Unreported World

Unreported World investigates the effect of controversial emergency legislation on Australia's Aboriginal population. The government has used this legislation to take control of many Aboriginal settlements. It said this was help to end violence and child abuse, and combat the alcohol abuse that ravages many Aboriginal communities.

Reporter Oliver Steeds and director Ed Braman begin their journey in Alice Springs - visited by tens of thousands of Britons every year for its aboriginal art galleries and tourist sites - where alcohol addiction is still ravaging the lives of the country's original inhabitants, many of whom live in desolate squatter camps on the outskirts of town.

The team joins a regular night patrol, staffed by volunteers who search the streets for Aboriginal people incapacitated by alcohol. Many of them live in townships or settlements outside the town - a legacy from 1928 when they weren't allowed to live in the town itself.

Steeds and Braman visit a settlement called Hidden Valley. At the entrance is a sign warning that, under emergency legislation, alcohol is illegal. Despite this, the ground is littered with bottles and cans.

They give one resident, Beverley, a lift to the largest supermarket in the centre of Alice Springs. Since the emergency legislation, which required the suspension of Australia's race discrimination act, her welfare payments are ring-fenced to help prevent the purchase of alcohol.

Aboriginal people are five times more likely to die of alcohol-related causes than other Australians. However, the legislation, and the knowledge of the harm alcohol is doing, does little to stop her - or her friends - from buying it.

Beverley's cousin Clint is also unemployed. He tells Steeds that his teenage years were dominated by alcohol. The team notices his arms are scarred: the result of him cutting himself, like some other Aboriginal people, when he has lost a loved one. He says almost all of the deaths were caused by alcohol.

Local radio DJ Warren H Williams says the emergency legislation is making life worse as it has put the government in charge of many aspects of aboriginal people's lives and deepened a culture of dependency on welfare benefits.

In Hidden Valley, around 80% of the men are unemployed, and alcohol, welfare dependency and limited opportunities are pushing adults to a life at the margins and into crime.

Earlier this year an unprecedented crime wave of assaults, robberies and burglaries hit Alice Springs. In just three months there were over 1300 incidents of properties either damaged or broken into, leading to tensions with business owners.

The team also visits a local school to see if education might lift children out of this trap. Although government funded, it was set up by a group of Aboriginal elders who felt mainstream schools largely ignored Aboriginal culture.

However, one teacher says that even this school faces serious challenges engaging with and teaching the kids of some parents who do little to encourage their children's education.

There are some signs of hope, and the Unreported World team watches an Australian Rules football team from Santa Teresa, an Aboriginal town 80km east into the Simpson desert.

Travelling to Santa Teresa, which has banned alcohol since 1975, they find a different settlement to those on the outskirts of Alice Springs.

Unlike the town camps it feels like a safe and functioning place with a school, a health clinic and a women's centre, and a strict no-alcohol policy that everyone follows.

The emergency legislation is due to expire in 2012. While the government says it has been a success, critics argue it's caused more chaos, and increased poverty, dependency and racism. What happens next is the source of controversial debate and could affect the lives of thousands of Aboriginal people.

Clips from Episode 20

• Australia's Hidden…

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