Cry from the Heart: Alcohol the only currency that matters in Alice Springs

In a once thriving tourist economy that is now a sea of boarded up shops, empty galleries and shut down restaurants, there is only one currency that counts in Alice Springs – alcohol.

A toddler drinks from a filthy puddle while his family watches on, waiting for the bottle shop to open.

Doctors are terrorised for the high-alcohol hand sanitiser in their possession and punch-drunk locals swing wildly at one another in the middle of the main road.

In a once thriving tourist economy that is now a sea of boarded up shops, empty galleries and shut down restaurants, there is only one currency that counts – alcohol.

Succumbing to the recommendations of a damning report by Central Australian Regional Controller Dorelle Anderson - alcohol bans have been reinstated on town camps and remote communities around Alice Springs.

Last year, the restrictions first introduced under John Howard’s controversial intervention in 2007, were allowed to expire.

Reduced bottle shop hours, signage of alcohol bans, and closed liquor shops are common place in Alice Springs due to the current alcoholism crisis. Picture: Sam Boneham

Residents said the aftermath was an escalation in domestic and family violence that is pushing children out of their homes and onto the streets.

“Parents, it’s supposed to be their responsibility,” Aboriginal woman Sharon Alice, who lives in the tiny settlement of Amoonguna just outside Alice Springs said.

“When we go into town there are a lot of kids walking around the streets and it’s not safe for elderly people to go into town.

“They come into town, they know in town they can do whatever they want to do and no one there to control them.”

The streets of Alice Springs aren’t the tourist hotspot they once were. Picture: Mark Brake

A woman is helped by police on the streets of Alice Springs.

When The Daily Telegraph approached a group of young girls on the streets of Alice Springs at night and asked them where their parents were, they responded: “at the pub … drinking”.

Uncle’s Tavern, the only open pub on most nights, is a flashpoint of drunken violence where The Telegraph witnessed patrons breaking out into brawls on the main road.

Alice Springs Senator Jacinta Price’s bid to reinstate the alcohol bans was initially resisted by Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles but the government has had to make an embarrassing backflip in the light of Ms Anderson’s findings which showed a dramatic rise in domestic violence and crime fuelled by alcohol.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price believes the situation in Alice Springs is at a crisis point. Picture: Mark Brake

Children on the street have nothing better to do while their parents hit the local pubs. Picture: Mark Brake

Ms Price defended former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s decision to not intervene and stop the Stronger Future laws from lapsing despite Mayor Matt Paterson writing to Mr Morrison at the time to lay the situation bare.

“The understanding was always that the Northern Territory government was responsible … who should have been creating effective alcohol management plans,” Ms Price said.

“The restrictions that were in place previously were working a lot more effectively. I recognise, yes, we did have problems, we had issues of kids on our streets, domestic violence … but the levels at which they have come to now as a result of the removal of those restrictions is at crisis point.

“They are always saying Canberra needs to stay out of our business … the Coalition didn’t know what the results were going to be after this the next federal election and now we have an Albanese government who have been asked by everybody within these communities to reinstate that legislation.”

Mayor Matt Paterson said: “This is not a new problem. I wrote a letter to the previous prime minister.”