The Cost of Poor Policy Implementation and Maintenance: The Northern Territory's Alcohol Floor Price

The Northern Territory's (NT) minimum unit price (MUP) imposed a minimum price point that retail alcohol could be sold from October 2018 [1]. The MUP was associated with unique reductions that could not be attributed to other alcohol policies in alcohol consumption [2], ambulance attendances [3], assaults [4] and emergency department presentations [5]. Two government-commissioned evaluations into the policy declared that it was successful in its aim to reduce cheap wine consumption [1, 3, 6]. The policy had almost no implementation costs [3] and no substantial impact on moderate alcohol consumers [7]. A similar policy in Scotland has been associated with substantial reductions in consumption [8] and alcohol-attributable deaths and hospitalisations [9]. Despite this, the MUP was removed on 1 March 2025 by the newly elected NT government [10] due to a perceived ineffectiveness. However, these criticisms can be traced back to the implementation of the MUP rather than the MUP itself. The MUP was criticised for being a weak component of the larger suite of policies implemented in the NT [11], with some stakeholders arguing that there had been no noticeable impact from the MUP [6]. These arguments are not entirely baseless; a wastewater analysis showed the alcohol consumption in the NT increased after an initial drop following the policy [12]. The consumption of spirits rose after the introduction of the MUP [2], leading many to argue that consumers had simply switched products [6]. The rise in overall consumption seen in the wastewater tests has not been found in other datasets [2, 6], and the rise in spirits consumption coincides with a nationwide rise [13], while not lining up with the introduction of the MUP [2, 6]. Additionally, opponents of the policy highlight that alcohol-related assaults rose by 38% over the period the MUP was in place [14]. Although this ignores the initial drop in assaults that can be attributed to the MUP [4], and other factors that may have contributed to this rise (i.e., the removal of dry areas [15]). Overall, evidence suggests that the initial impact of the MUP was beneficial [1]; however, it could be argued that over the 6-year period the policy was in place, it had failed to reduce alcohol-related harm. Further, as the MUP was introduced alongside two other major alcohol policies [16], this has obfuscated the ability to confidently understand the long-term impacts of the policy. Regardless, as the MUP was never implemented as intended, due to inflation, the longer it remained, the less effective it became. Prior to implementation, an expert committee recommended an NT MUP of AU$1.50 per standard drink (10 g of pure ethanol) [17], but the NT government instead introduced a MUP of AU$1.30 per standard drink. This was not an evidence-based decision; rather, this price point was chosen so that it would not affect the price of beer while still targeting cask wine (cheap wine sold in a cask; [18]). At the time the MUP was implemented, cask wine accounted for < 5% of all the alcohol consumed in the NT, while the most popular product, full-strength beer, accounted for 30% [2]. Like cask wine, full-strength beer is disproportionately consumed by heavy drinkers [19], yet from its inception, the MUP was implemented in a manner that would not target the most consumed product in the NT [20]. At its introduction, the MUP affected the price of an estimated 19% of alcohol sold by retailers within the Territory, falling short of the 44% covered by the Scottish policy [20]. Despite this limited coverage, the initial implementation of the NT MUP was still significantly associated with a reduction in alcohol consumption and a range of alcohol-related harms [1]. Modelling from Scotland showed that the effects of the MUP on alcohol consumption, hospitalisations, and deaths were likely going to diminish as inflation rose [21]. As such, the Scottish government recently adjusted their MUP from £0.50 to £0.65 in line with inflation [22]. This was legislated to occur with the NT MUP [23]; however, indexing never occurred, leading to a diminishing value of the policy [24]. The NT liquor regulations used this formula to determine the value the MUP should be indexed to each financial year, stipulating that the MUP could never be decreased [26]. Only wine could be examined in this manner, as it is the only alcohol category that does not have an excise that is adjusted in line with inflation (unlike beer and spirits). This is also appropriate, as cheap wine was the main product targeted and impacted by the NT's MUP. Without indexation, the impact of the MUP on the affordability of wine had completely disappeared by 2022 (Figure 1). The predicted index value shows how the CPI for wine may have changed if the legislated indexation had taken place at the start of each financial year. The large jump seen in July 2022 is a result of the indexation equation using data from the previous calendar year; this was the first point that the substantial inflation from 2021 could be accounted for. To highlight the diminishing value of the MUP, we have created a ‘real terms’ value of the MUP by adjusting the MUP price point, represented by AU$ at the time of its introduction. The real value of the MUP has declined from AU$1.30 when implemented to less than AU$1.10 in June 2024 (Figure 2). Retail sales data taken from the 3-year evaluation of the MUP was utilized to show the portion of the 2018 wine and alcohol market that was impacted by the MUP [6, 20], over time and accounting for inflation. Retail sales were aggregated by 10 cent price bands in the original report; our current estimates were made assuming sales were distributed evenly within 10 cent price bands. Error bars show the upper bound and lower bounds of these price estimates (i.e., lower bound assumes every product within the AU$1.30 10 cent price band was priced at AU$1.30, compared with AU$1.39 for the upper bound). As shown in Figure 2, by the end of the period, only an estimated 31% of wine and 9% of all alcohol sales from 2018 remained under the ‘real’ value of the MUP. While almost all cask wine sales remain under the ‘real’ value of the MUP, only an estimated 21% of other wine products were impacted; the majority of these were only impacted by 10 cents per standard drink. This comparison does not account for the movement of wine sales that may have occurred naturally over this period or in response to the MUP. This graph is not indicative of real market movements; rather, it is a simple demonstration of how the value of the MUP has declined in comparison to the wine market at a single time point (i.e., when the MUP was introduced). The performance of the NT MUP should not be assessed without carefully considering its implementation and maintenance. The MUP initially succeeded in what it was implemented to do, reduce the consumption of cask wine [2], with clear evidence of unique health and justice impacts beyond this [1]. The NT MUP was likely set too low to produce a substantial ongoing reduction in harm and was not adjusted for inflation, indicating poor implementation and maintenance. Policy makers need to learn from the implementation issues of the NT MUP and address them when considering future alcohol pricing policy. N.T. conceptualised the commentary and wrote the original draft. R.B. and M.L. edited and approved the final draft. The authors have nothing to report. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Data S1: Appendix A. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.