Alcohol bans will be reinstated to stop the sale of booze in central Australian Indigenous communities and town camps.
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The Northern Territory government will introduce legislation next week to return the areas to "temporary dry zones", Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said on Monday.
"We've heard loudly and clearly that the matter and decision of alcohol on community needs to be one that is made by the entire community," Ms Fyles told reporters. "This is why we're creating a circuit breaker ... until communities can develop and vote on the alcohol management plans they want to see."
The Federal Government also announced it would invest $250 million in community safety and services, with funding going towards job creation, youth engagement and support for domestic violence services.
The decision comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Alice Springs last month amid growing frustration over alcohol-fuelled violence and theft in the town.
Ms Fyles said the new restrictions were based on the recommendations of the newly appointed central Australian regional controller Dorrelle Anderson.
Ms Anderson, who was appointed after the prime minister's visit, reviewed the territory's opt-in alcohol restrictions, that replaced expired Intervention-inspired liquor bans last year.
Under the new legislation, communities can apply to opt out of the ban, as long as 60 per cent of residents support the decision and they have an alcohol management plan.
"Alcohol-related harm is still the NT's biggest social challenge," Ms Fyles said. "But it is a legal product, and we need to manage the complexities of that product."
Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said the measures were not enough. "There was no promise today of additional police or sending Australian Federal Police into Alice Springs, which would make an immediate impact on the ground today."
Earlier, NT senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price made an impassioned plea for alcohol bans to be reinstated in Alice Springs to tackle a surging crime wave.
Ms Price told the Senate chamber her family had experienced sexual violence, trauma and murder in central Australia because of alcohol.
Federal Labor MP Marion Scrymgour said of her hometown, "I was visiting the hospital over the Christmas break and I saw firsthand how critical the situation was. Nursing staff and doctors are run off their feet and beds are filled with alcohol-related crimes."
"But the underlying issues that drive the crisis in Central Australia still need to be addressed: poverty, unemployment, a severe shortage of housing, family and domestic violence, disaffected youth, neglect of the bush," said Ms Scrymgour.
Australian Associated Press
