Mount Isa Police Station’s officer-in-charge, Senior Sergeant Col Henderson, said riverbed dwellers’ alcohol abuse was not the only cause of seizures in the riverbed.  

“A lot of people have illnesses, disease, diabetes and do not know how to monitor diabetes,” he said. 

Incidents involving police happened at the riverbed at least once during a police shift, he said, and police were frequently visiting the riverbed to check on dwellers.

Many dwellers could be aggressive when drunk but generally had some respect for police officers, he said. 

“We have no power to move them on,” Senior Sergeant Henderson said. 

He said police could make people move on in a public place if they were being a nuisance and were negatively affecting someone else’s activities. 

For example, if somebody visited Mount Isa Village in the CBD and asked shoppers for money or cigarettes then they could be moved on because they were impacting on another person’s way of life.

A riverbed dweller recently mistook a Fairfax reporter as a plain clothes police officer and asked to be arrested so she could have a place to sleep.

Senior Sergeant Henderson confirmed this attitude was common.

“A lot of them do play up because they want somewhere to go for a chance for a shower,” he said. 

Mount Isa State Member Rob Katter met with Department of Communities  staff about the issue this week.

“These people in the riverbed are often escaping violent or oppressive situations in their own home,” he said.

He said dwellers were often people escaping tougher alcohol bans in other communities. 

They had “no real reason” to remain in Mount Isa but the social problem would not disappear by moving people on.

“If we’re really serious we have got to fix the social problems that cause someone to live in the riverbed,” Mr Katter said.