Alcohol bans to be reinstated in central Australia's Indigenous communities and town camps

The Northern Territory government will introduce legislation next week to return the areas to "dry zones".

Under the new alcohol ban, 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. Source: AAP / MICK TSIKAS/AAPIMAGE

Key points

• Alcohol bans will be reinstated to stop the sale of booze in central Australian communities and town camps.
• Intervention-inspired liquor bans expired last year.
• The removal of the bans has been blamed for a sharp increase in crime in Alice Springs.

Alcohol bans will be reinstated to stop the sale of booze in central Australian Indigenous communities and town camps.

The Northern Territory government will introduce legislation next week to return the areas to "dry zones", Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said on Monday.

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.

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.

The Country Liberal Party senator said she would move a bill to legislate the reinstatement a Commonwealth alcohol ban after the Stronger Futures laws lapsed last year.

Senator Price said she'd been working on her bill since August, weeks after the legislation lapsed.

"It's not something that has come about as a knee-jerk reaction," she said.

"I knew with the removal of the cashless debit card, with the ending of the Stronger Futures legislation, this was going to happen.

"I don't want to lose any more family members to alcohol-fuelled violence in town camps."