Decision on Alice Springs alcohol ban delayed for up to one week

Jarred Cross
Jarred Cross Published February 3, 2023 at 6.00am (AWST)

NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has said "we are not giving up on Alice Springs" as the results of her meeting with Anthony Albanese to discuss potential blanket alcohol bans across central Australia remain unclear.

On Thursday Ms Fyles met with the Prime Minister following the handing down of a report reviewing the current alcohol restrictions and urgent recommendations made by Central Australia Regional Controller, Dorelle Anderson.

The report was commissioned by the federal and Territory governments after key ministers travelled to the Alice for meetings with local stakeholders last week.

Snap restrictions on alcohol sales within the town were set shortly afterwards.

After Ms Anderson's report was leaked to news outlets on Thursday morning, reports emerged that strict bans, akin to the decade-long Stronger Futures legislation which ended midway through 2022, were expected to be reinstated.

A period of waiting for the next course of action was signalled by Mr Albanese following his sit-down with the NT Chief Minister.

The specific recommendations presented to the pair are yet to be made public.

"I met with Natasha Fyles this afternoon after having received the report from the Office of the Central Australian Regional Controller," the Prime Minister wrote to Twitter.

"The report will be considered by respective cabinets next week."

"The report will be released by the NT Government after cabinet consideration, confirming next steps. Our Governments will listen and respond with the action local communities want us to take," he later added.

Earlier on Thursday Ms Fyles had reiterated her stance that the issues behind the surge of crime in Alice Springs extends beyond alcohol-fulled behaviour.

"We have received the report, we will be discussing that report in full with the Prime Minister and we will be making that report public," she told Sky.

"There are recommendations plural, alcohol is part of this but there is a number of other factors that drive these issues."

The Chief Minister said the measures would not target Indigenous people specifically.

"We saw the intervention and that dis-empowered Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory greatly, and there is a significant continuation of that.

"We've put in place local decision making where we work with communities to hear their voices, and we need to continue that not only in the space of our current policy, but across government."

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