A government plan to make the Northern Territory Australia's first jurisdiction to put a floor price on alcohol is proving divisive with former deputy chief minister Robyn Lambley saying the policy failed in Alice Springs.
Parliament will next week consider setting a minimum price of $1.30 per unit, meaning bottles of wine in the NT - which have about seven units - could not be sold for below about $9.
The NT's residents are the nation's biggest drinkers and more likely to end up in hospital from related risky behaviour, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The bill targets cheap bottles and casks linked to alcohol-related harm and abuse, especially among some members of the NT's indigenous communities.
But Ms Lambley, a former CLP government treasurer and now independent for Araluen, said the 10 takeaway liquor outlets in Alice Springs had voluntarily agreed for "many years" not to sell alcohol below a certain price but it had not stopped anyone drinking.
"I object to it; it is a complete waste of time and turning us into a nanny state," Ms Lambley told reporters, arguing there was little evidence to show the policy worked.
"In the last 12 months we have had a 30 per cent rise in alcohol-related assaults in Alice Springs."
She blamed an increase in crime and and hospital admissions on the current Labor government removing the policy of having takeaway alcohol stores in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Katherine manned by police, who would check customers were not from dry communities.
New auxiliary officers are filling some of the void but lack the training of sworn police and manning bottle shops is now discretionary, despite the majority of the public wanting it, she said.
"Since then the rivers of alcohol have been flowing freely in Alice Springs, people have been accessing alcohol freely, alcohol-related crime and social disorder has flourished again as a result and had a devastating impact," Ms Lambley said.
"Alcoholics will pay whatever. Grog running in central Australia is prolific, it is widespread and people pay an enormous amount just to obtain alcohol."
Ordinary people without drinking problems would be penalised, she said.
The extra revenue will go to retailers too because the Commonwealth would not allow the NT government to set the floor price as a volumetric tax.
NT Attorney-General Natasha Fyles said there was evidence from Canadian provinces with a floor price that it reduced hospitalisations.
"Cheap alcohol is made with one purpose, which is to get people intoxicated and cause alcohol-fuelled harm in our community," she said.
"Cheap $4-$5 bottles of wine will not be available in the Northern Territory, that is a product that causes so much harm in our community."
CLP Opposition Leader Gary Higgins supports the floor price but says it should be independently assessed.
Australian Associated Press
