A sober Alice Springs starts to get its life back on track

The turnaround in violence and drunkenness in Alice Springs provides valuable lessons for dealing with the complex issues that afflict many remote communities. At the top of the list is the fact that given the choice, not one community elected to opt out of alcohol restrictions that were reluctantly and belatedly reintroduced by the Northern Territory government. This alone puts a much needed emphasis on the fact that what may be fashionable thinking in metropolitan coffee shops about paternal intervention simply does not accord with the facts on the ground.

Another valuable lesson is that the federal and NT governments, along with a multitude of paid advisers, are too distant from the realities of life in the areas they claim to represent. This extends to Canberra-based Indigenous advisory body the National Indigenous Australians Agency, which said the NT government was “well placed to deliver its jurisdictional responsibilities with targeted strategies to address alcohol misuse, land tenure issues and food security concerns”.

It also extends to external consultants such as KPMG, which said in a 2016 review that there had been “some positive changes” (in response to alcohol bans) but that it was not possible to identify whether the commonwealth oversight contributed to the changes. The KPMG report was a key part of the decision-making process that led to the removal of the protections. The commonwealth legislation was allowed to lapse under a sunset clause amid claims it was racially based. The decision was taken in the dying months of the Morrison government with an expectation responsibility would revert to the NT. But what followed was a spike in alcohol-fuelled violence and lawlessness perpetrated often by unsupervised youth.

The person closest to the truth of the situation was NT Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who correctly predicted a removal of alcohol bans would result in an upsurge of violence against women and neglect of children.

The Northern Territory government failed in its duty to provide adequate protection through new alcohol controls, preferring instead to hide behind a fashionable belief that alcohol controls were racist. NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles was forced to act following a visit to Alice Springs by Anthony Albanese in January to see first-hand the enormity of the damage that had been done.

As we report on Friday, the results of reintroducing alcohol restrictions are now in. In Alice Springs, the latest data from April shows, domestic violence assaults are down 37 per cent, while all assaults are down 35 per cent and property offences are down 25 per cent – since restrictions in January were put in place. The situation has not yet returned to the levels that existed before the initial controls were withdrawn. Alcohol- and violence-related incidents increased by about 50 per cent over the year to the end of 2022, after restrictions were allowed to lapse in July. The NT government now concedes the alcohol measures work. A Territory government spokeswoman said domestic violence had dropped by a third and frontline workers were better protected.

Senator Price is correct to say that had the NT government listened to local voices earlier, “we would be much further along in the process”. The message is that local communities know what is good for them if they are allowed into the decision-making process. The commonwealth controls should never have been allowed to lapse without a proper replacement scheme being put in place. A high price has been paid by the communities in Central Australia for decisions taken by people too removed from those whose interests they were supposed to protect.