Alcohol
a) Inadequate and inappropriate measures to deal with the “rivers of grog”
Every NAAJA staff member witnesses the devastating impact of the impact of alcohol on our clients, their families and their communities. Statistics show that in the Northern Territory, each person aged 15 and over consumes (almost) 15 litres of pure alcohol, as compared with a national average of 9.75.3 As the World Health Organisation commented, adult per capita alcohol consumption is “to a considerable extent, related to the prevalence of heavy use, which in turn is associated with the occurrence of negative effects”4 such as violence, traffic casualties, injuries, liver cirrhosis, cardiovascular disease and depression. Many commentators describe the relationship in even stronger terms, with heavy use of alcohol being highly correlated with these negative effects. This is borne out in the Northern Territory which has the highest percentages of all Australian states and territories of people aged 15 years or older who drank at risky or high risk levels for acute harm (30% at least monthly) and also chronic harm (17.7%).5
Recently, former Commonwealth Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough stated that the intervention commenced with comments by former Prime Minister John Howard responding to the “Little Children are Sacred” report that he wanted to “ban alcohol”.6
Mr Howard’s advocacy for an expansion of “dry areas” shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal communities that has permeated throughout the intervention. Prior to the intervention legislation, there were more than 100 “dry” communities in the Northern Territory. Yet, the fact that in many of these communities alcohol continued to play a major factor in our clients criminal offending makes it clear that simply banning alcohol in particular parts of the Northern Territory was an insufficient policy response.
There is domestic7 and international evidence8 that measures dealing with the supply and availability of alcohol have the greatest impact. To date, the only NTER supply measure has been the requirement for identification to be shown and questions to be asked when purchasing alcohol.
We believe that existing alcohol supply measures are totally inadequate and that much more stringent alcohol measures should be introduced. We support the extensive campaigning about this issue in Alice Springs, by Tangentyere Council and others.
We believe the following measures should be introduced across the Northern Territory:
- set days during the week where take away alcohol cannot be purchased;
- increasing the prices of cheap take away alcohol (the World Health Organisation stated that evidence “suggests that alcohol prices have an effect on the level of alcohol consumption. Consumers of alcoholic beverages increase their drinking when prices are lowered, and decrease their consumption when prices rise. Heavy or problem drinkers appear to be no exception to this rule”9. Even slight price increases result in worthwhile benefits as was demonstrated in the Northern Territory by the “Living with Alcohol” program);
- reducing the number of liquor outlets and increasing the restrictiveness of the conditions under which they operate (the World Health Organisation stated that evidence on “limiting alcohol availability demonstrates that reductions in the hours and days of sale, numbers of alcohol outlets and restrictions on access to alcohol are associated with reductions in both alcohol use and alcohol-related problems”10);
- strengthening the powers of the Northern Territory Licensing Commission and increasing its independence, accountability and resources. In our experience, there is insufficient monitoring of alcohol licenses, limited numbers of prosecutions where license conditions have been breached and inadequate penalties for licenses who have breached their license conditions. The World Health Organisation stated that regulations of commercial vendors of alcohol can be effective, “provided the system has the power to suspend or revoke a licence in the case of selling infractions”11. This was certainly the experience in Borroloola, when rates of alcohol related harm dropped dramatically after the pub lost its license.
These measures will impact on both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, which is necessary because there are highly concerning and dangerous levels of alcohol consumption in both the Aboriginal and non Aboriginal population. As such these measures are likely to be politically controversial, however the nature and extent of the problems resulting from alcohol in the Northern Territory require urgent political leadership on these issues.
b) Possible unintended consequences of the alcohol measures
Recently, we have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of our clients charged with offences causing death (these are charges of murder, negligent manslaughter or reckless manslaughter but does not include death caused by driving offences). NAAJA is currently handling 11 such cases from our region (the North Zone of the Northern Territory). The majority of these cases are from the last few months (including 4 such matters from May alone) and as such, they are not reflected in the latest Northern Territory Quarterly Crime & Justice Statistics12. When the figures for the last quarter are released, we believe that they will show that there has been an alarming spike. The Quarterly Crime & Justice Statistics show that in a number of quarters, there have been 4 or less of such matters from across the Northern Territory13.
There have been some claims that a recent reduction in violent crime in Alice Springs is due to the intervention. However, these claims have been questioned by service providers in Alice Springs who attribute the reduction to alcohol supply measures introduced prior to the intervention (in September/October 2006). There have been no such widespread changes to alcohol regulation and alcohol availability in Darwin (other than small pockets of public land in Darwin being declared “dry”).
We fear that the spike in offences causing death may represent a drift of high risk individuals from their communities to centres where they can obtain alcohol. These cases are also likely to be related to long standing alcohol and poverty issues and show the systemic failure of the system to assist people address their long standing, serious addictions.
Our experience in recent months has been that the two Darwin-based alcohol rehabilitation programs (CAAPS and FORWAARD) have been at capacity levels for lengthy periods and unable to take additional referrals. This demonstrates to us that these services have not been funded adequately. However, we are also aware of the difficulties faced by our clients in “staying off the grog” once they go back to their communities and families. We believe that there is a need for the rehabilitation services to be better co-ordinated with other services, particularly educational and employment programs.
3. Australian Alcohol Indicators, 1990-2001: Patterns of alcohol use and related harms for Australian states and territories” by the National Drug Research Institute. http://www.ndri.curtin.edu.au/pdfs/naip/naipaaifullreport.pdf
4. “Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity. A summary of the book”, Alcohol and Public Policy Group in Addiction, 98 1343 – 1350 at 1344
5. “Australian Alcohol Indicators, 1990-2001: Patterns of alcohol use and related harms for Australian states and territories” by the National Drug Research Institute p 17 http://www.ndri.curtin.edu.au/pdfs/naip/naipaaifullreport.pdf
6. This was at a lecture by Mal Brough “Public Policy: Responses from the Ground” at Charles Darwin University on 28 July 2008
7. “The Northern Territory’s Living With Alcohol Program, 1992-2002: revisiting the evaluation; National Drug Research Institute, Preventing harmful drug use in Australia Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA November 2004 http://espace.lis.curtin.edu.au/archive/00000407/01/T156_NT_living_with.pdf
8. “Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity. A summary of the book”, Alcohol and Public Policy Group in Addiction, 98 1343 – 1350 at 1345
9. “Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity. A summary of the book”, Alcohol and Public Policy Group in Addiction, 98 1343 – 1350 at 1345
11. Ibid
12. Issue 23: March Quarter 2008 http://www.nt.gov.au/justice/policycoord/documents/statistics/QR%20Issue%2023_Ebook.pdf
13. Issue 23: March Quarter 2008 p 14 http://www.nt.gov.au/justice/policycoord/documents/statistics/QR%20Issue%2023_Ebook.pdf