‘Urgent’ Dan Murphy’s legislation dragged out in parliament, only getting debated at 5pm on last day of sitting

THE NT government has been accused of coming ‘unstuck’ on controversial urgent legislation designed to put an end to the long-running Dan Murphy’s superstore saga, after making last minute changes to double the number of applications impacted.

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THE NT government has been accused of coming “unstuck” on controversial urgent legislation designed to put an end to the long-running Dan Murphy’s superstore saga, after making last minute changes to double the number of applications impacted.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner spent this week defending his government’s decision to ram through urgent law changes to “speed up the decision making process” for two long-running applications under the Liquor Act, including the proposed Dan Murphy’s superstore.

But late yesterday afternoon Small Business Minister Paul Kirby introduced a substantial change so that “other historical matters” would fall under the remit of the law.

The supposedly “urgent” changes to the Liquor Act were not debated until close to 5pm after the government spent hours of the last sitting day waffling about a procedural point related to budget estimates.

MORE ON THE DAN MURPHY’S SAGA

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Dan Murphy’s Darwin store application saga set to drag into an astonishing fifth year

Dan Murphy’s NTCAT appeal over proposed liquor superstore delayed by coronavirus hotspot travel restrictions

Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said the government’s decision to filibuster instead of moving on to their own “red tape slashing” agenda was “extraordinary”, and proof they were “buying themselves time” to fix problems with the law that had come up.

The substantial change made by Mr Kirby sparked intense questioning by Ms Finocchiaro about detailed sections of the law, in a bid to determine the flow-on and perhaps unintended impacts.

The nature of the two added applications that can now be determined by a single bureaucrat – the director of liquor licensing – were not specified.

The director of liquor licensing, under changes to the law, must make a decision on applications within 30 days, and has the power to impose or make changes to conditions on an approval, licence, licensed premise or “authority related to the application”.

BWS Nightcliff beer man Anil Sharma and customer Suzie Bee yesterday, after news that Dan Murphy’s has proposed a new location further away from the Bagot Rd/Osgood Drive intersection. Picture: Che Chorley

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Suzie Bee of The Narrows has been a member of Dan Murphy’s for a decade and believes the decision on an NT based store has taken too long.

“There should have been a decision made for Dan Murphy’s many years ago,” she said.

“There are some vulnerable communities out there but it’s not going to be in a township, it’s going to be regulated with Dan Murphy’s responsible service of alcohol with their security guards, I think we should be able to control it.”