How grog ruined a childhood Eden in Kalgoorlie

Like a lot of whiteys living in the capital cities, I wonder what the truth is about the devastation in remote aboriginal communities. As usual, when trying to find out, it is best to teat skeptically the blurb of the politicians and mainstream media commetators.

I found the following in "The Age" letters.

It suggests sometimes the cause of a complex prolem may be simple, and the answer may be glaringly obvious.

How grog ruined a childhood Eden in Kalgoorlie

May 25, 2006

IN THE 1950s and 1960s I lived in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. One-third of our school were Aborigines. They were as good as we white guys in the classroom (except in music, arts and crafts, where they were much better). The white guys played footy against the black guys. We didn't know what racism was, it just made sense: no one could afford footy jumpers so it was easier to see who was on which team. And they always won!

The Aboriginal dads worked in the underground gold mines (alongside my dad); they were good workers, very reliable. The Aboriginal mums would walk up the back lanes of our houses every day calling out "any bread" — which meant "any food". My sisters and I took it in turns to give them the leftovers Mum gave to us. If they didn't come around we just ate the leftovers ourselves. We called them "smiling ladies", they had great big white teeth and they always had a baby hanging off their arm. The Aborigines were the hit of the annual Kalgoorlie Fair. Their skills with spears and boomerangs kept us spellbound. Some of us were lucky enough to be taught how to use a nulla-nulla to help launch spears great distances.

Life was great growing up in Kalgoorlie, a community in great harmony — we had never heard of, and had no need of, "reconciliation". The Aborigines tended to live on the outskirts of town in basic corrugated iron sheds (they seemed happy with that and we went there often as kids).
But in those days it was against the law for Aborigines to be supplied with or for them to consume alcohol (the white man's firewater). And then the laws changed (I can't remember what year) and it became legal to supply Aborigines with alcohol.

Their kids stopped coming to primary school and our football competition collapsed. None of them ever went to high school when we did. The dads stopped turning up for work (first time we had heard of them going walkabout) for long periods and became unemployable because of their unreliability. The "smiling ladies" stopped coming to our back fence and it became normal to see Aboriginal men and women stagger out of the pubs at all hours of the day, vomit and urinate unashamedly in the main street, then back into the pub. We were not allowed at their shanty towns any more, the police were there all the time. Rape, bashings, incest and family feuds in their community were new to us all.

Some 40 plus years later, for many Aborigines not much has changed, what a waste! It's probably not politically correct to suggest this, and would only be part of the solution — but making it illegal for Aborigines to be supplied with, or for them to consume alcohol, would, in my experience solve heaps of their problems. Maybe to avoid discrimination, make it illegal for anyone to consume alcohol for certain periods (depending on the crime) as part of their penalty for alcohol-related crimes.

I am aware of people in WA who describe living with Aborigines as living with a nightmare. Such a shame, I remember growing up with them with great memories.Barry Coleman, Anglesea