NT looks at alcohol U-turn

The Northern Territory Government has announced that the Liquor Act will be rewritten to incorporate a series of harm minimisation strategies.

The Minister for Licensing, Syd Stirling, says the rewrite will take about 18 months and will make it more difficult for premises to obtain liquor licences.

The structure of the licensing commission is expected to be changed so applications can be processed quicker and with more control.

Mr Stirling says it has become apparent that the Government needs to work on limiting the availability of alcohol.

"The issues that came out of each of the consultative processes we've had about alcohol is that the availability...there is no shortage of availability of alcohol in the Northern Territory, quite the contrary, we think we've got to toughen up the licence application process and we'll do that," he said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Wed, 09 March 2005
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia Web)
Copyright: 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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