Alcohol campaigners have renewed calls for a ban on political donations after the Northern Territory's Australian Hotels Association (AHA) boss admitted to personally gifting tens of thousands of dollars to both sides of politics.

Darwin pub-owner Mick Burns confirmed he had donated $100,000 in the last 12 months, split evenly between Labor and the Country Liberals.

He gifted a total of $20,000 to the two parties in the 2015/16 financial year, and gave a lump sum payment of $40,000 to each party before the NT's August election.

Mr Burns said the money was given by him personally, and not on behalf of the AHA.

"Look, as a Territorian, we needed strong, stable government to have the Territory in the best place that it can be and that it should be," he said.

"For governments to be elected, they obviously run campaigns and campaigns cost money."

Dr John Boffa from the People's Alcohol Action Coalition said that justification was not credible.

"These donations are made for a purpose, they're made to buy influence over a policy," Dr Boffa said.

"[The donations] mean [Mr Burns] is expecting equal influence and expecting both parties to ensure they have favourable policy environments to the industry he's representing, which is the Australian Hotels Association.

"We should be banning these forms of political donations. It's not good for our democracy ... and it's certainly not good for public health."

Government denies pandering to hotels lobby

The $40,000 donations were not due to be revealed by the NT Electoral Commission until March next year, but Territory Labor released the information after requests from the NT News.

The Country Liberals party president Shane Stone declined to confirm Mr Burns' comments and said donations would be disclosed according to the timetable set by the NT Electoral Commission.

Both parties each received $150,000 from the hotels lobby in the lead up to the 2012 election.

The Government was last week forced to deny that it was pandering to the hotels lobby in its move to block a proposed Dan Murphy's liquor outlet by introducing new laws that limited floor space.

Acting Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said managing the supply of alcohol was one of the Territory's biggest challenges to address, but that the franchise was welcome to build a smaller store that fit the new regulations.

NT hotels boss backs focus on alcohol floor price

Mick Burns said he welcomed the Government's recently announced review into the NT's Liquor Act and said reform was overdue.

"There's absolutely no question that our community has an issue with alcohol, and we need to be able to address that," he said.

"Things that aren't supported by the AHA nationally, things like floor-pricing are absolutely supported by the NT branch."

Dr Boffa said he was pleased to hear that Mr Burns backed a minimum price on alcohol.

He said it was a better way to reduce alcohol-related harm than blocking the Dan Murphy's development.

"It's cheap alcohol that's causing the majority of the harm, it's not quality alcohol," he said.

"If we had a minimum price on alcohol we should absolutely allow Dan Murphy's and any other player in so that people who are responsible can get access to cheaper alcohol, but only down to a certain point.

"That point, which PAC has advocated for many years, is the price of beer, which is $1.30 per standard drink, we should not go below that."