Domestic violence is rampant and sexual assaults, often involving children, is commonplace.

Among both black and white residents, there is a feeling that the situation is reaching breaking point and desperate solutions are required.

Unfortunately, both the Northern Territory and Federal governments seem helpless and don’t know what to do.

Meanwhile the bottle shops, some of which are owned by Australia’s two large supermarket chains, are making huge profits.

In 1974, I was working at Amata in what is now the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yangkunyjatjara Lands.

One afternoon, a carload of drunken Pitjantjatjara youths from Alice Springs arrived and began hooning up and down the main street.

They didn’t get very far before a group of elders wielding heavy branches and steel star pickets stopped them in their tracks.

They hauled the youths out of the car, beat the living daylights out of them and chased them out of the settlement.

The incident had occurred at the beginning of what became known as the ‘homelands movement’ in Central Australia.

The homelands movement began in the early 1970s as a response to the dysfunction and instability occurring in many of the major mission and government run settlements where communities had congregated.

These people had become reliant on being given rations, and then on the welfare money to buy goods at the settlement stores.

Among the problems in these places were drunkenness, petrol sniffing, marijuana use, youth suicide, teenage pregnancies and, importantly, disrespect for elders.

It was this disrespect that drove the elders to take on the drunken hoons from Alice Springs.

The elders could rely on traditional law as a means of reinforcing control over what they saw as rebellious youth.

The program in which I was involved was part of an effort that offered elders a means of getting back out on to the traditional lands to teach the young men about their traditions.

In essence this was part of a power struggle between the old ways and the new.

As people, particularly young men, gained easy access to Alice Springs and its attractions, and enjoyed a free and easy life, they abandoned the old ways and revolted against the authority of the elders.

Re-establishing this authority and getting people back out on the lands in small decentralised settlements was seen by the elders as a last chance to preserve their society and its way of life.

The homelands movement was a desperate attempt to curb the rebellious youths and bring back order to Central Australian Aboriginal society.

Unfortunately, government support for the movement was patchy and miserly.

It only really succeeded on the outstations, where alcohol was banned and the young people had left for the bright lights of Alice Springs.

In Alice Springs it failed miserably and led to the sad situation that prevails today.

What now needs to happen is a reinforcement of what the elders were saying in the 1970s.

It’s time to start all over again. And do a proper job of it this time.

In essence this would mean returning power to the elders in a form not dissimilar to what they enjoyed traditionally.

In practice this would mean setting up a council of Aboriginal elders in Alice Springs and vesting them with a range of powers over their communities.

A solely Aboriginal police force, separate from the Northern Territory police, should be established with powers defined by the council of elders.

A solely Aboriginal court system, with Aboriginal magistrates, should be established.

Incarceration in the prison system should be used only as a measure of extreme last resort.

These measures should be designed specifically to reinforce the power of the council of elders.

While such measures may seem like the old paternalistic systems of the past, the important defining characteristic is that they would be totally controlled by the Aboriginal community.

Concurrently, a concerted effort with adequate funding should be made to revitalise Aboriginal culture in the town and surrounding areas to the point where it becomes a viable economic and social option for Aboriginal people, particularly the young, to pursue.

The revitalisation should include a range of options ranging through art, literature and high tech endeavours like film and television production.

The aim should be to establish Alice Springs as the indigenous cultural capital of Australia.

Only then, with the pride that will come from such innovations, will peace reign in Alice Springs.