Grog management 'mired' in red tape
INDIGENOUS Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion wants to overhaul the process Aboriginal communities need to go through to secure community alcohol management plans.
While Senator Scullion argued that the system established by the previous government was too bureaucratic, he warned it would take a lot to convince him that alcohol should be introduced into any dry community.
It comes after Labor attacked the government on the plans, complaining that there was still no sign of more than 20 alcohol management plans 133 days after Senator Scullion first told a Senate estimates hearing that they were “imminent.”
Senator Scullion told The Weekend Australian he had asked his department to alter the system because it was too bureaucratic. “I’ve asked my department to work on streamlining this cumbersome process in a way that provides more community ownership and control.”
Under laws passed late last year, communities must have strategies to control alcohol supply, to allow it to return, subject to approval by the minister.
The rules say that before any changes will be agreed to, communities must: show that an alcohol management plan is in place that clearly meets the minimum standards; show that there has been a reduction in alcohol-related harm that will not be reversed by lifting the restrictions; and ensure vulnerable members of the community will not be put at risk.
The minister said while he would order the department to offer much more support to communities to try to meet the new standards, he would take a very hard-line view on proposals.
“There will have to be some extraordinary things in this plan for me to say I think more alcohol is a good thing. That’s not going to prejudice me against some good ideas, that’s not going to prejudice me against some unique circumstances, but they are going to have to be compelling circumstances for me to say more alcohol is a good thing.”
Senator Scullion said the former government designed the cumbersome process surrounding alcohol management plans.
“They started the process in 2012 and at the time of the election had not approved a single plan. I had understood that the plans were imminent but it’s more complicated than that.”
Source: The Australian - 5 April 2014
