http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/violence-begins-where-hope-ends/story-e6frg6o6-1111118525444
MOTHER of six Theresa Brown looks despairingly along Macbeth Way, in the troubled Rosemeadow housing estate on Sydney’s southwestern fringe.
The neighbourhood gives off an almost visible sense of decay.
Many residents are skinny from the effects of ice, heroin and alcohol abuse, or overweight from poor diets of chips and greasy foods.
Most teenage girls are either pregnant or carrying a child on their hip. Young boys abuse the patrolling police.
This is no place to raise a family, Ms Brown says.
“I have only one thought in my head: I just want to get my kids out of here,” she told The Weekend Australian yesterday.
“It is a hole. I’m taking my kids out of here. There’s trouble all the time. I believe the parents have something to do with it, and the kids are just bored.”
Further along Macbeth Way – which this week was the scene of a bloody brawl involving more than 100 people, leaving four people with stab and gunshot wounds – lives mother-of-seven Debbie Thompson.
Like many other women on the estate, she is a single mother, and totally dependent on welfare. She has lived in public housing estates all her life.
“If there is a breakdown in the family, there is a breakdown in everything. The kids haven’t seen their dad in a long time and he’s not the sort of person I want coming around.”
Ms Thompson says she showers her children with love, and hopes that they can “stay out of jail”.
But the sense of despair and dysfunction is so pervading that even school-age children hold little hope for their futures.
“I don’t think they care about us, I don’t think they care what happens here,” Frederico Ashton, 15, said yesterday.
Like scores of Australian neighbourhoods which are home to clusters of housing estates, Rosemeadow is characterised by almost 100 per cent unemployment and the lack of any meaningful family and social structures.
The local McDonald’s is one of the most popular hangouts. Yesterday morning, like every other morning, families could be seen having breakfasts of chips and Coca-Cola in the carpark.
Nearby sit endless rows of tightly packed McMansions. The aspirational McMansion dwellers might live only a kilometre away, but their day-to-day lives are a world away from Rosemeadow.
It is the Rosemeadows of Australia where, anecdotally at least, Kevin Rudd’s “economic stimulus package” disappeared in a hail of drugs, alcohol and cheap plastic toys prior to Christmas.
“Common sense will tell you that Rudd’s money was spent on … grog. I saw it myself,” said one shopkeeper, who did not want to be named.
Certainly, drugs and booze were a contributing factor on Monday night when 100 men and women rioted in Macbeth Way, prompting police to patrol the area for the ensuing four days.
Most residents point to a long-running dispute between two families as the original source of this week’s problems, with police saying tit-for-tat incidents built into a crescendo of violence lit by alcohol and summer heat.
But most will say this week’s battle was a symptom of a deeper malaise. The estate, some residents say, is virtually lawless and the police have done nothing to stop the threats of physical violence that a group of locals have long been making against anyone who “snitches” on their illegal activities.
Single mother Kelly Lowe, 29, who lives a short distance from the Rosemeadow estate, said her children were now too scared to walk past Macbeth Way and she was forced to drag her shopping trolley across a park instead in order to get home.
She said the core group causing all the trouble didn’t just attack the police and the media, but she herself has had bottles thrown at her. “We are scared now,” Ms Lowe said.
“The Housing Commission should throw them out.”
Another Rosemeadow shopkeeper, who did not want to be named “for my own protection”, said he experienced trouble on almost a daily basis. “They are just bad people,” he said.
“They think they are hard-done by. I grew up in Housing Commission. I don’t behave like this. They harass us all the time, just to get a kick out of it. They abuse you, swear at you, throw things at you. It is just a core group, the ones you see on TV. They know the law, there is nothing you can do. You call the police and they can’t do anything. Welfare can’t do anything.”
With the police calling on the community to take ownership of the problems and to help quell the violence, community elders have been going from door to door urging parents to keep their children indoors after dark and to impose a voluntary 9pm curfew.
Aboriginal elder Ivan Wellington said yesterday: “We don’t want this. We are embarrassed. We thought this area was cleaned up. This has come out of the blue. It is puzzling. I have lived here for 30 years and there are some great people here. But I don’t like this behaviour.
“We deal with people, young mothers, no fathers, three or four kids, broken families, put out in this area. We find this is the breakdown, there is no father to take control of the kids, no role model, six kids, four kids, it is a big thing with a little mum.”
Another community leader John Whui, whose own grandson has been caught up in the trouble, accused the NSW Department of Housing of creating the problem in the first place by “putting all the crap that you could find in a little area like that”.
“They put them in there and said: ‘see you later’. These people need help. Our problem was to get these people back on track, they have no self-esteem, no pride.”
But he acknowledged that the department had recognised that there were problems and “stepped up to the plate” with plans for refurbishment and renewal. “When the police turned up en masse I thought it was overkill, but people are so frustrated. There is a stigma which won’t go away. We are lucky nobody got killed.”
Yesterday, the unrest continued for the fourth straight day. More arrests were made in relation to Monday night’s brawl, and for the second day running, the families of boys who fronted up at Campbelltown Local Court to face charges of assault and affray attacked the media outside the courthouse.
Local area commander for Campbelltown, Superintendent Stuart Smith, said this week’s heightened police operation had been successful. “With the assistance of community members we believe we have the right quantity of police involved. The feedback was that there was a goodwill from the community, a lot of support. Obviously some individuals simply need to look at themselves.”
He said taking on the core members involved in the original affray on Monday and Tuesday nights and having them charged was helping to calm the situation. “The behaviour on the first night caught us off-guard with the intensity of the violence.”
Officers on the ground reported similarities between housing estate disturbances at Dubbo, in the state’s central west, and Macquarie Fields, in Sydney’s outer west.
Disturbingly, as was the case in Dubbo and Macquarie Fields, the Rosemeadow unrest seems to have attracted large numbers of people from surrounding estates, drawn both by the spectacle and the wish to express solidarity.
“It is bringing people from everywhere mate. People who aren’t even involved are coming down with chairs,” said one resident of Macbeth Way.
The media attention also drew the ire of locals.
“We’ll punch you in the mouth!” one young boy shouted yesterday. “F..k off and leave us alone!” screamed another. “Piss off or I’ll get a bottle of acid and spray youse.”
Local member Phil Costa, a former principal of Macquarie Fields Primary School, said the Rosemeadow flare-up was a matter of “great concern”.
“The advice we are getting from police is that it is still very volatile. Once the public and media attention dies down, we will be working in private to resolve the issues.”
That may be easier said than done. One of the community elders, who has pleaded for calm this week, told The Weekend Australian last night that the trouble was likely to get worse in the coming days.
“Mate, it will be all on out here this weekend.”