Pastor decries Aboriginal deaths from grog ABORIGINAL men are dying before they turn 45 in central Australia, mostly because of the scourge of alcohol, a Lutheran pastor says. Pastor Basil Schild of the Lutheran church in Alice Springs said a survey of 200 deaths over 15 years in his parish showed Aboriginal men died at the age of only 44.9 years on average, while Aboriginal women died at just 55 years. Pastor Schild said alcohol abuse was a factor in about 80 per cent of the deaths in his survey, covering the period from 1997 to the end of 2012. More needed to be done to curb the abuse in Aboriginal communities, he said. "They have survived 40,000 years to this point, and they are now being mowed down by the (alcohol) industry," Pastor Schild said. "If we just stick with the status quo, then future generations will look back at this time and say you guys were complicit by doing nothing," he said. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures the estimated life expectancy at birth is 67.2 years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and 72.9 years for females. The pastor's figures relate to the age at death, not life expectancy at birth, but he says the funeral data shows the situation in central Australia for Aboriginal people is dire. This week Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in a speech on the latest Closing the Gap report on indigenous disadvantage, attacked the NT government for scrapping a banned drinkers register. Under the system, buyers of takeaway alcohol were required to show identification that was checked against a database, and problem drunks were turned away. "I have a real fear that the rivers of grog that wreaked such havoc among indigenous communities are starting to flow once again," Ms Gillard said on Wednesday. Pastor Schild called on the board of Fosters Group Ltd to visit the local cemetery to see first-hand what alcohol abuse had done to the community. He also called on Fosters and its shareholders to set up a fund to help pay for the funerals of Aboriginal people in Alice Springs. Families often had to bury so many people that bodies were kept on ice for six months while they raised funds to pay for the funerals, he said. A spokeswoman for Fosters could not immediately be reached to respond to the invitation.