Senator Jacinta Price breaks down on the floor of the Senate recalling family tragedy

Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price wept in parliament after introducing legislation to impose further alcohol restrictions in the Northern Territory.

Your private member’s bill would allow for greater federal oversight of grog bans in the NT, similar to the powers granted to the Commonwealth by the now-expired Howard-era intervention laws.

Senator Price told the Upper House about members of her family who she said had suffered and in some cases died due to alcohol abuse in her hometown of Alice Springs.

The senator from the Country’s Liberal Party cried as she recalled having to identify her cousin’s body in a morgue after she died in a drunken car accident.

“It hurts us and it is false to provide ad hoc approaches and not take full responsibility for the good of all territorials,” he said on Wednesday.

‘The Australian government has a responsibility to ensure that the NT has consistency in law and order.’

As it stands, the NT government will be responsible for legislating new alcohol bans for some remote communities in a bid to address the rise in alcohol related harm in Central Australia.

Any dry zone community that wishes to opt out of the bans will need to develop their own community alcohol plans and get 60 percent or more of local residents to vote in favor of them.

Senator Price has said the plans don’t go far enough. His bill would require alcohol management plans to be approved by the ‘relevant’ federal minister.

The Albanian government will also provide $250 million in additional funding for a variety of initiatives in the region, including employment, health, and youth engagement programs.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the measures earlier this week after flying to Alice Springs following media coverage of a sharp increase in alcohol-fueled violence and crime in the inner city.

Grog bans imposed in 2007 under the Howard government’s Stronger Futures legislation lapsed when the laws expired in July last year, meaning previously dry urban communities and campgrounds could take home booze.

NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles has been reluctant to reintroduce alcohol bans, calling them a “race-based” policy.

Ms Fyles reportedly wrote to Senator Price on Tuesday to raise concerns that he had not consulted with the Territory Labor government or the community when preparing his NT Safe Measures Bill.

The chamber listened in silence as Senator Price described the ravages of alcohol in Northern Territory communities.

Senator Price, who has been an outspoken advocate for reintroducing alcohol bans, questioned this on Wednesday.

She said she had written to Ms Fyles in October to outline her proposal and had consulted extensively with stakeholders and residents across the NT.

Other Indian senators made moving speeches in the upper house in response to Senator Price’s introduction of legislation.

Dorinda Cox, a Green senator for Western Australia, said the intervention had been shown not to work and indigenous people were “self-medicating” with alcohol to deal with the trauma.

“It’s about coping, which many First Nations people have turned to because, in fact, they had no other choice,” he said.

Rising crime and chaos in Alice Springs have drawn national attention to the troubled region (Aboriginal woman pictured carrying alcohol back to a town camp)

‘Either they live remotely, (with no) services or lack of services available to them. And the waiting lists are very long, even then.

Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy said she had urged the Territory government in August last year to introduce its own legislation to ensure alcohol bans were in place after the Stronger Futures laws expired.

She said the past few months had been a “traumatic time for the people of Alice Springs” but that the problems there were “not just about alcohol” and would require an investment in health and education to address them.

“As a senator for the Northern Territory, there is a better way here and we are doing the best we can with that way,” she said.

And I know you’ll hold me responsible if that way doesn’t work out.

For confidential support in Australia, please contact Life line: 13 11 14, Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636, or suicide callback service: 1300 659 467