Land council chairman avoids conviction for grog in dry zone

Tiwi Land Council chairman Gibson Farmer’s standing in the community has helped him avoid a conviction for bringing grog into an Arnhem Land dry zone

Tiwi Land Council chairman Gibson Farmer pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court to taking beer and spirits into Gunbalanya and having an unrestrained child in his car. Picture: Ivan Rachman

Tiwi Land Council chairman Gibson Farmer’s standing in the community has helped him avoid a conviction for bringing grog into an Arnhem Land dry zone.

Farmer pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court on Monday to taking beer and spirits into Gunbalanya and having an unrestrained child in his car in July last year.

The court heard Farmer was busted with “a lot of alcohol” and a child under the age of seven without a seatbelt on in the Holden Rodeo he was driving on the road into the community on July 30.

But his lawyer Gabriel Chipkin argued his client should not be convicted of the offences due to “mitigating circumstances”.

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Mr Chipkin said Farmer was “under significant pressure from his daughter” to deliver the grog even after he told her it was wrong and was “a very important person in his community”.

He said Farmer’s daughter originally intended to drop the alcohol off in Jabiru but changed her mind.

Judge Tanya Fong Lim asked Mr Chipkin: “How do you explain the unrestrained child?”

But Mr Chipkin said that was also down to “pressure from his family” and “very much out of character”.

“He is an upstanding member of the community but he is human, he has made a mistake,” he said.

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Prosecutor Kylie Benson argued in favour of convicting Farmer, saying his status in the community meant he was better placed to take a stand and not break the law.

“He still made a decision to continue to drive knowing that the alcohol was in the car,” she said.

In fining Farmer $500 along with a $300 victims levy, Ms Fong Lim said he “should have been able to say no and left (his daughter) there in Jabiru”.

“The Tiwi community need you to be a good example, this is not a good example,” she said.

“That little one is your responsibility to make sure is safe, it wasn’t safe sitting in someone’s lap.”

Farmer is a senior elder of the Mantiyupwi people and Melville Island traditional elder who was first appointed chairman of the TLC in 2012.