The CLP should listen to the experts and the vulnerable before making a decision on introducing alcohol into dry communities. There is no clarity about how this will happen and it completely ignores advice from experts who have all called for the reduced supply of alcohol.
The CLP are claiming they want to give people the right to decide whether alcohol is available on communities, but over 90 communities are already dry because people living there asked for that protection. Reports like ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ gave the vulnerable a voice, and with a vote the CLP are going to take it away.
How will they run the vote? Will the electoral commission run the vote? Who will be allowed to vote? Will children be able to have a say? If children aren’t allowed to vote, how is that fair considering they are likely to be the ones most affected by this decision?
The CLP’s proposal will mean that even if there is only a slight majority of people who want to introduce full strength grog, vulnerable members of the community are left to suffer the devastating consequences of this decision.
Following Robyn Lambley’s alcohol stakeholder meeting in Alice Springs the CLP said they will endeavour to strike a balance between supply and demand measures to curb alcohol assumption.
Yet all they have done in the six weeks of government is to pour more grog on the problem by scrapping the Banned Drinker Register and calling for the possible reintroduction of alcohol on communities.
Michael Gunner
Shadow Minister for Alcohol Policy
Thursday, April 18, 2024
The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.
Supply and demand are just two thirds of the harm minimisation model – what about harm reduction? Why is no one talking about it?