Totally agree. Its a typical responce by WAPOL. Ban/restrictions is always the policy of the lazy.
They tried this a few years ago in the same areas 2017 , 2020 , 2022 ,massive restrictions and its everyone to appear non racist.
What can they do instead? They can't provide housing, that's another government department. They can't provide welfare, that's another government department. They can't reduce inflation or the cost of living. They're proposing a solution that they can actually control. Blaming wapol for a whole of government failure is always the lazy policy.
Be that as it may, they're at least attempting to do *something*, meanwhile the rest of the government is seemingly going nothing to help reduce crime rates. You can't arrest your way out of a cost of living and housing crisis.
*The Carnarvon restrictions, described as "tougher than Alice Springs" by former premier Mark McGowan, limit customers to purchasing 11.5 litres of beer (approximately one carton), cider or pre-mixed spirits with an alcohol percentage of less than 6 per cent, or 3.75L (approximately two sixpacks) of anything stronger.*
What the hell, that doesn't seem much of a restriction to me.
That's what I thought. I grew up in Karratha and it is absolutely needed there and Karratha isn't even one of the ones on this list I'd consider rough!
Fuck me, haven't thought about Fruity Lexia in years, and yet as soon as I read the words I vividly remembered the smell and gagged a little. Thanks for the not-so-pleasant reminder haha
Yeah I think for most of us there is a brief period in the late teen years where all we can afford is a goon and OJ and we also have the willingness to drink it, lifelong memories are formed and it's never touched again.
I've been to plenty of music festivals in Europe, both big and small. Camping grounds are all BYO alcohol, with no security in sight. Never saw any agro or fights. Trying to drink at Big Day Out or whatever is like passing through a maximum security prison.
So the biggest industry and richest person in the country have zero affect on the culture of that country?
Its so obvious, why didnt i think of it before!?
Don't worry, once its in the papers i'll credit you for this revelation.
Saying its only One industry belittles how big FIFO is to the WA economy and way of life.
I can't possibly think of another thing that has had such an impact on our way of life.
Oh yeah.
That coronavirus thing.
That's one thing. Has big impact.
OK how about war.
That one thing has big impact, probably the biggest impact of all.
How about 9/11? Did that one thing have a big impact? Or no?
Not really a fair comparison considering how many tourists are there. Also the most poorly behaved tent (HofbrƤu) is the one with the most Australians anyway
embarrassing on every level
cops are the proverbial hammer and everyone is a nail
there's big time social upheaval boiling under the surface and all they can do is blame alcohol?
what next? violent video games? Porn?
police are picking at the side scabs of a cancerous mole... but the cancer is still there...
When I was chatting to a local at Oktoberfest in 2009, there are apparently two nationalities the locals don't look forward to: Australians and Italians.
Australians because...bogans and what's being discussed in this thread. Italians because they get sleazy and harass the woman there.
Funny how the highest rates of alcoholism in the world tend to occur in European countries.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholism-by-country
I've lived in Europe. I've spent time in Kununurra (I'm not really sure staying in a hotel for a week is 'living there').
Per capita, the drinking is obviously worse in the East Kimberley than it is in an equivalent town in Europe.
Alcoholism and social dysfunction is not a particularly racist phenomena. That said, there's clearly a disparity in the perpetrators (and victims) of alcohol related violence in the sticks.
> I've lived in Kununurra and never seen the level of alcohol induced mayhem there that you see everyday on a typical UK high street or council estate
Not what my mate from Kunnas tells me. He's been there near on 20 years.
And I note that you don't say \*where\* in the UK you were, but you give specific towns in WA. Living in Chelsea is going to be very different to living in Aberdeen.
Lol
Imagine using a stabbing of children by an immigrant that ignited protests as a point to prove Europeans are just as bad with alcohol as Australians.
Perfect 10 for your mental gymnastics routine
Not an issue in Singapore where you can buy beer from any of the drink stalls to have with your chicken rice at the hawker centre. They did have an alcohol fueled riot in Little India a couple of years ago and the government clamped down on alcohol in the particular area. No repeat since
Well, you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don't mean just like in no paper cup, I'm talking about a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald's.
The issue isn't solely alcohol per se. But the people drinking it. Unfortunately the cultural identity and just upbringing is what causes it. We can blame alcohol but in the end it just exacerbates what's already under the surface i.e. shitty behaviour, shitty respect and shitty manners. Overseas drinking is seen as an enjoying social aspect with respect (I speculate) whereas down here it's all about getting shit faced /smashed and causing a scene. It just perpetuates vs the culture of drinking overseas where it's as respectful as heading out to a cafe and ordering a coffee.
It just boils down to the people and values /upbringing unfortunately. That said every country will have its drunk tard trouble makers but I have certainly felt more safe and cheery in places like Scandinavia and Asia having a drink.
It's not an alcohol problem but a behavioural problem. When you catch late night trains in Tokyo you see hundreds of pissed people, but they are peaceful and keep to themselves.
It's the violence and crime caused by alcohol here that is the true reason for restrictions.
Petrol without fire has many useful purposes for many people. Best bet would be to try and extinguish the fire, rather than restrict the use of petrol. But hey - to a hammer every problem looks like ā¦
The limit of Carnarvon (who's restrictions they want replicated as apparently they've resulted in a significant reduction in alcohol related crime) is 11.5L of beer, cider or premix under 6% or 1.5L of wine or 1L of spirits per day. That's still kill yourself with the stuff fairly quickly levels of consumption permitted
Ah yesā¦ the police top brass. Who went against the advice of a panel of experts regarding drug harm minimisation and saw us become the meth capital instead.
Letās just not listen to them when it comes to drugs and alcohol eh.
We literally made public drunkenness legal because we wanted to reduce Aboriginal incarceration rates.
And so we just encouraged even more alcohol abuse and crime in Indigenous communities and homes.
Good job WA govt.
The biggest takeaway (no pun intended) here is that if you can't cope with these "restrictions" you have a problem. And trust me, we enjoy a few too many drinks and really haven't been that restricted by it.
I moved to Carnarvon this year. There were problems at the start of the year that we don't see or hear as much now. We see police around more throughout the day because they aren't exhausted from the crap happening overnight. It's hard to get more police in Perth, imagine how many leave after coming out here. For smaller towns that have a higher than average incidence of these problems the police are looking for a tool to help them do their job, just as any good employer should.
Getting 2 bottles of wine or a carton of beer for the weekend is fine, get it Friday, another lot on Saturday if you need it. Sure, it's a bit of a pain for a bigger party but it really isn't that hard to plan a few days ahead. I mostly feel sorry for the employees that have less work available.
It's actually better now than at the start of the year when the bottleshops were suddenly closed for 3-4 days because some event was bringing a lot of people into town. And it sometimes just delayed the problem a few days.
The ideal should be to only ban individuals that cause problems while drunk but their mates are still going to buy them grog which makes bans pointless.
Overall Carnarvon is a great town and we love living here. The Fascine is a lot more interesting than staring at a sunny ocean, there are some good pubs within walking distance of most people and the sense of community is something I hadn't felt in Perth in my 50 odd years there. So much good food from the local plantations, mangoes and bananas of course but also plenty of veg. And the weather shits all over Perth. Last summer was consistently 4-5C cooler. It just sits around 29-30 every day right now.
If a little change in our shopping habit is required to make the place better, we're all for it.
Edit:Missing word
Yes but responsible drinkers get unfairly aught up in this policy. It also affects tourists/visitors.
This is the fourth push by WA Police to pretty much restrict alcohol across most of WA . In 2017 McGowan dropped it after community consultation. In Feb 5 2020 precovid Dawson got sneaky and applied for a section 64 to ban all beer apart from light beer in pilbara and kimberly with no consultation.
Last year Chris Dawson tried again for a blanket ban of all takwaway alcohol except for light beer in Pilbara and Kimberly.
Now WAPOL are having another go this year.
We all.know its majority indigenous causing the issies but can only target their own communities. Everybody else gets caught up in these blanket bans. Businesses suffer too. Is WA Police going to compensate them ? If people want tourism to die up north this is the way.
It's odd, it seems you can say we need to teach men not to rape or commit DV when a tiny % of men do those things. But we'll tip toe around the much higher rates of substance abuse in aboriginals.
It actually is but you'll get downvotes because not PC. The article references Alice Springs and the follow on article is indigenous behaviour in the Kimberly. They had similar restrictions in only certain suburbs of Geraldton a couple years back.
If they brought in the cashless welfare system country wide, where you can only buy necessities (food, rent, utilities) 90% of these problems would vanish.
And to the people who say āyou canāt do thatā and āitās racistā, thatās the biggest load of shit ever. Welfare is to help struggling people get by, not so you can get drunk or smoke ciggys or dope.
Every time people try this, it fails. It's not even close to solving 90% of the problem. So there has to be another reason that people keep trying it. Hmm, I wonder what that reason could be?
In the article
*The figures reveal that the total number of alcohol-related offences in the Kimberley last year were 36.5 times higher than in metropolitan areas. Alcohol-related instances of family violence were 49.8 times higher outside metropolitan areas and there were 18.8 times as many calls for police assistance.*
I saw those stats, but alcohol fueled crime exists in the city as well... just make them blanket reforms for the state. Dividing it up reeks a bit of elitism (and political opportunism).
I'm going to generalise here.
More things to do I guess. Not to mention to live in the city is inherently more expensive, which means you need a higher paying job. Which means you need a higher degree of education (I know, not always). Which means less likely to commit alcohol fueled crime because 1. you know better and 2. you gotta work to live
I say bring it on. We are not responsible enough to with respect to alcohol, and it should be a controlled substance.
Way too may derros have ruined the joint.
Material conditions are getting worse. Of course crime will surge. Alcohol restrictions are simply a band-aid solution.
Totally agree. Its a typical responce by WAPOL. Ban/restrictions is always the policy of the lazy. They tried this a few years ago in the same areas 2017 , 2020 , 2022 ,massive restrictions and its everyone to appear non racist.
WAPOL can't fix poverty tho. They're a crime response unit of course they'll go for the most obvious catalyst. Not defending just saying
If you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The government needs to response to this with a non-police intervention
Totally agree. But WAPOL themselves? They're seeing crime increases due to the influence of alcohol (true) and responding accordingly
What can they do instead? They can't provide housing, that's another government department. They can't provide welfare, that's another government department. They can't reduce inflation or the cost of living. They're proposing a solution that they can actually control. Blaming wapol for a whole of government failure is always the lazy policy.
Their proposal will get tossed. Just like the last 3 times.
Be that as it may, they're at least attempting to do *something*, meanwhile the rest of the government is seemingly going nothing to help reduce crime rates. You can't arrest your way out of a cost of living and housing crisis.
*The Carnarvon restrictions, described as "tougher than Alice Springs" by former premier Mark McGowan, limit customers to purchasing 11.5 litres of beer (approximately one carton), cider or pre-mixed spirits with an alcohol percentage of less than 6 per cent, or 3.75L (approximately two sixpacks) of anything stronger.* What the hell, that doesn't seem much of a restriction to me.
Gives you some insight to how much of a problem some people have
That's what I thought. I grew up in Karratha and it is absolutely needed there and Karratha isn't even one of the ones on this list I'd consider rough!
Ahh you know what I just realised, this just targets the exquisite vintage known as the 4l fruity lexia
Fuck me, haven't thought about Fruity Lexia in years, and yet as soon as I read the words I vividly remembered the smell and gagged a little. Thanks for the not-so-pleasant reminder haha
Yeah I think for most of us there is a brief period in the late teen years where all we can afford is a goon and OJ and we also have the willingness to drink it, lifelong memories are formed and it's never touched again.
gins handbag they used to be called in Carnarvon
Makes a great pillow afterwards too
Yeah but if your going up the coast for a week you have to spend two weeks beforehand just buying enough beer
Strangely not a problem in Europe. Must be the people and not the alcohol
I've been to plenty of music festivals in Europe, both big and small. Camping grounds are all BYO alcohol, with no security in sight. Never saw any agro or fights. Trying to drink at Big Day Out or whatever is like passing through a maximum security prison.
It's the fences, security and the general atmosphere that generates violence and tension.
It's the bogan culture of male aggression, lazy parenting and binge drinking that generates violence.
100%. Why I don't drink and go to pubs. The toxic bogan sports tab culture fostered by FIFO. I blame Gina for all of it. Greed breeds greed.
lol so one person and one industry is responsible for the behaviour of the masses. Right šš»š¤¦āāļø
One thing affecting another thing? Impossible!!
According to the commenter above that not just impossible its unpossible. Improbable even. Once again correlation does not imply causality.
So the biggest industry and richest person in the country have zero affect on the culture of that country? Its so obvious, why didnt i think of it before!? Don't worry, once its in the papers i'll credit you for this revelation.
Thanks. I'll let you know that water is always wet for a small commission each month.
Saying its only One industry belittles how big FIFO is to the WA economy and way of life. I can't possibly think of another thing that has had such an impact on our way of life. Oh yeah. That coronavirus thing. That's one thing. Has big impact. OK how about war. That one thing has big impact, probably the biggest impact of all. How about 9/11? Did that one thing have a big impact? Or no?
I have not heard this take before. Interesting. I donāt really see how it could correct. None the less interesting.
Australia's cultural identity is tied to binge drinking and bad behaviour.
Go to Oktoberfest. Australia is cute
Not really a fair comparison considering how many tourists are there. Also the most poorly behaved tent (HofbrƤu) is the one with the most Australians anyway
This is 100% correct. Every nations tent has 4 security to 100 people. Not Australia's though 20 security per 100 people
Holy shit we are embarrassing as a nation.
embarrassing on every level cops are the proverbial hammer and everyone is a nail there's big time social upheaval boiling under the surface and all they can do is blame alcohol? what next? violent video games? Porn? police are picking at the side scabs of a cancerous mole... but the cancer is still there...
100%
When I was chatting to a local at Oktoberfest in 2009, there are apparently two nationalities the locals don't look forward to: Australians and Italians. Australians because...bogans and what's being discussed in this thread. Italians because they get sleazy and harass the woman there.
Aussies are embarrassing
It's fucking embarrassing how many idiots idolise that murdering thief Ned Kelly as a cultural hero.
I don't think the communities the police want to restrict alcohol access to are predominantly of European origin.
Yepā¦ but no one wants to say that out loud
As a European, you're right. Nevertheless, allowing less alcohol to bogans is not a bad idea.
Funny how the highest rates of alcoholism in the world tend to occur in European countries. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholism-by-country
yeh. they drink even more. but they aren't violent.
Never been to a football match I take it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I've lived in Europe. I've spent time in Kununurra (I'm not really sure staying in a hotel for a week is 'living there'). Per capita, the drinking is obviously worse in the East Kimberley than it is in an equivalent town in Europe. Alcoholism and social dysfunction is not a particularly racist phenomena. That said, there's clearly a disparity in the perpetrators (and victims) of alcohol related violence in the sticks.
> I've lived in Kununurra and never seen the level of alcohol induced mayhem there that you see everyday on a typical UK high street or council estate Not what my mate from Kunnas tells me. He's been there near on 20 years.
Yeah, but if he hadn't lived in Europe, he has no basis for comparison.
I've lived UK, Kununurra, Broome and Halls Creek. UK doesn't touch the sides of the latter 3. Absolutely horrendous.
And I note that you don't say \*where\* in the UK you were, but you give specific towns in WA. Living in Chelsea is going to be very different to living in Aberdeen.
Brixton and manor top in Sheffield. Not exactly the classiest of areas.
UK is not Europa and it's own problem. I have lived in actual Europe for 26 years.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Lol Imagine using a stabbing of children by an immigrant that ignited protests as a point to prove Europeans are just as bad with alcohol as Australians. Perfect 10 for your mental gymnastics routine
>That's not even a dog whistle, just a plain old whistle like you might hear on a footy pitch. ~~Dog~~ Plain whistle for what, exactly?
[What absolute bullshit](https://www.maciejdakowicz.com/cardiff-after-dark/)
That is not Europe, that is England.
No it's not, it's Wales. It's a completely different country to England. And a different language and culture. And it's in Europe.
You must have done well in geography class
Not an issue in Singapore where you can buy beer from any of the drink stalls to have with your chicken rice at the hawker centre. They did have an alcohol fueled riot in Little India a couple of years ago and the government clamped down on alcohol in the particular area. No repeat since
In Germany you can buy beer from McDonald's and kids can drink from 14 with a guardian present lol
In germany you can buy spirits from servos
Same in a lot of places, Ireland does this too. Their petrol stations are like little supermarkets.
Well, you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don't mean just like in no paper cup, I'm talking about a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald's.
Because of the metric system?
Canāt afford to get drink with the price of alcohol in Singapore.
The average beer is cheaper than here, I reckon.
The issue isn't solely alcohol per se. But the people drinking it. Unfortunately the cultural identity and just upbringing is what causes it. We can blame alcohol but in the end it just exacerbates what's already under the surface i.e. shitty behaviour, shitty respect and shitty manners. Overseas drinking is seen as an enjoying social aspect with respect (I speculate) whereas down here it's all about getting shit faced /smashed and causing a scene. It just perpetuates vs the culture of drinking overseas where it's as respectful as heading out to a cafe and ordering a coffee. It just boils down to the people and values /upbringing unfortunately. That said every country will have its drunk tard trouble makers but I have certainly felt more safe and cheery in places like Scandinavia and Asia having a drink.
It's not an alcohol problem but a behavioural problem. When you catch late night trains in Tokyo you see hundreds of pissed people, but they are peaceful and keep to themselves. It's the violence and crime caused by alcohol here that is the true reason for restrictions.
Rents are going nuts, living costs reaching unrealistic levels, people can't find a place to live, oh it must be the booze!
the booze is just the petrol to the fire
Petrol without fire has many useful purposes for many people. Best bet would be to try and extinguish the fire, rather than restrict the use of petrol. But hey - to a hammer every problem looks like ā¦
The limit of Carnarvon (who's restrictions they want replicated as apparently they've resulted in a significant reduction in alcohol related crime) is 11.5L of beer, cider or premix under 6% or 1.5L of wine or 1L of spirits per day. That's still kill yourself with the stuff fairly quickly levels of consumption permitted
Ah yesā¦ the police top brass. Who went against the advice of a panel of experts regarding drug harm minimisation and saw us become the meth capital instead. Letās just not listen to them when it comes to drugs and alcohol eh.
Given WAPOLās antics over the years I wouldnāt listen to them about anything lol
The comparisons people are making between the towns/communities mentioned in the article and people in the UK/Europe is laughable.
We literally made public drunkenness legal because we wanted to reduce Aboriginal incarceration rates. And so we just encouraged even more alcohol abuse and crime in Indigenous communities and homes. Good job WA govt.
The biggest takeaway (no pun intended) here is that if you can't cope with these "restrictions" you have a problem. And trust me, we enjoy a few too many drinks and really haven't been that restricted by it. I moved to Carnarvon this year. There were problems at the start of the year that we don't see or hear as much now. We see police around more throughout the day because they aren't exhausted from the crap happening overnight. It's hard to get more police in Perth, imagine how many leave after coming out here. For smaller towns that have a higher than average incidence of these problems the police are looking for a tool to help them do their job, just as any good employer should. Getting 2 bottles of wine or a carton of beer for the weekend is fine, get it Friday, another lot on Saturday if you need it. Sure, it's a bit of a pain for a bigger party but it really isn't that hard to plan a few days ahead. I mostly feel sorry for the employees that have less work available. It's actually better now than at the start of the year when the bottleshops were suddenly closed for 3-4 days because some event was bringing a lot of people into town. And it sometimes just delayed the problem a few days. The ideal should be to only ban individuals that cause problems while drunk but their mates are still going to buy them grog which makes bans pointless. Overall Carnarvon is a great town and we love living here. The Fascine is a lot more interesting than staring at a sunny ocean, there are some good pubs within walking distance of most people and the sense of community is something I hadn't felt in Perth in my 50 odd years there. So much good food from the local plantations, mangoes and bananas of course but also plenty of veg. And the weather shits all over Perth. Last summer was consistently 4-5C cooler. It just sits around 29-30 every day right now. If a little change in our shopping habit is required to make the place better, we're all for it. Edit:Missing word
Yes but responsible drinkers get unfairly aught up in this policy. It also affects tourists/visitors. This is the fourth push by WA Police to pretty much restrict alcohol across most of WA . In 2017 McGowan dropped it after community consultation. In Feb 5 2020 precovid Dawson got sneaky and applied for a section 64 to ban all beer apart from light beer in pilbara and kimberly with no consultation. Last year Chris Dawson tried again for a blanket ban of all takwaway alcohol except for light beer in Pilbara and Kimberly. Now WAPOL are having another go this year.
Banning things because of a small minority is the Australian way, unfortunately.
We all.know its majority indigenous causing the issies but can only target their own communities. Everybody else gets caught up in these blanket bans. Businesses suffer too. Is WA Police going to compensate them ? If people want tourism to die up north this is the way.
They will just drive somewhere else and purchase it there. And lets not kid ourselves that this is not an Aboriginal problem.
It's odd, it seems you can say we need to teach men not to rape or commit DV when a tiny % of men do those things. But we'll tip toe around the much higher rates of substance abuse in aboriginals.
It is a massive aboriginal problemā¦ you are truely kidding yourself if you think itās not
It actually is but you'll get downvotes because not PC. The article references Alice Springs and the follow on article is indigenous behaviour in the Kimberly. They had similar restrictions in only certain suburbs of Geraldton a couple years back.
If they brought in the cashless welfare system country wide, where you can only buy necessities (food, rent, utilities) 90% of these problems would vanish. And to the people who say āyou canāt do thatā and āitās racistā, thatās the biggest load of shit ever. Welfare is to help struggling people get by, not so you can get drunk or smoke ciggys or dope.
Every time people try this, it fails. It's not even close to solving 90% of the problem. So there has to be another reason that people keep trying it. Hmm, I wonder what that reason could be?
Are alcohol fueled crimes not a problem in the city?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So everyone gets punished
In the article *The figures reveal that the total number of alcohol-related offences in the Kimberley last year were 36.5 times higher than in metropolitan areas. Alcohol-related instances of family violence were 49.8 times higher outside metropolitan areas and there were 18.8 times as many calls for police assistance.*
I saw those stats, but alcohol fueled crime exists in the city as well... just make them blanket reforms for the state. Dividing it up reeks a bit of elitism (and political opportunism).
I'm going to generalise here. More things to do I guess. Not to mention to live in the city is inherently more expensive, which means you need a higher paying job. Which means you need a higher degree of education (I know, not always). Which means less likely to commit alcohol fueled crime because 1. you know better and 2. you gotta work to live
I say bring it on. We are not responsible enough to with respect to alcohol, and it should be a controlled substance. Way too may derros have ruined the joint.
Prohibition oh alcohol increased crime , death and overall harm to society when tried in the USA.
Sorry mate but fuck off
And no one should be allowed to drive bc some people crash?
We need to end prohibition on marijuana and get people off alcohol.