Covid money buying ‘grog chaos and gambling’ in Indigenous communities, Noel Pearson warns

Money from COVID-19 measures such as JobSeeker and the ability to tap superannuation is creating misery in vulnerable communities, warns Noel Pearson.

Noel Pearson accuses state governments of being in thrall to hotel interests. Picture: Sean Davey.

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson has warned that money from COVID-19 support measures such as the JobSeeker program and the ability to tap superannuation accounts is fuelling a surge in “grog chaos and gambling’’ in vulnerable communities across the nation.

The Cape York Institute founder has also attacked governments for ignoring the pleas of Indigenous leaders to limit alcohol in their communities, a failure of policy that was driving misery, violence and hunger.

A day after the West Australian government defied police and some community leaders to implement a banned drinker register rather than blanket bottle shop restrictions in the remote Pilbara, Mr Pearson questioned whether state and territory governments were truly committed to the “shared decision-making” with peak Indigenous organisations that they signed up to in the Closing the Gap national agreement.

“There is grog chaos all over the country, from Cape York to the Pilbara,” Mr Pearson said.

“With the JobSeeker supplement and superannuation withdrawals, the normal level of grog and gambling chaos has gone through the roof.”

Mr Pearson questioned whether moves to ban problem drinkers would help curb the alcohol problem and accused state governments of being in thrall to hotel interests. “These state and territory governments are harlots to the Australian Hotels Association. The banned drinkers register will do nothing,’’ he said.

“It’s a figleaf for a craven unwillingness to stop people from profiteering from misery, violence and hunger.

“And these same governments have been charged with Closing the Gap? I thought these gov­ernments committed to ‘shared decision-making’ with the peak organisations?”

The McGowan government says the banned drinker register was floated widely and early, and that Indigenous people were among Pilbara residents consulted at public meetings in Port Hedland, Karratha and Newman.

Last week, John Young, principal of the remote Catholic school in Wadeye, 400km southwest of Darwin, said school attendance had fallen to 30 per cent since the federal government’s coronavirus supplement effectively doubled welfare payments. Teachers and school staff battled fatigue because they were kept up throughout the night as alcohol wreaked havoc on the community.

In the Pilbara, 1500km north of Perth, remote Aboriginal ­communities are dry but towns such as Port Hedland are not. Almost 12,000 of the region’s 60,000 residents are Indigenous.

AHA’s WA chief executive, Bradley Woods, rejected Mr Pearson’s comments as inflammatory and unhelpful. His organisation championed the Banned Drinker Register for the Pilbara.

It will also be rolled out on a voluntary basis in the far north Kimberley, where WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson and Indigenous leaders such as Ian Trust have called for blanket­ ­bottle shop restrictions on full-strength takeaway alcohol.

“Targeted solutions are required to combat alcohol-related harm rather than blanket solutions that fail to direct the focus and resources of government towards those most in need,” Mr Woods said on Tuesday.

The Northern Territory has had a banned drinker register since 2017. Stationing officers outside bottle shops who ask for identification has led to claims of racial profiling.

Senior health officials believe it is not as effective as the NT’s floor price on alcohol, a first for Australia when it was introduced in Oct­ober 2018. It pushed up the price of cask wine from as little as 70c a standard drink to $1.30.

In April, a review found the NT floor price coincided with a fall in consumption of cask wine and a reduction in a range of alcohol-­related harms. It did not affect tourist numbers. However, the NT government has flip-flopped on its support for a proposal for Darwin’s first Dan Murphy’s across the road from the city’s largest Aboriginal town camp.

The fight over that bottle shop is in its fifth year.

In the Pilbara, the latest debate over alcohol restrictions was prompted by confronting CCTV footage of women and girls being beaten by drunks in the streets of South Hedland. While Pilbara mining camps enforce restrictions on the amount and strength of alcohol its workers can consume each day while living and working on site, police said there was carnage in the twin towns of Port Hedland and South Hedland, where some people bought up to three cartons of beer on the day Centrelink payments arrived.

Ngurra Kujungka chair Bruce Booth said he was among Indigenous leaders in the Pilbara who favoured broad bottle shop restrictions so his people were not drawn to coastal towns, where they sometimes got stranded and in trouble. In his desert hometown of Nullagine, elders have a longstanding agreement with the hotel that full-strength takeaway beer can be sold from noon to 1pm only. If people want full strength beer after that, they must go inside the pub. “It keeps people safe, and the hotel can still make money,” Mr Booth said.

The Coalition of Peaks, which rewrote the Closing the Gap agreement with the federal government, made shared decision-making with Indigenous people a priority reform.