Town stands up to the demon drink

A Cape York Labor MP has blamed his election defeat on a campaign by the Liberal National Party to court the "pro-grog" vote.

Suzie Yunkaporta

THE Labor MP who represented the indigenous communities of Cape York has blamed his defeat at the Queensland election on a campaign by the Liberal National Party to court the "pro-grog" vote, following Premier Campbell Newman's surprise declaration that Aborigines should have the same right as other Australians to drink.

The ousted MP for Cook, Jason O'Brien, said a crucial bloc of votes shifted unexpectedly to the LNP on March 24 in Aboriginal communities with zero alcohol limits, accounting for the 700-odd votes that cost him the seat.

"I lost Kowanyama, Lockhart River, Pompuraaw on 2pp (two-party-preferred votes), which had never happened before," he said.

"The swing against me in individual communities was because of a promise to return to the grog. I have no doubt about that at all."

The man who replaced him and became Assistant Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs in the new LNP government, David Kempton, revealed there had been "no direct and clear policy" on the alcohol restrictions until Mr Newman spoke out on March 7, in reply to a speculative question from a reporter from The Australian.

This will entrench the view, denied by Mr Newman, that last week's announcement that Aboriginal councils could apply to opt out of alcohol management plans was the result of policy on the run.

In Aurukun, 79-year-old Rebecca Wolomby said she would pack up her husband, Silas, 84, and leave town if the grog came back.

"I don't agree with the drinking. It brings back old memories ... the fighting business," she said.

Suzie Yunkaporta, 68, a grandmother of 21, said the town's drinkers didn't know when to stop. "No moderation," she said outside the store, where a fight erupted on Wednesday between a group of women intoxicated on contraband alcohol, and where more trouble happened yesterday.

"They drink the grog down as fast as they can, get drunk and get out on the street to fight," she said.

Mr O'Brien said that on election day an LNP volunteer handing out how-to-vote cards outside the Kowanyama polling station had been heard, by an ALP booth worker, to tell indigenous voters: "If you want your grog back, vote this way."

Katter's Australian Party candidate Lachlan Bensted said he had learned of the alleged incident from his own sources, and it reinforced his belief that the LNP had targeted indigenous drinkers and those who supported rollback of the restrictions. "It played a huge part in the LNP securing a lot of the indigenous vote," he said.

Mr Newman's office and Mr Kempton said they had no knowledge of the alleged incident, and Labor did not go on to make a complaint to either the local returning officer or the Electoral Commission of Queensland.

Asked why he took no action, Mr O'Brien said: "I let it go, mate, I was beat, I was done."

An analysis of voting patterns on the cape shows that the swings against Labor in once solidly-voting Aboriginal communities exceeded the electorate's record 16 per cent lurch to the LNP. Cook had been held by Labor for all but one term over the past century.

In Aurukun at the 2009 election, the LNP candidate picked up 26 votes, less than 5 per cent of the total, before preferences.

Mr O'Brien got nearly 90 per cent of the booth. Yet on March 24, Mr Kempton grabbed 144 votes or 25 per cent. In Kowanyama, the Labor man was beaten on primary votes for the first time in living memory when Mr Kempton's vote went to 45 per cent. Mr O'Brien was thrashed at the smaller booth at Lockhart River, where the vote for the LNP almost doubled. In Pormpuraaw, it went from 28.8 per cent to 63.41 per cent. All have AMPs with zero alcohol limits.

Mr O'Brien had been particularly reliant on the traditionally pro-Labor Cape York indigenous communities, which account for about 25 per cent of vote in Cook, after having his margin shredded at the 2009 election.

Mr Kempton rejected a claim by the chair of indigenous studies at Melbourne University, Marcia Langton, that the LNP had engaged in a "cheap trick" to buy votes by offering up the AMPs to lock in support of local indigenous leaders and mayors for abolition of the Wild Rivers Act.

But he agreed Mr Newman's March 7 comments - questioning "why is it that an Aboriginal worker cannot come home to have a beer, sit on the front porch and watch the TV news with their family" - had been well received in indigenous communities.

"A lot of Kowanyama people were talking about their frustration," he said in Aurukun.

"They work hard on the road all day, and they come back to the community and they can't sit with their family and have a beer.

"It's not about getting rid of the AMP, it's about having normalisation around the consumption of alcohol." The question to Mr Newman at the March 7 doorstop in Townsville from The Australian's Rosanne Barrett had been prompted by the arrest of the Mayor of Palm Island, Alf Lacey, over an alleged breach of the AMP.

Later that day, he approached Barrett privately and said there would be a review of the AMPs within 18 months if he became premier. Newman affirmed this at a media doorstop next day.

A media release announcing the AMP review was issued under Mr Newman's name on March 20, four days before Queenslanders went to the polls.

Mr Kempton attributed his strong vote in the indigenous communities to a personal following and the LNP's commitment to bring change "on things like offering freehold, in shifting emphasis away from government-driven programs to local projects that bring about economic growth".

The MP is unapologetic about the AMP review, despite the controversy it has kicked up nationally. "I think it's essential. The reasoning initially for bringing them in was really focused on the dysfunction of alcohol," he said.

"Ten years on, I don't think the same reasoning is valid. I think there has been a shift. The prohibition ... has simply moved the problem on to other areas and created new problems. Drinkers have shifted to Mareeba, Cairns, Cooktown, away from the managed areas."

Mr Newman, in a statement to The Weekend Australian, said the media did not dictate when LNP policy was released during an election campaign and the AMP review had been announced "in line with our planned policy release schedule".

Responding to concern expressed by Cape York indigenous leader Noel Pearson that it was too soon to lift alcohol restrictions, he said: "There are plenty of credible indigenous leaders who don't agree with Mr Pearson, who point out that currently there is sly grog running, petrol sniffing and drug taking occurring in Aboriginal communities, and that bans have already shifted the problem."