00:00We've got the kitchen here, brand new courtroom.
00:07What Air's new social club taking shape.
00:10Open that new bar area.
00:11For Kartu Dimon and traditional owner Margaret Purget, this is progress.
00:16It's really important for me to have a club out here, on my land, so people can come and have a quiet drink.
00:24What Air, on the Top End's west coast, is one of the NT's biggest Aboriginal communities, home to more than 2,000 people.
00:32For the past 30 years, it's been a dry community, with no licensed venue.
00:39Margaret doesn't drink, but she's a passionate backer of the new club.
00:43After seeing too many people getting themselves in trouble, travelling long distances to find alcohol in an urban centre.
00:51Going into town, spending a lot of money, staying in long grass, with no home, no food, people coming back from town, dying on the road.
01:05Like many remote Aboriginal communities, What Air struggles with alcohol-related violence and addiction.
01:11The NT Liquor Commission says the option of mid-strength beers at the club might challenge the business model of grog runners, who offer bottles of rum for $500.
01:20But it concedes there is a real possibility that the club will fail to reduce alcohol-related harm.
01:27If someone makes trouble at the club, what will happen?
01:31Tear will burn for maybe two weeks or three weeks. That's the first rule.
01:38The second rule it makes is it's got to burn for the year.
01:43This is the shell of What Air's last social club. In 1988, a group of strident Aboriginal non-drinkers, tired of dealing with alcohol-fuelled violence, took matters into their own hands.
01:56The rioting started on Saturday afternoon, when a group of 50 non-drinkers attacked the town's only licensed premises.
02:03Two men went to court, but the magistrate allowed them to walk free, saying they acted to save the people from destroying themselves.
02:10William Palmbock was one of them.
02:13This time, I won't destroy it, but I make sure that the social club is run properly and good management.
02:23Mr Palmbock was the only public opponent of the proposal.
02:27I do worry. There are non-drinkers in the community, especially women, that don't like drunken husbands coming home and doing violence at home.
02:37I'm against it, and I know some other people are too.
02:41There are seven clubs already trading in remote communities across the NT.
02:46A 2015 review found alcohol-related assaults and hospitalisations were about the same in communities with clubs as those without.
02:54One year ago, government officials sounded the alarm over a spike in black market supply and alcohol-related harm in the community.
03:02In response, the Liquor Commission set an extra condition that the new social club was not to begin trading until police and the local clinic were satisfied that alcohol-related trouble had reduced to an acceptable level.
03:17Both health and police departments have told the ABC they're yet to give the final tick of approval.
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