Alternative Law Journal

Media Release
1 May 1997

Bush Lawyers and Bush Laws

The April 1997 edition of the Alternative Law Journal comes to you from the Northern Territory.

Its key themes concern the possibilities of Statehood, the problems of alcohol abuse, the challenge of isolation, and the continuing confrontation between neo-colonial and Indigenous legal systems.

Northern Territorians claim the dubious distinction of being incomparably over-governed. We have more pollies - not to mention more police and more prisoners - per person than anywhere else in Australia, if not the world.

Mick Dodson's article is a timely reminder that although Australian proponents of constitutional change are currently captivated by the catchwords of 'Republic' and, in the NT, 'Statehood', they should first address the more fundamental notion of citizenship in a country still under arguably illegal occupation.

In a similar vein Stephen Gray, Robyn Davis with Judith Dikstein, and Chips Mackinolty explore the uneasy interaction between two deeply divergent legal systems, in, respectively, the areas of intellectual property, family law, and euthanasia.

In their contributions, Martin Flynn, and Helen Spowart with Rebecca Neil investigate the Territory's similarly hairy-chested approach to keeping law and order (on the political agenda, that is).

We publish an extract from Alexis Wright's forthcoming book 'Grog War', a history of the decade-long struggle by Aboriginal organisations and communities in Tennant Creek against a group of particularly determined licensees, as well as Ruth Morley's account of a recent breakthrough in the fight to restrict alcohol sales in Pitjantjatjara country. Shirley Braun and Nanette Rogers provide a depressing account of the devastating effect on Aboriginal women in remote communities of domestic violence -- much of which is associated with alcohol abuse -- but also encouragingly report on strategies identified by those women to reclaim their safety.

As was graphically illustrated with the emotionally-charged passage of the Euthanasia Laws Act 1997 (Cth) through Federal Parliament, for the time being at least, the Territory remains a Territory, occupying a peculiar constitutional space somewhere between a fully-fledged State and a remnant colonial outpost of Canberra. Russell Goldflam probes this space in an article about sacred sites laws in the NT.

DATE: 1 May 1997