Regulating social problems: the pokies, the Productivity Commission and an Aboriginal Community

Australia has 21 per cent of the world’s electronic gaming machines—more commonly known as poker machines. Deregulation of the industry has expanded the availability of gaming machines to an extent unprecedented in the western world. As a result there are estimated to be approximately 300,000 problem gamblers in Australia, an unknown number of whom are Indigenous Australians. This discussion paper documents the first successful Aboriginal use of regulation in order to prevent the installation of electronic gaming machines—a case that took place in South Australia in 1998. At around the same time, the Productivity Commission was conducting an inquiry into Australia’s gambling industries. This discussion paper, offered in part because of the dearth of published material on contemporary Indigenous gambling, discusses how the Productivity Commission dealt with Indigenous gambling and draws some conclusions from the South Australian case

Lessons from a History of Beer Canteens and Licensed Clubs in Indigenous Australian Communities

The idea that alcoholic drinks should be made available in licensed canteens or clubs in discrete Aboriginal communities has a contentious history in Australian public policy. This discussion paper aims to provide some historical depth to the latest resurgence of interest in the idea. The paper traces the social and policy changes that created a context within which it was thought that rationed sales of alcohol in home communities would encourage responsible drinking practices among Indigenous drinkers. Such experiments followed closely on the repeal of Aboriginal prohibition in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland. The paper also discusses what went wrong with these establishments and makes suggestions for the future

An exploration of the impact of gifted and talented policies on inner city schools in England: a case study

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Education and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis study investigates the impact of various ‘gifted and talented’ initiatives, brought in by successive governments in the UK since 1999. The research employs the Case Study method in an inner-city London primary school. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews with teachers, teaching assistants, pupils, parents and senior managers was analysed, using a thematic method. Documents including the School Development Plan, Ofsted reports and internal policies were also analysed, as well as lesson observations. A literature review encompassing both the history of ‘gifted and talented’ policy development and research on identifying and providing for ‘gifted and talented’ pupils revealed a notable lack of empirical research evidence as a basis for the policies. The emphasis on identifying ‘gifted and talented’ pupils in the policies, with less guidance about provision, possibly led practitioners to unfruitful and inaccurate directions. The research was contextualised by a review of the role of the Local Authority, in which the school was located, in implementing ‘gifted and talented’ policies. The importance of this diminishing role was confirmed. The challenge now is how to disseminate future initiatives, with no clear way to communicate with school leaders. The subsequent Case Study identified the strengths of the policies as raising awareness of the needs of this group of pupils, as well as finding a need for more professional development for teachers, which is unlikely to be met, since the policy was disbanded in 2011. Other findings showed that, whilst teachers have become more accepting of ‘gifted and talented’ policy, the lack of guidance about provision led to them using self-theories and professional experience to ensure ‘gifted and talented’ pupils have opportunities for challenge, with mixed success. More information, based on evidence-based research, needs to be made available to teachers to ensure they can provide effectively for this group of learners

Equality and difference: Persisting historical themes in health and alcohol policies affecting Indigenous Australians

Disseminating national health and alcohol policies to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia has been a challenging task for governments and public servants. This has been for a number of reasons, including the enduring (negative) legacy of past "Aboriginal affairs" policies, the fact that Indigenous health programmes and alcohol programmes have been treated separately since the 1970s, and a more recent context in which the recognition of cultural difference was privileged. Confronted with the politics of difference, health departments were slow to examine avenues through which best practice advice emanating from WHO, and alcohol policies such as harm minimisation and early identification and treatment in primary health care, could be communicated in culturally recognisable ways to independent Indigenous services. In addition, there was hostility towards harm minimisation policies from Indigenous service providers, and Indigenous treatment programmes remained largely committed to abstinence-oriented modalities and the disease model of alcoholism, despite moves away from these approaches in the mainstream. However, genuinely innovative acute interventions and environmental controls over alcohol have been developed by Indigenous community-based organisations, approaches that are reinforced by international policy research evidence

Indigenous residential treatment programs for drug and alcohol problems: Current status and options for improvement

Commonwealth-funded residential rehabilitation programs for Indigenous problem drinkers or drug users were established in the 1970s as community-controlled organisations that were separate from Aboriginal Medical Services and independent of State drug and alcohol units. Structural and political factors during their development and growth have meant that many such programs are now poorly networked with sources of professional advice and other types of therapeutic community. They remain wedded to a single treatment regime and are insulated from change. On the other hand, some offer a range of vocational and skills-based activities as well as providing referrals for effective counselling. Trends in Indigenous drug and alcohol misuse are changing, with a decline in alcohol use and an increase in opiate use as the principal drug problem for those receiving services. Residential programs need to be informed and competent in order to respond to these changes. Fruitful avenues to pursue in order to improve their knowledge base and perspectives include providing better training for board members as well as facilitating exchanges with other, non-Indigenous therapeutic communities. Collaboration in quality improvement reviews, closer partnerships with local State drug and alcohol services and non-government organisation networks, and mandatory participation in the many available in-service training programs would contribute to achieving these goals

Historical and cultural roots of tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Tobacco smoking has been identified as a major contributor to the high morbidity and mortality rates of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. After years of inattention, smoking cessation projects designed for Indigenous Australians are beginning to emerge. Dealing successfully with smoking cessation would be enhanced by an understanding of the long-standing historical, social and cultural antecedents to present-day usage of tobacco. This paper provides a brief account of the historical precursors to present-day patterns of tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Historical records and mission documents, together with ethnographic accounts, suggest that Indigenous tobacco use today demonstrates strong continuity with past patterns and styles of use. These sources also reveal that Europeans deliberately exploited Aboriginal addiction to nicotine

Performance indicators for Aboriginal Health Services

Performance indicators, which are simply variables that help to measure change, have been highly contentious in the area of Aboriginal health. This discussion paper focuses on the introduction of performance indicators for Aboriginal Health Services by the former Department of Aboriginal Affairs and subsequent attempts by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) to implement their collection. This paper addresses some of the difficulties implicit in the way in which performance indicators have been linked to funding allocations, and the difficulties experienced by Aboriginal community-controlled health services in providing the data requested. Often the data requested in the past have not been relevant either to monitoring performance, or to assessing health status. The paper examines conceptual problems associated with indicators, and makes overall policy recommendations

Dealing with alcohol in Alice Springs:an assessment of policy options and recommendations for action

The excessive consumption of alcohol and associated behaviour is a potentially intractable issue with no easy policy solutions. Altering drinking behaviour will inevitably involve changing attitudes over the long term and indeed will need generational change. Such change must come from the individuals who make up the ‘demand’ side of the drinking equation. However, change must also come from the ‘supply’ side of the equation, from those who sell and serve alcoholic beverages, since the availability of alcohol affects attitudes and behaviours at both the individual and community levels. Above all, change of the sort that could make a difference will require a degree of political will. It will take bipartisan political determination to bring about the changes that could contribute to a long-term improvement in the amounts, type and style of alcohol consumption that are now commonplace in Alice Springs (and in other parts of the Territory). We must face up to the fact that Alice Springs has an unusually high density of liquor outlets. According to Lyon (1990), in 1988 it had 40 per cent more licenses per head of population than the rest of the Northern Territory, itself high by Australian standards. While by 1998, the total number of licenses in Alice Springs per 100,000 population over the age of 15 years had dropped marginally, there is little doubt that the ready availability of alcohol can be linked to the high per capita consumption levels (see further discussion on p. 6). Opposing views as to ‘solutions’ The first point to make is that disagreements and controversies over what needs to be done to address alcohol problems usually arise from quite different views as to what is the underlying nature of the grog problem, and as a result what action is needed to ‘solve’ the problem. It is most unlikely that these deeply held opinions in the Northern Territory and Alice Springs contexts could be reconciled in any simple fashion. Thus, one approach is to adopt public health programs or other interventions targeting the whole community, which seek to reduce overall alcohol consumption. These can include, for example, education programs which aim to encourage responsible drinking practices across all sectors of the community, or changes in the availability of alcohol (for example, through restrictions on hours or numbers of outlets) which affect all consumers. Such approaches often produce opposition from those who consider themselves ‘moderate’ drinkers, or ‘average’ members of the community, who may claim that they will have to pay for what they see as the sins of the few. This is despite the fact that the available aggregate consumption figures for all sectors of the Alice Springs community suggest that a long-term and broadly based public health strategy is required to reduce alcohol consumption levels. Furthermore, broad restrictions on alcohol availability can also alienate licensees who may lose significant income as a result of restrictions when, arguably, their cooperation (as a group) is required for long-term improvements to the situation. The other widely held set of views focus on what is seen as the ‘problem drinker’. From this perspective, most of the alcohol-related problems in Alice Springs are seen as being associated with a relatively small group of people who habitually drink to excess and cause themselves and others harm. According to this view, interventions should be aimed at the identified problem drinkers, not at the community as a whole. This approach often allows for a focus on Aboriginal drinkers which can be seen as discriminatory or even racist, and leads to opposition from Aboriginal individuals and organisations. It tends to alienate those people in a position to coax cooperation from both the ‘grassroots’ and from umbrella organisations. It is clear that the differences of opinion in Alice Springs about what to do about the problem of public drunkenness and other alcohol related problems is, in fact a struggle over which of the two above approaches is going to be the dominant one: the generalised approach on the one hand, or the targeted approach on the other. The struggle between proponents of these two views has merely succeeded in polarising the Alice Springs community, and making it extremely difficult to propose actions which are acceptable to all or even most stakeholders. It is also difficult to persuade people who drink in a low-risk manner that they should drink less, or have less easy access to alcohol, but most people seem willing to support sensible strategies that are focused on reducing alcohol-related harm, or on deterring behaviour which renders such harm likely (Stockwell et al. 1997). Furthermore, all the research supports the finding that drinking large amounts of alcohol on particular occasions is a strong predictor of subsequent intoxication-related problems such as disputation, violence, and accidents. This suggests a focus on particular high-risk situations and practices may be the most useful but, before returning to this point, we wish to discuss some of the options raised with us. Organisation of the report This report aims to provide a broad overview of possible policy directions to address the particular alcohol problems in Alice Springs. It seeks to do this in the context of international and national best practice, while recognising the considerable steps in this area already undertaken at a number of levels, including community-based organisations. The report, therefore, is organised around a number of core themes which emerge in the literature on alcohol policy and, where appropriate examines these in the light of international best practice, relevant examples from the wider Australian situation, and circumstances in the Northern Territory and Alice Springs in particular

Teenagers’ moral advertising literacy in an influencer marketing context

Teenagers are avid consumers of social media and also constitute attractive target audiences for influencer marketing (IM). Teenagers can perceive strong, parasocial relationships with influencers, frequently regarding them as being akin to a peer or a friend. Furthermore, influencer endorsements are observed to carry greater credibility and authenticity than traditional forms of advertising. This therefore raises questions about young consumers’ discernment of, and critical evaluation of the overall appropriateness when influencers act as conduits of commercial messages on behalf of brands. This paper reports on a qualitative study of 29 teenagers aged 15–17 years. The aim was to explore the participants’ moral advertising literacy, namely their evaluations of the fairness and appropriateness of IM. The findings indicate whilst the participants were critical and sceptical towards the practice of IM in general (i.e. their dispositional advertising literacy), they were positively disposed towards specific commercial content emanating from specific influencers, (i.e. their situational literacy), often on the basis of the parasocial relationship that was seen to prevail between influencer and follower. This study therefore illustrates a gap between the teenagers’ moral AL in the context of IM in general, and a corresponding willingness to apply this critical reflection, to known influencers