Choice at whose cost?

New singers, old songs: alcohol bans in Aboriginal communities

Here's an interesting article by a researcher in the area about the Liberal governments in Queensland and the NT plans to ease restrictions on alcohol in aboriginal communities.  

The issue is complicated, and but the writer thinks there is much danger in relaxing the restrictions.  I wasn't aware of this:

Another favoured policy response has been to urge remote communities to establish licensed clubs (as the Bjelke-Petersen government did in Cape York in the 1980s), in the belief that communities with clubs will export fewer drinkers to towns. The limited evidence available to test this proposition does not support it, but its plausibility to urban voters is obvious. The real problem for NT governments, however, has been that most communities have repeatedly made it clear that they do not want clubs. Out of more than 100 Aboriginal communities in the NT, just seven currently operate licensed clubs, and one has a licensed store. All of these are located in the Top End.

A few other communities have run clubs in the past, only to abandon them as too much trouble. In two or three other communities, discussions are currently under way that may or may not lead to those communities applying to the NT Licensing Commission for club licenses.

I think the Liberal Party's approach on this is quite cynical, and more about capturing the aboriginal vote than caring about the cost.