Alcohol bans will be reinstated in central Australia, preventing the sale of alcohol to people living in Aboriginal town camps and remote communities.
The move was recommended in the snap review of alcohol laws ordered by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in response to a spike in crime and alcohol-fuelled violence.
The NT government had resisted calls to temporarily reimpose Intervention-style blanket alcohol bans, which lapsed in July, arguing they were racist and ineffective.
But the report's other key recommendation, which backs the NT government's call for needs-based funding for programs like domestic violence services, appears not to have been accepted by the prime minister.
Mr Albanese told federal parliament the Commonwealth would provide an extra $250 million "for a better, safer future for central Australia".
Mr Albanese said the bans would be imposed under new NT legislation to be introduced to parliament next week.
But he said it was widely understood the situation in Alice Springs "isn't just about alcohol".
"This is about intergenerational disadvantage. It is about a lack of employment services, a lack of community services, a lack of educational opportunity," he said.
Under the changes, dry communities can get their restrictions lifted if at least 60 per cent of residents vote in favour of a formal alcohol management plan.
Frontline services and Aboriginal health groups have criticised the failure of governments to plan a transition when Intervention-era bans expired in July last year.
Mr Albanese said both his and the previous federal government, as well as the NT government, "could have done better" in planning for the end of the 15-year-old bans.
During a press conference in Darwin, Ms Fyles said her government's handling of the issue had been "agile".
"We've heard loudly and clearly that the matter and decision of alcohol on community needs to be one that is made by the entire community," she said.
"That is why we're creating a circuit breaker and implementing temporary dry zones until communities can develop and vote on the alcohol management plans."
The prime minister's intervention last week came after days of political and media pressure, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton backing calls from the local mayor for the army or federal police to be sent in to deal with crime.
Report recommends alcohol bans as well as needs-based funding
The report, which was handed to both governments last week, was written by Central Australian Controller Dorrelle Anderson.
Leaks to the media late last week revealed Ms Anderson had recommended both reinstatement of the bans and needs-based funding for the NT.
It was published online after Ms Fyles began her press conference.
The report contains a number of "proposed actions" and two "immediate" recommendations:
- 1.The NT Government make urgent amendments to the Liquor Act 2019 that will see town camps and nearby remote communities return to alcohol free areas, with a clear path forward if the community wishes to introduce responsible drinking options, upon the development of a Community Alcohol Management Plan.
- 2.The NT and Commonwealth Governments continue to work together to deliver needs based funding to the relevant service providers in the Northern Territory as a matter of priority, so that the cycle of intergenerational trauma and disadvantage can truly begin to be broken.
Reporters had not seen the recommendations when Ms Fyles held the press conference, and the second point was not included in a media release.
Asked if the measures being announced followed Ms Anderson's recommendations, she said the Commonwealth was providing "new dollars".
"There was clear recommendations around alcohol and there was also recommendations around the investment that's needed," she said.
"Alcohol is one part of this. And that's I think the message that has come through loud and clear, and that is why you're seeing that investment."
A spokesperson later directed questions about the needs-based funding recommendation to the federal government.
The prime minister’s office then directed the questions to the office of Indigenous Affairs Minister Linda Burney.
In her report, Ms Anderson wrote that her findings confirmed "alarming" statistics about domestic violence and alcohol-related harm.
"Many of these issues are not new to Central Australia, nor the NT more broadly," Ms Anderson wrote.
"All of them are closely related to the disproportionate disadvantage that Aboriginal people face at every level in our society."
Among a list of statistics, she notes a 96.7 per cent increase in alcohol-involved, domestic violence-related assaults in Alice Springs in the year ending November 2022 compared with 2019.
The number of property offences reached a record high of 8,222 in the same period.
The temporary reinstatement of alcohol bans was needed as a circuit-breaker, she said.
But she said a failure to seriously address underlying drivers of alcohol misuse and youth crime would mean "these harms will continue to return year after year."
Ms Anderson wrote:
We cannot continue to accept the levels of domestic and family violence leading to assaults on women who are presenting with horrific facial injuries, broken bones, fractured skulls and in some tragic situations even death.
The children who have been spoken to have unanimously voiced their hatred of alcohol and the harm it inflicts on their families.
Their simple aspirations are to live in a "normal place", have jobs when they are older and be able to support their families with basic needs.
We need to listen to the most vulnerable in our community and act with urgency to address the current crisis but also tackle the extreme poverty and social disadvantage causal factors amongst this cohort.
Health disadvantage for Aboriginal Australians is stark and in the Northern Territory the rates of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are amongst the highest in the world. (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare).
This is a shocking statistic in the context of a wealthy nation.
The disadvantage is complex and challenging and will require targeted policies and programmatic responses particularly in early intervention and prevention, supporting the family unit.
More police needed for 'immediate impact', NT opposition says
Many remote communities will be unaffected by the change, because they were already dry before the bans were put in place.
While the peak Aboriginal bodies have been united in their anger at the NT government's handling of the transition, some town camp leaders said they didn't want to see the bans return.
Ms Fyles said she knew there would be people disappointed by the announcement.
"But it does provide a clear pathway, allowing local leadership to come together around this issue and a clearly defined process," she said.
Mayor Matt Paterson welcomed the announcements.
"[The $250 million funding package] really will hopefully alleviate that push/pull factor that we're getting in Alice Springs, and urban drift, because of the lack of investment in remote communities," he said.
"The announcement is one thing, [I] certainly appreciate it. The next thing is just delivering."
The measures were criticised by NT Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro.
"There was no promise today of additional police, or Australian Federal Police, into Alice Springs, which would make an immediate impact on the ground today," she said.
"There was no promise of additional child protection workers to deal with the child protection crisis on the ground."
