Queensland public drunkenness law reversal will bring racial profiling, elders warn
A proposal to make public drunkenness illegal in Queensland would lead to police racially profiling Indigenous people, elders warn.
It comes after Queensland Police Minister Dan Purdie flagged the state government was considering making public drunkenness illegal again, less than a year after decriminalising it.
Mr Purdie said the former Labor government's decision to remove public drunkenness as an offence made it hard for police to do their jobs properly.
"The Crisafulli government is listening to communities who are alarmed that Labor's watering down of the laws has led to more anti-social behaviour and crime on our streets," Mr Purdie said.
"Our government is working with the Queensland Police Service to ensure they have the laws and resources they need to keep people safe."
At a snap community meeting in Musgrave Park, Brisbane, elders warned the reversal would create "open season" for police to target Aboriginal communities.
Brisbane Murri Action Group organiser Adrian Burragubba said such laws had historically given police the discretion to arrest people they deemed were behaving drunkenly.
He claimed these discretionary powers had disproportionately been used on homeless and Aboriginal communities.
Mr Burragubba said these laws had previously not been applied equally in party destinations such as Fortitude Valley and Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.
"These laws will criminalise our people again and our human rights will be denied, as the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found over 30 years ago."
In 1991, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended decriminalising public drunkenness, but Queensland was the last state to do so in late 2024.
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said this reversal would take civil rights back 34 years.
Mr Cope said Queensland police could already detain drunk people if they were violent, threatening, or a risk to their safety or the safety of someone else.
"Alcoholism and alcohol abuse should be dealt with via health and social support systems, rather than in the criminal justice system," Mr Cope said.
Marjorie Nuggins told the meeting she feared the proposed laws would be used to target homeless people in public spaces.
Ms Nuggins said this would address the symptoms, but not the cause of alcoholism in Aboriginal communities.
"I believe the Indigenous custodial people of this land need to make a stand now," she said.
"There're so many injustices going on around this place.
"It needs to stop and we need to come together in unity and love."
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