Alice Springs Town Council is preparing a “change the narrative” strategy after an analysis found 64 per cent of portrayals of the town were negative. The plan comes from the council, with Mayor Asta Hill saying it is meant to tell “the whole story” rather than smooth over the problems that have bruised the town’s reputation.
Who Gets to Shape the Story
Hill said the strategy had been drafted with business and industry groups. That detail matters. The people with the loudest say here are not the residents dealing with the fallout, but the institutions worried about image, investment and visitor numbers. Hill said, “Reputation really matters,” and added that it has “real consequences for people living here.” She also said, “It impacts our experience and the way that we experience the town. But it also impacts whether people decide to come and visit, whether they come and accept a job opportunity, whether they invest in a business or in the town more generally.”
That’s the language of managed perception. The council wants “getting more balanced stories out about the town,” Hill said, and she framed the effort as “partnering with the people who do live here, who choose to stay here, who’ve had so many authentic stories to tell about what it’s like being here.” She added, “They’re actually the credible voices, aren’t they, about what it’s like here because they know the place.”
Hill also said, “I want to be really clear that this isn’t about glossing over challenges,” and, “People can express concerns, they can talk about challenges, but what we’re trying to say is that’s one part of the story and we want to tell the whole story.” The council’s pitch is balance. The machinery behind it is reputation management.
What the Town Is Up Against
The council engaged an interstate public relations company to analyze stories about Alice Springs, including news media, social commentary and remarks made in Northern Territory and federal parliaments. That’s the apparatus at work: outside consultants, institutional messaging, and the town’s image filtered through business interests and political chatter.
The town has been bruised by repeated waves of crime and unrest, and a travel influencer recently described Alice Springs as “absolutely mental.” In a YouTube video posted in May, travel influencer Simon Wilson documented his journey from Adelaide to Darwin on the Ghan luxury rail. He said he had been told by people on the train that they “don’t recommend going into Alice Springs alone” because there’s “been some problems in the past.” After walking around town, he said, “This place is absolutely mental,” and added, “That guy had a tag on his ankle as well. Honestly, I must have seen I’ve seen about 30 people with tags on their ankles. I tell you what, coming into this town has been an experience.”
Those are the kinds of comments the council is trying to push back against. But the facts behind the reputation aren’t erased by a branding exercise. They sit there, ugly and public, while the council tries to manage the fallout.
The Business Case for a Better Image
Journey Beyond, the Ghan operator, said “Alice Springs is a core part of The Ghan’s journey and Journey Beyond’s rail and touring operations,” and that “more than 30,000 guests experience Alice Springs annually.” That’s the commercial angle in plain sight. The town is part of a tourism circuit, and the image of the place matters to the operator’s business.
Tourism Central Australia chief executive and Alice Springs town councillor Danial Rochford said he understood Journey Beyond staff had undertaken training and education after the issue. Rochford said, “It’s certainly sad to see our town presented in that manner but I also am very realistic that it was someone’s impressions of a very short stay in our town,” and added, “It’s certainly contrary to the views I hear day in, day out from our visitors who spend one or two days in this amazing place and have such a great experience.” He said he backed the council’s decision to invest in a strategy that highlights positive stories about the town of approximately 25,000 people.
That’s the reform trap in miniature: fix the story, keep the structure. The council, tourism bodies and business groups want a cleaner narrative, while the underlying conditions that produce the town’s reputation stay in the frame as background noise.
Bottom-Up Talk, Top-Down Control
Commentator and advertising creative director Dee Madigan said, “Rebranding happens from the inside out and rebranding isn’t what you say about yourselves, it’s how people feel about you.” She added, “Changing the narrative only works when what’s underneath is changed as well.” Madigan said, “You want people to start talking about Alice more positively. If you want to get the locals on board, and that is the best way to truly change the narrative, you have to make them feel that you are doing things as well.”
She pointed to a city in Washington, saying, “There was a city in Washington, I think it was called Congress Heights, and it was a predominantly African-American city with a lot of crime and a lot of problems,” and, “They did rebrand it, but by really engaging with the community, and it became the City of Soul. They did it from the bottom up, if you like, rather than top down.”
Local political commentator Rolf Gerritson said, “Our rate of burglary is possibly higher and our rate of stealing cars is possibly higher than is common in south-eastern Australia, but it’s a rate that’s no different from right across remote Australia.” He added, “Alice Springs is a town where we have an unusually socially active group of young people coming here and running all sorts of associations and sporting bodies. That, culturally, in a broader Australian sense, is a very vibrant community.” Gerritson said, “This is an amazingly interesting town. You’ll meet all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds who are here doing really interesting things.” He added, “If they [the council] reinforce those sorts of images then I think it’s good. But if they’re going to say ‘we’re all very peaceful and we’re nice people and have little old ladies knitting’ or something, then it’s not going to work.”
A separate ABC local news briefing said the Alice Springs Town Council was preparing a strategy to counter the town’s bruised reputation, that 64 per cent of portrayals were negative, and that Hill said the “change the narrative” strategy had been drafted with business and industry groups. The briefing also said the council was preparing a strategy it hoped would counter the town’s bruised reputation. The message from the top is clear enough: manage the image, protect the brand, and hope the town’s reality can be edited into something more marketable.