Well, there it is: the news that absolutely no-one expected. Shocking. Unforeseen. Totally unpredictable. No-one, but no-one, warned that this could ever, possibly happen.
A Central Australian regional council servicing nine remote Aboriginal communities has laid bare the impacts it has observed since long-term alcohol bans were lifted in the Northern Territory in July.
Whoever could have foreseen it!
Certainly not the NT Labor government, who lifted the bans.
Despite reports from several frontline organisations — including NT Police and the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress — of anecdotal increases in harm since July, the NT government has continued to assert there have been “no substantial increases” in harm to the community.
To be fair, when it comes to violence in remote communities, “no substantial increase” may seem like an academic difference between “disastrous” and “catastrophic”.
Since the intervention-era alcohol bans in remote Aboriginal communities came to an end, liquor has become legal in some communities for the first time in 15 years.
Alcohol restrictions in about 100 general restricted areas (GRAs) that were in place prior to the Stronger Futures legislation have continued under the Liquor Act 2019.
But with lifting of the intervention-era bans, some have taken it to mean that it’s an access-all-areas free-for-all.
CDRC chief executive Leslie Manda said […] “The biggest impact was some of our residents thought it just meant they could procure alcohol and take it back into certain communities, which under the Liquor Act are general restricted areas,” he said.
“That was where we saw an influx of alcohol into [dry] communities such as Atitjere, Lajamanu, and even as far as Yuendumu.”
Mr Manda also said alcohol-related incidents had increased in several areas in the Central Desert region, which had an estimated population of around 4,200 people.
As Labor governments will, NT Labor are busily shifting the blame.
In a statement, Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said her government had continued to invest heavily in reducing alcohol-related harm and blamed the former federal government for rising assault levels.
“The then Coalition federal government’s race-based intervention policy continued to see alcohol-related assaults climb across the Territory — and then they just let it lapse and walked away, forcing us to act quickly,” she said.
ABC Australia
Yes, indeedy, wicked Scott Morrison forced NT Labor to lift alcohol bans, despite widespread calls from Aboriginal women especially for them to remain in place.
Truly, as Thomas Sowell said, the left take positions that make them look good and feel good — and show very little interest in the actual consequences for others, even when liberal policies are leaving havoc in their wake.
