Mount Isa is home to a wealth of mining where personal incomes are well above average, but beneath the resource-rich facade lies an insidious social problem that community leaders say is the worst they've seen in more than 20 years.
In the middle of the north-west Queensland city, the Leichhardt River meanders through, lined with parks and walking paths used by locals and tourists alike.
But they're littered with drained cask wine bladders and broken glass.
"The real concern for me is public safety, " Mayor Danielle Slade told a state inquiry in Mount Isa last week.
"But also, safety for the individual as well. You want the police to pick someone up who's so drunk there's the chance they could walk out in front of a vehicle."
The Mount Isa City Council spends $35,000 each time they clean up the riverbed, a sum the mayor says she'd rather spend on struggling community sporting clubs.
Businesses, too, have been left to pick up the pieces.
Car dealership principal Lee Pulman described witnessing public drunkenness outside his CBD business daily.
"This is the worst I've seen it since I've been in business in Mount Isa for over 25 years," Mr Pulman told the inquiry.
"I've spent over $250,000 in the past three years on damages and vandalism to the business related to public drunkenness and youth crime.
"I've got female staff on our front desk who have resorted to locking the doors at times, because of the number of intoxicated people coming into the showroom and harassing them, demanding a cab or to use our phone."
Unlike other states and territories, public drunkenness is still outlawed in Queensland and a state government inquiry is examining decriminalising public offences such as intoxication, begging and urination.
It has received support from human rights advocates, social service groups and other providers who want to see a health-and-welfare response model instead.
But in the north-west, community leaders have raised concerns about abolishing the law.
"If they take the law away, it's going to get worse," said Gangalidda, Garawa and Waanyi woman Cynthia O'Loughlin, who works as a services coordinator in the remote Indigenous community of Doomadgee.
"People are going to die."
Traditional owner William Blackley, a community engagement officer with the North West Queensland Indigenous Catholic Social Services' (NWQICSS), told the inquiry decriminalisation would do nothing to improve the lives of society's poor and vulnerable.
"The people who are currently affected by these laws, mainly Indigenous people, probably aren't really concerned about whether they're in place and whether they've been fined or not," Mr Blackley said.
Homeless population
Located 200 kilometres from the Northern Territory border, Mount Isa has a large itinerant population, most of whom are First Nations people.
During the dry season, when the Leichhardt River is empty of water, most of the city's homeless live in the riverbed.
"In the past couple of years, we're seeing a lot of people coming from the Northern Territory," Ms Slade said.
She wants to see the NT's Banned Drinkers Register extended to Queensland, so that the state and territory have uniform laws.
An individual can be placed on the register through referral by police, the courts, a doctor or even a family member.
Anyone trying to buy takeaway alcohol must present photo ID to prove they aren't on the register.
Need for rehabilitation
It has been 31 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) recommended the decriminalisation of certain public-order offences like public intoxication, and Queensland remains the last jurisdiction to act.
Mr Blackley and Ms O'Loughlin agree the current approach isn't working.
"You're always trying to look at ways to assist your people overcome their trauma, the alcohol's not going to be stamped out overnight," Ms O'Loughlin said.
"They’re obviously drowning their sorrows with alcohol."
Mr Blackley said more work needed to be done in providing rehabilitation centres in the region.
"[To] make sure that people are actually receiving services that are going to make a positive outcome," he said.
The NWQICSS had success with a Return to Country program, which helped people from the NT living rough in Mount Isa who wanted to return to their communities but couldn't afford to.
But the program was shut down when its limited funding from the Department of Housing ran out last financial year.
In its submission to the state inquiry, the Queensland Law Society (QLS) raised concerns about the ongoing disproportionate number of Indigenous people arrested for anti-social behaviour.
It cited QPS data showing in 202122, 618 of the 1,299 charges for being intoxicated in a public place were against people identifying as Indigenous.
But while QLS supported decriminalisation, it raised concerns that "wide and unevenly enforced police discretion would lead to an increased use of public nuisance laws … which carry a higher maximum penalty and sentence".
Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (ATSILS) also made a submission calling for decriminalisation and improved rehabilitation services, particularly in rural and remote communities.
It said a "large number of alcoholics" living as itinerants in larger centres were "at perpetual risk of falling foul of public intoxication laws".
"Young and inexperienced police officers fall into the trap of believing they need to arrest their way out of social problems, instead of recognising that alternative responses … are a better way to proceed," it said.
The inquiry is due to submit a report on its findings by October 31.
