NT’s big booze price hike: Wine won’t be cheaper than water

FOR years this has been the home to cheap booze, but that’s all about to end with prices set to triple.

CHEAP grog has been given the boot in the Northern Territory, which has become the first place in Australia to set a minimum price for alcohol.

It means an end to wine being cheaper than water in the Top End.

The move is part of sweeping reforms to alcohol policy and legislation after a recent report into the Territory’s alcohol abuse crisis.

The NT government this week released its formal response to the recent Riley Review. Attorney-General Natasha Fyles said there is too much alcohol-fuelled violence and crime and the issue had to be addressed.

She said she had bipartisan support for the move to follow the recommendations of the review, in which former NT Supreme Court chief justice Trevor Riley called for a $1.50 minimum price for a standard alcoholic drink to ease the problem of heavily discounted wine which he said was “sometimes cheaper than water”.

The move to call time on cheap wine would see the cheapest wine at the bottom end of the market — like a 2L boxed variety, which currently sells for about $10 — increase in price to $27.30.

From July 1, the government will introduce a $1.30 minimum floor price, putting the minimum price for a bottle of wine at around $9 Ms Fyles told Mix 104.9.

The cheapest bottle available in Darwin yesterday was about $5. There are about seven units of alcohol in a standard bottle of wine.

Cheap 2L cask wine is the choice of many who abuse alcohol in the NT. Picture: Chloe Geraghty

The move targets the low end of the alcohol market, favoured by poor and problem drinkers.

It won’t affect beer sold at regular prices, but could have an impact on discounted brands.

And a proposed ban on the sale of takeaway alcohol on Sundays has been rejected.

The move follows revelations last week that kids in Tennant Creek turn up at night at the local pub looking for their parents, highlighting the Territory’s social struggle with alcohol abuse.

Ms Fyles said the price hikes had the support of voters.

“Territorians want and deserve safe communities and today we are releasing the most comprehensive framework in the Territory’s history to tackle the number one social issue,” she said.

“We promised Territorians we would take an evidence-based approach to tackling alcohol-related harm and the government’s response to the Riley Review provides a road map to address that.”

The government has committed to 219 of the Riley Review’s 220 recommendations. Ms Fyles said 186 recommendations would be implemented in full and the government had given in-principle support for 33 more.

Some have been outraged by the restrictions, with boaties and fishers saying they’ve been unfairly targeted in planned drink-drive reforms.

In other recommendations, Mr Riley called for the sale of alcohol in small grocery stores to be phased out.

He found the Territory had the highest per-capita rate of alcohol consumption in Australia, one of the highest in the world, and the highest rate of hospitalisations due to alcohol misuse.

The Territory also has the nation’s highest rates of alcohol-related crime, violence and death, which costs taxpayers about $640 million a year.

Originally published as NT’s big booze price hike: Wine won’t be cheaper than water