NT Police can now ban people from Casuarina Square Shopping Centre and some surrounding areas for 14 days for as minor offences as swearing or singing a dirty song, but also for being violent when drunk, involved in a crime, “displaying anti-social behaviour” or refusing to leave a licensed premises, after Alcohol Policy Minister Natasha Fyles declared it a high risk area on advice she said she received from a mystery “social order” body the government has never disclosed the make up of.

Ms Fyles told the NT News when declaring the area around, and including Casuarina Square Shopping Centre, a high risk area she was “acting on the advice of the northern suburbs social order response team, which includes NT Police”.

But she did not detail what advice she was given, what evidence it was based on, or what other organisations or people the SORT was made up of.

Under the Liquor Act 2019, the change allowed police to ban people from entering the area for up to 14 days but the courts can extend the ban by up to a year.

The Act states the Alcohol Policy Minister can declare an area to be high risk by Gazette notice if alcohol-related violence occurred in a public place within the vicinity of licensed premises in the area, and the minister believes that banning notices and exclusion orders are a reasonable way of preventing or reducing the further occurrence of alcohol-related violence in the area.

And the minister is allowed to consult with the Commission, the Police Commissioner, or anyone else the minister considers appropriate. The minister can also overturn the declaration, or change it at any time, but must revoke the declaration if the minister believes alcohol-related violence is no longer occurring in the high risk area.

NT Police Assistant Commissioner Travis Wurst told the NT News it was the idea of police to classify it as high risk, saying violence and poor behaviour caused by people drinking takeaway alcohol “impacted negatively on the Casuarina precinct.”

“The declaration allows police to issue banning notices to individuals who cause alcohol fuelled violence, are involved in a crime, display anti-social behaviour or refuse to leave a licenced premises in the high risk area,” he said.

“If a person breaches the conditions of a banning notice they can (be) placed on the banned drinkers register.”

Mr Wurst was not specific about what sort of anti-social behaviour someone had to display to face a ban, but the Liquor Act cites multiple sections of the Criminal Code, the Summary Offences Act 1923 and the Weapons Control Act 2001, including the offences of rioting, causing people to fear for their safety, gross indecency, assaults, threats, break-ins, damage to property, arson or attempted arson, carrying weapons, and stupefying in order to commit indictable offence.

Other offences include offensive conduct, and indecent exposure, causing substantial annoyance to another person, or unreasonably disrupting the privacy of another person.

But it also includes using obscene language, which includes singing any obscene song or ballad, in or within the hearing, or view of any person in any road, street, thoroughfare or public place, but does not specify what is classified as obscene language.

Banned people can still live and go to work in the high risk area.

A banned person may apply to the Police Commissioner to revoke a banning notice but the legislation does not seem to specifically address an appeal of the ban to a court, although a court can rule on the validity of the high risk determination for an area.

Casuarina high risk alcohol area. Image: NT Government

In late October, Territory Families and Police Minister Kate Worden announced a plan for Alice Springs that she said had been developed by the SORT, a body she described as “a collaboration between government, NGOs and community sector groups who will meet regularly to coordinate more efficient and effective use of government and government-funded resources to achieve targeted social order outcomes for children, families, businesses and the wider community”.

The media release carried the headline, New social order response team for the Northern Territory, but then went on to say the SORT had been working since August, although there was no press release about its establishment in August, nor who SORT is made up of

“Since August, the SORT has been working with stakeholders who understand that the problems we face will not be fixed by government alone,” the press release said.

The government said it would commence a SORT plan for the Darwin northern suburbs, followed by plans for other regions, however there has been no press release about that plan. It is unclear if there is one SORT, or multiple SORTs.