TEACHING ‘PROPER’ DRINKING? CLUBS AND PUBS IN INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA TEACHING ‘PROPER’ DRINKING? CLUBS AND PUBS IN INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA Maggie Brady Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research College of Arts and Social Sciences The Australian National University, Canberra RESEARCH MONOGRAPH NO. 39 2017 Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Brady, Maggie, author. Title: Teaching ‘proper’ drinking? clubs and pubs in Indigenous Australia / Maggie Brady. ISBN: 9781760461577 (paperback) 9781760461584 (ebook) Series: Research monograph (Australian National University. Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research) ; no. 39. Subjects: Aboriginal Australians--Alcohol use. Drinking of alcoholic beverages--Australia--attitudes. Alcohol--Physiological effect. Alcohol--Social aspects. Aboriginal Australians--Services for. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press Cover Image: Civilisation, Tommy McRae sketchbook, National Museum of Australia The writing below the image reads: ‘The natives who have been employed at shearing time on some station and have taken out their wages in plenty goodfellow clothes and made themselves along a whitefellow swell. The Australian natives are very fond of copying whitemen’s manners in dress when they can manage to do so.’ This edition © 2017 ANU Press Contents List of figures ...........................................vii List of maps ............................................ ix List of tables ............................................ xi List of abbreviations ......................................xiii Preface ................................................xv Acknowledgements ......................................xxi 1. Learning to drink: The social history of an idea ...............1 2. The Gothenburg system, monopolies and the community good ....................................35 3. The role of beer canteens and licensed clubs. 67 4. The wrecking of the Murrinh Patha Social Club: A case study ......................................107 5. The rise and fall of the Tyeweretye Club: A case study .......139 6. Indigenous communities buy hotels .....................175 7. The Indigenous purchase of the Crossing Inn ..............211 8. Drinking, Indigenous policy and social enterprise ...........259 Bibliography ...........................................265 Index ................................................305 List of figures Fig. 1 Aboriginal Corroboree at Adelaide, 1885 .................18 Fig. 2 Renmark Hotel, South Australia ........................47 Fig. 3 WCTU Offices, Hutt Street, Adelaide ...................52 Fig. 4 Window at the Vine Inn, Nuriootpa .....................55 Fig. 5 Kava packet, Ganybu Wholesalers, Yirrkala, 2005 ..........60 Fig. 6 Kava Licence Area sign, Yirrkala, 2005 ...................63 Fig. 7 ‘What’s in a glass?’ WCTU pamphlet c. 1950 ..............71 Fig. 8 Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Yalata, 2015 .......79 Fig. 9 Membership signs at Gunbalanya Club, 2013 .............85 Fig. 10 Beer garden at Gunbalanya Club, 2013 .................94 Fig. 11 Warnkurr Club Rules, 2013 .........................100 Fig. 12 Statue of Virgin Mary at the old Mission site, Wadeye .....108 Fig. 13 Sound shell at Murrinh Patha Social Club, Wadeye, 2009 ..113 Fig. 14 Carrie Nation Lecture Poster, c. 1901 ..................117 Fig. 15 ‘Aftermath of a rampage’ ............................122 Fig. 16 Remains of the Murrinh Patha Social Club, 2009 .........126 Fig. 17 ‘Drink Less for Your Family’, Living with Alcohol banner ..147 Fig. 18 Tyeweretye Clubs billboard ..........................153 Fig. 19 ‘These people are drinking safe amounts of grog’ .........160 Fig. 20 Women Against Alcohol march, Alice Springs, 1990 ......162 Fig. 21 Empty wine casks and liquor bottles (sold by one outlet) collected from drinking spots in the Todd River bed, 2012 ...164 vii TEACHING 'PROPER' DRINKING? Fig. 22 Alcohol restrictions sign, Todd River, 2009 ..............171 Fig. 23 Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse, Lasseter Highway, 2009 ........193 Fig. 24 The Wayside Inn, Timber Creek, 1991 .................196 Fig. 25 Remains of the Wayside Inn, Timber Creek, 2014 ........201 Fig. 26 Notice at Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse, 2009 ...............205 Fig. 27 Mural in Salem Shelter, Halls Creek ...................212 Fig. 28 Liquor restrictions sign, Fitzroy Crossing, 2009 ..........214 Fig. 29 The Crossing Inn reception, Fitzroy Crossing ............225 Fig. 30 Signage at the Crossing Inn .........................238 Fig. 31 Rules of behaviour at the Crossing Inn bar ..............241 Fig. 32 Flyer explaining the liquor restriction in Fitzroy Crossing to members of the public. 245 Fig. 33 Nk’Mip wine store, Osoyoos, British Columbia, 2013 .....255 Fig. 34 Chief Clarence Louie, Nk’Mip, Osoyoos, British Columbia. 256 viii List of maps Map 1 Past and present community hotels in South Australia, 1897–2015 ........................................49 Map 2 Public hotels owned or part owned by Indigenous entities, 1975–2014 ................................176 ix List of tables Table 1 Liquor status and mission associations of major Aboriginal communities, NT, 1987 ......................82 Table 2 Public hotels purchased by Indigenous groups, 1975–2014 .......................................202 Table 3 Alcohol-related deaths at Fitzroy Crossing investigated by the Western Australian coroner, 2007 .................233 xi List of abbreviations AA Alcoholics Anonymous AAA Aboriginal Alcoholics Anonymous AAFR Alcohol Awareness and Family Recovery ADC Aboriginal Development Commission ATSIC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission CAA Council for Aboriginal Affairs CAAAPU Central Australian Aboriginal Alcohol Planning Unit CAAC Central Australian Aboriginal Congress CAEPR Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research CDC Commercial Development Corporation CMS Church Missionary Society DAA Department of Aboriginal Affairs FASD Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder HRSCAA House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs IBA Indigenous Business Australia KALACC Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre LHA Laynhapuy Homelands Association Inc. LWA Living with Alcohol MLG Management Liaison Group MSC Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Mission xiii TEACHING 'PROPER' DRINKING? NPY Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara NTER Northern Territory Emergency Response ORIC Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations PRHA People’s Refreshment Houses Association RLPC Renmark Local Progress Committee SAFA Student Action for Aborigines UAM United Aborigines Mission UCNA United Church in North Australia WAA Women Against Alcohol WCTU Woman’s Christian Temperance Union xiv Preface Since the repeal of the state liquor regulations in Australia that prevented Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from having legal access to alcohol, numerous strategies have attempted to minimise the harms associated with problem drinking. This book tells the story of how governments, their advisers and Indigenous people themselves believed they could minimise such harms by changing the way people drank: how they tried to ‘civilise’ the drinking act itself. In a sense, this endeavour started in 1789 when Governor Arthur Phillip first taught the captured Aboriginal man Bennelong to raise his wine glass in a toast; however, it was two centuries before the notion found its way into policy in the form of government-endorsed liquor outlets serving Indigenous people in or near remote communities. In the 1970s and 1980s, canteens and clubs were licensed to serve rations of beer in remote Indigenous communities, and government agencies made it possible for Indigenous organisations to purchase public hotels whose sales were affecting their communities. These two approaches to the distribution of alcohol were originally driven by the belief that drinking on regulated premises over which Indigenous people had some control would help to inculcate moderate drinking patterns, and help to prevent damaging binge drinking and sly grog sales. This idea, that people would be able to ‘learn to drink’ in a conducive setting, forms a narrative thread throughout this book. Both of these somewhat controversial approaches (having drinking clubs and purchasing hotels) attempted to manage Indigenous drinking by making the sale of alcohol a social enterprise that drew in community members as participants, and ostensibly benefited them by allowing them to share in the income generated by alcohol sales. The idea that these outlets could help to cultivate moderate ‘civilised’ drinking patterns while simultaneously making a profit created a number of moral and social dilemmas and unforeseen outcomes that also form a major theme for the book. Indigenous social clubs and hotels were social enterprises xv TEACHING 'PROPER' DRINKING? insofar as they were (and are) run (or at least advised) by community- based organisations with participatory governance structures that gave voice to community stakeholders. Perhaps most importantly, as quasi- social enterprises, these projects were intended to benefit their owners by reinvesting profits