“The abuse of alcohol is the biggest social issue facing the Northern Territory,” the NT Chief Minister, Paul Henderson, told a media scrum Monday morning in a moment of uncharacteristic candour.
Henderson was in a reflective mood following his return to duty from a Christmas/New Year break. He made this telling observation during a doorstop which followed the announcement of a boost to ambulance services in Darwin’s neighbouring city of Palmerston.
He’s right about the grog of course, but it’s a rare and creditable thing for a government minister to be so candid. And what’s more, he is in a perfect position to do something about it.
But if Henderson is intent on bringing about change, he’ll have his work cut out, because it will mean taking on both the powerful alcohol lobby and the entrenched popular culture fantasy of the NT as a hard-drinking wild frontier.
Drink-driving in the Territory is endemic, with the unlikely blood-alcohol levels of offending drivers regularly finding their way into large-point type. The damage that alcohol does in many remote Aboriginal communities was highlighted in the Little Children are Sacred report, generating widespread but unheeded calls to stem the “rivers of grog”.
A popular — and for some comforting — myth is that the grog in the NT is a “black problem”. The truth is that Indigenous Australians are more likely to do their drinking in public places, while we whitefellas sock it away by the truckload in the clubs and around the barbies.
In Darwin, the Mitchell Street strip is the choice of revellers on Friday and Saturday nights, as they crawl the street’s assortment of pubs, clubs and bars. To wander this street after midnight is to see some seriously drunk human beings.
But it’s hard to know from whence they came, given the hotel industry’s po-faced assurance that they do not serve drunk patrons. The boozers themselves have plenty of security, but once the punters are tipped out onto the street, the Australian Hotels Association would simply implore them to “take some responsibility for their actions”.
If Henderson is fair dinkum, then he doesn’t need to spend undue amounts of time scratching his chin — or any other part of his anatomy. The work has been done and the science is fairly clear. But what works in reducing alcohol consumption is not the glossy “awareness campaigns” so beloved of the alcohol industry.
People like Dr John Boffa and Donna Ah Chee at the Central Australian Aboriginal Medical Congress, and Professor Dennis Gray at the National Drug Research Institute have done the hard yards. But the science is not palatable. As Donna Ah Chee observes, what is popular doesn’t work, and what works is not popular.
What works is reducing the hours during which alcohol can be purchased, and using a “volumetric tax” on alcohol to place a “floor price” on the purchase of the cheapest alcoholic drinks. Needless to say, these policies are anathema to the grog industry.
Paul Henderson was brave to make his statement. To call for some reduction in the worst excesses of grog-fuelled, anti-social behaviour is to risk being branded a wowser, and “un-Territorian”. The way forward is clearly signposted, but the journey requires a large dollop of political courage.
Over to you Chief Minister.
No State or Territory Government can fix this. Grag runners and savvy people will just buy their alcohol interstate (like I do!) and avoid the taxes.
The Federal Government needs to tackle this.
I’ve assessed Paul Henderson as someone who has made a frank admission about a serious problem.
I’ve also noted that he is in the Territory’s top job and thus well-placed to do something about it.
Let’s watch closely and see if anything happens.
Graham Ring
Don’t know who Graham Ring is, but he has assessed Paul Henderson exactly right, as a do-nothing prevaricator who relly has no idea what to do about anything. Previous Govts of the Nt had credibility and power, but this lot can’t even set up a simple fishing licence scheme let alone responsibly handle a $4billion budget.
Shame!!!
Paul Henderson actually do something? I think not. He is too busy protecting his backside and back stabbing to make any major decision. The CM will talk the talk but there is no way he will walk the talk. I’ll bare my backside in Mitchell Street if Henderson has the poltical balls to do what we all know needs to be done. That decision requires a spine and that is something Henderson has so clearly lacked since birth.