WTF?! Mmmmm. Beer.

Australian police pulled over a driver and were shocked to find he had secured a load of beer with a seat belt - but NOT a five-year-old boy.

Officers were appalled to find the man was more concerned about his 30 cans of brewskis than the child travelling with him. While the alcohol was safely buckled in, the boy was sitting on the floor in the back, unrestrained.

Police stopped the man after noticing that his car was unregistered.

"I haven't ever seen something like this before," said Constable Wayne Burnett, who stopped the driver on a desert highway south of Alice Springs.

He said police often stopped vehicles to look for beer, wine and spirits being illegally smuggled into 'dry' Aboriginal communities, where alcohol is banned.

"But this is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child."

He said the driver of the car "just looked at me blankly" when he was handed a $700 fine for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle, and for failing to ensure the child was wearing a seatbelt.

"He didn't get it," Constable Burnett said. "I asked him about the fact the child was unrestrained and the beer was, and he said he didn't know anything about it."