763 How well do you know Australia? First Contact.
Currently on SBS First Contact ... a show about the Australia you probably didn't know (I didn't ... and I've been here for 37 years). Learn about, listen to the woman who had three family members commit suicide + a son, sitting next to her, who's tried. The rope marks are on his neck, he can't speak properly because the rope - when he tried to hang himself - destroyed his voice box.
Welcome to the other Australia, that which has been condemned by the UN as having living conditions that are among the worst in the world.
Ray Martin takes a group of six well-known Australians with diverse, deeply entrenched preconceptions and opinions about our nation's Indigenous people on a journey into Aboriginal Australia when First Contact returns for a brand new season, over three big nights.
The group headed due south towards the tiny town of Elliott, half way between Darwin and Alice Springs, and a place that has been called the 'forgotten town'. They met local 'SK' who lives in a four-bedroom house with anywhere up to 20 other people. Natalie and Nicki are both shocked by what they see in their own country.
Then the six separate as the women head to Cootamundra and the men to Kempsey to visit sites of the former girls' and boys' homes that the Stolen Generations were sent to.
The third instalment showed the group visiting an extraordinary gaol, West Kimberley Regional Prison, where the emphasis is not on retribution but on education and rehabilitation (strangely, that former One Nation guy, David Oldfield, was excluded by the WA Prisons Minister to participate in the jail visit).
Anyway, be warned, this is shocking journalism ... frankly, the stories are haunting me and have kept me awake for three nights.
