A fight has erupted between the Northern Territory Labor government and Jacinta Price over a bill the senator has introduced to federal parliament that seeks to reinstate intervention-era alcohol restrictions, with the NT chief minister saying it was drafted without consultation and confers power on a body “that does not exist”.
Price, a Country Liberal party senator for the Territory, tabled the Northern Territory safe measures bill on Wednesday, which provides for “all Territorians to be safe consuming and being exposed to alcohol and alcohol-related harm and violence”.
The bill seeks a return to alcohol-protected areas in prescribed communities in the NT. Communities could opt out of blanket bans if their alcohol management plan (AMP) had been approved by the “relevant federal minister”.
“This will ensure that there is Commonwealth oversight over the Northern Territory Government responsibility in delivery of AMPs, that the plans are local and community-driven, that they meet the objective and are consistent with human rights,” the bill reads.
“The measures of the Bill have been developed through consultation with Territorians and service providers, following the cessation of the [Stronger Futures] Act,” Price’s explanatory memo reads.
Under the Stronger Futures Act, which lapsed in 2022, only one alcohol management plan was ever approved by the federal minister, and seven others were refused.
The NT chief minister, Natasha Fyles, rubbished Price’s plan, saying it was “an extension of the intervention with the associated lack of consultation with community”.
“This approach has failed previously and does not empower the communities to be involved in decision-making or implementing actions to reduce harm,” she wrote to Price on Tuesday, in a letter seen by Guardian Australia.
Fyles, who is also the minister for alcohol policy, said “no consultation has occurred with either myself or the statutory bodies your Bill imposes further responsibilities on”.
“I also note the Bill refers to the NT Licensing Commission throughout, however this body does not exist,” she wrote.
Intervention-era bans on alcohol in remote Aboriginal communities came to an end in July, when liquor became legal in some communities for the first time in 15 years, while other communities were able to buy takeaway alcohol without restrictions.
The NT government has already announced it would introduce urgent amendments to the Liquor Act next week to strengthen alcohol restrictions so that town camps and communities will revert to dry zones.
This follows the restrictions on the sale of takeaway alcohol in Alice Springs announced last month, including dry days on Mondays and Tuesdays, reduced takeaway trading hours, and limits of one transaction per person per day.
In the letter to Price, Fyles also cites the NT’s other measures, including the banned drinker register, minimum unit price, local liquor accords, moratorium on takeaway licences, police auxiliary liquor inspectors, declaration of restricted premises and grocery store alcohol sale limits.
Fyles urged Price to stay out of territory matters.
“I’m sure we can both agree, that it is most appropriate to allow for the Northern Territory to legislate for itself in the NT Legislative Assembly, and not in Canberra, where the majority of the voices in such a debate will have limited experience or understanding of our community.”
Price said she invited Fyles to discuss her draft bill in October last year, and had consulted with “stakeholders who the prime minister and Chief Minister Fyles have failed to engage”.
Price said the NT government’s “half-baked policy on the run does nothing to give me confidence that the NT government has what it takes to keep Territorians safe”.
In the Senate on Wednesday, Price spoke about some of her family’s experiences with alcohol-fuelled violence, and began to cry when speaking about having to identify her cousin’s body in the morgue after she was killed in a drunken car accident.
“So when I speak to this bill, and I stand here as an Indigenous voice in parliament, I am deeply offended when it is suggested by others in this chamber that my actions are nothing more than political grandstanding,” she said.
Then, NT Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy spoke powerfully of trying to have alcohol bans put in place in her community of Borroloola more than 20 years ago.
“The next night, when alcohol did begin to flow again, we got eaten alive,” McCarthy said. “And there was no doubt the abuse that we experienced is one that I’ve never forgotten. And so the alcohol didn’t stop but the abuse continued.”
The Yanyuwa Garrawa woman spoke about becoming a kinship carer at a young age because of alcohol and domestic violence.
“We all have our stories,” McCarthy said. “Just like many First Nations people, we look after our families, we care for them.
“It does not lessen, however, the importance of process … when it comes to policymaking.
“I have to say to the Senate that there has been enormous pressure applied to ensure the Northern Territory government does what we know they are capable of doing within the Northern Territory legislative assembly, and that is to make the amendments that are required.”
The bans recommended by the the new central Australian regional controller will be in place by Wednesday, right across every area of the NT, McCarthy said.
“There is no way Marion Scrymgour [Labor member for Lingiari] and myself would ever want to be setting up an intervention like occurred in 2007,” she said. “But we will hold people accountable, irrespective of who is in government, as to how the process is occurring.”
