Cunningham: Evidence of effectiveness of alcohol floor price just not there

In 2018 I applauded Labor for introducing the alcohol floor price measure, because it was one that appeared to be based on evidence. Six years later, I’ve seen little evidence it has any significant impact, writes Matt Cunningham.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, Alcohol Minister Steve Edgington and Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby at Bundilla Beach in Darwin, NT. The CLP will introduce new laws allowing police to arrest and fine nuisance public drinkers in the Northern Territory. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

History has a funny way of repeating itself in the Northern Territory.

If you go back 12 years to when the CLP last won government, you will remember a great deal of outrage about the new government’s decision to scrap the banned drinkers’ register.

It had argued the register didn’t work.

This was a reasonable proposition given alcohol-fuelled assaults and emergency department presentation had risen during the 12 months it had been in use, although a longer period might reasonably have been required to properly measure its effectiveness.

There were immediately howls of protest from academics, “experts” and the new Labor opposition, which on the basis of no evidence at all would go on to describe the BDR as the “number-one tool” to combat alcohol-fuelled harm.

Fast forward 12 years and we are playing a similar game with the alcohol floor price.

The new CLP government has vowed to scrap the measure claiming it doesn’t work.

The howls of outrage have begun in earnest.

This is an area that has constantly been flooded with cherry-picked statistics, an issue that shows no sign of abating.

This week the Association of Alcohol and other Drug Agencies Northern Territory released a statement claiming the floor price had resulted in a 14 per cent decrease in alcohol-related assaults in Darwin and a 19 per cent decrease in alcohol related emergency department presentations.

Given what I’ve seen unfold before my own eyes over the past six years, I thought it best to go and check the data. I might be accused of cherry picking my own figures, but the ones I found tell a different story.

Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro at Bundilla Beach in Darwin. The CLP will introduce new laws allowing police to arrest and fine nuisance public drinkers in the Northern Territory. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

According to the Northern Territory Government’s website there were 320 alcohol related assaults reported across the Northern Territory in July 2018, when no floor price was in place. The latest data, from July 2024, shows there were 366 alcohol-related assaults.

By my calculation that’s a 14 per cent increase when comparing the most recent month of available data with the same month in 2018, immediately before the floor price was introduced.

Was this a statistical anomaly? An unusual month where some other factor had pushed the number of assaults higher for some other reason? Perhaps.

But if you look at July 2023, the numbers were even higher.

There were 439 alcohol-related assaults in that month, a 37 per cent increase on the month of July 2018, before the floor price was introduced.

The increases are even more profound when you look at alcohol-related domestic violence.

The claim of a 19 per cent reduction in alcohol-related emergency department presentations also warrants scrutiny.

Three years ago I contacted an analysis of the raw data for Darwin and Palmerston hospitals. The Darwin and Palmerston data is particularly relevant in this space as the floor price was introduced at around the same time a permanent police presence was returned to bottle shops in Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek.

This is one measure the data has consistently shown to be effective.

The data showed in Darwin and Palmerston in the 12 months from October 2017 to September 2018 (the last 12-month period before the floor price was introduced), there were 3574 alcohol-related emergency department presentation in the Northern Territory.

In the 12 months from October 2018 to September 2019 (the first 12 months after the floor price was introduced) that number rose 5.5 per cent to 3771. In the next 12 months it rose another 11 per cent.

There are, of course, other factors likely at play.

The doubling of welfare payments and early access to superannuation during Covid-19 led to massive increases in alcohol-fuelled harm, as did the decision to allow alcohol back into Aboriginal town camps when the Stronger Futures legislation expired in July 2022.

Would these numbers have gone even higher if there was no floor price? It’s almost impossible to know.

But there appears little real evidence the floor price has had a meaningful impact on alcohol-fuelled harm.

It has been disappointing, then, to hear those advocating to keep the floor price arguing that those questioning the measure are either members of the alcohol industry or are doing their bidding.

I have no horse in this race, other than to want a safer, healthier Territory achieved by the implementation of policies that work.

In fact, in 2018 I applauded the former Labor Government in this column for introducing the measure, because it was one that appeared to be based on evidence.

In the six years since I’ve seen little evidence it has any significant impact.