about the money,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: it's about our respect and our duty as cares for
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: the land. We are here to help you talk to
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: the people who are visiting and they've been out of
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: their own bat talking to people about what it means
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: to be on Laryciere country. We've had the endorsement of
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: the larache protocols that have been waving at you over
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: the monitor, and we're about to launch a bigger publicity
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: campaign about Larachie protocols, respect for country and that the
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: two hit men that I talked to you about last
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: time I was in the studio with Russell and Michael Villaflor,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: who were starring on the seven thirty Report on Sunday night.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: They moved two hundred people off Middle Beach in the
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: course of a week with their one on one efforts
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: and talking to people and talking to them about what
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: it means to be on their country. This size might
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: have had something to do with it, but I think
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: it was more there.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Have you and have you had to increase the number
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of people that you have working for you and sort
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of try, you know, doing that patrolling.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: No, we are working smarter rather than more people. So
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: we're now running a call center so that we reduce
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: the number of k's we're doing, and we're altering the
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: time of day and like the patrol with Russell and Michael,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: so that they go out and target specific areas or
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: specific people.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I do just want to read from this little book
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: mark that you have passed over to me, and it
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: says it is it's a quote from Bundilla Barbara Mills Raymond,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and it says we talk to country, our country talks
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: to us. This is Larakia country. We're Larakia people and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: we will always be here, please respect our and I
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: think that that is such a beautiful quote, and it's
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: something that you know, all of us try our best
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: or should be trying our best to do, no matter
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: where we come from, and that.
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  Speaker 3: Speaks to the heart of what most of the larriche
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: of people understand as being their role in this place.
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: Now, I do want to ask.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that obviously the Darwin City Council have
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: made moves to ban alcohol at at mindle Beach. Michael,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: from your perspective, do you think that that's going to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: make much of a difference. I know that we said
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: earlier that it will just move the problem. Do you
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: think that that is the case here?
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: We're kind of an end user in that process. So
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: the sobering upshelter will get people once they're picked up
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: by services, so bends or changes. We saw something similar
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: I think the other side of Christmas with Palmeston Council
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: removing some of the restrictions or sorry, removing some of
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: the alcohol availability around Marlow's the Goon. You can give
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: some changes made, they're the same again. What that does
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: is tends to shift the problem. My esteemed colleague to
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: my left likes to refer to it as the water
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: balloon effect. So you squeeze the water bloon at the bottom,
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: it just goes to the top. When you do shift
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: a problem like that, you always the outcome is going
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: to be the same. At a service like ours, we
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: tend to get the fact that we're seeing numbers over
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: twelve hundred each month would indicate to us that those
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: numbers aren't budging, which means that they're still a lot
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: of people who are utilizing that service, and a large majority,
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: well over ninety percent of those are itinerant. So they
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: are homeless, but homeless from the perspective of their visitors
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: to town that they've come from elsewhere and they have
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: nowhere to stay, so they're rough, sleeping, intoxicated our tinerant.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: So they get picked up and brought to the serving upshelter.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: For us, the endgame is still the same. We engage
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: with those people. We try and get them, have a
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: brief intervention, try and get them to change what's going on,
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: and try and give them the option.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Is there something we can do? Do you want to
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: break the cycle.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: When we talk about where people have, you know, where
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: they can actually go, And let's say there is somebody
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: drinking and in a way that's not acceptable in a
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: public space, but they're not necessarily doing something that is illegal.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Are the options here the watchhouse, the sobering up shelter,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: or continuing to sort of be in that public place.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, depending on the circumstances.
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: It may also be that if they are so intoxicated
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: but not up to you know, not causing the mischief
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: that you would expect, but they're so intoxicate, they might
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: be taken to the emergency department and be looked after
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: until such time as they're safe to come to the
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: sabering up shelter and then But quite honestly, yeah, the
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: options are it's either changing behavior on the spot, come
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: to the saving up shelter, or you go to the
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: watchhouse if you're displaying signs of violence, or if you
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: can't be taking it the saving up shelter.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: From both of your perspectives, are there any changes that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: we could sort of look at making here fairly immediately
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to see a positive change in this space.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: One of the things we're working on is reducing visibility,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: and that's really what the short term part of tomorrow's
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: conversation will be about. We can work on the underlying
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: issues about why people drink, but it's very difficult to
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: do that in the public space because people see the
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: any social behavior and the alcoholism. They don't see the
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: trauma that's underneath it. So from our perspective, short term
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: strategy really is to reduce visibility. There are an excess
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: of one hundred dry weather camps in and around the
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Darwin region. So not all of those camps draw attension,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: and not all of those camps feature antisocial behavior. So
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: if we can in the short term it assist people
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: to get to places where they are safe in the
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: absence of one of these visitor camps, that's a good
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: start for us.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Are those dry where the camps being utilized as well
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: as they could be at this point.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: They're all unofficial yep. Some are illegal because they camp
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: behind signs where it says no camping allowed. Right, we
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: think that relatively well used because we know the communities
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: that camp there and we have access to them. We
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: can take in Robert Peggs and get them to clean
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: up after themselves. We can take people there because they
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: know they'll be safe, or we can avoid taking people
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: there because we know they're not so it's a useful
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: part of our toolbox, if you like, for dealing with
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: people that we pick up when they are in more
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: public places.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And Michael, the same question to you, do you think
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that there's other things that we could be doing, you know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: fairly quickly, fairly immediately, to try and to try and
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: make some inroads in this space.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: Look, I think again, conversations about collaboration, about services working together,
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: government working with NGOs at all levels, and I think
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: the ability to just put discussion on the table because
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: I think every time I've come in to talk to you,
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: I think I spoke to you a while back around
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: particularly around you stuff, and there's never any good use stories.
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: And this is one of those situations that we know
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: that this is by far a minority of people that
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: are pausing any social behavior issues. But quite honestly, it's
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: about starting the conversation, getting the right people around the
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: table so that we're actually all heading in the same direction.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: I often used to use an analogy when I train
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: new staff around the fact that if you consider life
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: an eight lane highway, and this conversation is a lane
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: an eight lane highway, all traffic's going to be moving
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: in the same direction. You might have slow cars on
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: the left, fast cars on the right. The minute somewhere
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: in the right lane decides to turn left ninety degrees.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: You get a pile up.
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: Everything just crumples and crashes, and then it takes forever
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: to pull that apart. And that's what we're at risk
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: of right now, is all these services basically just piling up,
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: going their own way, trying to do their own thing,
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: and no one taking control of a situation. I'm not,
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: by any stretch saying that Robert or I are the
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: ones to take control of this. I think we're just
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: the ones that have been pushed forward in a sense
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: through some of the results that we've reported over time
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: around the fact that something different needs to be done.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: We can't just continue down the same path. And as
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: a result, we've sort of got together and let's start
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: a conversation. Let's let's pull people together and start something.
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: If we continue down that path, we're really just going
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: to be on hiding to nothing.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think I think it's so incredibly important
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: we can't just continue on the path that we're currently on.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, right at the start of this conversation this morning,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you both. You know, you both spoke to me about
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: those numbers. I mean, Robert what you had said that
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: really we've had record numbers down at Mindle Beach over.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: The past week.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: You know that in itself demonstrates that we've got to
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: make some change in this space. And Michael, you've spoken
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to me on numerous occasions, but you know, even this
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: morning saying that there's been record numbers through the sobering upshelter,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: if that in itself doesn't really demonstrate that we've got
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to try to make some change here that I don't know,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: what does.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: You need to take some accountability for that?
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: One of the fact probably the first interview I had
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: with you after I started, I talked about the work
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: that their acunation was doing, and then we had a
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: woman who had a shop and per rep I think
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: it was, come on straight afterwards and say you're saying
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: the same thing. You we're five years ago, so we
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: have four years and three months later actually got around
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: to taking your words and who's doing something to change
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: the paradigm. And we've had the conversation with the First
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Nation's Caucus with an MTG and they've said come to
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: us with a solution, don't wait for us to come
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: to you with a policy position. So we've taken the initiative.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: We're going to go to them and we're going to
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: say we had a conversation, we think we can make
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: this work. Now let's find the money, the resources and
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: the energy and make it happen.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Well, and you know what, this is community lead, which
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I think is incredibly important, and I really appreciate the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: fact that both of you are taking that step out
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to do that and making sure that this forum happens.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: I always appreciate.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Both of you coming into the studio, particularly this morning,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: taking the time to do that together and have an
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: extensive discussion with us. Please let me know how things
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: go tomorrow. Absolutely, yeah, thank you both so very much
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of your time.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: I really appreciate it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Michael Soler from Well from Mission Australia, the Regional leader
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of the Northern Territory and also Larichian Nation CEO.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: Robert Cooper