Youth organisation calls for coronial inquest into petrol-sniffing deaths - The World Today

PETER CAVE: Michael Long's walk aims to open people's eyes to the plight of indigenous Australians, and one of the great tragedies affecting a growing number of Aboriginal communities is the devastating practice of petrol sniffing.

It's prompted an Alice Springs youth organisation to write to the Northern Territory coroner asking for an inquest into 19 deaths.

That request from the Central Australian Youth Link Up Service comes in response to the opening today in South Australia of yet another coronial inquest – this one into the death of four young aboriginal men, as Sarah Hawke reports from Darwin.

SARAH HAWKE: Two years ago the South Australian Coroner described the conditions that led to petrol sniffing in remote Aboriginal communities as a national disgrace. Wayne Chivell made the comments in his findings into the death of three people in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands.

Two years on Mr Chivell's returning to the remote Umuwa community to begin another inquiry, this time into the death of four young Aboriginal men. Three had signs of petrol in their system.

The state government has enforced changes since the last inquiry and says it's committed significant funding to local programs, but the NPY Women's Council is concerned about a lack of action on petrol sniffing.

The Central Australian Link Up Service in Alice Springs sees the devastation of sniffing first hand. Coordinator Tristan Ray says the inquiry highlights the problem across Central Australia.

TRISTAN RAY: The pitlands and Naranjara (phonetic) lands have had a good history of using inquests as a way to really look at the issues and follow through on things that need to be done in their region, so we certainly have been learning from the inquests that have been happening in South Australia

SARAH HAWKE: Tristan Ray argues more resources are needed to fight petrol sniffing, and that's why the Youth Link Up Service has written to the Northern Territory Coroner calling for a much larger inquest, covering all Territory sniffing-related deaths over the past six years.

TRISTAN RAY: We think that if the coronial inquest looks at 19 deaths that it will have a greater capacity to look at all of the issues affecting petrol sniffing. Across the region there's a whole range of reasons that people die from petrol sniffing and a whole range of reasons that kids are sniffing at all in remote communities and we'd really like to see the review go as wide and as far as possible.

SARAH HAWKE: Doctor John Boffa from the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress says a comprehensive inquiry would be powerful. He says past inquiries have generated good initiatives but there are still fundamental issues to be tackled.

JOHN BOFFA: The factors that lead to resilience in young people, and by that I mean resilience in a sense where young people are strong and not abusing any substances – there are four main things.

One is the degree of relationship that young people have with their parents; the second is the degree of attachment they have to school; the third is the peer group that they're mixing with; and the fourth is their own spiritual identity and foundations in terms of a strong sense of who they are, and where they're going in the world.

Now, I think if you look at those four areas, there's still a lot of work to be done.

SARAH HAWKE: Is there really a need for a coronial inquiry? Shouldn't there be a direct focus on addressing those underlying issues?

JOHN BOFFA: There should, but as I said, you need to look holistically at a whole range of things with this sort of problem, and coronial inquests looking at individual cases in some detail often uncovers a better understanding of what's going on and can help shape more informed policy responses.

SARAH HAWKE: The Northern Territory Coroner's office says it's received the Youth Link Up Service's letter but no decision has been made on whether or not a coronial inquest will go ahead.

PETER CAVE: Sarah Hawke reporting there from Darwin.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: 23rd November 2004
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Reporter: Sarah Hawke
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/news
Email: comments@your.abc.net.au
Copyright: 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation