In January 2012 Crikey published a piece I wrote ($) looking at the concerns expressed by an Aboriginal law and justice support group from the about-as-remote-as-you-can-get NT community of Lajamanu—800 kilometres southwest of Darwin and 900 hundred north-west of Alice Springs—in reaction to a decision made in 2011 to divert all after-hours triple-0 calls from local police stations to a centralised call centre based in Darwin.
As I noted at the time, ” … this means that at the close of the day shift in Alice Springs, Katherine, Lajamanu and dozens of smaller townships scattered across the NT that any call to police … is answered by a NT Police auxiliary sitting in a Darwin call-centre.”
In a prescient comment the Lajamanu Law and Justice Group—also known as Kurdiji (shield)—issued a media release that stated in part: “We think the current system of sending the phone calls up to a call centre in Darwin … will eventually lead to a death in our community.”
Roll forward eleven and a half years.
This week both ABC Darwin Court reporter Melissa Mackay and her equally capable NT News colleague Zizi Averill have maintained their excellent coverage of a series of four coronial inquiries—all focussed on domestic violence—conducted by NT Coroner Elisabeth Armitage.
The very real life and death dramas revealed in this piece by Melissa Mackay from Coroner Armitage’s visit to the NT police triple-0 call centre, harrowing they are, are compounded by her account of the failure to implement an eminently sensible trial of an Aboriginal interpreter service to support the triple-0 call takers.
As Mackay notes with barely concealed irony, ” … the call centre can cater for 50 foreign languages, but no Indigenous languages.”
11 years on, not much has changed
I’ve re-posted my original Crikey piece from late January 2012 here and include the following excerpts to give you a sense of the frustration felt by the Kurdiji from Lajamanu that invites the obvious conclusion that 11 years on, not much has changed.
Here is part of my discussion with Kurdiji member Joe James Japanangka, who, with fellow Kurdiji member Geoffrey Mathews Jakamarra, shared more than twenty years of policing service at Lajamanu and surrounding districts. Both Japanangka and Jakamarra were formidable lawmen in their own culture and tradition.
“We don’t call the police any more, too many silly questions.”
Japanangka is not happy. He tells me: “We like the police being in our community — but one thing — we don’t like having to talk to Darwin. They ask ‘Where are you living?’ I tell them ‘I’m living 500 kilometres south-west of Katherine.’ They say ‘How far’?”
Too many silly questions. I said to them: “I’m wasting my time talking to you. I put the phone down. We don’t call the police any more, too many silly questions.”
Japanangka is cranky about the effect of decisions made a long way away from his home that affect the lives and safety of his community. Lajamanu is home to 1000 or so Warlpiri and Gurindji people and is perched on the edge of the vastness of the Tanami desert to the south and the tropical watershed of the Victoria River to the north.
The Kurdiji from Lajamanu weren’t alone in their frustration with the decision to divert all the after hours triple-0 calls to Darwin. In late 2011 then NT Police Association President Vince Kelly told the ABC that:
“… the [police call] centre is understaffed and the situation shows the need for a review of police numbers. The government needs to acknowledge there’s a resourcing issue, not just in the communications centre but across NT Police,” Mr Kelly said
“Local cops should answer their own phones”
A few weeks later the police call centre was the focus of anger from residents of the small town of Katherine. The NT News reported an incident where:
… a [call centre] operator confused Katherine with Alice Springs.
Top Saddlery owner Geoff Newton said local cops should answer their own phones instead of being centralised. “If it had been an emergency there’s no guarantee the result would have been different. (The centralised line) is a systematic failure. It’s an absolute joke and it’s not working,” … “But it’s still happening and it won’t change until someone’s bashed or killed,” he said.
As we have seen, that last concern—that the centralised call centre operation wouldn’t be fixed until someone suffered serious injury or death—was echoed by the Kurdiji of Lajamanu.
“He just killed mum”
Eleven years on the following passage from Zizi Averill’s account in yesterday’s NT News of testimony given by NT Police Dispatch Sergeant Wolfgang Langeneck’s evidence to Coroner Armitage on the specific trauma in the “powerlessness” of being on the other end of a phone is being chilling.
He told her about a recent June call where his team listened in as a child was trapped in a fatal Alice Springs house fire. “She couldn’t help, they had to wait for the fire brigade,” he said. “And she was shattered after that incident.”
“Calls from children are very distressing to the call takers.” Sergeant Langeneck remembered one call where a small voice told him: “He just killed mum”.
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You can see more of Zizi Averill’s accounts at the NT News here and follow her work on Twitter @ZiziAverill
Melissa Mackay is at Twitter @_melissamackay and her work is at ABC Darwin here.
You can learn more about the work of the NT Coroner’s Office here.
I have posted my Crikey piece from 2012 here at The Northern Myth.
For mine both are dead certs to take out at least a few of the top gongs and more at the NT Media Awards later this year. Watch that space …