Senator Meg Lees
Portfolio: Indigenous Affairs
| Dated: 5 Sep 2000
Location: Parliament
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Senator Meg Lees speaks on the Adjournment Debate - Aboriginal Youth: Petrol Sniffing |
I have been asked by some members of the Yuendumu community to bring to the attention of the federal government the serious impact of petrol sniffing among their young people. Last month, during the parliamentary recess, I was able to visit this remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory to meet with members of the community and discuss a range of issues. There are a number of very positive stories to be told, particularly relating to the new aged care facility, but the overwhelming issue that kept coming up and that we kept coming back into discussions related to petrol sniffing, largely because of the horrific injuries suffered by a teenager, in the few days before I was there, while he and friends were sniffing.
During my visit I met a number of people who are making a very serious attempt to stamp out petrol sniffing in this community, and they have had some success. From time to time they really do make some inroads and make a real difference. But they are now losing the battle, with more and more young people sniffing. The Aboriginal community here and elsewhere in the desert is desperate. It is crying out to the rest of Australia for help. Over the past few years petrol sniffing has become endemic in many Aboriginal communities. There are some conservative estimates that Central Australia alone has some 500 full-time sniffers. We are not just talking about teenagers here; we are talking about kids as young as seven or eight who are already recognised as full-time petrol sniffers.
Petrol sniffing is, without doubt, one of the worst possible forms of substance abuse. The short-term effects of petrol sniffing on a young person's behaviour include violence, visions, hallucinations and an inability to control thought or speech. If they continue, in the longer term it causes brain damage, lung disease and systemic neuropathy. Even in the early stages, petrol sniffing can induce serious mental illness. It certainly precipitates the breakdown of families and communities. Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson has also spoken of this problem in the Cape York Peninsula. In his recent Ben Chifley Memorial Lecture he said:
... petrol sniffing is in some places now so endemic that crying infants are silenced with petrol drenched rags on their faces.
That is a very horrific thought indeed. I recall the outrage when a mother left her child to suffocate in a car while betting in a casino and also the outrage you see in papers across the nation from time to time when syringes are found on people's lawns or on beaches. That outrage leads to some action - it has led to a range of measures to prevent children being left in cars while parents are at the pokies and to reduce the impact of syringes on our beaches and streets. But where is the outrage here, when kids of eight and nine are regularly holding cans of petrol up to their noses, literally melting their brains? There have been a number of very prominent articles in our major dailies, but still I have to ask: where is the outrage? Something is drastically wrong if the rest of Australia can sit back and watch what is happening to Aboriginal communities and to these children.
Some Aboriginal parents are literally at their wit's end. They know that if they take the petrol away, if they stop their kids sniffing, they will simply leave the home; they will end up on the streets and, no doubt, in even more trouble. We would not tolerate this in any of our capital cities. Indeed, measures are taken to support young people who have a variety of problems in our capital cities - in Perth, in Adelaide and in Brisbane. But why is it that, with such a major problem facing these Aboriginal communities in remote areas, nothing is done? Perhaps it is just because what we do not see we prefer to ignore. This excuse simply is not good enough. Something is drastically wrong when the incidence of petrol sniffing changes from being a rare occurrence to being an epidemic in some communities within a three-year period.
While visiting the Northern Territory I had the opportunity to meet with Mr Michael Morgan, Manager of the Yuendumu Substance Abuse Program, who works with Mr Otto Sims, Chairman of the Mount Theo Yuendumu Substance Misuse Aboriginal Corporation. Mr Morgan outlined for me the organisation's petrol sniffing respite program that is out at Mount Theo, about 160 kilometres further on from Yuendumu. This program is the only federally funded petrol sniffing program in the Northern Territory and, as I learned from Michael Morgan, it is making some headway against very difficult odds. It does receive some funding; some $210,000 funding for petrol sniffing programs has been passed to this community over the last three years. However, there are major problems, one of which is staff shortages. There is also the fact that Mount Theo actually belongs to one of the traditional owners who allows his home to be used by up to 40 young people at a time. The facilities at Mount Theo are poor, and the current lack of staff means a lack of real rehabilitation. There is a very urgent need to support this Aboriginal community and assist them to get more qualified staff. There is also the problem of getting the kids out there, because the program has no vehicle. And, as staff have to be taken out of Yuendumu, it leaves no-one working with Aboriginal youth back at the Yuendumu Youth Centre. When the young people come back from Mount Theo they unfortunately often end up going straight back to petrol sniffing. One of the problems is that Yuendumu is known to have a program, so parents from surrounding communities encourage their kids to go in in the hope that they will get some support. Also, other young people visit at times of carnivals and sporting events. Again, kids with petrol sniffing problems are encouraged to stay, in the hope that they will get some support and some treatment, but unfortunately that frequently simply leads to more kids in Yuendumu itself taking up petrol sniffing.
One of the ways Yuendumu itself is trying to combat this problem is through the youth centre that is there. But it is a dilapidated old building - it was the mission's kitchen in the early 1960s. It has been renovated by local volunteers, but unfortunately there is no money for things like airconditioning. In summer it is over 50 degrees, and in winter it is freezing. It is obvious from looking at it that it is full of dust all year round. The roof leaks when it rains, and so the money that has been spent on getting some pool tables and games in there is wasted because the equipment does not survive some of the very wet periods. While I was there, unfortunately some young people who were on petrol at the time and whose behaviour was violent got in and did quite a lot of damage - a very saddening episode for those people in the community trying to keep this facility going.
I would like to quote some passages from Mr Otto Sims's letter. He is one of those dealing first hand with this appalling problem, and I think his words are more powerful than mine. He writes:
When the Ash Wednesday bushfires went through Victoria and South Australia all of Australia came to the rescue, government and volunteers. Petrol sniffing is like a bushfire slowly destroying Aboriginal youth and it needs to be stopped now.
We at this corporation are slowing down the spread of petrol sniffing but we need help to put it out. That is where we need government and private assistance so we can solve this problem in an Aboriginal way with Aboriginal control and with the help of the government to oversee the program. We have the confidence to tackle this problem if we have sufficient funding.
Mr Sims goes on to outline some of what is being done:
We as the indigenous community of Yuendumu want to put dignity back into our younger generation through educating them so they can have respect for themselves and others plus positive attitudes, skills and higher self esteem. Then in that way we can empower them to have more control over their lives when they get off the habit of sniffing petrol.
If we can do good things then our youth can forget about the bad things and get motivated to change their lives and their attitudes so they can have a future.
I know that there is no quick fix, but I am also aware that this is an urgent problem. We simply cannot let day after day go by without some attempt to find some solutions; without some realistic response to these communities which are crying out for support.
My colleague Senator Aden Ridgeway has raised the idea of allowing Aboriginal elders to practise traditional law as a way of dealing with petrol sniffing youth. But this problem is, as I said, not just confined to Yuendumu. If we really are serious about reconciliation, what better way to make a start, to make a real difference, than to look at the lives of vulnerable Aboriginal young people and put some funding and resources into those communities which are dealing with these desperate problems day by day. Friday is World Reconciliation Day. Surely one of the ways in which this government can mark that day is to make some real contribution to Aboriginal youth.
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Information provided by the Australian Parliamentary Library.
This document is of Draft Status
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