Each time Billy’s whip appears, the playwright uses it to make a point. A whip has little practical value unless being used as an object of coercion. Anyone who wields it acts in the service of making others follow orders. To see the whip in the hands of Billy, an Indigenous man, as he uses it to wrangle other Aboriginal Australians on behalf of Neville’s orders, is meant to raise questions about his complicity in their subjugation. However, the last time Billy produces his whip, it is a gift for Joe and Mary, a symbol of his growing respect for them. It also inspires the hope of change by implying that Joe may use it for a better purpose.

In No Sugar, sugar is a symbol of all that the Aboriginal characters are denied by a racist government. Sugar is a small ingredient but is present in innumerable foods and dishes. Taking it away therefore limits the options for making certain foods in a way that suggests the policy’s far-reaching effects—for instance, the fact that denying one right makes it easier to deny another, more obviously consequential one. 

Beyond that, the lack of sugar represents the bitterness of Aboriginal life as depicted in the play. When the Matron tries the sugarless quandongs and finds them sour, it speaks to the daily experiences of the Aborigines: Between racism and poverty, pleasure is hard won and often fleeting.