Live sex shows, prostitution and grog shocked doctor in a small outback town of Tennant Creek. It was and four weeks after Australia's biggest earthquake hit near the small frontier mining town of Tennant Creek when John Boffa, a devout Catholic considering dedicating his life to the Jesuit priesthood, arrived to work as a GP at the Anyinginyi Congress Aboriginal Corporation.
Sexual assaults on women were commonplace after the live sex shows at the local bars and pubs. Dr Boffa was supposed to be travelling to a Jesuit mission hospital in India. After a failed bid for a visa, he found himself kilometres north of Alice Springs and a world away from the halls of the Alfred Hospital in the heart of Melbourne.
He said nothing could have prepared him for the level of sex, alcohol and violence he encountered upon his arrival. It was what was going on in the bars and pubs that caused Dr Boffa the most distress. According to Dr Boffa there was never clarity about the subject matter of the shows; some could just be strip shows and others would involve sex acts. The shows occurred from Thursday to Sunday every lunchtime, with women flown in from interstate to perform, and every second week there'd be prostitution, and that's when things would escalate," he said.
Then at the same time, a year-old boy was convicted for raping a woman in her 40s. The level of participatory democracy, transparency and accountability. I don't think people could appreciate just how bad this place was in that era.
Dr Boffa said a defining moment was when he was involved with filming SEX, a national program hosted by actor and celebrity Sophie Lee. Dr Boffa took her into one of the pubs where a live strip show was taking place. According to Dr Boffa, after confronting him on camera Mr Coulter finally admitted what was happening several feet from him β and diminished the seriousness of the situation, referring to it as "a bit of harmless fun".
