Nearly a year ago, against the spectre of alcohol bans lifting in his community, Palmerston Indigenous Village leader Phillip Goodman offered his prediction of what would come next.
"All hell's gonna break loose," said Mr Goodman at the time.
He foresaw a return to what he refers to as "the bad old days" before alcohol bans were introduced to his community, on the outskirts of Darwin, in 2007 – when alcohol abuse ran rampant.
His father and his grandfather were among his loved ones who fell victim to the bottle back then.
"In the old days the grog impacted really hard on my community, and it still is," he says now.
"Now I'm happy the ban is back. It's not lifted anymore, it's put back into place – but I reckon we need more consultation, with Aboriginal leaders such as myself, and everyone around the territory, right up to the NT government."
Commonwealth Intervention-era bans lapsed in July last year, and without any systems in place to help communities transition out, towns like Alice Springs saw a steep rise in alcohol-related crime.
After months of refusing to reinstate the bans, and after weeks of national scrutiny over the surge in crime, the NT government backflipped on Tuesday night and passed laws to see the bans put back in place.
Leader says it's now time to listen
As the bans return for dozens of Aboriginal living areas across the Northern Territory, Mr Goodman sees it as a "second chance" for communities like his, to this time get things right.
"I reckon we should work with it, this time round, and try and make it stronger," he said.
"This time round they should focus more and listen to leaders like us – our people, what we want – not what [governments] want.
"It's time to do different things, but make sure we go down that track together, on a professional level, and work really hard to get it back to where it was."
While Mr Goodman is among those welcoming the return of the bans, others have voiced their disappointment over the decision.
After the bans lapsed last year, Mr Goodman and his community applied to the government to opt-in and keep the prohibition; but he says each community needs to come to their own conclusion.
The communities subjected to the bans will now have to complete an alcohol management plan and receive a 60 per cent community consensus to be able to apply to transition out of them.
Call for public forums on alcohol
Others in the Aboriginal health and justice sector agree with Mr Goodman's sentiments that the conversation now needs to take place territory-wide, about what happens next.
Olga Havnen, the co-chair of the NT's Aboriginal Justice Agreement, has called for public forums to be held to "have the broader community involved in these conversations".
"This is not just a problem for Aboriginal people," Ms Havnen said.
"Perhaps it's time for some sort of territory-wide forum, in each of the regional centres, to discuss a comprehensive alcohol management plan; what is it that would work, how do we manage this situation better?"
Dagoman-Wardaman elder May Rosas, who lives and works in Katherine, said communities who wanted to see the managed return of alcohol and transition out of the bans should be listened to.
"There has to be good systems in place to manage alcohol," Ms Rosas said.
"In communities where the support is there, the family support is there, [alcohol] can be managed.
"So I think it's an individual monitoring process that needs to be put in place, to ensure that communities are safe, families are safe.
"It's a hard one, but if elders are strong and they stand strong with what they'd prefer to have for a safe community, they will put their own alcohol plan in place – and that should be respected."
