Living on the edge - National

Like many civic leaders in the city of 40,000 people, Phillips was working towards a longer-term solution for Dubbo's 4000 Aborigines - looking at everything from encouraging children to stay at school to long-term employment.

There had been progress. Programs had been launched; there had been forums and consultative committees and a government-funded youth strategy costing $1.9 million. An Aboriginal employment strategy had been instituted and, less than a month ago, a $350,000 sports ground had been opened on the Gordon Estate.

But despite that, there had been repeated rioting, chronic alcoholism, drug abuse, assaults, arson, car theft, home invasions and arrests. On New Year's Day when police sealed off the estate under new emergency powers, they took away enough potential weapons to half fill a trailer-sized skip.

As police and civic leaders argued over whether this latest incident was just a setback and programs should continue, one group of culprits was singled out by most parties. This was the "out-of-towners", Aborigines coming from outback towns such as Bourke, Brewarrina, Wilcannia and Walgett - driven east by boredom and impossible employment prospects.

"Many see there might be opportunities in Dubbo," says Dubbo's Mayor, Alan Smith. "The place draws them like a moth to a light."

But inevitably many of the out-of-towners brought their problems with them. Some were repeat bail offenders. One 16-year-old youth arrested after the New Year's Day disturbances had been given bail in the Bourke Local Court on the condition he stay with his grandmother in Dubbo.

Among the estate's population were members of a mishmash of 14 tribal or clan groups, with no established hierarchy, dismissive of the authority of elders and oblivious to the culture that had survived in stable Aboriginal communities even after white settlement.

Coral Peckham, a descendant of the Tubba-gah clan, which occupied the land on which Dubbo stands, says the mix is volatile.

"We have the Wongaibon, Kamilaroi, Wiradjuri and Markangee people all here," she says. "But the young people know just that they are Aboriginal. They have missed out on their culture."

Summer heat has added stress fuelled by alcoholism. Superintendent Stuart Smith, the Dubbo police local area commander, says it has been estimated that at Christmas time, enough alcohol had gone into the estate to fill two trailers.

There was also a chronic drug problem, helped along by 1100 truck movements a day through the city, including vehicles from Adelaide and Melbourne.

Police operations in the past had found truck drivers with drugs and because of the possibilities of supply from the southern states, Dubbo had a good supply of heroin even when there was a heroin drought in Sydney.

In 2005, Dubbo police made 170 arrests for drugs, laid 244 charges, seized 15 kilograms of cannabis valued at $135,000, 50 cannabis plants valued at $125,000, 60 grams of narcotics powder and 1000 tablets containing the ingredients to make amphetamines.

The alcohol and drugs fuel antisocial impulses, says Detective Inspector Michael Willing, the crime manager for the local area command.

"Basically, when they are off their face they go and steal a car," he says. There were plenty of cars in Dubbo, especially as there were so many travellers staying at the 50 motels in the city. In December 2004 the rate of thefts was up to 110 vehicles a month but that had dropped to between 30 and 90 a month.

Many stolen cars are taken to the Gordon Estate, often driven to an intersection known as "Four Ways", and displayed as the latest acquisition. Some of the youths roar past the nearby Orana Juvenile Justice Centre to let inmates inside know that those outside are still breaking the law. After finishing with them the youths often burn the cars.

Publicity over the problems has upset Dubbo residents who fear there will be a drop in visitors and investment.

A radio station manager, Ian Munro, says that most of the city is perfectly safe and he has never been robbed or had his car stolen.

"I mean to say, if you go to Sydney, you don't do a beeline for Redfern," he says.

But some people must enter the estate including, police, ambulance and fire officers and they have often had to run the gauntlet of missiles.

Superintendent Smith says that in the past 12 months, police had been called to 102 "public disorder events", which were disputes involving several people where the fighting had spilled out onto the street.

At the epicentre of many conflicts, where the troublemakers could be refined down to a few extended families, opposing factions were "throwing boulders" at each other from the other side of the street.

The young people, equipped with police radio scanners, would know that emergency vehicles were on their way and would retreat to the stockpiles of weapons, often parts of derelict houses. Favoured missiles were pieces of concrete tiles which had been thrown to the ground and smashed, exposing sharp edges.

Attacks on emergency services have included a mob surrounding an ambulance at the scene of a serious motorcycle accident and trying to pull a victim from the back of the ambulance.

Superintendent Smith says that in the past 12 months, 45 police officers have been injured at Gordon Estate. The injuries have ranged from major wounding to being bitten and exposed to fire.

"We are not going to tolerate injuries to police officers and we will invoke emergency powers again if we have too," he says.

The Herald, on patrol this week with Inspector Brad Byrnes, found the estate quiet; the vigorous police crackdown on New Year's Day appeared to have had a serious effect, but Superintendent Smith says it was probably a case of the troublemakers withdrawing to consider their position and tactics.

Ben Shields, a councillor and fifth generation Dubbo resident, says the city is being "totally and utterly held to ransom by these thugs in West Dubbo".

He says there is "too much political correctness" and that it should be clearly stated that young people find it too easy to get bail, and that other policies were in urgent need of review, one being government handouts of several thousand dollars for each child who was born. Impoverished families consider those handouts a large amount of money and are having children with no long-term stability to offer them.

More than half the population of the Gordon Estate are under 15 and police on patrol say up to 300 young people can be seen milling around without a parent in sight.

Shields says Dubbo is being called upon to cater for the misdeeds and social disadvantages of many people who he thinks should be in jail or somewhere else.

Peter Bartley, another councillor, says he does not accept Shields's approach, which he considers too redneck. Despite setbacks, Bartley says Dubbo should pursue a long-term plan focussing on issues such as education and employment.

He says plans had been implemented, including the Aboriginal employment strategy, which had already provided jobs, including 17 as community security officers.

Another program involved the Police and Citizens Youth Club, which picked up as many as 20 children a day, gave them breakfast and taught them living skills before taking them to school.

Allan Backhouse, who helped run the PCYC program, says it has enthusiastic support from service clubs and the business community.

At the estate, Michael Haley, the interim general manager of the neighbourhood centre, taking over after the centre had been subject to an arson attack, says he dreams of developing the centre to such an extent that it would become a tourist attraction and Aborigines could sell artworks and other products.

Roger Fletcher, the proprietor of Fletcher's International Exports, an abattoir, meat and wool exporting business employing 750 people, including up to 80 Aborigines, says he does not care where his employees came from provided they do the job.

"But we have got to set up an Aboriginal training organisation in Dubbo," he says. "The 18- and 19-year-olds, we have probably lost. We have got to start with the kids."

But on the Gordon Estate, where 30 houses have been burnt down in the past 10 years and others have been earmarked for demolition, prospects do not look good.

A worker from the Department of Housing was assaulted while doing an inspection of properties.