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A time-honoured tourist tradition in the Red Centre of Australia has won a last minute reprieve, with Canberra set to water down a draconian ban on the consumption of alcohol on Aboriginal-owned land.
The six month ban, announced by Prime Minister John Howard last month, is aimed at
stamping out the alcohol abuse which is tearing apart dozens of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.
But the multi-million dollar a year tourism industry protested that it would unfairly target tourists, prohibiting them from enjoying a glass of wine while watching the sun go down over Uluru [Ayers Rock] or sipping champagne while dining under the stars in Kakadu national park.
With the ban on grog to come into force this weekend, the federal Government has been forced to make the new law more flexible.
Tourists on organised tours will still be allowed to consume alcohol while they are on Aboriginal land.
"Legitimate tourism operators in national parks will be able to continue to offer responsible alcohol consumption as part of their usual tourism activity," said federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Mal Brough.
But independent travellers will still have to abide by the alcohol ban - a restriction criticised as unworkable by the Northern Territory's Licensing Minister, Chris Burns.
"This will have a great impact on one of our most important industries ... not to mention impacting on the Territory's outdoor lifestyle," he said. He called on Brough to make further changes to the legislation.
Relaxing the laws on tour groups came after strong lobbying from tourist operators.
"The proposed law had created a lot of angst in the industry," Steve Rattray, chairman of the Central Australian Tourism Industry Association, said yesterday.
"People love to have a glass of Chardy or champagne while they're watching the sun set over Uluru, or cruising up the Katherine River."
Had it been fully enforced the ban would have affected some of Australia's most expensive eco-tourist resorts, including one south of Alice Springs which charges visitors A$1000 a night.
"I think overseas tourists would be a bit disappointed to be paying that sort of money and be told they couldn't have a cold beer at the end of the day," Rattray said.
Tourism operators argued that if police were made to enforce the ban, they would be diverted from more important duties, such as intercepting the 'sly grog runners' who smuggle large quantities of alcohol into 'dry' Aboriginal communities.
The federal Government's decision to ban alcohol in around 50 indigenous settlements scattered across the Northern Territory was prompted by a report which documented horrific levels of child sex abuse in communities devastated by 'rivers of grog'.
