Australia: Northern Territory brings in $1.30 per standard drink floor price on alcohol (Excerpt)
The Northern Territory has become the first Australian jurisdiction to put a floor price on alcohol, in a bid to curtail its worrying rate of alcohol-related harm.
August 22, 2018
The NT Parliament passed the laws today, which will see alcohol sold for at least $1.30 per standard drink from October 1 this year.
Canada and Scotland are among the few other jurisdictions globally to set a floor price on alcohol, which was one of the key recommendations from a wide-ranging alcohol review released by former NT supreme court justice Trevor Riley.
What is an alcohol floor price?
A floor price is a minimum amount for which alcohol can be sold — for example if the floor price is $1, a bottle of wine with eight standard drinks in it would be sold for $8 or more.
Under the NT’s new laws, a standard 750ml bottle of wine with 7.7 standard drinks will be sold for a minimum of $10.
The law will impact the price of cheap wine most significantly, while spirits and beer will mostly be unaffected as they are already more expensive.
Earlier this year, the People’s Alcohol Action Coalition said the cheapest alcohol available in Darwin was 30 cents per standard drink.
The revenue generated from the introduction of the floor price will go to retailers, because the policy is not a tax, which could only be introduced by the Federal Government.
‘Welcome to the nanny state’
Attorney-General Natasha Fyles said the law was designed to tackle alcohol-related violence, crime and antisocial behaviour.
“It’s aimed at getting rid of the cheap $4, $5, $6 bottles of wine … that people consume purely to get intoxicated and cause harm in our community,” she said.
By early next year, she said the liquor industry would be required to collect retail sales and wholesale data to provide to the Government.
This would ensure the policy could be evaluated — which the Riley Review called for it to be within three years.
It would also ensure retailers were compliant.
Prior to the laws being passed, Opposition Leader Gary Higgins said he would support the move, but that it should be treated as an “experiment”.
“Given the seriousness of the problems we face with alcohol abuse in the Territory, the introduction of a floor price is a worthwhile experiment [and] it should be treated as just that — an experiment,” he said.
“If the experiment is shown to have failed, it should either be improved or scrapped altogether.”
Independent MLA Robyn Lambley said enforcing a minimum price on alcoholic drinks was the NT Labor Government’s attempt at “social control”.
“I believe in a minimal government, minimal government intervention,” she said.
“I don’t believe in social control and this is a great example of a policy, of a government policy that is intended to control all of us and how we drink.