The Northern Territory Government has confirmed that as part of its alcohol policy reforms it will be banning alcohol promotions on shopping dockets.
The Territory is currently introducing a wide range of alcohol reforms, including the introduction of minimum unit pricing next week. NT’s Attorney General Natasha Fyles told ABC Radio that the move to ban shopper dockets for alcohol was recommended in the NT’s Alcohol Policies and Legislation Review.
“This is about alcohol being a special commodity — not part of your daily staples,” Fyles said.
“One of the recommendations which was accepted by the Government back in February was around those discount vouchers on the bottom of shopping receipts and to not have that in the Northern Territory.”
Shane Tremble, Endeavour Drinks Group’s General Manager Corporate Services, told TheShout that the group could not see any sense in the decision.
“Receipt Rewards are meant to encourage cross shopping between our supermarkets and our BWS stores,” Tremble said. “There is no evidence that customers taking advantage of these offers are buying any more alcohol, they are simply buying it from our store rather that someone else’s.
“As an example, we are currently running a promotion which features two bottles of wine for $24 on receipt rewards. If this type of promotion is outlawed we will still be able to advertise exactly the same offer using any number of other media options.”
He added: “The NT is also introducing minimum unit pricing on Monday, as this will eliminate ‘low priced’ options for our customers it’s hard to see what additional benefit will be gained by banning promotional activity on one specific type of media.”
The NT is the first Australian jurisdiction to introduce minimum unit pricing, with a $1.30 per standard drink floor price starting on Monday.
The changes to the NT’s Liquor Act are coming as part of the Riley Review, which was delivered to the Government in October last year and Fyles said the Government was giving in-principle support to consider implementing all but one recommendation around a total ban on the trade of take away alcohol on Sunday.