As time has passed, opposition to Woolworths’ plans for a massive alcohol store near three dry Indigenous communities in Darwin has strengthened and become more vociferous. Even with the assistance of a pliant Northern Territory Government, approval of this shocking plan remains in doubt.
Despite the strident opposition of Indigenous people, health and medical organisations, and community groups over many years, Northern Territory’s (NT) Chief Minister Michael Gunner engineered the decision to build a Dan Murphy’s booze barn in Darwin. It is another indictment of public policy-making in Australia and especially alcohol and Indigenous affairs policy in the Territory.
Not that Gunner was around when the decision was made. He had taken a leaf out of the Prime Minister’s playbook and ducked off for a ‘well-earned’ break. No, the deed was left to the NT Director of Liquor Licensing Phil Timney after Gunner’s legislative pirouette had sidelined the NT’s independent Liquor Commission.
It is said to be a career-limiting step for senior public officials to decide against the wishes of their political masters and Mr Timney wasn’t about to do that. Objectively, Mr Timney should have rejected the application because this matter had been rigorously assessed by the Liquor Commission and found to be wanting. Other determinative bodies had also decided against Woolworths.
In fact, Woolworths had fallen short every step of the way in this long-drawn-out process. The company had not followed due process, repeatedly so in its consultations, and when the substantive evidence was tested its application was found to be deficient.
Not that it was ever discouraged, and the government has proven very accommodating.
The special legislation passed by the NT Parliament in November dealt the Liquor Commission out of the game and handed responsibility to the Director, bypassing the independent, evidence-based and transparent processes put in place following the 2017 review into alcohol in the NT by former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Trevor Riley. The legislative manoeuvre had all the hallmarks of a discredited government – and that is saying something in the NT. It also carries portents of similar manoeuvres. One bad act makes the next bad act easier – it’s a slippery slope.
Cabinet was clearly divided on this issue, with the minister responsible for alcohol choosing silence and saying she learned about the approval through the media. What’s she up to? She clearly wasn’t prepared to sponsor the offending legislation. The patsy was the Minister for Small Business and Gunner mate Paul Kirby, who repeatedly struggled to explain why he was acting for a big business against the interests of dozens of small businesses.
Woolworths plainly has the power to subvert good government and independent processes and has done this repeatedly around Australia. It has refused pleas to stop this development, shrugged off criticism, made false claims about consultations with local communities and aggressively asserted it was acting in the public interest. Its host of claims of economic and employment benefits were not assessed against the likely external (health, social and welfare) costs, which will inevitably be borne by taxpayers.
Woolworths didn’t adopt the usual bully-boy tactics of powerful business interests, but it did employ the tactic of those with deep pockets and sought to outlast its opponents. But it was met with staunch opposition, backed by the well-resourced Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.
This Dan Murphy’s booze barn has long been opposed by public health, community and Indigenous groups. And for good reasons and without fully canvassing them here, it’s sufficient to say one doesn’t have to be Einstein to see the likely impact of an outlet this size placed near a number of ‘dry’ Aboriginal communities. The very public campaign of opposition by these groups has made this a national issue and Woolworths’ reputation is clearly on the line. Difficult questions at Woolworths’ AGM, excoriating opinion pieces in the quality press and a petition with more than 135,000 names does that.
Big companies value their reputations and invest heavily in protecting them, because bad acts and a loss of reputation can be costly to the bottom line. Witness the disaster for Rio Tinto that has followed the destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites at Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara. The chief executive has lost his job and a Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry has recommended multi-million dollar compensation payments.
The question is, will this Darwin Dan Murphy’s be Woolworths’ Juukan Gorge moment? There is every reason to believe so.
Woolworths has been playing the long game. It has taken every defeat in its stride and simply pressed on, seemingly knowing the government would ultimately shepherd this through for them. And ultimately Gunner delivered.
However, as community opposition has grown the retailer’s persistence has been seen as arrogant. Its 11th hour move, the announcement of an independent review into the failings of its consultation processes, was a typical big business ploy well versed in offering titbits to decision-makers.
At this point there seems to be no reason for Woolworths to fold. It has the approval it so desperately wanted, the ‘independent review’ will amount to not very much and opponents will no doubt be characterised as a bunch hand-wringing do-gooders! But at what cost?
When trust in government has been at an all-time low, it’s mystifying why the Gunner Government chose to undo its good work and reputation on stopping alcohol harm in the NT with this egregious act of bad governance. The economic arguments were predictable, but they were weak. It is more likely that Australia’s cultural embrace of alcohol explains why a good government would prostitute itself in this way and tragically at the expense of Australia’s most marginalised community – Indigenous people.
In the interest of the Gunner Government Mr Timney should have refused the Woolworths’ application and saved the government from itself. That would be a good thing for both the government and Woolworths.
It remains to be seen if the Woolworths board will show some heart and say no to Dan Murphy.
Michael Thorn is a public health consultant and former Chief Executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Policy and Research, and Assistant Secretary at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Comments
13 responses to “Is the Darwin Dan Murphy’s Woolworths a Juukan Gorge moment?”
Regular readers will appreciate that I am Leftist.
And I freely admit that Woolworth’s Dan Murphy’s may well be better advised to seek a site noticeably further from the Aboriginal ‘dry areas’ than they have to date. Such a move would indeed be ‘politic’.
I further admit that the distinction between psychological ‘co-dependency’ and ‘inter-dependency’ is a subtle one. A distinction which contemporary Aboriginal culture itself tends to confuse.
Yet, for all of those reservations, despite regretting my apparent political incorrectness, for the life of me I cannot see that it is Woolworth’s responsibility to minimise the dangers of alcoholic addiction to anyone – including those proximate Aboriginal communities. It is OUR responsibility to minimise those dangers – not Woolworth’s responsibility.
I find it astonishing that such responsibility is not squarely and clearly sheeted home to both the vulnerable individuals within those communities and those communities themselves.
If they were to need help from our wider community in owning such responsibility, they should receive it. And it should be effective.
Indeed. I don’t have Dan moments so Woolworths is under my boycott for this. Join me. I will drop a letter off to the local woollies when I next pass by.
Probably is a “Juukan Gorge” moment. In that, if it goes pear shaped, Woolies will make some fake apologies and fake gestures, then double down.
Alternative perspective: is opposition to Woolworth’s Darwin Dan Murphy a reflection of old colonialism, and paternalism on par with the cashless welfare card? Do we ban alcohol shops in Byron Bay or the Northern Beaches? Yes alcohol abuse is a problem that may be linked with an eye for the racially divisive. Or maybe like those who abuse alcohol of British descent the solution lies in support and rehabilitation.
What this advocacy amounts to in my bystander can’t-care-less-knew-nothing-about-it-mainstream-Australian’s mind is, dog-whistle dog-whistle Indigenous Australians in NT are all alcoholics and fits the usual stereotype of Indigenous Australians can’t look after themselves we really need to put the screws on them to protect them from themselves.
If we do not allow brothels in suburban streets, surely there is a stronger moral reason not to site a alcohol barn next to three dry Aboriginal communites.
So, what if we let them build the barn and ban all Indigenous members of those nearby communities from being allowed to purchase from it and police and penalise those same members who are found to have smuggled or imbibe alcoholic products from said barn? Or is that not plausibly deniable enough and us colonial masters will have too much egg-nog on our face?
After two centuries of mistakes we should be able to learn from them and recognise discrimination and disenfranchisement are the culprits and we should not perpetuate these attitudes for the sake of some short-term papering over of their symptoms.
‘So, what if we let them build the barn and ban all Indigenous members of those nearby communities from being allowed to purchase from it and police and penalise those same members who are found to have smuggled or imbibe alcoholic products from said barn?’
Who is suggesting that, apart from you? Not Michael Thorn, not the indigenous groups opposing the DM. By ‘we’, do you mean those second rate politicians who are prostituting the government, to quote Michael, in assisting Woolworths?
Straw man.
You misunderstood my reply to Chek, Andrew. I was taking his analogy and turning it around. It is all well and good to have logical policies with moral fortitude but one should be aware whether that moral is appropriate. Robbing Indigenous Australians of their right of self-determination under the cloak of paternalism is inappropriate. We already have had 200 years of experience. Unless of course the aim is to make sure Indigenous Australians are always controlled and their narratives written for them.
So the fact that Indigenous NT folk and many others from around the nation _have_ stood up about this issue has whistled past you without your noticing? It is even mentioned in the first bit of the article that they’ve been opposed to this for years, and many other grog outlets too. Very strange that you presume speak for them without acknowledging that they _are_ speaking up and could do with some support. Also, I agree with you that support and rehabilitation for alcohol addicts are greatly needed, but despite your ‘couldn’t care less bystander’ attitude you must surely be aware that this and other addictions go hand and hand with poverty and disadvantage. Yes, there are probably such problems on (Sydney’s?) Northern Beaches and Byron Bay as well, but despite my personal objections to alcohol, I acknowledge that bans there will not happen. That doesn’t mean that we don’t do our best to support people who, instead of being the ones standing helplessly at the bottom of the cliff as members of their community land at the bottom, are trying to get to the top of the cliff and stop the problem at its source. If it never gets further than stopping one grog shop causing death and destruction, isn’t that a good thing? And one hopes that recognition of the problem will have flow-on benefits.
Please see my replies below. Prohibition isn’t the answer. Drinking alcohol is a symptom not the disease. My assumption for all my comments on this thread continues to be that we do want Indigenous Australians to rise to the same standard of health and life as the rest of us. I suppose there will always be people who believed the stolen generation was about improving the lives of Indigenous Australia too.
I doubt you’re just being the devil’s advocate here. You suggest, despite Michael’s first sentence, that opposition to the DM boozerama is being mounted only by paternalistic white folks who have a stereotyped view of helpless indigenous people; this in itself is a stereotyped scenario, ignoring the fact that indigenous communities and representative groups are mounting strong well reasoned opposition alongside non-indigenous community groups who are equally worried and repelled by the spectre of the corporate giant’s boozerama. Your not seeing that indigenous groups can act for themselves or that non-indigenous groups have strong reasons to oppose the DM seems a rather pernicious mind-set.
The Menzies School of Health Research (Adelaide University) research on the social and economic costs and harms of alcohol consumption in the NT –
https://alcoholreform.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/658249/social-costs-alcohol-consumption-nt.pdf
– is briefly summarised in
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-05/curious-darwin-does-darwin-really-the-drink-the-most-alcohol/10867768
The NT has an alcohol consumption per capita level well above other states (in itself that seems like a good reason to oppose Woolworths), but Indigenous people are more likely to be abstainers than non-indigenous (31% v. 23%, aged over 14). The percentage of indigenous abstainers has grown from 25% since 2010, demonstrating the indigenous community’s own initiative and agency in dealing with alcohol related problems. ‘Dry’ indigenous communities are not the result of paternalism; opposing Woolworths does not equal putting ‘the screws on’ indigenous people ‘to protect them from themselves’.
‘Do we ban alcohol shops in Byron Bay or the Northern Beaches?’ Wrong question. Do the citizens of those communities oppose alcohol shops? If they did, would they be sold down the drain by spiv politicians like those mentioned in the article?
Did the majority of people who voted, voted for Brexit? But apparently only paternalistic white folks get to have their opinions shaped by propaganda and people in influential positions who control the narrative. Give our Indigenous fellow Australians the same choices we have down the road. There will always be one section of the community who will have a worse drinking rate than another. That’s statistics for you. The question is whether you want to blame it on an artificial colonial white folk’s categorisation of people into races or recognise the contributory factors to drinking as a problem for all folks.
Thank you Michael. By exposing the intricacies of the manipulation of legislation by the lawyers who write the laws your article confirms Australia’s legal fabric does not respect family or community and are based upon a culture of exploitation rather than creation. The Darwin Dan Murphy`s will create greater social disfunction, put more people in jail and in hospital, increase the level of family violence, it will create more work for the lawyers and the judiciary. refer. https://www.lawyersorgraverobbers.com/web2/is-the-australian-judiciary-a-transformed-pirate-ship/ Murphies law: If anything will go wrong it will go wrong!