Top Alice Springs doctor says alcohol restrictions must stay amid 36 per cent drop in DV assaults

A sharp rise in assaults before emergency alcohol restrictions were introduced this year shows grog bans cannot be let expire next month, warns a top Alice Springs doctor. See the shocking data.

Alice Springs community groups are calling for alcohol restrictions in the town to be extended beyond July, as data reveals domestic violence assaults spiked by more than three quarters after grog bans lapsed last year.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese brought in the emergency measures limiting alcohol sales on January 26 and they are due to expire next month.

It comes as latest NT Police crime statistics show there was a 77 per cent jump in domestic violence assaults in the town in the period between the expiration of the Stronger Futures policy and the emergency alcohol restrictions introduced on January 24.

A 37 per cent drop in domestic violence assaults was recorded for the months of February, March and April after the new measures were enforced.

Over the same three months period reported assaults dropped 35 per cent and property crimes were down 25 per cent.

A senior public health doctor and People’s Alcohol Action Coalition spokesman John Boffa said the data proved alcohol restrictions were working.

“This clear evidence is what we’ve been hoping for, and this is why we need to

continue the additional take-away restrictions beyond July 2023, when they

are due to expire,” Dr Boffa said.

“We are not out of the woods by a long shot, and we still want to see a limit

on the volume of purchases in addition to the continuation of reduced bottle

shop trading days and hours and the single daily transactions.

“The improvement is nevertheless stark, and these figures correspond with the

reduction in alcohol-related emergency department presentations, as well as with the overall general recovery in our town.”

John Boffa, spokesman for the Peoples Alcohol Action Coalition, is calling for alcohol restrictions to be extended. Picture: Rex Nicholson

Richard Johnson, another top Alice Springs doctor, says the town’s hospital has not recovered from the increase in number and “ferocity” of domestic violence assaults after alcohol restrictions were lifted.

When shown the figures during an inquest into the domestic violence killing of Kumanjayi Haywood, the hospital’s acting executive director of medical and clinical services said the period of increased violence had left a lasting mark.

“It was like a light switch being flicked,” Dr Johnson told the court when called to give evidence on Friday.

“The ferocity of the effect of assaults that we saw as emergency clinicians through November, December and January this year was devastating.

A senior doctor said when grog bans lapsed it ‘was like a light switch being flicked’ with domestic violence assaults coming through the Alice Springs Hospital. Picture: Kevin Farmer

“Having worked in Alice Springs for 12 years, that’s the first and only time I’ve questioned what we do, what we can do, what we’re capable of.”

Dr Johnson said the impact the violence had on staff was “dramatic” and the effects were felt on both an individual and institutional level, with the hospital struggling to recruit and retain staff.

“The morale and the ability of staff to cope with what they were seeing on a day-to-day basis was eroded significantly and it was a difficult period,” he said.

But despite a dramatic drop in reported assaults following the introduction of the restrictions, Dr Johnson emphasised grog bans were not a long-term solution to the Territory’s domestic violence crisis.

“Alcohol is an enabler to what we see, it is not the cause,” he said.

“The actual causes of violence are the social elements, it’s the poverty, generational trauma … colonialism is a very, very significant part of it.

“Alcohol policy is a way of improving the short term, giving us an opportunity to reduce harm while we look at the underlying causes and fix that.”

The inquest continues.

Originally published as Top Alice Springs doctor says alcohol restrictions must stay amid 36 per cent drop in DV assaults