Making a fist of it ... Senior Constable Darryl Hawker and Kyle White don the gloves at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence. Credit:Ben Rushton He then described a profound transformation, not only of scores of young offenders but of a whole community. This is Redfern now. ''From the year 2009 to 2010, we had an 80 per cent decrease in Aboriginal juveniles committing robberies, and that decrease has continued,'' Superintendent Freudenstein said. ''Back in 2005, in one month there were 100 robberies. Now we average 12 a month. ''Unfortunately, most of the robberies were committed by Aboriginal youth - but that's just not occurring any more.'' Kyle White, 17, is among the converts. ''I was getting into strife, thieving. Me and my mates - cars. But I don't do that no more … Some of [my mates] used to get locked up every week. Now they don't get locked up at all.''

Big employers have got with the program. Qantas has taken on Kyle as a baggage handler. Linfox called in Mr Saunders for an interview. ''Luke [Freudenstein] came along with me, sat with me,'' he said. ''He drove me out their, personally, in his car. We done a meeting with a big boss at Linfox and told her, up straight, what my charges were - that I'm here to make a change. And she gave me [the job], on the spot.'' Mr Saunders is driving forklifts. As a condition of his bail, he also attends the morning boxing sessions three days a week. He makes speeches. He has a good story to tell. ''I drifted off, got myself in trouble. But Luke knew what I was capable of. He knew I was a good kid. So he stuck his neck out and came and got me out of the strife. It's built my confidence.'' Calling the shots with Superintendent Freudenstein at the workouts is Mr Phillips, the chief executive of Tribal Warrior. That organisation, founded without taxpayers' money, has two boats in the Sydney Fish Market. Indigenous youth work on them, learn maritime skills and often get related jobs.

Tribal Warrior has been among the driving forces of Clean Slate Without Prejudice. Sydney Ferries has recruited some of the program's reformed offenders. ''There's all sorts of jobs opening up,'' Mr Phillips said. ''This is all about the discipline. Not just the 6am starts but the expectation that everyone will then go to work or school. ''That's our catch-cry: if this is the hardest thing you're going to do all day, you're going to have a good day.'' Mr Phillips, 47, grew up on the Block. ''We thought police were against us and police thought the same [about us]. If we had stayed angry, there's a generation of kids who would have gone down the gurgler because of us.'' Superintendent Freudenstein credits much of the Redfern transformation with the broader work of the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence. The gym is vital, but only a fraction of the centre's greater purpose. It is a self-funding, not-for-profit business that has become a focal point for learning and innovation, arts and culture, health and wellbeing, and recreation. It has trained indigenous youth from around the nation and found them jobs by building partnerships with the likes of Lend Lease, TransGrid, ING Direct, KPMG, Freehills lawyers and Cisco. It has signed a deal with James Packer to train 2000 people in hospitality for his proposed hotel and casino at Barangaroo by 2020-21. ''We've moved on from the language of disadvantage to the language of excellence,'' the centre's chief executive, Jason Glanville, said. ''For too long black kids have been told they have limited options.''

He is proud that half of the gym's members are non-indigenous. ''There are older people who had lived in Redfern all their lives who had never had contact with indigenous people,'' he said. ''They had dealt with negative stereotypes, and some of them were justified given Redfern's past. But now they're in fitness classes and on treadmills alongside black people. They have new friends.'' So does Mr Saunders. ''Yeah,'' he said, referring to the police. ''There's heaps of Redfern police who come to the program now who - before - they'd look at you in the street and you'd think, 'What do they want? What are they staring at?' Now it's, like, jokes and laughing and mucking around - punch around each other. The contact, and the barrier that's been broken down, it's good. ''It's given me a second chance in life, a chance that not many people in my shoes ever get.''