MATTHEW CARNEY: Four months ago the Federal Government declared the situation for Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory a national emergency.

Determined to put an end to child sexual abuse, it took control of 73 Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

The troops were sent in and the grog and porn were banned, welfare payments were quarantined to ensure kids were being cared for and Aboriginal lands were seized.

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: An emergency is just that - if you have a cyclone, you can’t sit down and talk to people. You’ve got to go in and get something done.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The process is known as the Intervention and tonight we’ll take a journey across the territory to see how it’s unfolding. We’ll focus on two very different communities and assess what’s being achieved.

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER: It put Northern Territory in a turmoil. We don’t know where we’re heading. We don’t know what our future’s going to be like.

MATTHEW CARNEY: We’ll track the intervention to see if the epidemic of child sexual abuse has slowed and ask if the little children are safer.

("Tracking the Intervention", "Reporter: Matthew Carney")

MATTHEW CARNEY: Maningrida sits on the shores of the Arafura sea in Arnhem Land. The town and the 32 surrounding outstations make up one of the biggest and most complex indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.

It’s Monday morning and people are at work. In some ways this community has a lot more going for it than others.

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER (speaking at meeting, subtitled): You think, when the intervention was announced, were we treated fairly?

MAN (responding): No.

MATTHEW CARNEY: There's a lot of confusion and fear about the intervention. Community leader Peter Danaja says they only learnt of the intervention from the media.

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER: I’m a bit disappointed, because it was lack of information, lack of consultation towards community members. And we think if the Government is so serious about helping communities we should work hand in hand, side by side, to make things successful.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Maningrida is what the intervention taskforce terms a phase one community. In August the army was brought in and survey teams completed assessments on basic community needs. Since then the medical teams have been out and about checking the general health of children.

DR CHRIS HENDERSON, TASKFORCE DOCTOR (speaking to medical team): So Welcome to Maningrida - a great place, great experience.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Today a fresh medical team has arrived to continue the job. It’s taking longer than expected to check all the kids.

TEAM MEMBER (to Chris Henderson): How many children have actually been checked up to now?

DR CHRIS HENDERSON, TASKFORCE DOCTOR (to team member): We've done about 325, so about a third of the kids.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Progress has been slow but it’s critical they reach the rest of the children because they’re the ones potentially at risk.

Dr Tim Williams who heads the medical taskforce has come to monitor the progress.

DR TIM WILLIAMS, FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND AGEING: It’s a harder job to get out into the community and to explain to other people that maybe don’t access health services that frequently, the benefit of the checks that we’re providing, but we’re very keen to provide checks to every single eligible child in the Northern Territory.

MATTHEW CARNEY: For the people of Maningrida, part of the problem is when the taskforce first arrived they didn’t adequately consult them and explain what they were planning to do. So this time the taskforce has come to the school to engage some local leaders.

(Excerpt from conversation at the school):

JIM MCCARTHY: Jim McCarthy.

GEORGE PASCOE, MANINGRIDA TEACHER: Jim pleased to meet you.

JIM MCCARTHY: Same here.

RRR: George has been teaching for 30 years.

GEORGE PASCOE, MANINGRIDA TEACHER: Yes.

((End of excerpt))

MATTHEW CARNEY: George Pascoe was one of the first schoolteachers in Maningrida. The lack of consultation still angers him.

GEORGE PASCOE, MANINGRIDA TEACHER: Where do we stand in spite of all this intervention? There’s no freedom of speech, all because of a misguided rhetoric, behind it it’s all about land, power and money. That’s what it’s all about.

MATTHEW CARNEY: There are more than 10 languages spoken in Maningrida and the taskforce wants help from a representative from each tribal group. But some see the intervention as a racist policy that was imposed upon them.

(Excerpt from meeting between locals and taskforce members):

GEORGE PASCOE, MANINGRIDA TEACHER: My question is that when you said ordinary Australians, are you including the white people?

MALE: All people.

GEORGE PASCOE, MANINGRIDA TEACHER: Isn’t there any health check done with the white Australian?

MALE: Yeah. This is the same health check. This is the same health check that happens right through the whole country.

GEORGE PASCOE, MANINGRIDA TEACHER: Hang on, Howard said the intervention can only happen Indigenous people.

(End of excerpt)

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Medical team faces a struggle to get all the kids tested. Many parents feared the army arrived to take their children away. That may be easing. Some of the women here have agreed to talk with the community about the testing.

Maningrida’s health-care clinic is, by remote community standards, well run and well funded. The Northern Territory Government backs this smart, modern facility and the staff here have built up a good rapport with the parents and established trust with the children.

But those responding to the intervention call won’t be coming here for their check-ups - but here, the taskforce’s demountable clinic set up in the backyard of the established facility. Predictably, that’s prompted claims of waste and duplication, especially when many children have already received similar checks at the local clinic.

For Dr Geoff Stewart the $83 million already used on taskforce tests across the territory could be money better spent.

DR GEOFF STEWART, MANINGRIDA CLINIC MEDICAL OFFICER: It’s a significant amount of money and incidentally, it’s more than what would be estimated to be required to bring all health services across the Northern Territory up to a level of funding where we’d all be expected to be able to provide a comprehensive range of primary health care services. So we’ve already exceeded the amount that would correct the current under-funding of health services in the Territory.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Later, some kids have turned up to be tested by the taskforce.

DR CHRIS HENDERSON, TASKFORCE DOCTOR (to child): Can I see your ears?

MATTHEW CARNEY: They’re carrying out standard child tests, checking everything from ears, eyes and lungs to teeth and head lice.

DR CHRIS HENDERSON, TASKFORCE DOCTOR (in clinic, referring to children): See he's got lice in his hair. The other kids too? I think maybe they have.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The taskforce says $100 million has been set aside to follow up these tests with treatment.

DR CHRIS HENDERSON, TASKFORCE DOCTOR (to children): Flick, flick, flick, flick, it all comes out, whoa ...

(child laughs)

DR CHRIS HENDERSON, TASKFORCE DOCTOR: I can understand the Northern Territory doctors feeling somewhat defensive about people like me coming in and taking over their patch. I can very much understand that. But by the same token, you know, politics moves in different ways to medicine and right now we have a political window where the kids are being concentrated upon and I think it’s appropriate to seize that window and do the best we can.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Contrary to the early headlines, the intervention’s roll out of check-ups is just not designed to discover child sexual abuse. So it’s not surprising that out of the 3000 checks across the territory, "Four Corners" understands only a couple cases have led to sexual abuse referrals.

Child sexual abuse does exist in Maningrida and it was a horrific case last year that galvanised the community to take action. A young boy was sexually abused over a period of months by a gang of men and juveniles.

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER: When we heard of the 12-year-old boy’s case, about the rape, we as a community started to think how to, or what the best way to actually protect our children. And one of the ways that we had to do was set up the Safety Children’s Service. It went on for about a year.

MATTHEW CARNEY: It’s about eight at night and these women are starting their eight hour shift. A core group of about 15 women run the community’s Child Safety Service.

LAURIE MAGALDAGI, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE (subtitled): We have come together and sit discussed about children that we don’t want them to have sex abuse and any other things too that why we got this job and we are worried so much for them you know.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Laurie Magaldagi): Why are you worried so much? Tell me why.

LAURIE MAGALDAGI, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: Because kids we sometime we see them they’re lost children and they just wander around, nobody cares for them and they’ve got nothing.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: Some of the parents are not taking control because of some of the husbands on drugs, alcohol and most of smoking ganja, the boys you know like men and husband and wives, and maybe because these kids are know to do this kind of stuff like violence and drug use and alcohol, sniffing spray, petrol, because they’ve been taught from their parents.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The women patrol the community making sure the kids stay out of the dark, and move to the light - precisely the sort of work the intervention might well endorse.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE (to children on the street): Don’t hang around there, eh, don’t come around there.

MATTHEW CARNEY: They are forging relationships with the children, so they can protect them.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: These kids they’re starting to go home, and that’s what we’re heading and following them kids, you know, that’s what we do, and we saying make sure, we’re going to follow.

MATTHEW CARNEY: They’ve had some success - more kids are staying at home now and they’ve stopped a gang sniffing aerosols cans.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE (to child on the street): We protect you like what mothers.

GIRL (to Marcian Wala Wala): Yes.

MATTHEW CARNEY: They’ll take these 12-year-old girls home to their parents. They’re trying to rebuild community standards.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: We need this. We need this discipline to show these kids to learn and to give them education to be like white, to be balanced, plus our culture. We need to learn these kids our culture, black fella culture and white fella culture which is going to be even, so that it can be even, for black and white.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The women of the Child Safety Service have also been educating the community about child sexual abuse, why it’s wrong and how to confront it.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE (to children on basketball court): School tomorrow kids, home time.

MATTHEW CARNEY: It’s an enormous job and the women want help. The majority of their funding has been from the Territory Government but that may run out next month.

(Excerpt from meeting of Child Safety Service):

FELICITY DOUGLAS, FACILITATOR, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: It sounds like there's been a few issues that have come up with you all while I’ve been away, so maybe we should all talk about it, sort it out a little bit now.

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: We are trying to stop the under agers using shies (phonetic) and everything for like, when they threaten their girlfriends with stuff like that, with the shies (phonetic), and warn them and tell them not to make this thing because this thing is a weapon.

FELICITY DOUGLAS, FACILITATOR, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: Do they listen?

MARCIAN WALA WALA, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: Yeah they listen but they just, well sometimes we ask them …

(End of excerpt)

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Intervention Taskforce has not backed this project. None of its $1.3 billion budget has been spent here. The women find this difficult to understand as their work goes to the heart of the declared aim of the intervention. Felicity Douglas, the group’s facilitator, has been trying to secure funding.

FELICITY DOUGLAS, FACILITATOR, MANINGRIDA CHILD SAFETY SERVICE: Which I find appalling when you have a national emergency around child sexual abuse and yet we have clearly got a pretty amazing service being developed in this community that is specifically targeting that issue and we currently don’t have any piece of that funding.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Federal Government has justified its intervention on the horrific findings in the "Little Children are Sacred” report. The authors found evidence of sexual abuse in all of the 45 communities they visited. They also found that the Child Safety Service in Maningrida referred to as the MCAPP was a model that should "help guide reform".

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: I didn’t know it was being held up as a model, I wasn’t aware of that, okay?

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Sue Gordon): Well it’s in the "Little Children are Sacred" report.

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: ... because I didn’t sit down and have a discussion with those people.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Sue Gordon): Sure.

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: I spoke to a, one child protection officer at Maningrida.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sue Gordon is the Chair of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce.

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: Sometimes it’s easy to think well, this is the special one, but there are so many Aboriginal organisations within the Aboriginal communities in the Territory who are doing a fantastic job across the board, but you have to look at them as a total picture. As I said you can’t keep just picking one out and you have to work, as this Taskforce, we have to work with the Territory Government to try and get the total package, because ultimately they have the responsibility for child protection.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Sue Gordon says it’s not for the taskforce to employ child safety officers or fund child safety programs.

This magistrate from Western Australia is no stranger to Indigenous child welfare issues. In 2002 she also did a report dealing with Indigenous child abuse in WA.

She believes the intervention will make the children safer by attacking the underlying causes of abuse such as unemployment, poor housing and education, and argues extra police have already created safer environments.

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: To see the change in women, children, men - that they’re able to sleep because of the violence being stopped where there’s police in the communities; because of the change in alcohol laws. And women have said to us and men that they can have a full night’s sleep, which in effect then means children can sleep through the night and get up and go to school in the morning.

The intervention’s man on the ground is Luke Morrish. He’s the newly appointed Government Business Manager.

JOHN HORGAN, CEO MANINGRIDA COUNCIL (to Luke Morrish, greeting him after plane lands): You must be Luke.

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER (to John Horgan): Luke Morrish, nice to meet you John.

MATTHEW CARNEY: He’s met by the Council’s appointed CEO, John Horgan - a big supporter of the intervention.

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER (to John Horgan): I’m just pleased to finally to get out here.

MATTHEW CARNEY: In a couple of weeks Morrish, a former federal policeman, will be based permanently in the community.

He’s been given extraordinary powers. He can seize the assets of Aboriginal organisations and expel anyone from the community.

JOHN HORGAN, CEO MANINGRIDA COUNCIL (to Luke Morrish and others): The council itself is one of the larger Aboriginal councils in the Northern Territory. In fact I suspect, going on the latest ABS figures from the last census, we are now the largest Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Morrish’s first task will be to secure the Government’s five year lease over the area.

JOHN HORGAN, CEO MANINGRIDA COUNCIL (to Luke Morrish and others): We have fairly high density living, you know, 16, 17 per house, Aboriginal house, which is not terribly good considering that most of the houses are either two or three bedroom, most of them are three bedroom.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Luke Morrish’s job is to make sure the intervention policies are put into action.

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER (speaking at meeting with John Horgan and others): I think it will be the start of something that will be quite a challenging and a great opportunity for all those involved. Today is really just about me coming to Maningrida for the first time, getting to see the place, and meeting as many of the people in the community and the key people in the community that I need to meet today and start to put some names to faces.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The most difficult challenge Morrish will face will be the end of Community Development Employment Programs or CDEP in Maningrida. It’s where the taskforce may meet it’s greatest opposition.

CDEP employs 550 people and has been the backbone of the economy. It’s in operation everywhere - the car yard runs on it, the shop is staffed by CDEP workers, and it plays a key role in community services like the Child Safety Unit.

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER: The impact will be so huge, it's going to create a lot of problems. You know, most people will be just sitting round doing nothing of course.

MATTHEW CARNEY: CDEP is paid work. It’s equivalent to a welfare payment plus top up for hours worked. In some communities the CDEP process was corrupted and people did little or no work for their payments. The Government says it will replace CDEP positions with real jobs and training.

SUE GORDON, CHAIRPERSON, NORTHERN TERRITORY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TASKFORCE: CDEP was never given any opportunity by whatever government, Liberal or Labor, to become anything except work for the unemployment benefits, work for the dole. There was never any real training, there was never any real look at literacy and numeracy skills to see what people were. It’s been second class - second class wages - and it’s treated Aboriginal people as second class citizens and that’s my personal view of it.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation runs Maningrida’s CDEP and 20 other community enterprises. Its Chief Executive Ian Munro can’t see where the real jobs will be created and doubts the intervention will properly fund the change.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ian Munro): What effect when, come March 3, CDEP will cease to exist - are communities going to be safer? Are children going to be safer?

IAN MUNRO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BAWINANGA ABORIGINAL CORPORATION: Well if you take proud, dignified men who have been working all day, every day, and you remove three quarters of their income and send them home at lunchtime to an overcrowded house that may well have children in it, how on earth can those children be safer than they formerly were?

MATTHEW CARNEY: CDEP has helped develop enterprises in Maningrida like the Djelk Ranger Service. It helps protect Australia’s coast line at the top end from illegal fishermen and the pests and disease they can bring.

Here they’ve found a tangled drift net most likely used by Indonesian fishermen.

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER (on boat): It's a hazard for everybody I suppose, a hazard for marine life I suppose as well, get caught up in the net, you know, killing everything.

JAMES WOODS, DJELK RANGER (on boat): What I normally do is just cut a bit of net, only like six inches enough, just cut it for the customs boys, they got a identity kit back at headquarters.

MATTHEW CARNEY: For 16 years CDEP helped develop this service and others and now the sea rangers have won a contract with customs that provides six full time jobs. Matthew Ryan helped establish the program and is now the head ranger.

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: The sea rangers you know they play a big role, I mean protecting the border I suppose you can say, for every Australians.

MATTHEW CARNEY: But the land rangers who fulfil the same tasks on shore are all still on CDEP.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ian Munro): If they do scrap CDEP will you have to put off rangers or ...?

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: Yes, yes definitely.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ian Munro): And how does that make you feel?

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: Oh very angry actually. I’m losing workers and having that 25 rangers get like more support. Whatever you do they like got more hands on you know.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Most of the intervention’s funding will be used to ease the housing crisis in Maningrida. Currently there are 240 residents on a waiting list.

Fifty houses will be built but John Horgan believes there will be many more. He says the local people can afford it using their welfare payments. Their mortgage repayments will match the current rents paid in town. Horgan hopes this is just the start of a process that will see Maningrida integrated into mainstream Australia.

JOHN HORGAN, CEO MANINGRIDA COUNCIL: I think it will help in the long run the Aboriginal people come to terms if you like, with the rest of Australia instead living in almost a zoo for the last 70 odd years. And I don’t think that will do them any harm at all.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to John Horgan): So you think the process of assimilation has to be completed in that sense?

JOHN HORGAN, CEO MANINGRIDA COUNCIL: Yeah it does. It’s sad in some areas because they will start losing their culture. They’ve already started losing culture.

IAN MUNRO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BAWINANGA ABORIGINAL CORPORATION: I think the Prime Minister has the view that if you squeeze a black fellow tightly enough a white fellow’s going to pop out ready to buy a house, and that’s simply not the case.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ian Munro): Why?

IAN MUNRO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BAWINANGA ABORIGINAL CORPORATION: Because Indigenous Australians are not white Australians. They have a different value system and a different culture and that can’t be extinguished overnight and it can’t be extinguished by tampering with people’s livelihoods.

MATTHEW CARNEY: If Luke Morrish is going to seize assets it’s going to be here at the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation. The BAC has $40 million in community assets.

(Excerpt from meeting):

IAN MUNRO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BAWINANGA ABORIGINAL CORPORATION (to Luke Morrish): Have you been to an Aboriginal community before?

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER (to Ian Munro): Look, Ian, I, you know (sigh), I have been, yes. I’ve never spent any long periods of time in an Aboriginal community. I’ve certainly had ad hoc experiences with Aboriginal community and groups throughout my time as a police officer. Also I grew up in country New South Wales as well.

(End of excerpt)

MATTHEW CARNEY: Peter Danaja, Matthew Ryan and Ian Munro want to know if the community enterprises they’ve built up over decades will be shut down.

(Excerpt continued):

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: There’s a lot of people are curious and want to know what’s going to happen with their assets and everything, you know, but there need to be like more members too, that way they can ask you questions as well. And like Peter said earlier, we had three times taskforce come up here ...

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER (to Peter Ryan): Mmm mmm.

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: We’ve asked them, they haven’t come back with the answers and it’s not good enough. If you want that good working relationship with us mob, well you need to have the answers.

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER: I've got to say, I’m not going to be able to give you all the answers myself straight away, but when I say I’ll get the answers for you, I’ll get the answers for you. And I can’t run away, I can’t hide, I’m here so I’m going to have to do that.

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: Well that’s what the taskforce promised us which they haven’t yet, so, hopefully it’ll be you.

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER: But they’re not, you know, and they probably had a view that, yeah, once I’m here on the ground that I’d be able to do that ...

MATTHEW RYAN, HEAD DJELK RANGER: Oh we hope so.

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER: And that’s why I’m here.

(End of excerpt)

MATTHEW CARNEY: They also want to know why the Government’s five year lease and why the scrapping of the permit system is going to make the children safer.

(Excerpt continued):

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER: ... So we need to find a solution for someone to come and sit with us in a proper consultation manner ...

LUKE MORRISH, TASKFORCE BUSINESS MANAGER: Yes.

PETER DANAJA, MANINGRIDA COMMUNITY LEADER: ... And then go plan by plan, detail by detail, what’s going to happen.

(End of excerpt)

MATTHEW CARNEY: Morrish said he will consult with them over the changes, but when details were discussed both sides told us to leave the room.

Two weeks after this meeting, the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation and a traditional owner launched a High Court case. They are claiming that the Federal Government’s action to take away the corporation’s assets and the community land under a five year lease is unconstitutional. If successful, the case could jeopardise the intervention.

Two-thousand kilometres away at the other end of the territory we’re on our way to a very different aboriginal community. Finke or Aputula as it's known locally sits on the edge of the Simpson Desert in central Australia.

It’s a much smaller community than Maningrida with only 230 residents, but it’s much further ahead in the intervention process. The taskforce calls Finke a phase 3 community. The health checks have finished and the surveys of basic needs have been completed. Two months ago CDEP was axed and compulsory quarantining of welfare payments started.

NEVILLE MITCHELL, CEO APUTULA COMMUNITY INC (at airstrip): Morning folks, another beautiful day at Aputula.

MATTHEW CARNEY: It’s Wednesday and the weekly mail has arrived. Neville Mitchell, the CEO of Aputula council, has come to pick up the bags that contain the all important welfare cheques.

NEVILLE MITCHELL, CEO APUTULA COMMUNITY INC (to pilot): Just sign on the dotted line?

PILOT (to Neil Mitchell): As per usual.

NEVILLE MITCHELL, CEO APUTULA COMMUNITY INC (to pilot): See you next week.

PILOT (to Neil Mitchell): See you later.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The town welcomed the intervention and saw it as an opportunity for better housing and services but Mitchell says so far the changes have brought chaos.

NEVILLE MITCHELL, CEO APUTULA COMMUNITY INC: Well if I describe the last eight weeks I’d have to start off that first week of the eight weeks by saying it’s been pretty well horrific in terms of the effect it’s had on us here at the community. There’s been, it’s been very poorly processed, the Prime Minister’s intervention.

MATTHEW CARNEY: All of Finke’s welfare recipients now receive half of their payments in cash, and the other is quarantined to make sure its spent on essential goods like food and bills.

NEVILLE MITCHELL, CEO APUTULA COMMUNITY INC (giving mail to shop keeper, Rewa Angell): That’s yours, there’s the social security cheques ...

MATTHEW CARNEY: Finke has one shop, and Rewa Angell, one of its managers, now finds herself busier than ever administering the quarantine. The customers are finding that the funds they expect aren’t always there.

REWA ANGELL, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE (to woman in shop): No, none for you Lilly, go and see Sue over at the office.

MICHAEL TICKNER, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE (to woman in shop): Okay Helen, that's $50 come through for you there, if you'd like to sign for it down the bottom there.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The jargon has already changed - quarantining has been renamed “income managed funds”, and at Finke shop they’ve had to buy a new till just for these transactions. But the confusion about quarantining persists.

REWA ANGELL, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE (to woman in shop, Lilly): What day do you normally get your money? Monday? Tuesday?

LILLY: Monday.

REWA ANGELL, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE (to Lilly): Monday? Okay, come in Tuesday and it should be there Tuesday, okay?

MATTHEW CARNEY: Rewa Angell has to start work at 6am to deal with the extra red tape the intervention has generated.

REWA ANGELL, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE: It’s got us running all over the place really. I’d say all up we’re probably doing roughly say 20 hours extra on top.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Every morning Centrelink emails her updates on the quarantined money owed to each Finke resident on welfare. She downloads it and then enters the new data on her computer in the shop. She then prints out this list so she can refer to it all day when customers want to use their income managed funds for purchases.

REWA ANGELL, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE: People are coming in, they’re asking continually every day and we’ve got to try and explain to them that they don’t get a payment until after their actual payment. But it doesn’t seem to register. Like they’re not used to the system, it’s changed too quickly for them.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Many customers come into the shop several times a day for small purchases. Every time they do, they sign their receipt.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Rewa Angell): Why have you got to get them to sign the docket?

REWA ANGELL, APUTULA COMMUNITY STORE: I suppose it’s proof, to say that they’ve actually spent the money, so Centrelink knows she’s Denise and that it’s her money that she’s spending, to Centrelink.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Many can’t write, so they mark the receipt with a cross, and Rewa Angell prints the name and attests that it is the customer in question. At the close of business, she then reconciles each receipt against the Centrelink data.

It’s turned community store operators into micro accountants.

Ray Ferguson, a Finke Councillor, says some in the town are angry because they feel like they're being punished for the actions of a few.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ray Ferguson): The Government says they’re doing it to make everyone safer and get the kids to school and make sure no one’s spending money on grog or drugs, do you think it’s a good thing?

RAY FERGUSON, APUTULA COUNCILLOR: In a way it’s good but it doesn’t apply to everyone you know, there are a lot of people in the past that looked after their kids and made sure they had food on the table but there was some like you say now, you know, are going to town and getting on the grog and all that sort of thing, not worried about the kids.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Twenty-eight residents in Finke were employed under CDEP. The good news is that 17 real jobs - full time employment with award wages - have been created. Most of them are employed here at the Finke Aged and Child Care Centre. Rosemary Matasia is one of the lucky ones.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Rosemary Matasia): So do you think the intervention has been good for the community?

ROSEMARY MATASIA, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: Yep, I think.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Rosemary Matasia): Why?

ROSEMARY MATASIA, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: Them people that was on Newstart and like on the dole, they have to work for it now, for the dole, instead of sitting back and lazing off all the time.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Rosemary Matasia): And they were doing that before?

ROSEMARY MATASIA, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: Yep, couldn’t tell them before to get a job or when the CDEP was on, now CDEP stopped and made it harder for them mob.

MATTHEW CARNEY: For Ann Dunn, who co-ordinates the centre, the introduction of real jobs is long overdue. It will encourage the women in the centre to train and improve their skills because they can finally be rewarded for their efforts.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ann Dunn): So CDEP to you was it second class jobs?

ANN DUNN, CO-ORDINATOR, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: I think so you know I mean, never actually said out in public but yeah, I don’t think they were paid like, they needed to be recognised for the work they did.

ANN DUNN, CO-ORDINATOR, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE (to elderly man): Morning Brownie.

ELDERLY MAN: Morning.

ROSEMARY MATASIA, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: Morning. How're you going this morning?

ELDERLY MAN: All right.

ANN DUNN, CO-ORDINATOR, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: That's good. There's some Weetbix for your breakfast.

ELDERLY MAN: Yeah.

ANN DUNN, CO-ORDINATOR, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: And some tea-bags, sugar in there for your Weetbix ...

MATTHEW CARNEY: The centre serves both the young and the old and this morning they are delivering breakfast to Brownie Doolan. He doesn’t know his exact age, but he was born around the beginning of last century. As a pensioner, Brownie’s money is being quarantined.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ann Dunn): What have the issues been with Centrelink?

ANN DUNN, CO-ORDINATOR, FINKE AGED AND CHILD CARE CENTRE: I think because the older people now like they want to speak to the people, the Centrelink want to speak to like people like Brownie. Well as you can see Brownie isn’t really capable of talking on the phone.

MATTHEW CARNEY: While the women have received most of the 17 so-called real jobs, many of the men have been left out.

It might be desert fringe country but about six years ago with the support of bore water, the residents of Finke planted an orchard. Eight of Finke’s men worked on the project under CDEP, earning about $300 a week. Since that was scrapped in September, most have been moved on to the dole and are classed “transitional”, to June 2008.

The future of this project is uncertain. For now, its transitional staff are still working the plants but their payments are not much incentive.

Bill Webber coordinated the CDEP positions.

BILL WEBBER, FORMER CDEP COORDINATOR, FINKE (to group of men): Right lads, I hear you got a few complaints about your money this week. I’ll have look at your letters, see if I can help. Last week you all got extra payments to get food, I believe, did you get it Kevin?

KEVIN JAMES, FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: Yes.

BILL WEBBER, FORMER CDEP COORDINATOR, FINKE: Did you get it Lester?

LESTER, FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: Yeah.

BILL WEBBER, FORMER CDEP COORDINATOR, FINKE: Right. (Reading from letter): You’ve been granted transition payments of $8.24 a fortnight. (laughs)

MATTHEW CARNEY: Now, because their wives work, some will have to consider whether working for the dole, about 25 hours a week, is worth a little over $8 a fortnight.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to the men): But how’s it going to be for you, you’ve got no money? You’ll have to ask your wife, won’t you for the money?

IVAN PALMER, FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: Yeah.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Ivan Palmer): What does that feel like doing that?

IVAN PALMER, FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: Bad, I feel ashamed mate.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The orchard has not made a profit since it was set up. The only hope for creating real jobs is that this year’s crops will generate enough money to pay for two positions. There will be no work for the other men.

One man who helped create the Finke Orchard is Patrick Allen.

PATRICK ALLEN, FORMER FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: We’re proud for what we’ve done and you know for like, we’re just the local community boys and you know, what we did we happy.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Patrick Allen): So what’s happened now? Tell me what’s happened.

PATRICK ALLEN, FORMER FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: Well now it’s really painful and it’s sad and we got no job and that now. It’s painful and CDEP has been destroyed and we don’t know what’s coming on ahead, we don't know.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Allen’s partner is employed at Finke school so under the new rules he’s entitled to little or no welfare payment. CDEP for Allen was a job and around town he was known as a good worker. Since September he’s received nothing - no pay, no welfare. He now passes time driving around town or cleaning at home.

PATRICK ALLEN, FORMER FINKE ORCHARD WORKER: It’s not only me, even my other working mates, they suffering too, you know.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The community says the taskforce promised them that no one would be worse off, but Ray Ferguson and Pauline Coombes know that taking jobs away from the men will cause trouble at home.

PAULINE COOMBES, FINKE RESIDENT: It will probably destroy some of the families as well, you know from that kind of stuff. When a man’s not working and you know, women are working and, it’s going to sort of, you know, make the women think, oh yeah, why isn’t my husband going out working? And it’s going to destroy a lot of families because of, you know, problems like that.

MATTHEW CARNEY: One of the driving ambitions of the intervention is to get the kids to school. At Finke school the attendance rates are better than most remote communities. Still, only one or two make the benchmark standards for reading and writing.

Jane Roper is the school principal of Aputula Community.

JANE ROPER, PRINCIPAL, FINKE SCHOOL: In Aratula most of the kids we see most of the time. I tell the kids that white fellas write everything down. If you learn to read, you’ll learn everything you need to know about white fellas. It’s really, I’m just, I’m passionate about it. I don’t want Finke kids to just know about Finke. I want them to know about the world.

MATTHEW CARNEY: The Federal Government has set a targets of 85 per cent attendance for children at school. But since the intervention there’s been little change.

JANE ROPER, PRINCIPAL FINKE SCHOOL: Prior to intervention, from January our attendance, average attendance to intervention was 77 per cent. Since the weeks of intervention it’s only gone up to 78 point something per cent.

MATTHEW CARNEY: But the threat of quarantining up to 100 per cent of parents’ welfare to enforce school attendance may have an impact.

JANE ROPER, PRINCIPAL FINKE SCHOOL: It’s culture changing. Culture changing takes time. Perhaps parents will push their kids to school.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Jane Roper): These changes, I mean the end of CDEP and the quarantine, do you think it’s making the children safer?

JANE ROPER, PRINCIPAL FINKE SCHOOL: Listen I don’t know, I can’t see, now that the police have arrived, which is just now, three days a week, that may have some impact on getting children home in the evenings or, adults knowing where everyone is. I don’t know, but that may be an impact, but I haven’t really seen any change in the way Aputula functions socially since the intervention.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Jane Roper): And the quarantining - do you think that’s making children safer?

JANE ROPER, PRINCIPAL FINKE SCHOOL: No comment.

MATTHEW CARNEY: What Finke really wanted from the intervention was a permanent police presence and that hasn’t happened. Patrols from the nearby town of Kulgera have increased from two to three days a week, but for most of the time help is 150 kilometres of dirt away.

It’s left to the community’s night patrol to maintain law and order.

ROLAND MORTON, FINKE NIGHT PATROLLER: Yeah sometimes we tell all the kids to go back home and be safe for school.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Despite the alcohol ban the intervention put in place in September the grog runners and drug dealers are still hitting town.

ROLAND MORTON, FINKE NIGHT PATROLLER: They bring some in grog in, they end up fighting and some people can stop in the road, and we had to go out and look for them and pick him up and bring him back you know?

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Roland Morton): You have to make sure they’re safe, yeah?

ROLAND MORTON, FINKE NIGHT PATROLLER: Yeah make sure they’re safe, you know?

MATTHEW CARNEY: Finke also has its share of sexual abuse and domestic violence, but often perpetrators are not jailed.

ROLAND MORTON, FINKE NIGHT PATROLLER: We patrolling for some people that fight you know, and have arguments.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Roland Morton): There’s a lot of family violence?

ROLAND MORTON, FINKE NIGHT PATROLLER: Yeah family violence too.

MATTHEW CARNEY: So has the intervention made little children safer? If the measure is bringing perpetrators of child sexual abuse to justice, then there's been few reports and not a single arrest.

If the aim is to make safer environments by rebuilding broken communities, the Federal Government’s methods are being strongly tested on the ground.

Many are asking if changes already experienced in Finke and feared in Maningrida, will help in the long run.

And there’s a big question mark over the one-size-fits-all approach - will it work in these very different communities?