Residents of three communities on Cape York, in the northern state of Queensland, said their lives had been transformed by the new measures.

Violence has fallen, and the number of children attending school has risen since the restrictions were introduced.

Some communities have chosen to "go dry", imposing a total ban on alcohol, while others have restricted hotel hours and banned takeaway sales.

Mr Howard applauded the community discipline that has forced through the changes, saying that people were being given the chance to avoid the destructive menace of alcohol abuse.

Alcohol abuse blights native settlements across Australia, and is a factor in spiralling rates of domestic violence, unemployment and ill-health.

But despite the improvements, locals told Mr Howard that there were still many problems yet to be faced.

A young aboriginal woman told Mr Howard how murder, rape and assault had ruined the lives of many of her schoolmates.

Tania Major, 22, said that seven of her 14 former classmates were now in jail, four had committed suicide and almost all were alcoholics.

"We have spent so long listening to some 'white fellas' telling us we are stupid, lazy no-hopers that the majority of my people actually believe it," she said.

Policy priority

This is one of Mr Howard's most significant visits to an aboriginal settlement, according to the BBC correspondent in Sydney, Phil Mercer.

In recent years, the prime minister has angered Aborigines by his refusal to offer an official apology for the government's policy last century of forcing indigenous children away from their parents to be raised in white society.

But the government has now made the disadvantages suffered by native Australians a policy priority, and last month Mr Howard hosted an emergency summit on domestic violence.

The new restrictions have made a difference, but only to a small number of communities, our correspondent says.

Aborigines remain the nation's most disadvantaged group, dying 20 years younger than other Australians - with far higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment and welfare dependency.