NEW ALCOHOL RESTRICTIONS FOR COOBER PEDY, CURRENTLY IN THE GRIP OF A CRIME WAVE

The worst crime wave in Coober Pedy’s history has beset the Opal Capital of the World. Nightly break-ins have been occurring at family restaurants, Social Clubs, private homes, and any venue that may serve alcohol or hold valuables. These crimes are sophisticated.  The general community and now the State Opposition have identified ineffective policing as the weak link. Currently, severe restrictions on the residents of the opal mining town of Coober Pedy are being used as a measure to alleviate pressure on a government system that is failing the public in South Australia. Is this fair, or even ethical?

The Italio Australian Miner’s Club has been broken into and robbed more than 10 times with repairs for damages already over $20K. John’s Pizza Bar was broken into and robbed. Greek Club was broken into and robbed. Big Winch was broken into and robbed twice. Desert Cave was broken into and robbed.

Moving the hours for alcohol sales around will only move the activity a bit further into the night. By midday, 50 people are mulling about the shops waiting to buy alcohol.

Long-term residents in the town, and business managers, say this has gone way beyond ‘antisocial behaviour’, and needs to be treated for exactly what it is; organized crime and Government failure. Families are leaving town in droves to escape the wave of ignored and unpublished violence that now also exists inside the local school.

AN EMERGENCY MEETING WAS CALLED by the Coober Pedy Retail Business and Tourism Association to discuss their response to the new alcohol restrictions trial and in light of ongoing robberies and vandalism in the town.

Long-term business owner, and President of the Coober Pedy Retail Business and Tourism Association George Kountouris, said, “The confronting imagery of ‘anti social behaviour’ has many of our visitors questioning the safety of the town.”

We reassure people that they are safe. Are they though? The aggression, the begging, the excrement-laden playgrounds, the litter. mostly the product of alcohol consumption in a declared dry zone!!

Some businesses are at their wit’s end with how to attract tourism when the tourists are the target of the en mass drunken begging.

Over 10 business owners claim that their 2023 takings is considerably down on previous years and believe that the outlawed antisocial behaviour is the culprit.

Are we to be added to the great trail of shame of the outback, ie Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing Tennant Creek Alice Springs….. Coober Pedy?

One step in the solution-finding quest is Public Consultation, the community must be genuinely involved in the decision-making process, and authorities not isolate opinion only from singular self-appointed representatives. The way to heal is for the community to unite and solve.

The State Government continues to demonstrate ongoing failure in sustaining traditional people in remote communities. The State Government denies consultation with local stakeholders on issues that affect their quality of life, their ability to conduct business effectively and to feel and live safely at home, at work, socially, and at school.

A further three months of liquor restrictions have been placed on every resident living in Coober Pedy. The result of a Liquor Accord Meeting held in June without stakeholder representation. Those in attendance were: Police, liquor licensees, Council representative(s), and Aboriginal agencies.

Residents in the remote opal mining town of Coober Pedy learned about the meeting and the subsequent decision via a media release about a meeting held without them!  The Consumer and Business Services CBS Media Release, “Amended liquor restrictions are being trialed in Coober Pedy for the next three months, following ongoing concerns about anti-social behaviour in the outback town.”

Isn’t the weak link that needs strengthening that of law enforcement or lack thereof?

Coober Pedy residents and business owners were stunned to hear that the freedoms of an entire Australian Town were suppressed based on the alleged success of ‘similar’ restrictions in Port Augusta. 

The circumstances are far from similar and those involved in that decision should surely be questioning their own sense of logic by now. Without 24/7 policing, we still have anarchy. Port Augusta has a 24 police presence, specialist police, legal services and faster court appearances. At Coober Pedy, the night comes alive with ‘activity’ once the police go off duty. In daylight hours parties of drinkers arrive from intra, or interstate and sit cross-legged up and down the main road, or outside the hotel drinking openly from cartons of VB. Other groups can be seen wandering up and down the road carrying cans and begging from locals passing by. 

Police, if available can usually be found trailing local resident drivers (soft targets) who may have popped out to get some bread or milk or are coming home from work. Those locals are likely to be fully breathalysed, their vehicles will have already been scanned for potential late registration payments, and their licenses will be examined. There is no collectable revenue in the 100 or so drinkers violating dry zone laws along Hutchison Street and outside the hotel.

In light of NO 24 hour police service at Coober Pedy as well as a current police shortage across the state, people who have been arrested are bailed back into the community, with no police unavailable to guard cells overnight. Victims of break-ins, despite security measures in place, often do not get a police response until the next day.

Remote areas pay dearly for dysfunction in police recruitment

The State Opposition Hon David Speirs MP Leader of the Opposition, Josh Teague MP, Shadow Attorney-General and
Sam Telfer MP, Shadow Minister for Police, Corrections and Community Safety is calling on the Malinauskas Labor Government to review penalties for crime as South Australia continues to experience an alarming and violent spike in anti-social behaviour.

The review must investigate the merit of increasing penalties for those who commit crimes such as home invasions, vehicle thefts, and offenders who breach bail conditions. It must also address how the 174 police officer shortage is impacting community safety.

In the past 12 months, home invasions have soared by 311 incidents, while the following categories continue to rise at a shocking rate:

• Assault police – 36% increase.
• Shop theft – 30% increase.
• Robbery and related offences – 27% increase.
• Abduction, harassment, and other offences – 18% increase.
• Serious Assault resulting in injury – 16% increase.
• Aggravated sexual assault – 8% increase.
• Family and domestic violence abuse-related offences – 11% increase.

Currently there is a NO-WIN situation with un-satisfactory outcomes for police efforts. Policing has become repetitious and personally unsatisfying in remote areas. 

WITH POLICE RECRUITMENT LOW, WHY NOT TRIAL:

• A Wet Area, closer to Anangu Homelands. Surely this would offer some dignity and reduce the risks involved in traveling and living rough.

• Revert court back to the Iwantja Magistrates Court Indulkana instead of causing everyone to travel continually to Coober Pedy, where the community is left to clean up.

• Take a serious look at the Oodnadatta Model of alcohol self-management. It is still working today.
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/30708/643774.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y  

• Special Measures which should ensure that Police can enforce the laws for everyone appropriately and proportionately?

(c) Special measures in domestic Australian law

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (Racial Discrimination Act) s 8(1) provides an exception to the general prohibition against racial discrimination in s10 if a measure can be considered a special measure. The section makes reference to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article 1(4) for an understanding as to what constitutes a special measure.[22]

In the High Court case of Gerhardy v Brown[23] Justice Brennan identified the characteristics that must be satisfied in order for a measure to be considered a special measure within s 8(1).
• the measure must confer a benefit on some or all members of a class of people whose membership is based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin
• the sole purpose of the measure must be to secure adequate advancement of the beneficiaries so they may equally enjoy and exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms
• the protection given to the beneficiaries by the measure must be necessary for them to enjoy and exercise their human rights equally with others[24] and
• the measure must not have yet achieved its objectives (the measure must stop once its purpose has been achieved and not set up separate rights permanently for different racial groups).[25]

The above elements of the test set out by Justice Brennan were confirmed in the recent case decided by the High Court, Maloney v The Queen.[26]  https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/chapter-4-human-rights-practice-alcohol-policy

Affected remote area residents want their say

IS DEMOCRACY BECOMING A PROBLEM for modern bureaucrats, where consultation appears only to be only with each other. This does not seem to be appropriate when their wages rely on there being a problem? 

Comment # The South Australian Government has avoided public consultation and then penalised an entire community for doing nothing wrong. When was the court case where we were found guilty of breaching any current laws? Others may have but we didn’t. We can’t even apologise as there is no case to answer. Democracy is eroding v quickly with this Government. Is it not? I find it very interesting that in the same week, the same government opted to begin a phase-out of Australia’s ANZAC DAY. I do not feel that I am in Australia anymore.

Comment # The worst we see here is the state of mind that the Aboriginal people are left in, wandering the county intoxicated and committing crimes, to keep the state’s unemployment figures looking good.  This could be solved instead of keeping those inflicted by alcoholism in perpetual limbo; unwanted by their own, and not belonging elsewhere either.  Those homelands must seek assistance to accommodate ALL people on their own Homelands.  Remember the promise for equity in Indigenous health, “Leaving no one behind”?

Comment # It is hard to fathom the logic of why such a meeting would be held without those majorly affected. Surely the local residents of a town would come up with better solutions than only inviting those whose jobs and income depend on there being such a problem! Former Liquor Commissioner Paul White attended a meeting with the entire community of Coober Pedy. He listened and responded to everyone, and the community became part of the solution, at that time.

Comment # 10 years of liquor restrictions at Coober Pedy! We cannot keep absorbing the APY problems.  Build a Wet Area up north.

Comment # Why is this serious public safety risk being ignored by the State Government and all of its underlings, who all benefit financially from the existence of the dysfunction in everyone’s midst?

Comment # Recently an elderly opal dealer was broken into and robbed twice in succession. Can anyone imagine the horror of being elderly and awoken in the small hours of the morning in this manner, more than once? We demand that the local police make the time to report all crimes to the media for publication. This has not been occurring at Coober Pedy for quite some time. We have a right to know what serious dangers may be lurking in our neighbourhood at night.

Comment #  So, by delaying the opening hours, can we observe an increase in anti-social behaviour/mainly crime as the night progresses, or do services that may be open eg. Hospital etc, encounter domestic violence during those early morning hours, with workers fatigued and assailants drunk or on drugs? Do the police possess the capacity to respond to emergency calls in the early hours of the morning, even after the station has closed? In not, then when is this likely to change?

Comment #  The Government in conjunction with remote community management needs to propose a Wet Area outside of those Lands that is suitable for monitoring for responsible indulging.

Comment # That a bunch of faceless public servants, all with conflicts of interest, have had a hand in imposing serious, unthinkable restrictions on innocent people in a community that is good enough to provide space for their service. Our ANZACs would turn over in their graves. The government needs to provide services “on community” and not 438 km away, in our small town.

Comment # There must be reasons why those individuals are not being sustained on their homelands. The APY Lands occupies about 10 percent of South Australia covering 103,000 sq. km. Coober Pedy should not be used as a dumping ground for the Government’s failed programs.

Comment #  20 odd years ago Coober Pedy residents were lobbying for this situation to change. The government’s solution was to accommodate alcoholics in Coober Pedy in a multi-million dollar, taxpayer-funded Transitional Accommodation Centre, (aka Aboriginal Support Hub), allowing their children to become truant while the parents stimulated the state’s economy, drinking irresponsibly and displaying antisocial behaviour.

Comment # The provision of services with no outcome seems more like a way of keeping the employment figures down and another way for the government to get its hands on obscene amounts of taxpayers’ money.

Comment #: “Those new restrictions might serve to slow them down a bit, but the non-offenders are being penalised unfairly to accommodate 3% of the population. More restrictions are not the solution. Unless we have business on the prescribed lands we are not allowed to go there. What about leveling the playing field and implementing a two-way “pass system”? I agree with a Wet Area near the Lands.  Is it fair to say those communities are funded per capita? If so then, there is your answer. Coober Pedy is not funded to finance the fallout from remote communities.   Less politicking and more ‘duty of care’ will win more votes at the next election.

Comment # Liquor restrictions were first introduced to curb anti-social behaviour in Coober Pedy but seems Sapol is not policing as it should which is common knowledge in our town. Transients were let camp in various reserves in town until police were shamed by public concern and outcry, to finally act. 

Comment # Wet areas in remote communities should definitely be on the agenda as was suggested nearly 10 years ago at a Coober Pedy community meeting but has never been acted upon.

Remote communities at some stage must take responsibility for a problem that is theirs and governments should better structure those funding programs to help them achieve a balance in their lives. 

Comment # State Government namely the Attorney General needs to fund a 24/7 police station in Coober Pedy to stop the Crime Wave that has hit our town. Alice Springs and Port Augusta have both acknowledged that crime is higher in the hotter months and is no different in Coober Pedy. Just because we have a smaller population does not mean that we do not desperately need a 24-hour Police Station.

Comment # How are people obtaining alcohol is the question that needs to be asked. We need a driver’s license or some form of I.D. to buy alcohol and people from prescribed lands cannot. Anyone caught grog running should be punished and the penalties should be made to deter anyone from taking up that job description. E.G 10 years imprisonment 1st offense. Life for any subsequent offenses.

Comment # AFL legend Daniel Motlop a proud Larrakea man has a brewery in Darwin making Gin out of Green Ants. Doesn’t seem to be too worried about his people. If anyone wants to google this you will find our State Attorney General Kyam Maher with him and others promoting a new indigenous business. Even got a big spread in online news INDAILY. (See all the pictures) Seems as though there might be a double standard at play. It’s other communities that deal with the fallout.

Comment # Liquor restrictions are a joke. People get grog. No one’s policing it. The whole thing is a train smash. Hardworking people can’t have a drink at the end of the day. Looks like we all have to move to the big smoke so we can live like normal people and not have to worry about our businesses and homes being broken into looking for alcohol. Government needs to act now so people can live how they have earned the right too.

Comment # I’m sure if Peter Malinauskus and Kyam Maher closed down their local bottle shop they would be tarred and feathered by constituents.““Comment # What happened to our democratic rights in this fiasco? Do not vote Labor at the next election. Vote them out. 

Liquor Offences under Summary Offences Act: https://lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch12s06s04s09.php

3 MONTHS OF LIQUOR RESTRICTIONS INVOLVES:

Previously, the sale of takeaway liquor when purchasing spirits, fortified wine, or premix is restricted to one bottle of spirits, one bottle of port/fortified wine, or one multipack of premix; two multipacks of beer containing at least four bottles or cans of beer, but no greater than a carton when buying beer; and two bottles of wine when purchasing wine.

The sale of wine in casks is prohibited. However, at a meeting of local businesses and representatives from South Australia Police in Coober Pedy earlier this year that was chaired by liquor and gambling regulator Consumer and Business Services, concerns were raised about ongoing excessive liquor consumption and anti-social behaviour in the area.

Concerns included people lining up at bottle shops before 10am, leading to high levels of intoxication by lunchtime.“In response, Liquor and Gambling Commissioner Dini Soulio has confirmed additional restrictions to be trialled from today are:

• Prohibiting the sale of takeaway liquor in the region before midday
• Limiting sales of takeaway liquor to one person per day, within the existing limits.

The later opening times have proven effective in Port Augusta, where the extra time has helped counselling and support services to help those who may consume excessive amounts of alcohol,” Liquor and Gambling Commissioner Dini Soulio said.

These measures have broad support from the local Council, SAPOL, the Umoona Community Council and the Umoona Tjutagku Health Service, and have been agreed to by licensees.

Mr Soulio said that signage has been provided to licensees in the area to help them advise customers of the new rules.

Towards the end of this trial, I’ll be seeking feedback from licensees, support services and authorities in the region to determine the next steps,” he said.

OTHER RESTRICTIONS ALREADY IN PLACE ARE BELOW: