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Re: The Welfare State
If a decision like this needs to be made it would probably be best coming from the community itself rather than John Howard. It's not easy to say the measures are an over-reaction or won't work (e.g. because they can be easily avoided) without knowing more about the situation. Like most drug/alcohol policies, it does seem to be treating a symptom rather than an underlying cause.
The aboriginal people's of both North America and Australia seem to have huge alcohol problems. With the American Indians I've heard it blamed on genetic predisposition, but it seems more like a response to living in a community devoid of hope and opportunity. My mother lived in Australia and said the treatment of the aboriginies then was pretty disgusting (and she's not a particularly liberal person) and while they would indeed spend their money predominantly on alcohol they were rarely problematic to anyone outside their own community. Of course they were continually hassled by local police/authorities, but that was 30 years ago, I'm not sure how much of that would still be the case.
(I'm not sure what this has to do with welfare states generally - the "welfare" payments in Australia (or America) need to be weighed against the whole "stealing of lands" issue.
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