New data has plenty to reveal about the impacts of the NT’s alcohol floor price
RECENTLY published wholesale alcohol supply data shows authorities are correct in saying what impacts the NT’s alcohol floor price has had are statistically fraught.
Opinion
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- Goon sales in the NT halve while hard spirit sales rise after floor price introduced, new data shows
IF the boffins and the alcohol lobby group can agree on one thing, it is that it’s still too early to definitively conclude what impacts the NT’s alcohol floor price has had considering it’s been around for just under two years.
Prof Peter Miller, lead author of the Deakin University research paper that looked into the minimum unit price a year on, said ultimately it was great that the Northern Territory was publishing the wholesale alcohol supply data openly.
Not many governments do that, he said, and it’s important that the data is available in order for the public to have an open and frank discussion about it.
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One thing of note, however, is how long it took to get this data in the first place.
Journalists, including Sky News’ Matt Cunningham, has been a thorn in the side of the Attorney-General’s department trying to wring them for these numbers.
Finally it has arrived, in an Excel spreadsheet that could send the best of us over a cliff.
With the raw wholesale data thus far, it is important to note that the authorities are correct in saying it is statistically fraught.
Looking at it without considering measures like population change can be problematic, as the article acknowledges.
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It will be interesting to see what longer-term scientific analysis of the impacts of the floor price brings.
It is highly doubtful that when that happens that the boffins and the alcohol bodies will find common ground.
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