Local Aboriginal police sergeant Mick Williams is one of many committed to finding a way forward for this iconic river town.
A local Ngemba man, he joined the New South Wales Police in 1985 and was advised against retuning to Bourke. After a decade spent working across the state, Mick returned to his troubled home town as a senior officer and says he now understands the warnings.
"I think if I was to come back here as a constable or a probationary constable, I would have been eaten up.
"I wouldn't have had the armour. If you haven't got that when you come to the challenges that you face when you face your own community, dealing with your own people, you'd be blown off the paddock. It's a real contact sport.
"In bad times when you have to arrest someone for something, that is particularly hard. That often leaves a mark on you."
Despite the challenges, Mick says policing is in his blood.
He was raised on stories of his grandfather, the legendary local tracker, Frank Williams, who worked in the area a century ago. Believed to be the state's first Aboriginal Sergeant, Williams' role was a difficult one. He was encouraged to reject his Ngemba heritage but was never fully accepted by non-Indigenous society.
"My grandfather would go out on a patrol and the police would be invited into the house and my grandfather would have to sit on the porch in his police uniform.
"He'd have to eat his meals out in the cookhouse, he wasn't allowed to come into the big house. [It's] totally different now."
The problems in Bourke are complex but there are many in the community working hard to rebuild the town.
Mick says policing needs to adapt to the specific needs of the community. He points to the success of a recent alcohol restrictions trial and says it's one of several levers that need to be used to bring about positive changes.
"We needed to look at how people use housing, employment opportunities, food security, wild tucker, using firearms and unregistered motor vehicles to access wild tucker, what was on hand for the youth of Bourke to do in the evenings."
"Me empowering you to get a job, to help you keep a job, to have the capacity to have a (drivers) licence, a shooters licence, to be able to respect and talk to your partner and to love and nurture your children. That's policing."
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