That's so true, people are so quick to scream racial discrimination these days whenever a governing body intervenes in a bad situation. The problem with the attitudes of people like the author is that thanks to mass culture and things like Disney children's movies, people are led to believe that childhood is some sort of universal experience for all children. Unfortunately it is not, and in some communities the reality is that children are growing up in appalling conditions with high rates of abuse. The real question here is whether banning alcholhol in these communities is going to help? Maybe it will. Is it worth doing it to try to protect children from abuse? In my opinion, yes.

David Tuck: "That's so true, people are so quick to scream racial discrimination these days whenever a governing body intervenes in a bad situation."

The questions remain - why use an intervention that is guarranteed to not only erode self-respect but publicly further marginalize a troubled community!? Why is this sort of intervention not used in other communities with similar problems but predominantly non-aboriginal populations?

The uncomfortable possibility that suggests itself is that there is some sort of ingrained bias in our governance. That bias would seem to be largely based on racial stereotyping.

You have a point about that kind of intervention not being used in towns other than ones with predominantly aboriginal populations. But, as I said earlier 'They can put those signs anywhere they like as far as I'm concerned' In fact, I wish they'd have put them in my town when I was growing up, I'm pretty sure that it would have prevented a lot of the alcohol related violence that was going on. That is only one of the many reasons that I don't drink though, alcohol is a poison and the only reason that it is available for public consumption is that making it illegal will probably create a huge black market and a headache for law enforcement. I'm surprised that so many people are so attached to it that they feel as though taking it away is worthy of such an outcry. What are your views on smoking?

It annoys me when people bring up the civil liberties red herring when talking about health matters. Do you think that it should also be legal to shoot other people with a gun just because you feel like like it? The only difference between shooting someone and feeding them alcohol is that alcohol has a greater effect on that person's children, through growing up in an environment that impacts on the quality of childcare that those people impart to their children, not to mention the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure outlined in my last post. Of course, people arguing for the availability of alcohol may have a conflict of interest that they are unwilling to reveal.

The problem is not the signs that are banning alcohol, it is everyone that drinks alcohol. The problem is a culture that equates alcohol consumption with socialising which actually encourages people to drink in order to be accepted. Why do we need alcohol to socialise? It is the socialisation and not the alcohol that is good for lowering stress levels. And even worse, getting drunk and having sex which results in pregnancy leads to gene mutations in offspring and FASD disorders due to prenatal alcohol exposure. How can anyone argue a case for alcohol when science proves that it is not only bad for your physical and mental health, but that your use of alcohol negatively affects the health of others. Alcohol should not be used by anyone at all.

You may well be right, David Tuck, except that I don't see anyone paying much attention.

The reason, I guess, is not that alcohol is socially important - I do not think myself that it is - but that it is economically important.

Alcohol in its many forms appeared long before money, and I have no doubt it will still be around long after money.

Sit around playing five-card and you will see precisely what I mean.

Yes, that's generally what happens when you tell people something that is painfully obvious, but which they don't want to hear. God forbid that anyone should take responsibility for their own actions and actually make an effort to improve their own health. I think that a big part of the reason why people are upset about these signs is because it is confronting to them to think how bad alcohol is for them if they drink it on a regular basis, that would make sense when Darwin has the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the country, and one of the highest in the world.

Well, sure, except the vast majority of Darwinites are whitefellas, none of whom are sanctioned in this way. The remainder, of most concern, are not ordinary prosperous Larrakia or resident Tiwi or the rest of them, but the residual homeless 'long grassers'.

And again, against the range of options granted in life, with only a blanket to sleep on, when sitting around drinking and playing cards and avoiding fights is the best on offer, something else has to be said seriously about not only civil liberties on the one hand, but the most basic human rights on the other.

David, I am unfollowing this thread the moment I post this.

I am not really very interesting in responding to what is plainly a singular crusade of yours hell bent on refusing to gaze beyond your narrow, blame-casting focus on alcohol alone.

Considering that this article is about a government intervention designed to stop the abuse of alcohol, then I'd say that my 'narrow focus' is justified. You as an anthropologist should be especially aware of the bilateral interaction between the health of an individual and the health of the group, so it's surprising that you could be so focused on the negative effects of an intervention instead of the positive ones. Perhaps you really are unaware of just how harmful alcohol actually is.

I don't appreciate your attempt to racialise my argument. I'm not asserting for one second that some people should be able to buy alcohol when others shouldn't. That's why I said in my previous post that I'd be happy for a total ban on the same of alcohol, or at least for it's sale to be very heavily restricted.

It's ironic that you should speak about human rights, what about the rights of the unborn in regards to the negative consequences of fetal alcohol exposure, or the rights of children to grow up in a safe environment? How is society supposed to break the cycle of poverty for the underprivileged if underprivileged children are more concerned about alcohol related violence and abuse then they are about their education?

I think that it is a little harsh for the good anthropologist to get angry and spit the dummy at someone with whom he disagrees, or who disagrees with him because that sort of thing should be expected in a discussion forum such as this.

That aside, I think that Mr Tuck is quite wrong.

The problem with things like the NTER is that it is rubbish. I suppose I now need to explain why it is rubbish. There are the obvious ethical reasons. Perhaps more importantly it does nothing to address the problem. The problem is that Aboriginal people, who one presumes had a functioning culture and community/ies prior to colonisation, are now left with a non-functioning culture and community/ies because their country has been possessed by other people, so they are now effectively in a no-mans-land. And people need to go on and on about where alcohol abuse, domestic violence and other such dysfunctional problems stems from? How does the NTER help this problem? Of course it doesn't. In my view it simply blames the victims for what are the consequences of colonisation, and by doing so it can only make matters worse. Aboriginal people are again being bullied by colonising bureaucrats who are too blind to see that they are actually perpetuating many of the problems by not trying to understand where they arise from.

I'm also pretty confused about Mr Tucks reference to sex and drugs. Alcohol abuse has nothing to do with socialising. These people drink day in day out. It is a way of life, not a way of making friends. I am also a little bemused about your emphasis on foetal alcohol when it is, at least in my experience, quite trivial compared to all the other problems alcohol abuse may cause.

Hi Jon,

I meant that reference about alcohol and socialising as a reference to broader Australian society, not just to a specific group. Most people in broader society do drink alcohol in social contexts, or at least think that it is good for that purpose.
My reference to feotal alcohol syndrome was for the benefit of people who may be reading this thread who do not understand the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant. From what I have seen most people think that drinking a little bit of alcohol when pregnant is ok when the fact is that any amount of alcohol at all is potentially harmful to the development of a foetus because of the way in which some individuals are genetically more predisposed to harm from teratogens. I think that it is relevant seeing as the NTER was designed to help protect Aboriginal children. In fact, I think that the aim of most health policy is more relevant if it aimed at the well-being of children more than it is if it is just going to make the old live a little longer. The children are the future, those who are growing up in Australia now should be around a long time after we're gone. Not only that, they have the right to grow up in a safe environment. What kind of species allows it's young to be destroyed by the old? None that has survived that I can think of.

I am quite aware of how colonisation has destroyed Australian Aboriginal culture and left many Aboriginal people without the means to direct their lives. It is obvious that these people need help in order to regain autonomy in modern Australian culture. How exactly do you propose that should be done if you're so opposed to the actions being taken at the moment? I'd like to hear some real and constructive ideas instead of people just rubbishing my view.

Hi David,

Whilst it not necessarily a bad thing to mention the teratogenic effects of alcohol, it is a little off-topic I feel. The argument to me is that the NTER is a racist intervention, which I agree with. You ask what else can be done, as though if there are no better ideas it's OK to be racist. It does not really matter if there are no better ideas, you are not going to improve things by being racist.

If you have ever visited a remote Aboriginal community I am sure you will be dismayed. They look like neglected places, sandy, rubbish everywhere, stray dogs. I have never seen places of such poor standard in white communities. Housing is appalling and poorly maintained. There exists adequate references relating poor housing to poor health.
Then people wonder why there are so many problems. You could point your finger at the communities themselves, but ultimate responsibility I feel is on the government. They must know about these problems but to get them improved is just not on the agenda. White people would not accept living in conditions such as these but Aboriginal people seem to tolerate it, presumably because the do not expect anything different. Looking at what I have written suggests to me that racism is still alive and well as much as people will try to deny it.

Hi Jon,

That's exactly my point, the government is responsible and should be trying to do something to improve the standard of living for Aboriginal people in Australia. I have visited a couple of remote Aboriginal communities that were like the ones that you described, and yes, it was very confronting to see the conditions they lived in. Again, this only supports my view that the government needs to do something to address this situation. What exactly are the policies of the NTER that are racist? I ask because I honestly don't know as much about it as maybe I should. I concede that the ban on selling alcohol to people of European decent and not Aboriginal people is racist because it is based on perceived racial differences. That is why I suggested that alcohol should be banned for sale completely in areas where people are abusing it, no matter what part of the country it is, or who it is to. I'm not sure why that upsets so many people when clearly everyone is better off without it. I wonder if this is similar to way people used to carry on about freedom to smoke tobacco back in the day.
The whole issue of Aboriginal welfare is a minefield. As you pointed out, it shows a racist divide when a gap between the standard of living for Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals exists so blatantly. On the other, trying to create policy intended to remove that divide without racial distinctions is extremely difficult. I disagree that trying to fix this problem is not on the agenda for government, I think that the problem is so deeply ingrained that it is going to take decades, and maybe generations to rectify. I also think that it doesn't help when it is not possible to talk about the issue constructively when people are so quick to label others as racist just because they don't agree with them.

David, well we could argue forever as to whether the NTER is racist or not. Just imagine if these were white communities with the same problems, would the government have gone to so much trouble to enable them to plant these signs? I am sure that there are no white communities in this country that would accept being treated in this manner. It sends a message to everyone that Aboriginal people in communities are winos and paedophiles and is that not racist, or at least does it not have racist undertones? It is simply inappropriate to deal with issues such as this in this manner. And the government thinks it can help people with this sort of attitude.

The problem with racism is that you can't always see that it applies to you. I agree that discrimination according to race is necessary, but it should be in a supportive manner, not the derogatory way these signs represent.

Yes, I see your point that it could have the unintended effect of undermining people's dignity with the 'prohibited material' bit. So it is the signs that you have a problem with, not the intervention itself?

Oh, dear David, you miss the point entirely. The intervention is what I have a problem with, not the signs!

But you said that whatever happens, it should be done in a more supportive manner. Doesn't that imply some sort of action? How is Australia supposed to close the gap between the difference in the standard of living for Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals without some sort of action? The problem isn't just going to fix itself. I think that it's failing because of what you pointed out, that the policy makers weren't sensitive enough to what was needed in order to turn around the cycle of dysfunction. If the only thing that they are doing is banning alcohol and pornography it isn't going to achieve much. I thought that this was also supposed to be backed up by the delivery of greater public services. You mentioned how this kind of thing doesn't happen in 'white' communities, I'm guessing you mean more functional communities? The difference is that these communities have the appropriate services available to them that are necessary for high level functioning. Of course not all of them have the same level of services or the same level of functioning, but that's generally what it comes down to. As far as I know, the intervention is targeted at the outback communities where none of these services presumably exist. What is wrong with the government stepping up to provide them in the same way that they do in every other town/city in the country?

David,
the problem will fix, or at least improve, all it takes is a bit of respect. You don't really need a specific 'action'. There was a recent coronial inquiry in the deaths of several Anangu in Ceduna, all of whom died due to alcohol abuse. There is I believe good evidence that restricting alcohol helps with this, yet the only response is to restrict casks to 2 litres per person per day. That's not a restriction and will not make any difference. The health centre where I had worked asked many times for a rehab centre only to be knocked back repeatedly despite a significant problem with alcohol in town (much like Ceduna). There was a multimillion dollar rehab facility built in the APY lands which is now used for something else because it was built in the wrong place and without collaboration with the residents. They build houses which then become a derelict because there are no programs for maintenance in a sandy, dusty remote environment.

All it really takes is a little intelligence, I have yet to see that demonstrated from bureaucrats..