Kavanagh, Maggie --- "Curtin Springs Roadhouse - Ten Years of Community Struggle" [1999] IndigLawB 24; (1999) 4(19) Indigenous Law Bulletin 15

• Curtin Springs Roadhouse – Ten Years Of Community Struggle

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Curtin Springs Roadhouse –
Ten Years of Community Struggle

The history of attempts of Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra people (Anangu) to restrict alcohol sales from Curtin Springs Roadhouse (CSR) has been a history of frustration, legislative indifference and deep tragedy. Yet Anangu took on the long and bitter struggle to put an end to the suffering and frustration they had endured because of the deaths, violence and disruption CSR alcohol brought to their lives. It is a story that stands testament to their courage to perservere.

For over twenty years Anangu have consistently expressed concerns about the impact of alcohol on their communities in the cross border region of South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In particular Anangu have continually lodged formal complaints with the Northern Territory Liquor Commission (NTLC) about the operations of CSR. This roadhouse has represented a special threat because of its central location and accessibility to Anangu communities. It is located in the Northern Territory on the Lasseter Highway, approximately 80 km east from Ayers Rock Resort, 100 km from Mutitjulu community, 105 km from Imanpa community and 150 km from Amata community. The complaints have detailed deaths, serious accidents and major social and cultural dislocation in the region as a result from people drinking at CSR.

Historically CSR did not sell takeaway alcohol to Anangu despite there being no restrictions on the licence or any formal agreements with communities. The licensee having lived in the area for many years had restricted sales to Anangu at their request. This seemed to work so well that when the Pitjantjatjara Council on behalf of communities objected to the renewal of the takeaway licence in 1985 it was rejected by the NTLC who preferred the informal arrangement to continue. Suddenly, however, in early 1988 CSR started to sell unrestricted sales of alcohol to Anangu. Despite numerous direct requests to the licensee from Anangu not to sell alcohol, he decided to impose a “restriction” on takeaway alcohol of one 4 litre cask of wine and one carton of beer per person per day.

Attempts to reduce the deleterious effects of alcohol on families and communities has been a priority of the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women's Council since its inception in 1980. (See attached information about NPY.) Once CSR started to sell alcohol to Anangu the impact on communities was immediate and devastating. The Pitjantjatjara Council and NPY complained to the NTLC about the increased sales of alcohol and when that was unsuccessful NPY objected to the renewal of CSR takeaway licence. These efforts failed. The NTLC determined that there were no grounds for complaint and rejected the objections to the licence renewal.

In 1990 the Pitjantjatjara Council sought a judicial review of the decision before the Northern Territory Supreme Court against the renewal of the CSR licence. Despite this action pending the NTLC renewed the CSR licence and imposed a blanket takeaway limit of six cans of beer per person per day. The subsequent decision by the Supreme Court was very critical of the way the NTLC handled the CSR complaint. Notwithstanding the findings NTLC refused to ban takeaway alcohol sales and continued to permit the daily sale of six cans of beer. A majority of Anangu were unhappy with this decision and feared further disruption and violence in the communities as a result of continued sales of alcohol from CSR.

Unfortunately these concerns were well founded. In 1990 there were five deaths and one serious injury all directly attributable to alcohol purchased from Curtin Springs.^[1] NPY and Pitjantjatjara Council lodged complaints of these incidents with the NTLC, requested an investigation of the matters and sought a cessation of takeaway alcohol sales under Section 48 of the NT Liquor Act.

Nothing happened and the flow of alcohol continued.

In November 1993 NPY and Pitjantjatjara Council lodged a formal complaint with the NTLC concerning breaches of CSR's licence conditions under Section 102 of the NT Liquor Act. Anangu held a meeting with the NTLC Chairman, Mr John Malley to discuss the complaints. At the meeting the Chairman was presented with letters from 14 communities and organisations all calling for an immediate end to takeaway sales of alcohol to Aboriginal people at CSR.

Unfortunately for Anangu the Chairman felt that he did not have the "power" to place restrictions on CSR as he labelled evidence presented as merely anecdotal (even though he said he believed people’s reports). He would not consider a proposal to place a trial ban for a 3 month period on takeaway alcohol sales to give communities a breather and to provide an opportunity to assess the situation. The NTLC agreed to hold a hearing to deal with the formal complaint but subsequent events resulted in the focus being taken away from CSR.

A formal hearing never took place.

Meanwhile the Chairman had made a unilateral decision to broaden the scope of the complaint against CSR to include the other roadhouses in the region. A "pre hearing conference" was organised by the NTLC and licensees from the Northern Territory and South Australia were invited to participate. This led to further meetings and resulted in the Chairman attempting to implement his regional plan "Project Sunshine". The Chairman actively dissuaded NPY from proceeding with the formal hearing and encouraging support for Project Sunshine. At a Women’s Council meeting that the Chairman attended the women objected strongly to the use of this term "sunshine" to the plight of Aboriginal people and alcohol. To them it trivialised their struggle. Support for the proposals were not forthcoming because it took away emphasis from the major problem, which was distribution of alcohol from CSR. The same concerns did not exist about the licence operations of the other roadhouses in the region.

As part of "Project Sunshine", the NTLC consulted licensees in the region concerning a proposal for a common rule regarding alcohol sales to Anangu. The "rule" agreed to focus only on the regulation of takeaway alcohol sales. The agreement was for six cans of beer to be sold to Anangu between the hours of 4:30 to 5:30 pm daily. Anangu advised Mr Malley this rule would be a dramatic change from the status quo because the majority of roadhouses do not sell any takeaway alcohol to community members. The Commission made clear it was unwilling to accept that this response was the prevailing view of communities.

To satisfy the NTLC the Pitjantjatjara Council applied for funds from the NT Government’s Living With Alcohol (LWA) Program^[2] in order to ascertain the communities’ views of this proposed rule. These funds come from a levy on sales of alcohol containing 3 per cent per volume. In 1993/94 the program received $7.57 million from the levy. It took almost 12 months from when the submission was lodged until a decision was made to grant funding. The preparedness of Anangu to consider and carry out the consultations in good faith ended with LWA program insisting that the funds be administered and the consultation process be run by the NTLC. Anangu considered this to be unacceptable as it undermined their ability to undertake such work in their own right. The proposal was rejected by Anangu.

Over time the environment at Curtin Springs increasingly promoted drinking amongst Anangu. With the ease of availability and encouragement to persevere with regular drinking practices, both on and off the premises, the maintenance of a drinking culture for Anangu became stronger and stronger. This in turn led to more deaths, horrific car accidents, numerous serious and minor assaults, continuing domestic violence incidents, frequent drunk driving offences and all the accompanying disruption to community life that was outlined to the NTLC in the original complaint in November 1993.

Between 1993 and 1996 eight people from local communities died in circumstances where alcohol purchased from Curtin Springs was a direct contributory factor.^[3] Throughout 1997, the Northern Territory Coroners Office held a coronial inquest into the deaths of five of these people who had died in car accidents between November 1994 and February 1995 and involving alcohol from Curtin Springs. The Coroner did find that the sale of alcohol from Curtin Springs was directly linked to the deaths.

In 1995 the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) released the Alcohol Report that examined human rights, alcohol and race discrimination. Of special importance to NPY was the finding that alcohol restrictions that applied solely to Aboriginal people does not contravene the Racial Discrimination Act if it constitutes a “special measure”. A provision was now available for Aboriginal people to apply to HREOC for a special measures certificate that would give protection to licensees of claims of racial discrimination if they entered into agreements that restricted alcohol sales to Aboriginal people.

In July 1996 NPY coordinated a detailed submission to the Race Discrimination Commission requesting a Special Measures Application (SMA) under section 8 (1) of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) to apply to Curtin Springs.^[4] The decision to apply was made as Anangu had exhausted all other avenues to have the responsible licensing authority take appropriate measures to limit the sale of CSR alcohol. NPY thought it to be a cumbersome way to obtain alcohol restrictions but there was a sense that this was the only course of action left for Anangu.

The submission asked that CSR not to be permitted to sell any takeaway alcohol to Anangu from the member communities and homelands of the NPY region in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory and would only be permitted to sell four cans of 375 mls beer per day to Anangu for drinking on the premises. This proposal was seen as a compromise between the drinkers and non drinkers.

Finally in December 1996 the CSR licensee agreed to a special measures certificate covering alcohol restrictions for a 12 month trial period. In the first six months of 1997 no sales of takeaway alcohol to Anangu were permitted and only drinking on the premises from 1 pm to 4 pm was allowed. In the second half of the year there was no drinking on the premises and only take away sales of six cans per person per day between the hours of 1pm and 4 pm was permitted. Anangu were also required to sign a registrar when purchasing takeaways. Initially NPY was not happy to agree to a period of takeaway sales but felt that a trade off of having six months with no takeaways would bring immediate welcomed respite. They were right.

In December 1997 the CSR licensee and NPY met to assess the trial period and to make a decision on further alcohol restrictions. A number of options were put forward by the licensee. Anangu then asked the licensee to leave the room so they could have a discussion about his proposals as people certainly did not want to put off making a decision to yet another meeting. Once the licensee had left the room there was stunned silence followed by yelps of joy for there on the white board was the option to stop selling alcohol to Anangu.

Anangu felt they had come full circle - back to the situation as it had been prior to 1988 - that is, no sales of alcohol to Anangu. A further special measures certificate has been granted by the Race Discrimination Commissioner until 30 June 1999 agreeing that there shall be no sales of liquor from CSR to Anangu. Today relationships between the CSR and NPY are cordial - we communicate regularly around a friendly cup of tea at the roadhouse instead of sparring in the courtroom. The licensee states that his business has picked up considerably since the alcohol restrictions and he is happy with the arrangement. We have offered to produce a pamphlet to explain the restrictions to tourists who believe his actions are discriminatory.

Anangu too are pleased with the restrictions. Women from Mutitjulu and Amata in particular have reported that their lives are much happier with less alcohol related problemsin their communities. They have said that they sleep better at night, the kids are going to school more often, that less people are going to the clinics with injuries from fighting, there are less domestic violence incidents, they have more money for food and there have been no alcohol related car accidents or deaths of Anangu on the highway in the past two years.^[5]

The Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Services has commissioned The Menzies School of Health Research to undertake an evaluation of the 1997 trial period restrictions. The report was completed in June 1998 but to date it has not been publicly released. We look forward to the release of this report.

Anangu admit that prohibiting alcohol is not the total answer for all of the social problems they face, but this story highlights their resolve to struggle against what at many times over the past ten years has seemed liked insurmountable odds.

Maggie Kavanagh has been the Coordinator of NPY Women’s Council since 1987

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^[1] Source: NPY Women’s Council statistics

^[2] These funds come from a levy on all liquor sales in the Northern Territory. In 1993-4, the program received $7.57 million from the levy.

^[3] NPY Women’s Council statistics.

^[4] Kavanagh, M. Submission to the Race Discrimination Commissioner by NPY Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation on behalf of Member Communities in SA, WA and NT seeking a Special Application under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) concerning the Operations of Curtin Springs Roadhouse. (NPY Women’s Council, Alice Springs, 1996)

^[5] The Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Services has commissioned The Menzies School of Health Research to undertake an evaluation of the 1997 trial period restrictions.