Adelaide City Council’s Parklands dry-zone policy is “racist”, a group representing several city homelessness services claims.

Dr Phil Davies, a spokesperson for the Independent Community-Wide Homelessness Administrators Group (ICHAG) – which represents 12 homelessness services operating in the CBD, including the Adelaide Day Centre – told InDaily that the timed alcohol-free zone mostly affected Aboriginal people.

In December last year, Adelaide City Council successfully lobbied the State Government to introduce a ban on alcohol consumption across the Parklands between the hours of 8pm and 11am.

Davies told InDaily the dry zone was “an out-of-sight, out-of-mind policy”.

“It’s designed to move Aboriginal people out of the city, and from that, it’s a racist law. It does nothing to assist the people that have really got problems.

“It’s impacting Aboriginal people more than anyone else.

“It’s a policy of turning a blind eye to a very serious problem.”

Davies said extending a dry zone beyond the city squares out to the surrounding Parklands forced homeless people – many of whom were Aboriginal – to move elsewhere, and excluded them from participating in the life of the city.

“It started in Victoria Square – it’s making more and more of the city a dry zone until finally Aboriginal people are no longer welcome in our city Parklands.

“Tarntanyangga /  Victoria Square has been a traditional meeting place for millennia for Aboriginal people and now … they don’t gather there because of the dry-zone legislation.

“And that suits the lawmakers nicely, because they don’t want them in the square.

“Removing people from the Parklands really is the final end to welcoming the Indigenous owners of this land in our city. It’s criminalising them.”

Davies urged the council to adopt what he said was a more “compassionate” policy towards Aboriginal rough sleepers.

“The council really needs to be lobbying the State (Government) and also providing more frontline services for homeless people so that they have places to go, they have the support that they need,” he said.

“They need to face the reality of the people that their policy is affecting.”

On Tuesday the council’s Economic and Community Development Committee voted to ask council administration to investigate alternative options, as well as improvements, to the dry zone policy.

The recommendation will be taken to a full meeting of the council on Tuesday.

An Adelaide City Council spokesperson told InDaily in a statement that: “The dry area is just one part of an overall management plan involving a number of strategies and a range of services to manage the issues and ensure we have safe and responsible use of the Parklands”.

“This is a whole-of-government approach,” the spokesperson said.

“A number of other strategies identified by the Senior Officers Group have been implemented to ensure an appropriate service response to vulnerable people who may be impacted by the Dry Area.

“This involves coordinated service delivery between social service providers, police and council so that a range of appropriate services are being offered to people while ensuring community safety.

“The three objectives of the trial are to achieve a safer and peaceful environment for the residents of South Terrace, provide access to social services for vulnerable people, and promote safe and responsible use of the Parklands for everyone.”

“An interim evaluation of the trial Dry Area presented to council and State Government in March 2015 highlighted that more data was required to evaluate its effectiveness, leading cuncil to request an extension to the Dry Area trial which the State Government approved to run until 22 September.

“The data obtained does not inform whether the Dry Area alone has contributed to increased amenity and perceptions of safety in the Southern Parklands.”