Brooke Boney clashes with Alice Springs business owner behind Facebook page highlighting crime wave

Brooke Boney has clashed with an Alice Springs business owner who founded a social media movement documenting the crime wave gripping the outback town.

Visiting the central Australian community for a Today show segment, Ms Boney spoke to Darren Clark, who is behind the Action for Alice Facebook page.

The page and Mr Clark have played a large role in spotlighting the crime crises gripping the town – with Anthony Albanese’s Labor government forced to reinstate alcohol bans after removing them last year.

But extreme racial views are also often aired on the page from some members of the community targeting Indigenous youths.

‘I’m an Aboriginal woman. So then sometimes when I see people saying things like that, some of those comments, it stings,’ Ms Boney said.

Brooke Boney was born in Muswellbrook in NSW and is of Gamilaroi descent. She visited Alice Springs as the town in Australia’s Red Centre is gripped by a crime epidemic

Mr Clark argued if the situation isn’t properly addressed, ‘someone’s going to die here soon.’

‘I’m the only one that’s shown the truth in this town, and if I want to show even more truth, no one would live here,’ he told Ms Boney.

The Action for Alice page highlights the crime the town is dealing with every day.

‘Commercial break-ins have risen by 55 per cent, alcohol-related assault also up 55 per cent and domestic violence assault is up by 53 per cent,’ Ms Boney said.

‘The shocking figures that paint a dire picture of a once thriving town.’

Mr Clark said many of the highly charged comments on the Action for Alice page complaining of the crime were from Aboriginal community members.

‘Do you know all the people on there?’ he asked Ms Boney.

‘Because some of them comments are actually coming from indigenous people that live in this town.

‘We are a community here. We are black and white, and the black fellas of this town, they are p***ed as well.’

Darren Clark who founded the Action for Alice page told Ms Boney some of the angry comments targeting Indigenous youths were from Aboriginal members of the community

Mr Clark said the page has ‘grown and grown’ since he launched it in 2020 fearing a member of the community would be killed amid the chaos

‘Belated’ apology from the ABC over their ‘incomplete’ and ‘biased’ coverage of Alice Springs crisis meeting

The ABC issued a grovelling apology admitting it provided ‘incomplete’ coverage of the Save Alice Springs meeting held on Monday which suggested those attending were white extremists.

Some 3,000 terrified residents had turned up to discuss their concerns over the out-of-control youth crime wave spreading throughout their community. 

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson, who once worked as a consumer reporter on the ABC and once presented 7.30 in Victoria, slammed her former employer for issuing an apology only after copping backlash for its coverage. 

The ABC was accused of bias after interviewing people who slammed the meeting as ‘racist’.

ABC Indigenous Affairs correspondent Carly Williams’ live cross on TV of the meeting said many people had left the meeting early and that ‘a non-indigenous person’ had described the meeting as ‘a disgusting display of white supremacy’. 

The public broadcaster was threatened with an official investigation over its coverage that was aired on its flagship current affairs show AM and in another TV report. 

Some 3,000 terrified Alice Springs residents turned up to discuss their concerns over the youth crime wave spreading throughout the community

Senator Henderson added that her complaint against the ABC to the Australian Communications and Media Authority would be ‘proceeding’.

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‘The ABC needs to be held to account. They have been reckless in trying to invent a narrative,’ as one person on Twitter put it.

The ABC released a statement on Saturday apologising to its audience. 

‘We acknowledge that one report on AM was incomplete, and did not adequately cover the full context of the meeting or the range of perspectives expressed at it,’ it read.

‘ABC News apologises to audiences for providing an incomplete picture of the event in this instance.’

The public broadcaster went on to say it had ‘reportedly accurately’ on the views of ‘some people who attended the community meeting’.

‘However, this report should have included a broader range of perspectives expressed at the meeting and further information about what was discussed, to provide additional context,’ the statement read.

‘Following this report, ABC News published additional coverage of the issue which included a broader range of perspectives and context.’

.From next week, the Northern Territory government will introduce legislation to return some areas to ‘temporary dry zones’, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said on Monday.

‘We’ve heard loudly and clearly that the matter and decision of alcohol on community needs to be one that is made by the entire community,’ Ms Fyles told reporters. 

‘This is why we’re creating a circuit breaker… until communities can develop and vote on the alcohol management plans they want to see.’

The Federal Government also announced it would invest $250 million in community safety and services, with funding going towards job creation, youth engagement and support for domestic violence services.

A recent video shared to the Action for Alice page shows a group of Indigenous residents smashing a storefront in the town’s shopping centre

The decision comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Alice Springs last month amid growing frustration over alcohol-fuelled violence and theft in the town.

Ms Fyles said the new restrictions were based on the recommendations of the newly appointed central Australian regional controller Dorrelle Anderson.

Ms Anderson, who was appointed after the prime minister’s visit, reviewed the territory’s opt-in alcohol restrictions, that replaced expired Intervention-inspired liquor bans last year.

Under the new legislation, communities can apply to opt out of the ban, as long as 60 per cent of residents support the decision and they have an alcohol management plan.

‘Alcohol-related harm is still the NT’s biggest social challenge,’ Ms Fyles said. ‘But it is a legal product, and we need to manage the complexities of that product.’

Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said the measures were not enough. ‘There was no promise today of additional police or sending Australian Federal Police into Alice Springs, which would make an immediate impact on the ground today.’

Alcohol bans are set to return to the Alice Springs region as crime and violence continues to rock the outback town

Earlier, NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price made an impassioned plea for alcohol bans to be reinstated in Alice Springs to tackle a surging crime wave.

Ms Price told the Senate chamber her family had experienced sexual violence, trauma and murder in central Australia because of alcohol.

Federal Labor MP Marion Scrymgour said of her hometown, ‘I was visiting the hospital over the Christmas break and I saw firsthand how critical the situation was. Nursing staff and doctors are run off their feet and beds are filled with alcohol-related crimes.’

‘But the underlying issues that drive the crisis in Central Australia still need to be addressed: poverty, unemployment, a severe shortage of housing, family and domestic violence, disaffected youth, neglect of the bush,’ said Ms Scrymgour.