A group of children broke into a radio station in Western Australia’s remote Kimberley region and put themselves live on air for an impromptu late-night show full of swearing.
The first police knew of it was a phone call from a listener, concerned at swear words being broadcast.
Station manager Angie Stahl says she had previously given the children lessons in community radio, and they worked out how to make the studio go live.
“But unfortunately their show mainly involved swearing, which was a bit punk, a bit avant-garde, but also breaches the broadcasting laws, and our codes of practice.
“So the cops got a call from an outlaying station ringing up to say, ‘I think you’ve got some kids on the radio, they’re busy swearing, you’d better go bust them’.”
Ms Stahl said the children appear to have entered through a window in her house, which adjoins the studios.
While in the house they ate some chicken nuggets and dyed their hair.
Not long after going on-air with their expletive-ridden jokes, police officers arrived to put a stop to the radio broadcast.
Ms Stahl said the children may have a future in broadcasting.
“They’d come in a couple of times before to do a couple of shows and programs, so I’d taught them the basics,” she said.
“So it’s good to see the knowledge was used correctly.”
“While in the house they ate some chicken nuggets and dyed their hair”
“A bit punk”
Amazing.
Lede buried: these were Aboriginal kids in an Aboriginal community in Western Australia. Specifically, in Fitzroy Crossing, whose reputation is, um, Not Good. An outlying station" implies rich white cattle farmers who live in the same region but not the same community, and who heard young Aboriginal voices swearing on the radio and called the fucking cops to have them arrested instead of just changing the channel.
Thank FUCK the cops reacted sanely and the children are still alive, are not in juvie, and are receiving punishments both commensurate with the offense and appropriate to their age and culture. It very much might not have gone that way. :(
Also, Aboriginal community radio is hugely important in remote communities like that. This is an area with a population density of 0.1183258/km2 (0.306462/sq mi). The actual town of Fitzroy Crossing has about 1300 people in it, with another 2000 people living in Aboriginal communities around there. Radio helps them keep in touch, share news, and is a means of sharing and preserving culture and (endangered) languages, and also gives the kids and teenagers something to do (and, for some of them, somewhere safe to be at times when they really need that.) (Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton got his start DJing at a community radio station like Ms Stahl’s, in his case in Alice Springs.)
It’s so cool that those kids were putting their skills to use, and I hope they do go on with it. Punk rock af.
