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Grog War
A revamped Magabala classic by Miles Franklin award‑winning author Alexis Wright.
First published in 1997, this vivid portrayal of how the Indigenous people of Tennant Creek worked together to achieve community-wide alcohol restrictions, is more relevant now than ever. A searing account of what transpired over 25 years ago, Grog War provides historical context and Indigenous-led solutions to the challenges still confronting communities and towns throughout Australia.
In the '90s, Wright was commissioned by the Julalikari Council of Tennant Creek to write Grog War, to document how Aboriginal Elders and leaders dealt with the invasion of grog on Warumungu land and the enormous struggle it took to introduce simple alcohol restrictions in the town. Grog War traces an Indigenous-led movement of self-determination that shifted the blame from Aboriginal people for public drunkenness to looking at the way grog is pushed and sold, in turn challenging the town and government to share responsibility.
Aboriginal Elders and community advisors in Tennant Creek fought for years to put alcohol restrictions in place and they are still fighting. Their courage and tenacity is an inspiration for other towns in Australia who are battling against the tide of alcohol abuse and resistance from licencees and the broader community.
Grog War is essential reading for all those working towards and interested in Indigenous self-determination, for community leaders, legislators, health workers, social workers — and for our young people — so that all Australian children might grow up with a better understanding of what Indigenous people have fought hard to achieve in this country.
First published in 1997, this vivid portrayal of how the Indigenous people of Tennant Creek worked together to achieve community-wide alcohol restrictions, is more relevant now than ever. A searing account of what transpired over 25 years ago, Grog War provides historical context and Indigenous-led solutions to the challenges still confronting communities and towns throughout Australia.
In the '90s, Wright was commissioned by the Julalikari Council of Tennant Creek to write Grog War, to document how Aboriginal Elders and leaders dealt with the invasion of grog on Warumungu land and the enormous struggle it took to introduce simple alcohol restrictions in the town. Grog War traces an Indigenous-led movement of self-determination that shifted the blame from Aboriginal people for public drunkenness to looking at the way grog is pushed and sold, in turn challenging the town and government to share responsibility.
Aboriginal Elders and community advisors in Tennant Creek fought for years to put alcohol restrictions in place and they are still fighting. Their courage and tenacity is an inspiration for other towns in Australia who are battling against the tide of alcohol abuse and resistance from licencees and the broader community.
Grog War is essential reading for all those working towards and interested in Indigenous self-determination, for community leaders, legislators, health workers, social workers — and for our young people — so that all Australian children might grow up with a better understanding of what Indigenous people have fought hard to achieve in this country.
436 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1997
13 people are currently reading
337 people want to read
About the author
Alexis Wright
16 books402 followersAlexis Wright is from the Waanji people from the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Her acclaimed first novel Plains of Promise was published in 1997 by University of Queensland Press and was shortlisted in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Age Book of the Year, and the NSW Premier's Awards. The novel has been translated into French.
Alexis has published award-winning short stories and her other books are the anthology Take Power (Jukurrpa Books, l998), celebrating 20 years of land rights in Central Australia; and Grog War (Magabala,1997), an examination of the alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek.
Her latest novel, Carpentaria was published by Giramondo in 2006. An epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come, the novel tells of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance. In 2007 Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Fiction Book, and the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
Biographical information from the Australia Council website.
Alexis has published award-winning short stories and her other books are the anthology Take Power (Jukurrpa Books, l998), celebrating 20 years of land rights in Central Australia; and Grog War (Magabala,1997), an examination of the alcohol restrictions in Tennant Creek.
Her latest novel, Carpentaria was published by Giramondo in 2006. An epic set in the Gulf country of north-western Queensland, from where her people come, the novel tells of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance. In 2007 Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Best Fiction Book, and the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year.
Biographical information from the Australia Council website.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 31, 2019
This is an engrossing account of the battle to get an alcohol free day in Tennant Creek. If this makes it sound either dry or trivial, the book is anything but. It's authored by Alexis Wright, so it is beautifully written, and more importantly, raises a world's worth of thoughts through one microcosm campaign. There are elements of the technique that underpins the magnificent Tracker on display here as Wright uses primary sources, often contradictory ones, to introduce elements of the story.
So this is a story of a struggle by an Aboriginal leadership with a clear strategy against a morass of mostly strategy-less bureaucracy and local business. But there is a multitude of other stories here too. Beneath the surface of the maze of processes and rules is a battle between commercial imperatives - the desire to make money out of selling grog - and community imperatives - the lives destroyed by grog. The mere fact that this is viewed as a 'balance' issue is a little terrifying, and goes a long way to explaining the whole country's problems with alcohol, as just a tiny sliver of the power of the alcohol lobby is visible here, and a much bigger whack of its inhumanity.
In the face of that, the smarts and persistence of Julalikari, elders and community leaders managing dry camps, and fostering children, staffing the night bus is notable. Community leadership here is strong and capable, just very hampered by having government pose largely as an adversary rather than ally. The constant shifting in public policy that is a marker of our Westminister system is deadly here, preventing Aboriginal leaderships from real, long-term progress on a strategy as the rules keep changing.
The aspects that haunted me most, however, was the gulf of understanding between the majority of the Tennant Creek Council and Julalikari Council. While the local council gave lipservice to the grog problem, their approach indicates it is a 'Black' problem they are trying to solve. The measures put forward are all intended, not to mitigate the social tsunami of alcohol, but to remove visible and loud Aboriginal people from the main street. Most measures would enable the ongoing sale of grog - and hence profit - to this group, while pushing the problem back into majority Aboriginal-areas. There is little sense in which the alcohol-affected Aboriginal locals are part of the community the Council serves. Julalikari is trying to bring a community together, when the whites (in the Council leadership at least), don't even seem themselves as part of the same community. The depth of racism this reveals is unsettling, and even slightly shocking.
This extends to the white Australian response to the proposal for a grog free day a week. Now, I, an Anglo-Australian, have been a pretty heavy drinker in my time. Enough to recognise that when people start thinking that it is an impossible limitation to not have ready access to full-strength alcohol once a week, it is likely that they have a problem. Yet, despite numerous letters to the editor decrying the impossibility of giving up a liquid lunch once a week, the issues of white alcohol abuse never seem to surface in the discussion.
Putting all that together, it is almost agonising, with hindsight, to think of a missed world, in which the whole of Tennant Creek comes together to deal with alcohol abuse in a united. Acknowledging that colonialism means this plays out differently - and more destructively -for Indigenous Australians, but also recognising the commonalities of alcohol-fuelled domestic violence, and the right of a community to defend itself from those making money out of misery.
In the end, this is a good news story, and a pointer to the future, but, like moselle, there is a definite sourness in the aftertaste.
2019 Reading Challenge read #37. A book with a two-word title.
So this is a story of a struggle by an Aboriginal leadership with a clear strategy against a morass of mostly strategy-less bureaucracy and local business. But there is a multitude of other stories here too. Beneath the surface of the maze of processes and rules is a battle between commercial imperatives - the desire to make money out of selling grog - and community imperatives - the lives destroyed by grog. The mere fact that this is viewed as a 'balance' issue is a little terrifying, and goes a long way to explaining the whole country's problems with alcohol, as just a tiny sliver of the power of the alcohol lobby is visible here, and a much bigger whack of its inhumanity.
In the face of that, the smarts and persistence of Julalikari, elders and community leaders managing dry camps, and fostering children, staffing the night bus is notable. Community leadership here is strong and capable, just very hampered by having government pose largely as an adversary rather than ally. The constant shifting in public policy that is a marker of our Westminister system is deadly here, preventing Aboriginal leaderships from real, long-term progress on a strategy as the rules keep changing.
The aspects that haunted me most, however, was the gulf of understanding between the majority of the Tennant Creek Council and Julalikari Council. While the local council gave lipservice to the grog problem, their approach indicates it is a 'Black' problem they are trying to solve. The measures put forward are all intended, not to mitigate the social tsunami of alcohol, but to remove visible and loud Aboriginal people from the main street. Most measures would enable the ongoing sale of grog - and hence profit - to this group, while pushing the problem back into majority Aboriginal-areas. There is little sense in which the alcohol-affected Aboriginal locals are part of the community the Council serves. Julalikari is trying to bring a community together, when the whites (in the Council leadership at least), don't even seem themselves as part of the same community. The depth of racism this reveals is unsettling, and even slightly shocking.
This extends to the white Australian response to the proposal for a grog free day a week. Now, I, an Anglo-Australian, have been a pretty heavy drinker in my time. Enough to recognise that when people start thinking that it is an impossible limitation to not have ready access to full-strength alcohol once a week, it is likely that they have a problem. Yet, despite numerous letters to the editor decrying the impossibility of giving up a liquid lunch once a week, the issues of white alcohol abuse never seem to surface in the discussion.
Putting all that together, it is almost agonising, with hindsight, to think of a missed world, in which the whole of Tennant Creek comes together to deal with alcohol abuse in a united. Acknowledging that colonialism means this plays out differently - and more destructively -for Indigenous Australians, but also recognising the commonalities of alcohol-fuelled domestic violence, and the right of a community to defend itself from those making money out of misery.
In the end, this is a good news story, and a pointer to the future, but, like moselle, there is a definite sourness in the aftertaste.
2019 Reading Challenge read #37. A book with a two-word title.
August 21, 2022
‘Grog War is one of the few books published in Australia about a great Indigenous campaign. It is the story of how the Indigenous people of Tennant Creek worked together on a war against alcohol.’
After reading ‘Telling Tennant’s Story’ by Dean Ashenden and learning a bit about Tennant Creek, I (finally) picked up this book. This is an updated and revised edition of a book first published in 1997 and is an inspiring account of how the Indigenous people of Tennant Creek campaigned to reduce alcohol abuse. The campaign was initiated by the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation in rallying the Tennant Creek community to fight the problem of alcohol abuse as a community problem, not (just) ‘an Aboriginal problem’.
‘This book explores the challenges that confronted the Indigenous people of this remote Northern Territory township in their quest to explore ideas, develop strategies, and enforce change in a complex, mostly negative and dominating political, social and economic environment; a legacy stemming from the fact that the rights of Indigenous people are the unsettled business in Australia.’
Their battle to get an alcohol-free day in Tennant Creek was difficult. Liquor licensees and hotel owners, quick to rail against alcohol-fuelled violence, were reluctant to see their profits reduced, while others considered that their fundamental human rights were under attack.
It makes for uncomfortable reading: the notion that the profit motive is somehow more important than addressing alcohol related problems. This was not a campaign to make Tennant Creek alcohol free: it was a campaign to make some rules around the purchase of alcohol and to have an alcohol-free day. The community leadership shown within the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation was inspirational, as was their persistence in the face of opposition. Most of the Tennant Creek Council proposed measures which simply would have pushed the problem into majority Indigenous areas, without looking at the broader community. A classic approach of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
I finished this book full of admiration for the Indigenous community leaders who persisted, and full of disgust at those who believed they could define the problem of alcohol abuse as ‘their’ problem, not ‘our’ problem.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
After reading ‘Telling Tennant’s Story’ by Dean Ashenden and learning a bit about Tennant Creek, I (finally) picked up this book. This is an updated and revised edition of a book first published in 1997 and is an inspiring account of how the Indigenous people of Tennant Creek campaigned to reduce alcohol abuse. The campaign was initiated by the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation in rallying the Tennant Creek community to fight the problem of alcohol abuse as a community problem, not (just) ‘an Aboriginal problem’.
‘This book explores the challenges that confronted the Indigenous people of this remote Northern Territory township in their quest to explore ideas, develop strategies, and enforce change in a complex, mostly negative and dominating political, social and economic environment; a legacy stemming from the fact that the rights of Indigenous people are the unsettled business in Australia.’
Their battle to get an alcohol-free day in Tennant Creek was difficult. Liquor licensees and hotel owners, quick to rail against alcohol-fuelled violence, were reluctant to see their profits reduced, while others considered that their fundamental human rights were under attack.
It makes for uncomfortable reading: the notion that the profit motive is somehow more important than addressing alcohol related problems. This was not a campaign to make Tennant Creek alcohol free: it was a campaign to make some rules around the purchase of alcohol and to have an alcohol-free day. The community leadership shown within the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation was inspirational, as was their persistence in the face of opposition. Most of the Tennant Creek Council proposed measures which simply would have pushed the problem into majority Indigenous areas, without looking at the broader community. A classic approach of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
I finished this book full of admiration for the Indigenous community leaders who persisted, and full of disgust at those who believed they could define the problem of alcohol abuse as ‘their’ problem, not ‘our’ problem.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
December 15, 2023
I would like to start off with saying how important a topic this book handles: the negative effect of colonization on the lives and well-being of indigenous peoples (specifically in Australia) and the absolutely dastardly disregard the colonizers had/have for the humanity and culture of those populations. It is crucial we listen to "own voices" about these things.
That being said, this book is highly repetitive, and poorly organized and doesn't present the topic and history in a way that makes you engage with the topic. The constant use of Australian slang was difficult for me, personally, and not the fault of the writer. The author constantly says the same thing over and over and over, using different characters. It does show how frustrating the effects of alcoholism is within the rural indigenous population and how it has devastated family structure and the current and future success of their children. Also, how the non-Aboriginal "grog" industry (not the Aboriginal people) are the ones that profited from this. The apathy, obstruction, racism and lack of empathy on the part of most of the non-Aboriginal local elected representatives is overwhelming. The grass-roots Aboriginal effort to block sales of alcoholic drinks and to create Night Patrols to help get people home and to health care is truly inspiring.
That being said, this book is highly repetitive, and poorly organized and doesn't present the topic and history in a way that makes you engage with the topic. The constant use of Australian slang was difficult for me, personally, and not the fault of the writer. The author constantly says the same thing over and over and over, using different characters. It does show how frustrating the effects of alcoholism is within the rural indigenous population and how it has devastated family structure and the current and future success of their children. Also, how the non-Aboriginal "grog" industry (not the Aboriginal people) are the ones that profited from this. The apathy, obstruction, racism and lack of empathy on the part of most of the non-Aboriginal local elected representatives is overwhelming. The grass-roots Aboriginal effort to block sales of alcoholic drinks and to create Night Patrols to help get people home and to health care is truly inspiring.
June 4, 2023
An examination of the efforts to curb alcohol consumption in Tennant Creek, lead by the Julalikari Council and the Aboriginal community, in the first trial of it's kind.
The toll alcohol has on a small town, a mining town such as Tennant Creek, with around 40% of the population being Aboriginal and living in Town Camps on the outskirts. The impact alcohol has, on the direction of welfare payments on payday, the violence and damage it causes, the poverty and hunger in children, and the health impacts are enormous.
This town took on the source of the supply, with much resistance. The pubs and liquor stores profit immensely from this ongoing alcohol program, and were the most vocal objectors to and change.
Through several authorities, and a protracted court hearing, the town managed to put in place a restriction that made a huge difference to the violence on the streets, the police call outs, the hospital admissions, and new referrals to women's shelters, plus the evident spending on children's needs rather than drink, following this one relatively small change.
This book outlines the community work, the fight, the war, and the wins, of this experiment in Tennant Creek in the early 90s. A true example of what happens when a whole town approach works for the whole community.
The toll alcohol has on a small town, a mining town such as Tennant Creek, with around 40% of the population being Aboriginal and living in Town Camps on the outskirts. The impact alcohol has, on the direction of welfare payments on payday, the violence and damage it causes, the poverty and hunger in children, and the health impacts are enormous.
This town took on the source of the supply, with much resistance. The pubs and liquor stores profit immensely from this ongoing alcohol program, and were the most vocal objectors to and change.
Through several authorities, and a protracted court hearing, the town managed to put in place a restriction that made a huge difference to the violence on the streets, the police call outs, the hospital admissions, and new referrals to women's shelters, plus the evident spending on children's needs rather than drink, following this one relatively small change.
This book outlines the community work, the fight, the war, and the wins, of this experiment in Tennant Creek in the early 90s. A true example of what happens when a whole town approach works for the whole community.
October 20, 2016
An eye-opening chronology of the grassroots campaign to reduce alcohol abuse in the Tennant Creek community through a campaign initiated by the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation. The chronology examines the persistence and tenacity behind the Julalikari's efforts to rally the Tennant Creek community in fighting the problem of alcohol abuse together, as a community problem, not an 'Aboriginal problem'. The book details their efforts in the face of entrenched attitudes by liquor licensees and pub owners in a town that has historically taken no responsibility for their role in introducing alcohol into traditional lands. Issues of profit vs social responsibility are discussed here.
September 29, 2021
4 stars
🚨Trigger warnings - alcohol abuse, alcohol fuelled violence and domestic violence 🚨
In 1986 “many Aboriginal people were trying to deal not only with all of their daily problems for cultural and socio-economic survival, but were now trying to curb the excess of alcohol in their communities.”* In Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia, a town known for its drinking culture; the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation (JCAC) sought to address these issues by creating a Night Parole, but even then they were a fighting a losing battle against the war on grog. As the rate of alcohol related deaths grew, JCAC knew that a drastic change was needed and they began championing for a dry day each week and restricting what and when licensed established could sell.
What came next was a long and protracted battle as the same pubs, bottle shops and other organisations that complained about alcohol fuelled violence suddenly complained about a potential loss of revenue and a breach of human rights; and refused to lay down without a fight.
As soon as I saw Grog Wars by Alexis Wright on @magabalabooks Instagram account, I had to get my hands on a copy. Having worked in dry Aboriginal communities in Queensland and seen first hand why prohibition doesn’t work and the devastating effects it causes, I was very keen to read about the argument from the other side of the coin where unfettered access to alcohol was causing the exact same problems. Rest assured, it was an eye opener and Wright chronicles the journey in her usual thorough and factual style.
This edition is a re-released twenty fifth anniversary edition, but the contents are still just as topical and informative. I found the hypocrisy of the pubs and bottle shops disgusting yet unsurprising, and cheered on the tireless work of JCAC who were adamant to ensure that every step they took was on the path of self-determination and not dictatorship or a one size fits all.
This is an academic read and won’t be for everyone. It did take a little while to get going for me, but it shifted gears at chapter four and came into its own. Overall; it’s a book that I recommend because it has a lot to offer from a cultural, sociological, ethical, legal, anthropological and historical perspective.
*Pages 77-78
To play along with my book bingo and to see what else I’m reading, go to #ktbookbingo and @kt_elder on Instagram.
🚨Trigger warnings - alcohol abuse, alcohol fuelled violence and domestic violence 🚨
In 1986 “many Aboriginal people were trying to deal not only with all of their daily problems for cultural and socio-economic survival, but were now trying to curb the excess of alcohol in their communities.”* In Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia, a town known for its drinking culture; the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation (JCAC) sought to address these issues by creating a Night Parole, but even then they were a fighting a losing battle against the war on grog. As the rate of alcohol related deaths grew, JCAC knew that a drastic change was needed and they began championing for a dry day each week and restricting what and when licensed established could sell.
What came next was a long and protracted battle as the same pubs, bottle shops and other organisations that complained about alcohol fuelled violence suddenly complained about a potential loss of revenue and a breach of human rights; and refused to lay down without a fight.
As soon as I saw Grog Wars by Alexis Wright on @magabalabooks Instagram account, I had to get my hands on a copy. Having worked in dry Aboriginal communities in Queensland and seen first hand why prohibition doesn’t work and the devastating effects it causes, I was very keen to read about the argument from the other side of the coin where unfettered access to alcohol was causing the exact same problems. Rest assured, it was an eye opener and Wright chronicles the journey in her usual thorough and factual style.
This edition is a re-released twenty fifth anniversary edition, but the contents are still just as topical and informative. I found the hypocrisy of the pubs and bottle shops disgusting yet unsurprising, and cheered on the tireless work of JCAC who were adamant to ensure that every step they took was on the path of self-determination and not dictatorship or a one size fits all.
This is an academic read and won’t be for everyone. It did take a little while to get going for me, but it shifted gears at chapter four and came into its own. Overall; it’s a book that I recommend because it has a lot to offer from a cultural, sociological, ethical, legal, anthropological and historical perspective.
*Pages 77-78
To play along with my book bingo and to see what else I’m reading, go to #ktbookbingo and @kt_elder on Instagram.
April 23, 2021
The subject matter of this book is fascinating, and the underlying themes of racism and inequalities are subjects I feel very passionate about. I have never read anything by Alexis Wright before and found the style quite disjointed and hard to follow. The sections based in the hearings were particularly challenging as they were a fairly verbatim report that often made more sense read aloud. I learned a lot but I didnt really enjoy the book.
Want to read
April 17, 2021Anything by this author.
I wish I could make a shelf of authors that I've heard of, and want to read without picking one of their books. Yes I know I can follow an author or make a list of favorite authors, but that's not quite the same.
I wish I could make a shelf of authors that I've heard of, and want to read without picking one of their books. Yes I know I can follow an author or make a list of favorite authors, but that's not quite the same.
November 3, 2024
3.5. Good documentation of a very interesting episode in one Aboriginal community’s efforts to deal with grog, as a whole of community response. Those profiting from selling all that booze were not happy!
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