Social Justice Report 2003: SUMMARY SHEET SIX: PETROL SNIFFING

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SUMMARY SHEET SIX: PETROL SNIFFING

Over the past year, there has been significant concern expressed about petrol sniffing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities at the national level. The phenomenon of petrol-sniffing is, however, not well-understood and there is no reliable national data on the number of people involved and the extent of resulting damage to individuals and communities.

There are, however, reported instances of petrol sniffing being a significant issue in several Indigenous communities across Australia. The limited research also suggests that there are different patterns of use of petrol and other volatile substances by Indigenous people compared to non-Indigenous people.

It has been argued that there are structural problems in the way governments address issues of petrol sniffing in Indigenous communities. Because of the lack of reliable data and the absence of any powerful lobby groups or other agencies with the capacity to ensure that petrol sniffing remains on the public agenda in anything more than a transient manner. Petrol sniffing as a public issue owes almost everything to sporadic media coverage.

In these circumstances, it is difficult to consolidate an evidence base, to build and sustain links with existing expertise, or to maintain extensive corporate knowledge on the subject. By identifying petrol sniffing as an 'Indigenous problem' it has also been marginalised as a policy issue, with the result that it has not received the attention and resourcing that it may have if it had been positioned within mainstream substance misuse policy frameworks.

In September 2002, the South Australian Coroner brought down his findings in the inquests into the deaths of three Anangu who were chronic petrol sniffers and lived on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands (AP Lands) of South Australia. Data collected in 2000 indicates that, despite an overall decline in the 1990s, the number of people engaged in petrol sniffing on the AP Lands has begin to increase in recent years. Approximately 6% of the total Anangu population and 12% of the population aged between 10 and 35 years of age were sniffers in 2000. Petrol sniffing had caused at least 35 deaths in the last 20 years in a population of between 2,000 and 2,500.

'The Coronial Inquest identified the need for 'prompt, forthright, properly planned, properly funded action' and the importance of effective inter-governmental coordination to achieve this and sustain it into the longer term. In the year since the Coronial Inquest, there has been some movement in this direction but overall not enough' (p150).

Communities on the AP Lands have expressed concerns about the continuing piecemeal approach to petrol sniffing and a reluctance to act by governments in the twelve months following the Coronial Inquest. Governments cite the intractable nature of the issue and the need for appropriate consultation as reasons for the slow progress to date.

There is significant concern that the discrete focus on petrol sniffing is potentially being obscured by the level of bureaucracy. There is concern that petrol sniffing will be submerged within a sea of other significant issues and not receive the focussed attention called for by the Coronial Inquest and communities on the AP Lands.

'[G]iven the smallness of the Anangu population, and the proportion of petrol sniffers within it, why has there been so little progress in addressing these problems, despite the plethora of governmental service delivery agencies and committees already in existence?' (p152).

See Chapter Four of the Report for full details of the case study of petrol sniffing on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands.

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