Why booze prices are about to skyrocket: Australian-first legislation will set a minimum price for alcohol to help fight drunken violence
- NT is expected to pass a legislation on floor price for alcohol today
- The floor price will be $1.30 per standard drink, meaning prices will increase
- NT residents are the nation’s biggest drinkers, more likely to end up in hospital
- The legislation is expected to reduce-alcohol related harm in the area
Northern Territory drinkers will have to dig deeper into their pockets to buy booze under new legislation setting a minimum price for alcohol.
The legislation, which is expected to pass Wednesday, will set floor price of $1.30 per standard drink from October.
This means bottles of wine in the NT – which have about seven units – could not be sold for below about $9.
The extra money from the legislation change will go to the vendors, NT news reported.
Other states could follow suit in a bid to reduce-alcohol related harm.
The legislation means bottles of wine in the NT – which have about seven units – could not be sold for below about $9.
The NT’s residents are the nation’s biggest drinkers and more likely to end up in hospital from related risky behaviour, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Trevor Riley’s review recommended a floor price of $1.50.
The legislation is expected to reduce-alcohol related injuries, Attorney-General Natasha Flyers said.
She has said there was evidence from Canadian provinces with a floor price that it reduced alcohol-fuelled hospitalisations.
Member for Araluen and former deputy chief minister Robyn Lambley said the plan to put a floor price on alcohol was a waste of time and would create a ‘nanny state’.
She told SBS News that takeaway liquor outlets in Alice Springs had voluntarily agreed for many years not to sell alcohol below a certain price but it had not stopped anyone drinking.
The NT’s residents are the nation’s biggest drinkers and more likely to end up in hospital from related risky behaviour, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
‘I don’t believe in social control and this is a great example of a government policy that is intended to control all of us and how we drink and I don’t believe for a minute it will succeed,’ she said.
The price hike comes off a new Bloomberg study that revealed Australia as one of the top most three expensive places to buy alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.
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