nangas.com

The events of Australia Day 2008 highlighted (and in some ways brought to a head) the many nanga-related social problems that have plagued the border cities of Albury and Wodonga for decades.

After the usual “family day” celebrations held at Noreuil Park (on the Albury side of the river) the gathering erupted into an alcohol-fuelled riot involving three hundred nangas. It took twenty police officers (being most of the on-duty officers from both Albury and Wodonga stations) plus some security guards, four hours to subdue the mob.

During that time the officers were continually assaulted “being bitten, kneed, punched and spat on by rioters”, employing the use only of capsicum spray (and probably a bit of good old-fashioned arm twisting) in their defence.

What poor form! The most regrettable thing about the whole incident was the complete lack of nanga fatalities – this would have been the perfect opportunity to thin out the population a bit in the confusion.

What might have been the reason for the police’s restraint? I can only speculate that the demographics of the crowd, consisting of both males and females of varying ages (many being minors) was responsible for this neglect of duty. Well, I say - ‘nip it in the bud’.

Although, I do not agree with Councillor Amanda Duncan-Strelec’s view that the police are solely responsible for the lack of public order, as she stated “until the police act – and that means locking them up – the trouble will continue to escalate”.

Cr Duncan-Strelec (a former mayor – which she seems to have forgotten given the amount she still has to say about the running of the town) seems to believe that all the social problems in Albury are the result of police inaction and completely abdicates any responsibility on the part of the Albury City Council – despite the fact that the event was organised by the Council, who allowed alcohol to be consumed at the event and failed to provide adequate security to ensure public safety.

Cr Duncan-Strelec also displays her alarming lack of understanding of both the workings of our legal system and the situation as it was on the day. The police are not responsible for “locking up” criminals – they arrest and charge offenders in accordance with the laws in place. They have no role in conviction or sentencing (apart from tendering evidence to the court). The police don’t even have a say in whether bail is granted.

In the case of minors, I understand that they can only be held in custody for a couple of hours anyway. If the police had arrested any minors at the start of this riot, they would have gone through all the paperwork and bother of processing them, only to see them released and return to Noreuil Park to commit further crimes of assault and public disturbance before the incident was wound up at 9.00pm.

What the citizens of Albury should be demanding that the Council (including Cr Amanda Duncan-Strelec) explain is why they do not oppose state government departments like the NSW Department of Housing relocating these nangas to Albury from other towns as a solution to like problems elsewhere in the state. For example, relocating the families of convicted criminals. Convicted criminals should not be eligible for public housing anyway – and especially not in a town like Albury. And what about the recent surge in the native population? We’ve all seen the gangs of Koori youth wandering the streets night and day and every second article in the Border Mail these days seems to include a quote from an Aboriginal legal aid solicitor. How about someone say bloody “sorry” for the petrol that keeps getting syphoned out of my car?! How about somebody else bloody pay for it while they’re at it? Why is the Council not opposing these policies? Is the Albury City Council not, after all, responsible for the “town planning” in Albury?

And who the fuck is going to pay to fix all of this – Amanda Duncan-Strelec??? I suggest that instead of being part of the problem, she puts her money where her mouth is. If she doesn’t think that the police are doing a good enough job, maybe she and the other members of the Albury City Council can cover the shortfall (out of their personal pockets – not the public purse). They caused the situation to arise in the first place by fostering an environment where this kind of anti-social behaviour would undoubtedly flourish. They cannot plead ignorance of the nanga culture – Cr Duncan-Strelec, on behalf of the Council – has been engaged in a very public war with the Albury police for some time now over similar nanga behaviour in Dean Street every Saturday night. But we really shouldn’t be surprised at Albury’s sad state of social affairs – you just have to look at the leadership (or lack thereof) from the sewage running the town (a.k.a. Albury City Council) to work out that the bottom tiers of it’s society must be very murky indeed.

Maybe what Albury City Council needs is for the state government to sack all those useless bastards (staff and Councillors included) and install an Administrator.

And now to the real crux of the matter – the gross under-resourcing of police by both the NSW and Victorian state govementments.

Whilst this riot was occurring, no police were available during that four hour period to deal with other matters that arose. The tax-paying citizens of Albury-Wodonga were left without any police resources for four hours on Australia Day, whilst those resources were allocated to deal with a bunch of nangas, judging by the pictures in the paper, none of whom pay tax themselves.

Mayor Stuart Baker was quoted in the Border Mail as saying “it was a family-orientated day and it was a pity that a small number of people chose to spoil it”. Three hundred people cannot be described as a “small number” even when not rioting! To quote Insp. Wadsworth “We’d like to do mass arrests but you’ve got to take them back to the charge rooms, which means there’s less police presence at the scene”. He also stated that other problems had stemmed from the riot violence and it “chewed up all of our police resources and meant that every other job in town had to play second fiddle”.

The incident on January 26^th hi-lights the need for additional police resources to be provided to the area from the governments on both sides of the border. Albury and Wodonga Stations need at least an additional ten uniformed police officers each. Lavington requires its own police station and has done so for many years. The ratepayers of Lavington have been lobbying for this for decades. These things are required immediately to maintain public order and prevent the twin cities from descending into a state of anarchy with gang warfare on every street. We are fast approaching flashpoint in many neighbourhoods.

I further suggest it appropriate to build a proper remand centre (as the nearest centre in NSW is in Junee) and to provide adequate riot equipment including body armour, a water cannon and a truck for transporting multiple offenders for processing.

This country was built on the law of the mob. We have a long and proud history of mob violence as the catalyst for social change (being of an improvement), expansion of civil rights and for the purposes of keeping peace and order. A good old-fashioned lynch mob was sometimes the only way to keep the thieving and murders at bay on the goldfields, which in many instances were only sparsely resourced with police. There was a time in this country’s history when it was more commonplace for a suspected criminal to be dispensed with by the swift and summary justice of his peers than by the formalities of the legal system. Our democracy was built on mob violence. For example – the Rum Rebellion and the Eureka Stockade.

However, the participants, a.k.a. nangas, involved in Albury’s Australia Day Riot were not motivated by such noble causes. In fact, there does not seem to be any motivation other than violence for violence sake. They are nothing more than a bunch of gutter-dwelling oxygen thieves and, at the risk of using an irritating cliché, BLOODY UNAUSTRALIAN.