Australian Broadcasting Corporation


LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s510506.htm

Broadcast: 21/03/2002

Fitzgerald report stirs political debate

Reporter: Scott Bevan

The name Tony Fitzgerald is synonymous with the Royal Commission into Corruption that changed the face of Queensland politics and hopefully the police. Now, once again, the name Fitzgerald is attached to a report that is stirring political debate, perhaps not quite so dramatically, but contentiously enough.

Late last year, the retired judge headed up a study into social justice in Cape York, particularly looking at the tragic effects of alcohol and violence in the communities.

The study goes so far as to recommend considering a ban on alcohol in the Cape, if there's no improvement within three years.

The recommendations to limit the disastrous effects of alcohol abuse have prompted both praise and criticism - some Aboriginal leaders have angrily declared the study disrespectful, while others in the communities welcome anything that might reduce the violence and illness that they have to live with daily.

Scott Bevan has just returned from the Cape with this report.

ALDA WALDEN, DOOMADGEE ELDER: Alcohol - I think it's the worst in the place.

MICHAEL BOOTH, DOOMADGEE ELDER: It's killing the life of young people. Murdering.

MICHAEL BOOTH, DOOMADGEE ELDER: Our people are starving, like out children, because mothers and fathers are drinking and all that. We can't control it.

SCOTT BEVAN: Cape York may be 2,000 kilometres north of Brisbane, but in the conditions and deprivations to be found in the communities, it is, in many ways, a world apart.

Housing is scarce, health problems are distressingly rife and violence, according to the residents and authorities, is frighteningly common. Looming amid the despair, is alcohol abuse, with consumption levels estimated at four times the national average.

ALDA WALDEN: This is the worst thing I can say is alcohol - that makes the place look unhappy.

SCOTT BEVAN: Alcohol - and the problems it has brought to the Cape communities - was the focus of a study carried out by Justice Tony Fitzgerald and released late last year.

The study makes recommendations on how to break that cycle of alcohol, ill-health and violence, criticising the operation of the licensed beer canteens, advocating a crackdown on the illegal trade of alcohol and raising the contentious prospect of a prohibition if improvements aren't made within three years.

But the study urges the Government to talk further with the communities before proceeding with any action.

As a result, this week the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, Judy Spence, has been visiting communities around the Cape and Gulf of Carpentaria.

The tour has brought her face-to-face with the tragic consequences of alcohol abuse, as she's opened two new women and children's shelters in Naparanum and Doomadgee.

JUDY SPENCE, QLD ABORIGINAL POLICY MINISTER: Aboriginal women in this part of the world are 57 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than other women in Queensland and that is a shameful statistic.

SCOTT BEVAN: The visit has also placed the Minister in the middle of the controversy over the study itself.

THOMAS HUDSON, ABORIGINAL CO-ORDINATING COUNCIL: And the people that are really going to be affected by this report haven't been consulted and that is the main grassroots people on our communities.

SCOTT BEVAN: The Minister received a hostile reception at an Aboriginal Coordinating Council meeting yesterday.

Community leaders criticised the study authors and the Government for a lack of consultation with them and for producing something they consider patronising.

SYLVIA REUBEN, PALM ISLAND ABORIGINAL COUNCIL: There's no commonsense to that report and I'm very angry about it.

ROBERT SANDS, KOWANYAMA ABORIGINAL COUNCIL: It doesn't matter how paternalistic this Government gets, how paternalistic the Premier gets, you will by no means solve our problem.

SCOTT BEVAN: According to the study, the beer canteens, operated by Aboriginal community councils, contribute to the alcohol problem.

THOMAS HUDSON: If the canteens close we have got to put a lot of people off. We have to close a lot of doors.

SCOTT BEVAN: These canteens, that are seen as a source of the problems associated with alcohol are also a deep reservoir of funds for the community councils that operate them.

One Cape canteen made a profit of almost $1 million last financial year. This one, here at Naparanum, cleared just over $100,000.

But the Fitzgerald study is uncomfortable with that relationship between the canteens and the councils.

It says at the very least, there are major contradictions between the commercial imperatives of running a liquor outlet and the responsibilities of the councils in regard to welfare and law and order.

While the study recommends that relationship should end, councils say they rely on the money for community projects and jobs.

JOHN COLEMAN, POMPURAAW COUNCIL CHAIRMAN: That's the only enterprise we've got to make money and if the Government takes the beer away, where are we going to find the money?

SCOTT BEVAN: At the ACC meeting, the Minister riled the gathering, by arguing community leaders had a vested interest in keeping the canteen licenses.

ROBERT SANDS: We didn't want the pubs in our community. That was left to us by the Government when they pulled out.

But because we've turned them into a profitable business, and we use it to enhance the programs of employment in our community, we're being damned for it.


JUDY SPENCE: When you talk about making $900,000, or $100,000 from your canteen, what's never mentioned is the cost of alcohol and violence to your community.

SCOTT BEVAN: And it's that human cost that has some in the communities bitterly opposed to canteens at all.

ROBERT HOLROYD, POMPURAAW ELDER: Fighting your brother, your sister, your woman, your child deserted, because of this substance of grog.

SCOTT BEVAN: In the community of Pompuraaw, elder Robert Holroyd is one raised voice against the local canteen.

ROBERT HOLROYD: It brings money to the councils, but your life is gone out of the local councils and from the communities.

SUSIE HOLROYD, POMPURAAW RESIDENT: Shut down the problem of drinking, shut down the canteen. Shut it down completely.

SCOTT BEVAN: But even those who have to deal with alcohol abuse say shutting the canteens won't necessarily stop the drinking.

ACTING SGT PETER BLAKE, NAPRANUM POLICE: I don't think shutting the canteen here would be the answer.

We have a number of licensed establishments within a 15 kilometre radius - and there's a lot of people that go to them from Naparanum community as well.

SCOTT BEVAN: Even in communities such as Doomadgee, where there's no canteen and the distances to the nearest pub is great, alcohol is still readily available. Where do people get the alcohol from?

MICHAEL BOOTH, DOOMADGEE ELDER: They go to Burketown, about an hour's drive, or Hells Gate, about 25 minutes drive to there.

SCOTT BEVAN: And if alcohol can't be obtained from a licensed venue, there are illegal means.


SCOTT BEVAN: Where does it come from?

DARREN TARPENCHA: They come in a plane, freight, it comes in.

SCOTT BEVAN: So they fly it in?


SCOTT BEVAN: With Pompuraaw trying to cut back consumption by limiting opening hours and the quantity that can be bought at its canteen, the sly groggers are apparently moving in, complete with exorbitant prices for every can of beer.


SCOTT BEVAN: $10 for one can?


SCOTT BEVAN: And people pay?


SCOTT BEVAN: How much is one can at the canteen?

DARREN TARPENCHA: $3.50 SCOTT BEVAN: So $3.50 at the canteen, $10 from a sly grogger?


SCOTT BEVAN: What do you think about that?


SCOTT BEVAN: The Government says it will keep talking with the communities before starting on a plan next month to attack the alcohol crisis on the Cape.

But some are tired of just planning and talking.

ALDA WALDEN: We just seem to be going over the same thing the whole time.

SCOTT BEVAN: But they're even more tired of watching their loved ones dying.

MICHAEL BOOTH: Lately we've been burying people, young people that have grown up with grog, dying with grog, because there is no limit.