Another curfew declared for Alice Springs, raising questions about what can be done to tackle the poverty and dysfunction driving crime in the outback town.
Record numbers of younger Australians seeking financial help as rents and mortgage payments soar.
And the sea turtle baby boom boosting efforts to ensure the species' long-term survival.
Credits
Samantha Donovan: Hello, welcome to PM. I'm Samantha Donovan, coming to you from the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne. Tonight, another curfew declared for Alice Springs. What can be done to tackle the poverty and dysfunction driving crime in the town? Also, a sea turtle baby boom in New South Wales and Queensland boosts efforts to ensure the species long term survival and record numbers of younger Australians seeking financial help as rents and mortgage payments soar.
Peter Gartlan: For the financial year just gone, we had over one hundred and forty five thousand calls this year. Month on month, those calls are increasing. But we are finding that at the moment, at least people are doing it tough. And there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.
Samantha Donovan: First this evening, after a weekend of violence, a curfew is again being imposed on Alice Springs. The three-week curfew in March applied only to children, but the emergency measure coming in tonight applies to everyone. It'll be in place in the outback town for three nights. As Jane Bardon reports, locals are fed up with the violent offending, and community leaders are calling on the federal and northern territory governments to deliver on their promises to tackle the poverty and dysfunction that's driving crime.
Jane Bardon: The anti-police commissioner Michael Murphy is using the new powers he gained in May to call the snap three-night curfew after a series of violent attacks, including a weekend brawl involving 80 people. A police officer was badly injured after being run over with a car, and four off-duty officers were assaulted by a mob of 20.
Michael Murphy: Cumulatively, those harms aren't acceptable. You know, this is a short-term relief. The longer-term solution is in community.
Jane Bardon: The March three-week curfew just applied to young people. This time, no one can enter the town centre at night without good reason. The commissioner can ask the chief minister to extend it for another seven days, stretching the NT police thin.
Michael Murphy: The command are looking at additional resources to come in. Resourcing is a challenge.
Jane Bardon: The curfew has disappointed Alice Springs' indigenous community leader and head of the Snake Children's Advocacy Body, Catherine Liddle. She feels the $250 million the federal government promised for community support programmes targeting social dysfunction hasn't hit the ground, and NT government supports haven't materialised.
Catherine Liddle: What we don't ever want to see is an environment where it's okay for police just to call the curfew, as opposed to bringing in the interventions that are required to keep the community safe.
Jane Bardon: Both the NT and federal governments have been promising interventions. What have you seen on the ground so far?
Catherine Liddle: What I do know is we haven't had any update around the solutions that the Northern Territory government called for when they got community into room. What I'd like to know is what has happened since then.
Jane Bardon: Young Alice Springs' indigenous leader and youth rehabilitation programme worker, Armani Francois, is also disappointed by the curfew and asking where government investment has gone.
Armani Francois: And I just don't know where that money is. A lot of organisations have been defunded through the NT government, like mental health and new jails and correction centres have been built. So I don't know if they'd rather encage our kids than have things that can support them. So it's pretty sad.
Jane Bardon: She points out the violence happened during the annual influx of thousands of people from remote communities to the Alice Springs show.
Armani Francois: I don't know why they didn't bring in more police officers or had these organisations like Tangantagere or LeRetepe to kind of have a headstart on how we can stop and prevent all of this from happening.
Jane Bardon: But businesses are desperate to stop the violence. The tourism central Australia head, Danial Rochford, says crime is decimating his industry.
Danial Rochford: What we saw in the last curfew was that it worked. On one hand, yes, it stabilises the street, which is something that's welcomed in the town. But on the other hand, it has a negative impact to our industry.
Jane Bardon: He's worried long-term solutions could take generations and says the town needs more permanent police now.
Danial Rochford: What we have is a surge, then that surge will slowly dissipate. And then of course it all happens again. More prominent public policing is really critical.
Jane Bardon: The assistant principal of the independent Yiperinye Indigenous School, Bess Price, says she hasn't seen evidence of any impact from the two governments' funding commitments.
Bess Price: We have not heard which organisations were to benefit from that funding. And we'd like to know if we will be benefiting out of the funding to be able to help us with our students in order to create more programmes for them. Some of our students, when we ask them, why do they walk the streets at night? Is it because we don't have anywhere safe?
Jane Bardon: Federal Indigenous Australians Minister, Linda Burney, responded with a statement saying her government will fund more police and better domestic violence, youth and remote school services. The NT chief minister, Eva Lawler, says governments can't do everything.
Eva Lawler: It's not just government. We need to have the NGOs as well, continuing to step up, continuing to put additional resources in Alice Springs as well.
Jane Bardon: Catherine Liddle says in a town of just 25,000 people, fixing problems shouldn't be this hard.
Catherine Liddle: What the community were asking for was for all governments to step up and say, who needs a home? Who isn't going to school? Who doesn't have any money? Who is hungry? And then brought in the services that were able to respond to those needs. These things are vital.
Samantha Donovan: Catherine Liddle is the chief executive of the Secretariat of Aboriginal Child Care. Jane Bardon with that report. Now to the aftermath of the shocking house fire in Sydney that killed three young children over the weekend. Their four siblings and mother survived the blaze, which police believe was an act of domestic violence. They allege the children's father blocked attempts to rescue them. He's in hospital in a coma and under police guard. Just a warning to you, this report from Gavin Coote contains some distressing details.
Gavin Coote: In the suburb of Lalor Park, residents are struggling to make sense of the horror.
Damien Dubois: They were doing CPR on the kids for about 40 minutes right in front of me and that was very confronting.
Gavin Coote: Damien Dubois comforted the four children rescued from a burning home after their 28-year-old father allegedly barricaded the family inside.
Damien Dubois: As I had the kids, one of the police came over and sort of, you know, what happened? And you know, and the eldest one said he tried to kill me, put a knife to his throat and wouldn't let us out.
Gavin Coote: Two boys were found in a critical condition and later died in hospital, while the body of a baby girl was found after the fire was put out. The four surviving children and their mother remain in hospital and are expected to recover. Police are treating it as a domestic violence-related homicide. Renee Romans is among many in Western Sydney who've been left reeling.
Renee Romans: My family lives around here and I have small children similar in age. It's just horrific to think what they went through, let alone at the hands of their parent. It's horrible.
Gavin Coote: The 28-year-old man remains in an induced coma and under police guard in hospital. Police allege he tried to stop neighbours and emergency services from rescuing the children from the burning property. One of those rescuers was Jarrod Hawkins, who is being hailed by many as a hero.
Jarrod Hawkins: At the time, I don't know, I just felt like I just had to do the right thing. I just grabbed the kid and just took off. I'm just heartbroken for those kids that have to deal with that for the rest of their lives.
Gavin Coote: New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has described the incident as deeply distressing.
Chris Minns: These children deserved a loving home with safety and security and instead they're gone. And I can imagine the people of New South Wales feel enormous sorrow and deep sympathy with the surviving family members this morning, as we also show enormous care and gratitude to our emergency service workers in New South Wales that were confronted with a devastating scene.
Gavin Coote: The deaths have again brought the impacts of domestic violence on children into sharp focus. A recent study by Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety showed nearly half of the children killed by a parent are less than two years old. Conor Pall is the Deputy Chair of the Victorian Government's Victim Survivors Advisory Council. The 21-year-old's childhood was plagued by domestic violence and says the impacts on children are too often overlooked.
Conor Pall: And it's tragic that it takes this sort of tragedy to shine a light on this issue. In 2016, children and young people were identified as the invisible victims of family violence in the nation's first ever Royal Commission in Victoria, the Royal Commission into Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence. And it's now been over eight years since that Royal Commission and not much really has changed across the country. You know, nine children have died this year as a result of family violence and that is not a figure that we should have in this country. And we need to be doing more to make sure that we're bringing children and young people into the front of our minds when we're talking about family violence and often we're the ones that are forgotten about.
Gavin Coote: Why is that do you think? Is there a lack of representation of children victim survivors in this conversation?
Conor Pall: Well, I think it's a very complex issue and I don't think there's one reason but I don't understand why we can't, when we're talking about violence against women, why we can't also be talking about violence against children and young people because we've got a national plan, the national plan to end violence against women and children and it's great that that title includes children and the plan acknowledges that children are victims in our own right but that plan has not translated into meaningful action for children on the ground. And it actually places a burden on children and young people that I don't think is fair. It looks to us as agents of generational change and we can't be agents of generational change without adequate funding into supports that will support our long-term healing and recovery as victims in our own right.
Gavin Coote: The Federal Government has established a rapid review of how to best prevent violence against women and children. It will report back to later this year.
Samantha Donovan: Gavin Coote reporting. And if you need help and advice on domestic violence, please call 1 800 RESPECT. That's 1 800 737 732. A record number of younger Australians are asking for financial advice, according to new figures from the National Debt Helpline. The not-for-profit service that helps households control their budgets says people are struggling with rent, mortgage and energy bill payments the most. And councillors are warning the financial stress in the community is likely to worsen. Here's our business reporter, David Taylor.
David Taylor: On Adelaide's Rundle Mall, these young Australians say they're feeling the pinch.
Opinion: Things becoming more expensive is tougher for us because obviously we don't make much money. Just the price of, I think mostly food. We want to save up to buy a house and I think it is, it seems to be getting harder, but there is also, you've just got to kind of lower your expectations a bit.
David Taylor: And they're not alone in feeling the pain of the cost of living crisis. Financial councillor Mike Dunkley says he's experiencing his busiest time at the National Debt Helpline in Sydney's Surrey Hills.
Mike Dunkley: I've been on the NDAC for two and a half years and I reckon this is the busiest I've ever seen it.
David Taylor: Calls, he says, started ramping up late last year as higher interest rates started to bite.
Mike Dunkley: It's going to be three things usually. So number one, mortgages. Number two, lots of rent. And lately, I think for probably the last five or six months, it's the ATO.
David Taylor: The financial year just gone saw a total of 145,166 calls to the National Debt Helpline, the highest number of calls in four years. But those in financial distress can also use the helpline's online chat service. Mike Dunkley says the call centre's figures show so far this year, the number of chat users should soon surpass the total number of users last calendar year. Over 60% of chat users are aged between 18 and 39 and the majority are women struggling with paying the rent.
Mike Dunkley: And so rent, there's very few options for rent. There's no hardship provisions. There's nothing we can lean on with that. Basically, you're talking to the landlord, as you know. And so finding it difficult to find options for people who've got rent arrears.
David Taylor: A phone conference of financial counsellors last week found mortgage and rent stress ramping up across the country. Financial Counselling Australia CEO, Peter Gartlan.
Peter Gartlan: The amount of calls that are coming through this year are equivalent to 2020 figures, which is just prior to COVID. So what that says to us is for the financial year just gone, we had over 145,000 calls. This year, month on month, those calls are increasing. And as well as chat function and the demands generally on financial counsellors have gone through the roof in recent times.
David Taylor: Data from the big four banks and the Reserve Bank finds financial stress increasing, but not an alarming pace. For example, the RBA's latest financial stability review shows nearly all borrowers continue to service their debt on schedule. But Peter Gartlan doesn't think that analysis tells the full story of financial stress.
Peter Gartlan: What the banks are saying is that approximately 75 to 80% of mortgage holders are in front of their mortgage. What that means, of course, is that 20% are not. So we are seeing that those are the people that are ringing us. Our overall impression is that people aren't going to the banks simply because they're scared. And they're doing everything they can to avoid getting into arrears. And the way that they're doing that at the moment with a very strong employment market is either working extra hours or taking on a second job.
David Taylor: As for renters, well, the evidence points to their financial challenges mounting from here. Recent data from property analysis firm PopTrack showed national rental prices rose on average 10% last financial year. Domain's rent report for the June quarter shows that year on year rental price increases for combined capital cities of 11.1%.
Peter Gartlan: So we're just finding all around that these cost of living indicators are really biting.
David Taylor: Not to put too fine a point on it, but is it going to get better from here or worse, Peter?
Peter Gartlan: I wish I had a magic wand, David, to tell you that it's going to get better. The simple answer is we don't know. But we are finding that at the moment, at least, people are doing it tough. And there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.
David Taylor: The Reserve Bank next meets to make a decision on interest rates in early August.
Samantha Donovan: That report from David Taylor and Sarah Maunder. This is PM. I'm Samantha Donovan. You can hear all our programs live or later on the ABC Listen app. Ahead, climate change posing a threat to the nation's music festivals. Well, it's been a night of celebration for left-leaning voters in France, after the rise of the far right was thwarted in the second round of the country's parliamentary election. In a shock result, Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party was relegated to third position, rather than winning an outright majority and installing a new Prime Minister, as she and many commentators had predicted. The vote was topped by an alliance of left-wing parties, followed by the centrist bloc of the President, Emmanuel Macron. This report from Luke Radford.
Luke Radford: For weeks, left-wing voters in Paris had been preparing to face their worst fear. But as polls closed, their apprehension about the much-anticipated victory of Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally Party quickly gave way to celebration.
Opinion: Yes, it's a big surprise, this man says. We didn't expect this. I'm very pleased.
Luke Radford: After the wake of the first-round voting last week, it had appeared that National Rally would either win a majority, or at least become the largest party in France's parliament. But after a coordinated campaign, a coalition of left-wing parties has claimed the most seats, followed by President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance, with National Rally in third place. The result also welcomed by this Frenchwoman.
Opinion: France must remain an open country, where we live together with other cultures. It was frustrating to see this happen, but now it hasn't happened.
Luke Radford: Despite their stronger-than-expected result, the left-wing coalition will face challenges almost immediately. While it's secured the most seats, it won't be able to govern on its own, and will need to negotiate an even larger coalition with the centrists. Bronwyn Winter is an emeritus professor in the Department of European Studies at Sydney University.
Bronwyn Winter: The most likely outcome is a coalition between the New Popular Front and Macron's coalition Ensemble. That is the most likely coalition, and that would get an absolute majority in parliament. However, for that coalition to happen, you have to get all the parties in those separate coalitions. So, the New Popular Front has four different parties, Ensemble has a number of different parties. So they all have to get together and agree within their own coalitions to do that. And then you have to have that bigger coalition between the New Popular Front and Ensemble. And then the question arises, well, who's going to be prime minister?
Luke Radford: Despite the setback, National Rally has still increased its share of the vote, and will now be a larger force in the French parliament than ever before. Professor Winter says they've learnt from their previous electoral defeats.
Bronwyn Winter: They've been around for a long time. They're stayers. They've been in a presidential runoff a couple of times. First Jean-Marie Le Pen, then his daughter Marine. And everybody had to rally to defeat them. So you know, they're not going anywhere. And they've got a new young crowd. They've professionalised the party. They've got more women involved. They've got young men who appeal to youth crowd and so on and so forth. So they're not dead in the water by any stretch of the imagination.
Luke Radford: And while National Rally's abrupt defeat has shocked many, Professor Simon Tormey from Deakin University says it's not an uncommon outcome under France's voting system.
Simon Tormey: But this is what the French are used to doing. This is not unusual. It's what they call the faire barrage. In other words, you're creating a dam against the onward march or something that you don't like the look of. And in this case, of course, it's National Rally.
Luke Radford: France will go to the polls again in 2027 when the office of the president is once again up for grabs. And according to Simon Tormey, that will be the defining point in National Rally's fight to control France's political landscape.
Simon Tormey: So they have advanced. The question is, at what point do they topple over into power? And if it's not in 2024, will it be in 2027 when we, of course, we get the next presidential election when, of course, Marine Le Pen will put herself forward? And we don't know who will come up from the centre and from the left because Emmanuel Macron will have done his two terms and we need a fresh new political figure to contest that election. It may be at that point the French are ready then to welcome National Rally. But it was supposed to be this election. It didn't happen. And a lot of people around the place are breathing a sigh of relief.
Samantha Donovan: Professor Simon Tormey from Deakin Uni, that report from Luke Radford. When thousands of festival goers left the Big Red Bash at Birdsville in Outback Queensland last week, they narrowly missed getting stranded by the town's heaviest July rainfall in 25 years. The Outback Festival is one of dozens of live music events that have had to deal with extreme weather in recent years. And researchers and musicians are warning the viability of the sector is being threatened by climate change. This report from Declan Gooch.
Declan Gooch: In the midst of Australia's Black Summer bushfires, musician Aimee Volkofsky was preparing to support the late Archie Roach at a festival on South Australia's Kangaroo Island.
Aimee Volkofsky: As it got closer, some fires started up on the island. Archie Roach was quite elderly at that stage and having a lot of health issues and so he had to pull from it. A few of us did end up making it over to the island.
Declan Gooch: And with the festival cancelled, Aimee Volkofsky and her fellow performers found themselves playing an impromptu bushfire recovery concert.
Aimee Volkofsky: We'd wondered about the appropriateness of playing music after the community had been so harmed. But the community really asked for it and it did really demonstrate to me the importance of music and the arts, even in the moment of those sort of tragedies and in the hardship of climate change.
Declan Gooch: In the last decade, climate extremes have forced more than 40 such music festivals to be cancelled, postponed, evacuated or moved. Researcher Ben Green from Griffith University says it's as big an existential threat to the industry as COVID.
Ben Green: The complex interdependencies, the insecure work structures, COVID exposed those things and those are the sorts of vulnerabilities that also make this sector especially exposed to the hazards of climate change.
Declan Gooch: Just last week, festival goers at the Big Red Bash in Outback Queensland took to social media sharing video of driving rain and muddy festival grounds.
Archives: It's interesting how extreme we had 32 degrees yesterday. Because this is a lake bed normally, it's just catching the water and it doesn't go anywhere.
Declan Gooch: After Trevor Ryan and others left Birdsville on Friday, the town copped its biggest July drenching in 25 years. The previous record was set last year, during 2023's Big Red Bash. Ben Green says music festivals are regularly being cancelled or postponed because of weather events once considered rare.
Ben Green: In fact, in 2022 alone, the flooding up and down the east coast of Australia caused the cancellation of more than 20 festivals.
Declan Gooch: Dr Green is one of several academics who have written to a federal government inquiry into the live music industry, urging lawmakers to work with the industry to find solutions. Another is Associate Professor Catherine Strong from RMIT.
Catherine Strong: Festivals at the moment are having to balance all of these questions around increased cost of living, people are doing things like buying tickets later than they used to, which creates more uncertainty. And then if you've got on top of that, this question about, am I going to get flooded out? Am I going to be able to get insurance to cover me in the case of bushfire? What we're hearing is that a lot of festivals now can't get that sort of insurance anymore. Just having just that extra element of vulnerability and uncertainty for some festivals can mean the difference between going ahead and not going ahead.
Declan Gooch: She says the government and the industry need to develop clearer protocols for dealing with extreme weather.
Catherine Strong: At what point do you cancel a festival? Because if a festival organiser cancels a festival and they haven't had some sort of like official word about it needing to be cancelled, that can be financially ruinous for them. They won't get any insurance sort of payoff at all. We also need to have a better understanding of where and when these events might be likely to occur. So midsummer is starting to look less and less like a good time to hold a music festival because you've got these increasing risks of things like bushfires and extreme heat.
Tim Hollo: I've come off stage some of the shows that I've played in summer with an absolute splitting headache that's verging on heat stroke and I've certainly seen people have to come off stage because they're getting heat stroke from performing in those kinds of conditions.
Declan Gooch: Tim Hollo is a member of the string quartet 4Play and the founder of Green Music Australia. He argues the failure to confront the effects of climate change puts livelihoods at risk.
Tim Hollo: People don't realise quite how economically marginal the music scene is. For venues and festivals certainly, but for musicians, most musicians are struggling and climate change is definitely one of the factors that makes it harder.
Samantha Donovan: Musician Tim Hollo. That report from Declan Gooch. Conservationists in New South Wales are reporting a bumper nesting season for sea turtles, with hundreds hatching at spots along the state's coast. In Queensland, the birth rate has been even higher. Once those hatchlings have made their way from the nest to the sea, they're going on an even bigger adventure, their first swim to South America. Isabel Moussalli prepared this report.
Archives: OK, we're clear to release.
Isabel Moussalli: Clinging to a branch and lowered into the water, six loggerhead turtle hatchlings are released into the ocean. They're the survivors of a nest laid late in the season and have been under the care of authorities for weeks. It may seem like a small number, but across New South Wales, at least 877 sea turtles have hatched from just 12 nests this season.
Holly West: In any nest, you can have anywhere from 100 to our biggest nest this season had 160 eggs laid in it.
Isabel Moussalli: Holly West is the coordinator of Turtle Watch New South Wales. She says just finding and monitoring the nests is a massive effort.
Holly West: We rely so heavily on our volunteers and citizen scientists out there to alert us if they see tracks on the beach from a mama turtle coming up to lay her eggs. So yeah, we need everybody out there to keep their eyes open during nesting season to help us manage and monitor these nests.
Isabel Moussalli: In total, the state saw nearly 200 green turtle hatchlings and about 700 loggerhead turtles. Now they're off on a big adventure to South America.
Holly West: That's where they head over to get bigger and grow. So we don't see little loggerheads on our shores here. They go over there as sub-adults and come back in a bigger size class. So we don't see little loggerheads on our coastline here once they leave as hatchlings.
Isabel Moussalli: But they won't all make the journey. Holly West explains they have a one in a thousand chance of reaching adulthood. Even in low numbers, she says the New South Wales hatchlings can still leave their mark.
Holly West: Everyone that we can get back out into the water is really important. And our turtles here on the New South Wales coastline are especially important because we're producing primarily males, which with increasing global temperatures, there might be a feminisation of sea turtle populations around the world. So our boys are pretty critical to get back out into the ocean.
Isabel Moussalli: Across the border on Queensland's Bribie Island, volunteers believe they've had 4,000 hatchlings this season, mostly loggerheads.
Diane Oxenford: We think we've had a wonderful season. Absolutely. A lot of work, but amazing.
Isabel Moussalli: That's Diane Oxenford from the Bribie Island Turtle Trackers. When she says a lot of work, she means volunteers monitor the beach every day for six months looking for tracks. And when needed, they relocate nests to boost their chances.
Diane Oxenford: We're pretty successful. Bribie Island's nests, we get pretty much an average of above 90% success rate with our healthy dunes and healthy turtles. So it's really nice, except if predators come and muck up our statistics, our success rates.
Isabel Moussalli: And how does that compare with if you just left them alone?
Diane Oxenford: Oh, I think the predators, particularly in the areas where the National Park area, they would have lost probably all the nests or most of them to goannas, foxes, pigs. And the other thing is, you know, we're fencing some of the nests that are vulnerable to four wheel drive traffic as well, because some people do drive on the dunes even though they're not supposed to. So if we think a nest is going to be bothered by four wheel drives driving in dunes, we fence that and that deters anybody from driving near that nest. She believes all the effort is worth it. If we are going to save a species from extinction, it's extremely important. You know, turtles are part of the whole ecosystem, the interdependent ecosystem of our oceans. And our loggerheads of the South Pacific Ocean are a distinct genetic part of the species. So that's why we are so precious about trying to save every nest from predation and from destruction of any sort and to get as many little hatchlings out there so they can grow up and come back in 26 to 30 years time for our great grandchildren to see.
Samantha Donovan: Oh, what great work. That's Diane Oxenford from Bribie Island Turtle Trackers. That report from Isabel Moussalli and Elizabeth Cramsie. Thanks for joining me for PM. I'm Samantha Donovan. The podcast of the full PM program is available on the ABC Listen app. We'll be back at the same time tomorrow. Good night.
In this episode