Brough to ban kava in Indigenous communities

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough says kava will be outlawed in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory by the end of the week.

The tranquillising Pacific Islands substance was introduced to some Aboriginal communities in the early 1980s in the hope that it would curb alcohol abuse.

Mr Brough says there has been resistance to its removal, with the Yirrkala community in Arnhem Land so outraged it ejected a visiting Commonwealth survey team this week.

But he says the drug is harmful and must go.

"What a social destruction where governments allow licensing of a product which has had people comatosed, as one senior elder told me," he said.

"Women and men [have been] comatosed for long periods, not getting out of bed of a morning, not feeding their children, not sending them to school, not having a care about anything, because this substance has basically just messed with them so badly."

Mr Brough his Commonwealth survey team was kicked out of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land on Monday in protest to kava bans.

A community spokesman says the survey team was asked to leave after it failed to deliver any new information about the intervention.

But Mr Brough says his Aboriginal contacts in Yirrkala have told him heavy users of the tranquillising Kava substance were behind the protest.

"We have pockets of people who perhaps have been given information inappropriately, incorrectly, or simply are opposed to things like the banning of kava," he said.

"Well I'm afraid those are things we are doing in the interest of their children.

"I'm afraid that if they are in too much of a fog from substance abuse not to understand that, then that doesn't excuse their actions and will not prevent us from acting."

He says he will not be travelling to Arnhem Land to talk to angry community members at Yirrkala.

"No I won't be going out to Yirrkala to speak directly to those people," he said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Wed, 15 Aug 2007
Source: Australian Broadcasting Commission (Australia-Web)
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/