The Territory Labor Government will urgently pass legislation this week to cut red tape and speed up the decision making process for the last two applications made under the former Liquor Act 1978.

This decision is in line with the Territory Economic Reconstruction Commission’s Recommendation that all NTG decisions should be made within 30 days or less.

The two applications that were made under the Liquor Act 1978 are:

1.    The Dan Murphy’s application (lodged in 2018); and

2.    An application from the Pirlingimpi community to reinstate their takeaway liquor licence (lodged 2015, prior to the takeaway moratorium).

A bill will be introduced into Parliament tomorrow, and is expected to pass on urgency on Thursday.

The bill will direct the Director of Liquor Licensing to make a decision on these two applications within 30 days. This means a final decision on Dan Murphy’s will be made before Christmas.

This Bill only applies to these two applications made under the Liquor Act 1978 and will not affect applications, complaints or other matters made since the commencement of the Liquor Act 2019.

Quotes Attributable to Minister for Small Business, Paul Kirby:

“We want the Territory to be the easiest place to do business in the country - businesses need certainty to create jobs.

“It is unacceptable that businesses and the community should have to wait this long for an answer, yes or no, so we are moving urgent legislation to cut this decision making down to 30 days.

“One of the Commission’s key recommendations in its First Report was to make the Territory the easiest place in Australia to do business.

“Bringing in this legislation on urgency does just that.”