High Court to decide whether Palm Island grog ban breaches Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act POLICE will need to double their numbers in indigenous communities overnight if the High Court on Wednesday rules that Queensland's alcohol management plans are unlawful, the Police Union warns. The High Court of Australia could trigger a legal nightmare for the State Government, police and courts when it hands down its decision on whether the alcohol restrictions breach the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act. The case was brought on by Palm Island woman Joan Monica Maloney, 59, while appealing her charges of sly grogging. Varying alcohol management plans are in place in 18 indigenous communities in the state. While some places are dry, on Palm Island a person cannot have more than one 30-can carton of light or mid-strength beer. Police refused to reveal whether they would send reinforcements to indigenous communities to combat an expected spike in alcohol-fuelled violence if the case was successful. Police Union president Ian Leavers said he hoped the case failed. "For anyone to suggest that these AMPs are discriminatory, draconian or just plain wrong, is simply out of touch and has no comprehension of the devastating consequences of alcohol on these communities," Mr Leavers said. The only thing that would truly be wrong, would be to wind these AMPs back. I have been in many indigenous communities in Queensland and I have had many conversations with police about staffing and policing issues. Police are resolute that if there was any attempt to wind back AMPs, you would need to double police numbers in these communities overnight, as well as increase all other staffing levels for all other government agencies particularly health and child safety workers, whose workload would also go through the roof. He said crime had fallen on Palm Island because of the AMPs, which were vigilantly enforced by police. "If there was any alteration that relaxed Palm Island's AMP, then violence and sexual assault, particularly against women and children, would skyrocket," Mr Leavers said. I've seen young children with sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhoea and the instances of children, some young babies, having these diseases, has also reduced. So by any measure, both formal and anecdotal, these AMPs work. Legal experts did not want to comment on the case before the judgment was handed down but all said the court could unleash a Pandora's box of social ills if AMPs were overturned. Questions would need to be answered about whether fines were repaid, the value of confiscated liquor was returned and whether convictions would be spent. Former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service solicitor Peter Coombe, who originally dealt with the case, said prohibition had driven problems underground on Palm Island. There is a huge amount of organised sly-grogging happening on Palm Island. As an example, one can only buy one sixpack of XXXX Gold beer at a time from the only hotel on Palm Island at a cost of $30, that works out to $120 a carton. Sly-groggers will deliver a carton to your door, chilled, for $110 a carton. Premier Campbell Newman labelled the AMPs just another form of prohibition. "People who support them say they have shut down alcohol-fuelled violence and they were a great intervention at the time," he said during a radio interview yesterday. But they are not a long-term solution. That's just another form of prohibition.