Law Reforming Lawyers and Aboriginal Social Controls: The Case of the Western Australian Aboriginal Communities ACT

Abstract

The proclamation of the Aboriginal Communities Act 1979 (WA) ('Act') made it possible for Aboriginal community councils to make and enforce by-laws in an attempt to limit civil disobedience and to enable them to regulate matters of concern to Aboriginal people on their own lands. A bylaw only applies within the boundaries of the community and can only be made by a unanimous vote of all council members. Initially the Act was restricted to two Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley region (La Grange and One Arm Point), followed by three more (Beagle Bay, Lombadina and Balgo). Following a positive review by John Hedges in 1986, the Act was extended further afield to other Aboriginal communities in Western Australia including communities which lie in the east of the State, bordering the Northern Territory and South Australia. These are the Ngaanyatjarra lands, where traditional owners were particularly interested in the power given to them under the Act to create local by-laws to deal with alcohol-related troubles and petrol sniffing. The communities of the region had struggled since the 1970s to manage chronic petrol sniffing2 which was a cause of substantial morbidity and mortality among young people.3 Petrol sniffing had spread rapidly amid a highly mobile population, so that between 1980 and 1988 sniffing was associated with at least 14 deaths in the Ngaanyatjarra lands,4 several of them from horrific burn injuries, car accidents, septicaemia and chronic lead poisoning. There were five deaths in Warburton alone over 14 months between 1988 and 1989. Sorry (grieving) camps, abandoned houses and continual funerals were all regular features of life in that period. The communities also had to deal with the disruptive effects of liquor imported from outlets many kilometres away to the east and the southwest. These substance abuses were matters of grave concern to the communities themselves.