In 2007, a number of Fitzroy Valley community leaders decided it was time to address increasing violence and dysfunction in their communities. Alcohol abuse was rife across the Valley—and rather than healing the pain of colonisation and disempowerment, it was causing violence, depression and anguish amongst residents. By 2007, there had been 13 suicides in the Valley over a 12-month period.

The actions of these leaders were careful and modest, aimed at bringing the Fitzroy Valley residents with them on a journey to understand two things, that the alcohol situation was dire, and that the problems of the Valley could be reversed.

The recent history of the Fitzroy Valley reads as a ‘how-to manual’ for the development and implementation of a bottom-up project for social change. It is the story of a movement that engages with, rather than further marginalises, the local communities. These events demonstrate approaches to community crisis that encourage and build the positive, willing participation of the affected people.

The principles emerging from the Fitzroy experience can inform the development and delivery of government services across the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities throughout Australia. If governments apply these principles, they can shift from a service delivery paradigm to become enablers and facilitators of community-based agents of change.

6.1 The Fitzroy Valley

For thousands of years there were many different language groups living on this land and we are still here today. The Bunuba and Gooniyandi people are the people of the rivers and the ranges. The Walmajarri and the Wangkatjungka people are the people of the great desert. Today these different language groups all live together in harmony in the Fitzroy Valley. That’s what makes this place so special. We have strong culture here and we welcome you to our place and our dreams.Footnote 1

The Fitzroy Valley is in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The town of Fitzroy Crossing is situated near the centre of the Fitzroy Valley. It is the regional hub of the Valley. Fitzroy Crossing is on the traditional lands of the Bunuba people. There are 44 smaller communities spread around the Valley in a diameter of approximately 200 kms. Of these smaller communities, a number are sub-regional hub communities, while others are smaller satellite communities or outstations.

The area is extremely remote. The nearest major centres are Derby(258 km), Halls Creek (263 km) and Broome (480 km). Of the approximately 4000 people who live in Fitzroy Valley, 1600 live in Fitzroy Crossing. The majority of the population across the Valley is Aboriginal (Latimer et al. 2010).

The Fitzroy Valley is serviced by a range of different providers, government departments and agencies, as well as non-governmental organisations. Government services include education, police, health and child protection. Local non-governmental organisations provide a range of cultural and social welfare services. For example, the Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre (MWRC) provides domestic violence services, and the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre (KALACC) is the peak body for developing, promoting and maintaining law and culture across the Valley.

6.2 Community Crisis

We worry all the time for this land and our people. Especially when we see and live in the shadows of the painful effects of dispossession, oppression, racism and neglect. And when we see how alcohol is being used to mask this pain in our community and how it creates more pain.Footnote 2

In 2007, the communities of the Fitzroy Valley were in crisis. The Fitzroy Crossing Hospital staff described the abuse of alcohol in the communities as ‘chronic, chaotic and violent’—it was common for them to treat between 30 and 40 people a night for alcohol-related injuries (Kinnane et al. 2010: 24).

Too many people were dying. Community member, Joe Ross, suggested that “the community had become immune to attending funerals”.Footnote 3 The Fitzroy Valley had 55 funerals in one year, of which 13 were suicides. If this rate of suicide was applied to a population the size of Perth, it would equate to 500 suicides per month (White 2009: 12). These astounding figures prompted local community leaders to call for an inquest by the State Coroner of Western Australia, Alistair Hope. In 2008, the Coroner handed down his findings on 22 self-harm deaths in the Kimberley region. A ‘striking feature’ of the Coroner’s findings was the ‘very high correlation between death by self-harm and alcohol and cannabis use’ (Hope 2008: 5).

We had a community that was just being decimated by alcohol abuse. Children weren’t feeling safe about going home. Old people running to a safe place. Old people crying, wanting to move out of their homes because, you know, they were just being harassed by family members who was coming home drunk (Hogan 2009, 02:53).

The Coronial Inquest into 22 deaths in the Kimberley also found that the Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region had a real desire for change and that they wanted to play an active role in designing and developing programs to improve their living conditions (Hope 2008: 57).

The abuse of alcohol in the Valley has historical roots that can be linked to the processes of colonisation and the accompanying social policies that alienated and marginalised the Aboriginal people of the region.

Box 6.1 History, Trauma and Alcohol Abuse (Oscar 2010: 7)

After the period of frontier violence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Aboriginal people worked on stations for little or no wages. For decades, Aboriginal people were the backbone of the industry. Without the Aboriginal women and men who sheared the sheep, mustered the cattle, built the fences and windmills and cooked the food, the pastoral industry would not have been able to operate.

Then in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the equal wage decision for Aboriginal stock workers was implemented in the Kimberley, our people were discarded. We were treated with contempt and expelled on mass from the stations.

Aboriginal people throughout the valley resettled in congested, squalid conditions. In the early 1970s, the population of Fitzroy Crossing rose from 100 to over 2000 people within two years. It became a tent-camp of refugees fleeing a humanitarian disaster.

Like many such people alienated from their lands, alcohol abuse started and it got worse and worse over the years. At first, only the older men and middle-aged men drank, then some of the young men and then more and more women and then teenagers, some of them quite young.

The grog has affected every single person in the valley at one level or another. Aboriginal people in the valley have identified grog as the most important health priority that must be confronted.

Fitzroy Valley residents had been cognisant of the damage that alcohol was causing for some time, and they had taken steps to address the problem. For example, in 2004, 300 residents from the Valley met to discuss the issues of alcohol and drug abuse. The attendees of the meeting agreed that there was a need to focus on counselling and treatment.Footnote 4 However, very few resources were available, and little was done to address what was an overwhelming problem.

In 2007, in the face of this ongoing and escalating crisis, the senior women in the Fitzroy Valley decided to discuss the alcohol issue and look for solutions at their Annual Women’s Bush Meeting. The Women’s Bush Meeting is auspiced by Marninwarntikura; it is a forum for the women from the four language groups across the Valley. At the 2007 Bush Meeting, discussions about alcohol were led by June Oscar and Emily Carter from Marninwarntikura. The women in attendance agreed it was time to make a stand and take steps to tackle the problem of alcohol in the Fitzroy Valley (Latimer et al. 2010: 4). While the women did not represent the whole of the Valley, there was a significant section of the community in attendance. Their agreement to take action on alcohol was a starting point, and it gave Marninwarntikura a mandate to launch a campaign to restrict the sale of alcohol from the take-away outlet in the Fitzroy Valley. The community-generated nature of this campaign has been fundamental to its ongoing success. The communities themselves were ready for change.

Following this bush camp, on 19 July 2007, Marninwarntikura wrote to the Director of Liquor Licensing (Western Australia) seeking an initial 12-month moratorium on the sale of take-away liquor across the Fitzroy Valley (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007). The only take-away outlet in the Valley is located in Fitzroy Crossing. As a consequence, much of the focus of the campaign for alcohol restrictions was on Fitzroy Crossing, although its effects would apply across the Valley region.

Marninwarntikura argued that alcohol restrictions were necessary for the following reasons:

  • the high number of alcohol and drug-related suicides in the Fitzroy Valley;

  • the communities were in a constant state of despair and grief;

  • there was extensive family violence and the women’s refuge was unable to cope with the demand from women seeking refuge from violence at home;

  • childhood drinking was becoming normalised behaviour;

  • local outpatient presentations from alcohol abuse were unacceptably high;

  • local hospital statistics suggested 85% of trauma patients were alcohol affected and 56% of all patients admitted were under the influence of alcohol;

  • criminal justice statistics showed a disproportionally high number of alcohol-related incidents;

  • local employers were finding it difficult to retain staff as a result of alcohol consumption;

  • a reduction in school attendance; 

  • child protection issues including a significant number of children under the age of five exhibiting symptoms associated with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007: 3).

Marninwarntikura called on the Director of Liquor Licensing to restrict access to take-away alcohol purchased in Fitzroy Crossing in order to provide some respite for the communities and to allow time to address the ‘deplorable social situation’ in the Fitzroy Valley (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007: 3).

During this process, Marninwarntikura liaised with the cultural leadership of the communities through KALACC, one of the three Kimberley-wide Aboriginal organisations which promotes law and culture for the different language groups in the region. KALACC gave its support to the restrictions campaign. The CEO of Marninwarntikura noted the importance of this support from the cultural leadership:

It was really important to let elders know what was happening. We liaised with cultural leaders and elders through KALACC. KALACC helped facilitate approval from elders for the alcohol restrictions.Footnote 5

The support of the elders and cultural leadership cannot be underestimated. It was a factor that influenced the discretion of the Director of Liquor Licensing to issue the alcohol restrictions (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007). The support from elders gave the campaign the necessary legitimacy to withstand some strongly held views by sectors of the communities which were against the restrictions.

Support for the restrictions was not isolated to the women and the cultural leadership of the Valley. Many of the men from the Valley were strong advocates for the restrictions campaign. The women indicated that “we couldn’t have done it without the men”.Footnote 6 However, this campaign was not about gender difference, it was about these communities striving for a better future.

… and this must be understood—what we have achieved so far [in the Fitzroy Valley] could never have been done by government acting alone. The leadership had to come from the community. We had to OWN our problems and create pathways for recovery (Oscar 2009b: 4).

A strategic partnership was formed with the Western Australian Police, who also supported the campaign. This strategic alliance bolstered the campaign but did not detract from its community-controlled nature.

Despite obtaining significant community-level support for the campaign, there remained strong voices in the communities who opposed the proposed restrictions. However, those supporting the restrictions stood firm knowing that they would buy the Valley some necessary respite from the trauma and chaos of excessive alcohol misuse. The strength of these leaders was decisive, and the campaign came at a significant personal cost for some key leaders.

6.3 Alcohol Restrictions in the Valley

It was September 2007 when the Western Australia Director of Liquor Licensing decided that the sale of take-away liquor was a major contributor to high levels of alcohol-related harm at Fitzroy Crossing. The Director deemed the harm sufficient to justify the imposition of a six-month trial during which the sale of take-away liquor from the outlet in Fitzroy Crossing would be restricted. The trial commenced on 2 October 2007.

The sale of packaged liquor, exceeding a concentration of ethanol in liquor of 2.7 per cent at 20 °C, is prohibited to any person, other than a lodger (as defined in Section 3 of the Act)  (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007: 9).

The trial conditions stipulated that only low-strength beer could be purchased from the take-away outlet in Fitzroy Crossing. Full-strength beer, wine and spirits could not be purchased for take-away. These heavier drinks could still be purchased from the two licensed premises in the Valley (both located in Fitzroy Crossing) but they could only be consumed on the premises during opening hours.

Approximately eight months after the restrictions came into force, a review was conducted to assess their impact and to determine their future. The review meeting included the Director of Liquor Licensing and was attended by various members of the Aboriginal communities in the Valley. June Oscar, the CEO of Marninwarntikura, stated that the meeting was the ‘most important 30 min of our lives’.Footnote 7 It gave community members the opportunity to present their cases to the Director of Liquor Licensing. Their views were summarised as follows:

  • the women were more empowered, confident and able to speak up and be involved in community-level discussions;

  • sly grogging was a real problem;

  • Fitzroy Valley was much quieter and safer;

  • other Aboriginal communities were looking to the positive example in the Fitzroy Valley;

  • the restrictions have seen government agencies and non-government organisations become more involved in the communities;

  • there was a strong desire not to return to the pre-restriction chaos;

  • substantial and lasting change is needed;

  • children need to be the priority and the next generation of children need to grow up without the problems of alcohol;

  • families are stronger and sober, old people are being cared for, young people are thinking about owning homes and children are learning skills;

  • communities with people affected by FASD need assistance;

  • “if we return to the past, all hope will be stripped away” (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007: 15).

After the review meeting in May 2008, the Director of Liquor Licensing extended the restrictions on take-away alcohol indefinitely (Director of Liquor Licensing Western Australia 2007). Following the implementation of the restrictions, four of the communities in the Fitzroy Valley—Wangkatjungka, Noonkanbah, Yakanarra and Bayulu—also adopted alcohol restrictions that prevented the possession and consumption of alcohol in these communities.

6.4 Issues of Consent

We dealt with dissenting voices by trying to keep all people in the Valley informed. We used media to help keep people informed and to combat misinformation. I agreed to attend all meetings with dissenting voices in the community but only if the meetings were respectful and outcomes could be generated from meetings.Footnote 8

Issues of consent in the Fitzroy Valley were resolved over time. It was a process rather than a single transactional event. The Fitzroy women wanted to create a ‘space for reflection’ amongst their community members. They knew that excessive alcohol needed to be taken out of the picture in order for reflection to occur. This would give people the time and opportunity to think about the crisis that had befallen the Valley. It was not possible for the residents to make informed decisions while they were in crisis.

Alcohol restrictions are just a small toe hold into the enormous challenges we face. It is not the answer to our problems. It was never intended to be. Its purpose was always to give us breathing space from the trauma and chaos of death, violence and fear; breathing space to think and plan strategically (Oscar 2009a).

Rather than focusing on obtaining majority support for the restrictions in the first instance, the women acted upon the mandate given to them at the Bush Meeting. Following this, the women consulted with KALACC elders, health providers and community leaders and others to obtain support from a significant portion of the residents of the Valley.

Twelve months after the alcohol restrictions commenced, an independent review showed increased community-level support for the restrictions (Kinnane et al. 2010). The increased support shows that a ‘space for reflection’ and a different lived experience can change community attitudes. This could be described as building community capacity.

The process for implementing alcohol restrictions in the Fitzroy Valley demonstrates some stark contrasts to the implementation of alcohol restrictions and other measures under the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner 2008, Chapter 3). In many ways, the intended outcomes were to be the same—a reduction in social problems as a result of a reduction in access to alcohol. What is strikingly different between the two approaches is the paths that were taken to achieve the same ends. In the Fitzroy Valley, the decisions were made by the communities at a time chosen by the community leaders.

In the Northern Territory, a policy developed in Canberra was imposed by the Australian Government. The most stridently voiced criticisms of the NTER were about the lack of opportunity for the affected people to participate in any decision-making about the policies affecting them:

The single most valuable resource that the NTER has lacked from its inception is the positive, willing participation of the people it was intended to help. The most essential element in moving forward is for government to re-engage with the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory (Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Board 2008: 10-11).

6.5 Restrictions Evaluated

The Drug and Alcohol Office of Western Australia commissioned the University of Notre Dame to independently evaluate the impacts of the alcohol restrictions. This review of the impact of the first 12 months of the restrictions was publicly released in July 2009.

The report, Fitzroy Valley Alcohol Restriction Report: An evaluation of the effects of a restriction on take-away alcohol relating to measurable health and social outcomes, community perceptions and behaviours after a 12 month period, provided evidence that the alcohol restrictions were a circuit breaker and had given the residents of the Fitzroy Valley breathing space. It identified an increase in support for the alcohol restrictions from the Fitzroy Valley residents. The report indicated that almost all survey respondents accepted the need for some type of alcohol restrictions and that no one wanted a return to the social conditions prior to their introduction (Kinnane et al. 2010).

The University of Notre Dame evaluation found that the alcohol restrictions were having health and social benefits including.

  • reduced severity of domestic violence;

  • a 23% increase in reporting domestic violence and a 20% increase in reporting alcohol-related domestic violence (police and other service providers attributed this to a range of factors including lower tolerance of domestic violence and increased sobriety);

  • reduced severity of wounding from general public violence;

  • a 36% reduction in alcohol-related emergency department presentations; during the busiest period (October–March) this increased to a 42% reduction;

  • reduced street drinking;

  • a quieter and cleaner town;

  • families were more aware of their health and were being proactive in regard to their children’s health;

  • reduced humbug—that is, harassing another individual for money, cigarettes, etc.—and anti-social behaviour;

  • reduced stress for service providers leading to increased effectiveness of these services;

  • generally better care of children and increased recreational activities;

  • a 91% reduction in the amount of pure alcohol purchased through the take-away outlet;

  • a reduction in the amount of alcohol being consumed by Fitzroy Valley residents (Kinnane et al. 2010).

The evaluation also indicated that domestic violence and other anti-social behaviour had not been totally eradicated. However, since the restrictions had come into force, there was a lower tolerance for domestic violence.

A number of negative impacts have resulted from the restrictions including.

  • increased travel to Derby and Broome to obtain alcohol;

  • increased prevalence of people leaving children in the care of grandparents to drink at the licensed premises in Fitzroy Crossing and to travel to other towns to obtain alcohol;

  • increased pressure on heavily dependent drinkers and their families who are paying substantially more for alcohol;

  • reducing but still ongoing divisions within the town about the restrictions;

  • a general sense that there has not been the expected follow through of targeted government services to deal with the problems of alcohol dependence;

  • an impact on some local businesses who have seen a downturn in business based on people choosing to shop in other towns (partly) related to obtaining full-strength alcohol (Kinnane et al. 2010).

Overall, the Notre Dame study concluded that the benefits generated by the alcohol restrictions outweighed the detriments. It reported that the communities are beginning to stabilise from their chaotic pre-restriction state. This perception has contributed to the increasing support for the restrictions from Fitzroy Valley residents.

However, the alcohol restrictions are not a silver bullet for addressing the social crises in the Fitzroy Valley. Despite the significant reduction in alcohol consumption and alcohol-related violence, the Fitzroy Valley faces an immense task to rebuild the social fabric of the communities.

The grog restrictions were never intended to be a panacea for the enormous social disadvantages we face. What we have to imagine is a long term and permanent healing of the gaping wounds that arise from alcohol abuse and violence. This will require collaboration and cooperation (Oscar 2010: 8).

The restrictions in the Fitzroy Valley are a circuit breaker; they have provided the communities with the necessary reprieve from the pre-restriction chaos to allow time to consider their futures. The Notre Dame Study noted that the gains from the restrictions alone would not be sufficient for the communities to address the ingrained issues associated with alcohol abuse, and ongoing support must build upon these gains:

Significant gaps in support services that are needed to enable the social reconstruction of the Fitzroy Valley continue to hinder the community. There continues to be a state of under-investment in the people of the Fitzroy Valley. This gap requires the resourcing of community based organisations operating at the coal face of community development, cultural health, mental health (counselling), education, community safety (policing) and training, to build on the window of opportunity that the restriction has created (Kinnane et al. 2010: 10).