A landmark study on alcohol in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, which was kept under wraps, found well-managed social clubs can reduce harm associated with drinking.

Those seeking access to the report under Freedom of Information laws had been refused, and NT taxpayers are now forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars on another alcohol review.

The ABC recently obtained a copy of the review.

Clubs can reduce alcohol harm, tackle violence

It found the licensed clubs — operating in eight remote Aboriginal communities at the time the study began in 2012 — could reduce alcohol harm and even help battle broader problems such as domestic violence.

The report on drinking in the remote communities lay missing for two years. ( Dave Hunt, file photo: AAP )

The review, titled Consumption — a review on licensed clubs in remote Indigenous communities in the NT, by Bowchung consultants, said residents valued access to their clubs and their behaviour could be controlled by the prospect of being banned.

"Communities use this control for a variety of purposes," the review said.

"Getting people to go to work, punishment for perpetrators of domestic violence, punishment for people who neglect their children, making people pay for things that they have broken and so on."

The review found drinking was effectively managed both due to the clubs' rules as well as changes brought in under the intervention involving welfare quarantining and trade restrictions on hours, full-strength beer and take-away sales.

Review handed to CLP in 2015

Three years in the making and commissioned under the former Labor NT government, the review was given to the then Country Liberals government in mid-2015.

At the time the Government had been criticised for reportedly campaigning quietly to return full-strength beer on the Tiwi Islands.

The Country Liberals never released the review, and it is not clear the new Labor NT Government was aware of its existence until the ABC approached it.

Labor is now spending $300,000 on an alcohol policy review, which includes looking at whether to allow more licensed social clubs in the bush.

The Bowchung researchers surveyed hundreds of remote Territorians; spent days staying in communities; trawled hospital, assault, and sobering up shelter admissions data; and combed decades-worth of similar studies across Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Their work was supposed to guide both the Federal and Territory governments on a planned major departure from booze bans that had first been ushered in under the intervention back in 2007.

The aim was to hand back control to communities over their own alcohol management plans.

Alcohol-related assaults decreased in communities with clubs

To prepare for community requests for licensed social clubs, the Australian Government and the NT Department of Justice commissioned the review.

The Bowchung researchers surveyed 362 residents from the eight communities that were allowed to keep their clubs when the intervention began.

They compared alcohol-related harm statistics from those communities with communities that did not have clubs.

Alcohol-related assaults in communities with clubs decreased after the intervention, the report found. ( ABC TV )

It found alcohol-related assaults had decreased in communities with clubs after the intervention, and their rates fell into line with rates for the wider Northern Territory.

It also found alcohol-related hospital admission rates were "slightly lower" for communities with clubs than for those without clubs.

The review's authors acknowledged there had been a fraught history in how some communities decided to have licensed clubs and that often women felt their views were not heeded.

Many non-drinkers also supported clubs, study shows

But the review's survey of residents in the eight communities found many respondents reported being proud of their clubs — and that many non-drinkers also supported the existence of the club in their communities.

"It gives them somewhere to go and enjoy themselves, and another element to life in their community," it said.

It found people broadly supported the intervention's restrictions on trading days and hours, as well as full-strength beer, because they felt it cut fighting and increased family wellbeing.

Police reported the level of domestic violence incidents fell from 30 per month to fewer than five.

A "less positive impact" from licensed clubs, the review noted, was the financial stress they put on communities.

But it said those in communities without clubs were also under pressure to spend money to travel to the nearest outlet to buy booze.

Recommendations of review

The review made a number of recommendations, if more clubs were set up, centred on ensuring rigorous governance structures and regulatory oversight to ensure they functioned responsibly.

It said shortened trading hours and days, as well as the ban on full-strength booze, should be kept.

It concluded that the dilemma policy makers faced was not a choice between dry communities where residents did not drink, versus communities with clubs where people did drink.

"Residents of remote communities access alcohol from a number of outlets — whether they have a club or not," it said.

"The dilemma is therefore creating a policy and regulatory settings that maximise the drinkers' access to environments in which their alcohol consumption is managed and harms are minimised."