Alcohol policy reform in remote Australia: a potential roadmap

                Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.

               Julius Caesar Act 2, scene 1

 

The harm from misuse of alcohol is a national problem, affecting Indigenous and non-Indigenous segments of the Australian community alike. Neither is it subject to geographic limits. Accordingly, there is a strong case for appropriate national policies balancing regulation against  the social, economic, and even cultural benefits arising from alcohol consumption.

 

Nevertheless, a strong case can be made for giving greater weight to the addressing the costs (broadly defined) of alcohol misuse in remote regions, and in particular the costs on remote Indigenous communities. The case for such a regulatory policy focus is based on the extremely high levels of disadvantage across a wide array of social indicators, including many of the social determinants of health, in these remote populations. Moreover, alcohol harm coexists with extremely high rates of disease, self harm, mental illness, suicide, domestic violence, homicide, poor education outcomes, low employment outcomes amongst remote Indigenous communities. Without seeking to demonstrate a direction of causality, there are strong intuitive grounds for assuming that causality may indeed operate in both directions. For example, alcohol misuse will within a household will impact children’s schooling, and poor education will limit opportunities, leading to behavioural issues that individuals seek to ameliorate with alcohol.

 

I don’t propose to elaborate further in this post on the evidence of adverse social and health outcomes of alcohol misuse within Indigenous communities. I refer interested readers to an excellent review of these issues by Dennis Gray et.al. from 2018 titled ‘Review of the harmful use of alcohol among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’, published in the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet (link here).

 

I have previously (in 2016, and 2021) written about the issues relating to the regulation of alcohol consumption in the NT (link here and link here) and more generally in 2017 (link here). These posts individually and together provide good background on the policy issues around alcohol in remote communities. In this post, I seek to argue that the problems of the NT in relation to the regulation of alcohol consumption are in fact also present in other jurisdictions with remote Indigenous populations (particularly WA), are deeper than commonly understood, and more damaging to the social fabric of remote Australia, particularly its Indigenous communities.

 

Western Australian developments

 

In WA, there is currently underway an inquiry by the Director of Liquor Licencing into Kimberley and Pilbara packaged liquor availability (link here). The following material is extracted (but is not a direct quotation) from the link just cited on the Department’s website.

 

In July 2020 the then Director of Liquor Licensing commenced two separate Inquiries — under section 64 of the Liquor Control Act 1988 — into whether restrictions should be imposed on availability of packaged liquor in nine major towns and surrounding communities across the Pilbara and the Kimberley. The list appears to not cover some major towns such as Port Hedland and South Hedland.

 

The Inquiries followed reports received from the then Police Commissioner highlighting negative impacts of alcohol in the Pilbara and Kimberley, such as crime and anti-social behaviour. Some thirty submissions have been received from “health care and social services providers, local government authorities and academics about reducing the risk of alcohol related harm.”

 

A decision to extend the date for retailers to make submission has recently been announced.

Extra time has been granted for licensees in 9 Pilbara and Kimberley towns to have a say on whether packaged liquor sales should be restricted in those communities of Western Australia.

WA’s Director of Liquor Licensing Lanie Chopping has extended the deadline for industry submissions until 1 September 2022. This is in response to requests from stakeholders, and to allow more time for careful consideration of complex issues around alcohol-related harm and packaged liquor sales.

The consultation process had previously been extended from 30 November 2021 to 1 July 2022 taking into consideration disruptions due to the pandemic and emergency management powers.

 

A section headed Next Steps provides some contextual information on the slow progress of the review:

Lanie Chopping, Director of Liquor Licensing for WA (and also the Director General, Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries) said:

“My Inquiries into whether to restrict packaged liquor sales in the Kimberley and Pilbara are still very much underway and as such I’ve extended the deadline for submissions by alcohol retailers.

“A number of things have changed since these Inquiries began, including the trial of new measures, like the Banned Drinkers Register, and sly-grogging prevention strategy and state of emergency liquor restrictions.

“Our consultation process is under review and development, and we are looking at ways to be more transparent about feedback received and how decisions are made. Updates are being made to our website to convey information currently available.” 

 

So what are we to make of all this?

 

The ongoing attention and activity by the West Australian Government, albeit often framed around issues of youth crime and and antisocial behaviour, suggests the existence of significant issues both amongst drinkers and their families, and also of significant spillover consequences for businesses and the non-drinking community.

 

Concurrently, the Commonwealth has recently introduced legislation to remove the previous Government’s Cashless Debit Card (CDC) (link here), a geographically focussed policy  which had been justified at least in part on the basis of reducing alcohol harm. Evaluations of the program produced mixed findings in relation to alcohol (link here and link here). Whatever its other policy merits and defects, the WA focus on further regulatory change suggests that the CDC program’s operation in the East Kimberley since 2017 has not made earth shattering breakthroughs in reducing alcohol harm.

 

I propose to focus on two major points. The first points to the sensitivity of government in relation to the influence of the alcohol industry. The second relates to issues of regulatory independence and transparency. These issues may not be entirely independent of each other.

 

The influence of alcohol interests

A recent article in the National Indigenous Times (link here) mentions that the WA Police Commissioner has made some rather equivocal comments on the issue of controls on the sale of alcohol:

 Earlier this week new West Australian police commissioner Col Blanch said he would support a ban on takeaway alcohol apart from light beer in the Pilbara and Kimberley if it is deemed to be the most effective option for reducing alcohol-related harm.

 

The same article mentions that the Premier has stated that he does not support the proposed bans. Responding to a submission by the previous Police Commissioner in January 2020, the Premier argued a ban on takeaway sales would be too far reaching (link here):

"The problem with a blanket alcohol restriction is it impacts those people who do the right thing ... and to a degree, it removes self-determination from people as to what decisions individual communities want to make," Mr McGowan told reporters on Thursday.

"Some communities have made the decision to go dry and I support them in that. "But if you just have a blanket approach, you are going to hurt the tourism industry and we will hurt jobs across the northwest."

 

The article just cited went on to note that full-strength alcohol would still be available at pubs and restaurants under the proposal, and that Mr McGowan has previously suggested he would prefer a banned-drinkers register as a means of tackling alcohol abuse.

 

The article also noted that the previous Police Commissioner had pointed out that a ban on the sale of full-strength takeaway alcohol in the Kimberley town of Fitzroy Crossing, driven by local Aboriginal leaders, had led to fewer hospital presentations and road deaths:

"There's a number of very, very senior Aboriginal leaders who are loudly saying 'we need to interrupt this'," Mr Dawson told Nine Radio.

"How do we provide the best possible care to vulnerable people when there is so much consumption of alcohol? "The volumes that are being sold are astronomical."

 

So on the one hand, we have the Premier, clearly an astute and accomplished politician, arguing against takeaway restrictions, while two Police Commissioners are on the record expressing support for restrictions.

 

Clearly, this is an issue that is crying out for a comprehensive and independent inquiry which documents the extent of alcohol use and misuse, identifies the social and health consequences (and costs), considers the wider ramifications to community welfare, including suicide, education, mental health, domestic and family violence, as well as the costs to tourism and other businesses in regional areas.

Such an Inquiry would then be in a position to suggest policy reforms from a position of robust policy analysis.

 

This raises the question: is the current inquiry by the WA Director of Liquor Licencing up to this task?

 

Regulatory independence and transparency

 

The publicly available details for the inquiries currently underway are to be found on the departmental web site (link here). The terms of reference for the inquiries are not publicly accessible. Nor are details of the process used to invite submissions, nor indeed are the submissions so far received. We might surmise however that the inquiry will be relatively narrow in scope, and at best will limit itself to addressing the matters raised in submissions. The delays to date are explained as arising from the pandemic and the introduction of new policy measures, both plausible explanations. It seems somewhat strange however that the extension of time for submissions is limited to alcohol retailers, on its face, a case of preferencing industry interests over community and service provider interests. A cynic might speculatively surmise that the reason for the extension is to ensure that industry viewpoints are formally on the table for the review to assess and utilise. Of course, the obverse of such an observation would be that industry interests saw no need to make formal submissions, presumably because they utilised other avenues to have their views considered and heard.

 

The Department has explained that the submissions received so far will not be made public for the following reasons:

A lot of these submissions are hard copy documents and some are very lengthy. They also contain personal information that would need to be redacted before being shared. For these reasons we intend to publish a summary of the submissions — for example themes — once all relevant parties have had an opportunity to comment.

 

Apart from its ‘dog ate my homework’ tone, this is far from best practice, and means that the arguments and views that contribute to the Inquiry are never transparently available to the public.

 

The major structural issue with this Inquiry however is the lack of independence. The Director of Liquor Licencing is simultaneously the CEO of the relevant Department. The department has been at pains to make clear that these dual roles exist, and asserts on the relevant website page that Inquiries by the Director of Liquor Licensing are independent of the Minister for Racing, Gaming and Liquor. Nevertheless, this disclosure does not amount to being independent.  Media releases from bodies such as the Liquor Stores Association of WA applauding the Director’s recent appointment as CEO of the Department do not help either (link here).

 

As an aside, it is worth mentioning that the WA legislation is almost bizarre insofar as it provides for a Licencing Commission, but effectively makes it subservient to the instructions and directives of the Director of Liquor Licencing. Thus particularly sensitive matters are not put before the Licencing Commission, but are dealt with by the Director of Liquor Licencing. This reverses normal practice elsewhere where the Commissions are independent, and public servnats are not involved in making licencing related decisions.

 

For all these reasons, the current WA Inquiry is likely to lead to minimal substantive change, more incremental adjustment, more fine tuning, providing the appearance of action while leaving the underlying determinants of the adverse impacts of alcohol misuse in Pilbara and the Kimberley in place. What is needed is some sort of significant circuit breaker, but the likelihood of that arising endogenously within the Western Australian political system seems miniscule.

 

Conclusion

The social harm of alcohol across remote Australia has been apparent for decades. The issues being confronted in the north of WA are paralleled in the Northern Territory. It is clear that the Commonwealth has effectively vacated this policy sector, leaving states and the NT to grapple with addressing the huge levels of social harm and distress that accompanies alcohol misuse.

 

Unfortunately, as I have argued in my previous posts (link here and link here), corporate alcohol interests have a stranglehold or veto over policy initiatives designed to address or mitigate the consequences of alcohol misuse.

 

Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s reluctance to engage with these issues, the Commonwealth does have a policy responsibility. It is clear that the issues involved are structural and extend beyond any one state or territory. On its own this suggests that Commonwealth action may be necessary.

 

Second, the Commonwealth is picking up a substantial proportion of the costs which flow from alcohol misuse: it is the major funder of the health system, the social security system, and the disability sector which deals with the significant numbers of newborns suffering from foetal alcohol syndrome (FASD). The fact that the states and territories do not pay the full cost of the consequences of their alcohol policies incentivises them to adopt (sub-optimal) policies that shift those costs to the Commonwealth.

 

Third, the Commonwealth has a concurrent constitutional jurisdiction to legislate for Indigenous citizens, and it is Indigenous citizens who are the most vulnerable and worst affected by alcohol misuse in remote Australia. Remind me: what was the point of the 1967 referendum if the Commonwealth just sits on its hands when structural issues imposing lifelong costs and constraints on the life opportunities of countless remote citizens are in play?

 

It is clear that the Commonwealth has a potential role in this policy space. What then should it do. There are a myriad of policy options available. They range from across the board reforms affecting all Australian drinkers, to regionally focussed reforms or special measures directed to Indigenous communities. These include, inter alia, the establishment of a unit price on alcohol, the use of the tax system to nudge consumers away from alcohol consumption, the establishment of sustained and well-resourced educational programs designed to change the levels of social acceptance of alcohol misuse across the community, and the use of health warnings similar to those in place for smoking.

 

Given this range of policy choice, the reluctance of the states and territories to initiate major policy reforms, the political sensitivity of driving substantive policy reform, and the complexity of the issues facing remote communities, the momentum for Commonwealth action appears to be absent. In these circumstances, for socially progressive interests concerned at the ongoing social destruction arising form alcohol across remote Australia, the best course of action in my view would be to advocate for a comprehensive and robustly independent policy review focussed particularly on remote Australia, with broad terms of reference and a tight time frame. I can think of no such comprehensive inquiry into these issues in recent times, although the recent Gilbert review into the proposal for a Dan Murphy super store in Darwin (link here) provides an excellent template and model.

 

Of course the Commonwealth too is subject to pressure and co-option by the alcohol industry. An independent review would threaten those interests and would be opposed. Nevertheless, with sustained pressure from an alliance of Indigenous service providers, and mainstream health advocates, and the assistance of the cross bench, the time might arrive where a Government would initiate such an Inquiry.

 

There is a risk is that these issues are seen as abstract policy issues, without relevance to the lives of ordinary citizens or voters. The reality is that the current policy settings are facilitating increased family violence, contributing to youth suicide, fuelling the rise in our prison population, destroying the lives of drinkers, shortening lifespans, and adversely impacting newborns by substantially and permanently constraining their life opportunities. The case for policy reform is overwhelming. How is it that governments wont act?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interests shape policy more than voters

 

You spotted snakes with double tongue,

Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;

Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,

Come not near our fairy queen.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Scene 2.

  

A few days ago, trudging in misty rain through a field near the village of Tintagel in Cornwall, I came across a recently deceased hedgehog. It had been flattened by a tractor. This put me in mind of the Greek poet Archilocus’ aphorism: "a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing".

 

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a famous essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, categorising thinkers and writers as either hedgehogs who interpret the world through a single overarching idea or theory, or foxes who are open to multiple theoretical explanations in explaining events.

 

It strikes me that most policymakers and analysts — not just in the Indigenous policy domain — are prone to being hedgehogs of one sort or another, often without realising it. I don’t exclude myself from this generalisation. If true, one obvious implication is that complexity is systematically overlooked. Another less obvious implication is that particular big ideas become so embedded and ubiquitous that we unconsciously constrain our analyses to processes and options that implicitly assume the correctness or validity of the particular big idea to which we subscribe, and thus ignore the potential influence of alternative big ideas. It is this less obvious implication that I explore here.

 

One particular big idea that is widely assumed to be innately correct is that our system of electoral democracy is of paramount importance in shaping policy outcomes.

 

A recent CAEPR research publication, Indigenous electoral power in the 2022 Federal election: a geographical snapshot of latent potential,  by Francis Markham and Bhiamie Williamson (link here) is just one of numerous examples I could point to which reinforce the big idea that electoral democracy is crucial and/or paramount in framing policy. The consequence is that these analyses implicitly shift focus away from alternative, and potentially more relevant, influences on policy formation.

 

Markham and Williamson’s analysis is at once straightforward and eye-opening. They analyse Indigenous voting participation and persuasively demonstrate that notwithstanding the existence of compulsory voting, the national Indigenous electoral participation rate is extremely low. They estimate it to be around 44%. To my mind this is the most significant policy implication of their excellent analysis, and one deserving of much more attention from policy analysts.

 

However, Markham and Williamson have a different point to make. They go on to compare the winning margins in particular electorates in the recent Federal election (they focus particularly on ten electorates: see Table 3) with an estimate of the estimated Indigenous voting eligible population (VEP). Their detailed analysis demonstrates that there is a theoretical opportunity to mobilise both existing Indigenous voters and electorally disengaged Indigenous citizens, which if successfully implemented could determine electoral outcomes in multiple electorates across remote, regional and even urban Australia. They argue this represents unrealised Indigenous voting power, and conclude, contra the extant dominant narrative of Indigenous electoral powerlessness, that this latent electoral power ‘has significant potential to be assembled in exchange for policy reform or Indigenous representation’.

 

A critique of Markham and Williamson’s argument is feasible, based the undoubted challenges involved in assembling such an Indigenous electoral constituency. These challenges presumably include arguments that Indigenous heterogeneity, including political heterogeneity, is so deeply embedded that it would preclude the assembly of such a constituency; or that Indigenous electoral disengagement is in fact a rational and intentional response by potential Indigenous voters to the ubiquity of political exclusion.

 

My intention however is not to critique this research on its own terms, as it is clearly extremely valuable in understanding the level of Indigenous engagement with the electoral system. While they forego this path, their analysis opens a portal to further analysis that might seek to understand both the reasons for this disengagement, and the consequences. This should be an issue of major concern to both governments and the community at large as it may foreshadow much more widespread disenchantment with the electoral system itself amongst the wider community (link here).

 

Rather, I suggest that by focussing on voting and electoral participation as a pathway to greater political and policy influence, Markham and Williamson have implicitly reinforced the big idea that electoral democracy is crucial in shaping policy outcomes.

 

I take a different view. Elections are important, inter alia because they are the mechanism we use to choose the executive arm of government, and to also choose the Parliament which enacts new laws (and repeals old laws). Yet our system of representative democracy also operates in informal ways. The Executive dominates the legislature, often prioritises political considerations over the public interest, and most importantly, is itself influenced by, and at times captured by, or co-opted by, powerful corporate interests (link here and link here).

 

In fact, once you start looking, the determinative influence of interest groups on policy are ubiquitous, including in the Indigenous policy domain. Why did the Hawke Government’s proposals for national land rights fail? Why is there no mining veto in the Native Title Act? Why did the Federal Environment Minister not take action to prevent the destruction of Jukuun Gorge? Why did the NT Government seek to ignore its Licencing Regulator and allow a major alcohol outlet to be built near Aboriginal camps in Darwin? (link here). Why has the NT Government recently reversed 14 years of policy to implement a policy that nudges remote communities towards allowing alcohol in previously dry communities (link here).

 

Moreover, the collateral damage amongst vulnerable and Indigenous citizens as interest groups pursue their interests in mainstream contexts are also considerable: Why are punitive policing and incarceration the first ports of call in the administration of justice in Indigenous contexts? Why are social security payments maintained below the poverty line? Why are funds available for tax cuts targeted primarily at high income owners, but not for essential services and housing in remote communities? (link here). Why do governments fail to adequately fund the policies required to close the gap? (link here).

 

Of course (to adopt some fox like traits), not everything is explained by the role of external and powerful corporate interest groups: politicians develop strong views, often ideologically determined; partisan politics rather than interest group advocacy can determine particular policy approaches; and some Indigenous interest groups within the Indigenous domain exert influence over policy.

 

Nevertheless, it is my contention that the big idea of democratic electoral politics being the primary pathway to policy influence in today’s Australia is deeply flawed. An alternative big idea, that interest groups, together and individually, shape most significant policy should replace it or be added to the mix.

 

This leads me to the view that the pathway to greater policy influence and ultimately greater inclusion and political power within Australian society for Indigenous interests lies in building robust and independent Indigenous advocacy capability. To do this requires building Indigenous advocacy institutions independent of direct government funding and support. Implicit in this idea is the notion that the influence and power of mainstream interests must be countered and alternative policy narratives proposed and advocated at the genesis of policy proposals. Moreover, an effective Indigenous advocacy capability would operate to ‘plough the ground’ with politicians and policymakers in advance of particular issues arising to ensure good channels of communication exist and can be available when needed. This is not rocket science; it is exactly what key interests such as the National Farmers Federation or the Minerals Council, or the scores of lesser interest group organisations do now. 

 

Assuming my assessment has merit, what are the implications for key existing and proposed institutions in the Indigenous policy domain?

 

The first point to make is that the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and the emergence of the Coalition of Indigenous Peaks has been, and should continue to be, an extraordinarily important step in the direction of building a robust Indigenous advocacy capability in Australia. I have discussed this in some detail previously (link here). Nevertheless, it is still in its infancy and will take at least ten years to reach the level of effectiveness required to begin to meet its full potential. Moreover it faces considerable challenges going forward, not least transitioning from its current leadership that has built it from the ground up, to a second generation leadership focussed on embedding and strengthening the substantial and in many respects extraordinary gains made to date. Additional challenges include strengthening its financial independence as insurance against future co-option by governments (it is presently entirely funded by government), and strengthening its internal coherence given that its membership comprises some fifty or so sector specific peak bodies, each with their own agenda for prioritising the Coalition’s focus and efforts.

 

A key reason that the Coalition of Peaks is so important is that it effectively covers and has expertise in the broad expanse of policy, from health, ageing, housing to criminal justice, disability, alcohol policy, human rights, social security and native title. This extraordinary policy breadth is increasingly impacted by mainstream policies, thus ensuring a logarithmic growth curve in policy complexity that must be mastered to ensure it is working in the interests of Indigenous citizens, particularly the most vulnerable of them.

 

The second development is the near certainty that a referendum to amend the constitution to require the establishment of an Indigenous Voice will be held next year, and if successful, that legislation will be enacted to create such a Voice.

 

The currently proposed text of the amendment (link here) is as follows:

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

 

It is presently unclear how the membership of a Voice would be selected, though it seems likely that it will involve elections of members wither directly or in some tiered arrangement where regional elected bodies choose a representative such as was used by ATSIC.

 

While it seems likely that many of the members of the national Voice will have policy expertise and experience, the reality will be that very few will have broad policy experience across multiple sectors, and the complexity of the policy issues the Voice will confront will be daunting. The stark reality is that members of any national level Voice will inevitably rely on access to the views of Indigenous organisations (interests) dealing with the particular issues under consideration, and these views are most likely to be best developed by the peak bodies dealing with those issues.

 

My core point is that for Indigenous interests to be effectively advocated, the proposed Voice, and the existing Coalition of Peaks are necessarily complementary, and will need to work together and in tandem. This point is valid whichever of the two big ideas discussed above are paramount. But it is especially the case if it is accepted that the advocacy of interest groups are more important than the operation of the institutions of representative democracy in shaping policy.

 

In February 2021, I posted an article (link here) arguing that any Voice would require a substantial research capability, and arguing that it would be undesirable to give the Voice a remit beyond advice to Parliament. This post is worth reading or re-reading. I maintain the views expressed in that post, while recognising that the temptation to give the Voice a wider remit is difficult for both Indigenous proponents and governments to resist.

 

My earlier post also argued that Indigenous interests should advocate for a mechanism to ensure that whichever design is chosen by the Parliament in the near term or the longer term, it is not able to be starved of financial resources. A failure to achieve some level of financial independence means that future governments will be able to use the carrot or stick of funding to influence and co-opt the Voice.

 

Whether the Voice’s remit is limited to Parliament or extends to the Executive as well, it will still be the case that the Voice and the Coalition of Peaks are complementary and synergistically related. It would be a simplistic misreading to argue that they are duplicate. To make a rough analogy, the existence of the NFF does not mean that National Party representation in Parliament is not seen as important by primary production interests, and nor does the existence of substantial parliamentary representation mean that the NFF does not have a role to play in advancing primary producer interests. The same duality applies to the Indigenous domain in the context of the Voice.

 

To return to where I began, the hedghog’s big idea is that it can rely on its spines and its ability to roll into a ball to protect itself from most predators. Yet this survival strategy evolved in an environment where tractors were unknown.

 

If the Indigenous leadership base their long term strategy on the big idea that electoral processes are the secret to shaping better policies, they run the risk that they will be flattened by the tractor of mainstream interest group dominance. The solution is to build the capability to counter mainstream interest group influence with sophisticated and sustained Indigenous advocacy insulated against co-option by governments or others. In my view, this will require that the Voice, the Coalition of Peaks, and other significant Indigenous organisations work in tandem. In the absence of such coordinated leadership, Indigenous interests will likely continue to be marginalised, and their influence in shifting the embedded structural imbalances within the Australian polity will be constrained and sub-optimal.