Friday, November 15, 2024

The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.

HomeVolume 29Another call to last drinks

Another call to last drinks

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Central Australian Aboriginal Congress rarely misses an opportunity to preach its alcohol control gospel.

This time it’s a lecture for the new NT Government not to wind back supply regulations lest this leads to “a wave of alcohol related domestic violence, assaults, and social disorder”.

And as previously, the health NGO’s reasoning is based on selected facts supporting its objectives.

Congress CEO Donna Ah Chee makes much of the decrease in alcohol-caused domestic violence, emergency department admissions and other problems following Stronger Futures, which had the opposite effect than its Orwellian name was suggesting.

It was a no brainer that allowing alcohol into town camps and communities would spell disaster. No wonder the statistics went through the roof. The absurd policy was discontinued and the problem numbers unsurprisingly dropped. To claim that as success of the current alcohol policy is misleading.

In a media release Ms Ah Chee states: “There is overwhelming evidence that regulating the supply of alcohol – including through a floor price, reduced takeaway trading hours, and the Police Auxiliary Liquor Inspectors (PALIs) – is a highly effective way to reduce crime.”

Yet again Congress does not acknowledge that the current draconian alcohol control measures are failing to have long-term benefits although its own statistics show that this is the case.

Congress produces a monthly update of “Effects of Alcohol Policy on Alcohol related harm in Alice Springs, 2015 to 2024”. The current edition includes statistics of alcohol related hospital emergency department presentations (above).

It shows there were 5344 of them between January 2019 and March 2020, and 5868 from January 2023 to March 2024. That’s an increase of 524.

During that first period the measures already in place included Police Auxiliary Liquor Inspectors (PALIs) at bottle shops, a Banned Drinkers Register, a Minimum Unit Price of $1.30 per standard drink and a new Liquor Act that included risk-based licensing and greater monitoring of on-licence drinking.

As Congress points out, on January 25, 2023 further regulations were imposed including one sale per day per person, alcohol free days on Mondays and Tuesdays for takeaway purchases, limited hours between 3pm to 7pm except for Saturdays, only one bottle of spirits, and so on.

Yet the calculation of quantity consumed is based on the reports by wholesalers. This does not include alcohol obtained online from retailers, neither is the consumption from tourists factored in, a likely substantial drop as the industry is suffering a sharp decline. Locals clearly made up the balance.

Ms Ah Chee says: “There is overwhelming evidence that regulating the supply of alcohol … is a highly effective way to reduce crime.”

But the public does not have a current picture of offending: “Following the implementation of the NT Police SerPro system in November 2023, the crime statistics from December 2023 onwards have been determined to be not comparable with earlier published NT crime statistics”.

In 2022/23 Congress had a budget of $66.9m and spent $48.7m on employee benefits. $42.6m came from the Australian Government and $5.7m from the NT.

The Alice Springs News asked Ms Ah Chee if she wanted to comment but she did not reply.

IMAGE at top: The “health hub” of Congress under construction across the road from the hospital which has similar objectives but is controlled by elected politicians, not a race-based NGO.

1 COMMENT

  1. Do we know how many employees that budget pays?

    Hi Tracie: The Congress website states: “Our Human Resources Division provides support to more than 500 employees across all Congress locations.”

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