02 Alice Springs Alcohol Reference Group - Meeting 2 Minutes 13 May 2014

Minutes – 13 May 2014

Minutes

Meeting #2 –13 May 2014 @ 1.30pm

Department of Business, Conference Room, 1st floor, Green Well Building

1Welcome

Meeting started at 1.30pm.

The Chair welcomed and thanked the Alcohol Reference Group (ARG) members for attending.

Apologies received: Jeff Huyben and Kay Eade.

The Chair thanked and welcomed the following guests: Carolyn Whyte from the Dept of Attorney-General and Justice and Jane Munday from Michels Warren Munday. Pasqualina Coffey from the Department of Health will also join the meeting.

A)Minutes and Action Items

The Chair asked for any comments on the April ARG Minutes. Nil comments received.

April 2014 ARG Minutes accepted and all members in favour.

The Chair went through each action item. Action Items 1 & 2 from the April ARG remains outstanding. The rest are complete.

2Presentation

The Chair introduced Carolyn Whyte who will present assaults / crime statistics and alcohol consumption data to the members.

Carolyn presented information on NT crime statistics - This includes both domestic violence and other alcohol related assaults

Background and definition includes:

• Alice Springs’ population has grown 7.7% between 2003 and 2013. To break it down, the increase of 6.4% occurred between 2006 and 2010 and from 2010 to 2013 the increase was 1.1% (dates as at 30 June in each year).
• Assault data included on the NT crime statistics are offences that come to the attention of Police
• Alcohol-related may mean the victim, offender or both
• Involvement of domestic violence is recorded independently of alcohol involvement

Month Assault Offences:

• Assault offences have a peak and trough pattern; December and January the peak and July the trough
• Reported assaults during February 2014 were the lowest February since February 2009.
• Alcohol-related assaults make up approximately 71% of reported assaults
• Non-alcohol-related assaults and assaults where alcohol involvement is unknown make up approximately 30% of reported assaults
• Crime Statistics are published the 3rd Friday of every month, on the PFES website.

Members asked questions relating to the presentation. Members were particularly interested in whether the data could be broken down and provided by gender and age. Carolyn responded that, as this data represents offences and not people, it would not be possible, but some victim-based information may be available with gender/age breakdowns. It was also raised whether graphs depicting the data could be provided on the public website.

Action: DoB (Jane) to follow up with Carolyn and to also consider as part of the work occurring with Menzies on alcohol data sets and the placed based framework for monitoring and measuring the impact and effectiveness of AMPs

Carolyn presented information to the ARG members on wholesale alcohol data supply.

Background and definition includes:

• Data is based on wholesaler returns to the Director of Licensing
• The department undertakes substantial data checking for consistency with previous returns before published
• An average period of 6 months between receiving data and publishing the data
• Quantity sold is converted to litres of pure alcohol content for comparative purposes

Wholesale Data Supply:

• Overall supply in Alice Springs between 2003 and 2013 has decreased, the past twelve months has seen a 7% decrease. The largest decrease occurred from the four quarters ending March 2006 to the four quarters ending September 2008, resulting in a 22% decrease.
• There was a 90% decrease in cask wine supply between the four quarters ending September 2006 and the four quarters ending September 2007, following the introduction of the Alice Springs Liquor Supply Plan in October 2006, when restrictions were imposed on cask wine.
• Between March 2012 and 2013, there was a spike in bottle wine supply, but a decrease in cask wine supply
• There seems to be an unchanged pattern in low and mid beer supply
• Post March 2006, and the introduction of alcohol restrictions on cask wine and fortified wine there was an increase in heavy beer supply
• Between 2003 and 2013, overall spirit supply has increased. In 2008, there was a decrease in spirit supply after the introduction of the alco-pop tax.

Action: Carolyn Whyte to distribute presentation on both alcohol related assaults and supply to ARG members.

3Presentation

The Chair introduced Pasqualina Coffey to present health data to the members.

Pasqualina presented alcohol related hospital admissions and emergency department (ED) presentations to NT public hospitals over the period 2001 – 2013, including data relating directly to the Alice Springs Hospital (ASH).

The data is categorised into the following categories: 40% alcohol attributable hospital admission (this includes items such as motor vehicle accidents etc) and 100% alcohol attributable hospital admission.

Alice Springs Hospital:

• Indigenous men are the highest population sector admitted to hospital for alcohol related conditions
• Central Australia has a higher ED presentation rate than the Top End, with an increase trend of admissions from 100% alcohol attributable conditions compared to the Top End
• In pure numbers, there are 20-25 hospital admissions for 100% attributable conditions for Indigenous people per month in the Top End. In Central Australia the hospital admissions are 70-80 per month

Action: Pasqualina to distribute a copy of the presentation to members.

4Presentation

The Chair introduced Jane Munday who will conduct a workshop style presentation.

The topics included:

• Values
• Key Issues
• Goals
• Objectives
• Strategies
• Measuring Success
• Developing an AMP
• Timelines.

Please refer to the summary of the workshop inside the Action Items table.

Action: Jane Munday to email members a summary of the workshop with suggested pathways forward.

Jane Munday suggested that it might be useful for John Boffa to be linked into the Menzies project - place based framework for monitoring and measuring the impact and effectiveness of AMPs .

Action: Jane Alley to follow up with Menzies re John Boffa providing input into the placed based framework for monitoring and measuring the impact and effectiveness of AMPs re alcohol indicators for regional centres.

5Other Business

The next ARG meeting to occur 2-4pm on Tuesday 10 June. This meeting will be a follow up to the strategic planning workshop and will look at community engagement strategy and processes for developing the AMP.

Meeting concluded at 4.30pm.

Department of Business1