After stopping the driver on the Great Northern Highway, police found children in the car sitting on the laps of adults and in the foot wells – while the cases of beer were safely secured behind seatbelts.

The driver, 27, was charged with “no authority to drive and failure to restrain a child”.

Allan Adam, Kimberley District superintendent, told ABC News that there are “problems up here in the Kimberley”.

“It shows some of the attitudes of some of our road users in the way they see their priorities.”