Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hindmarsh for the question. It is something that he and many members on this side of the House are acutely interested in. Members, probably members from Sydney, would have had the opportunity to see an article in today’s Sydney Morning Heraldothers in the House may not have seen it—which published some findings from the latest Nielsen ScanTrack Liquor survey. The results of this industry survey show that since 2005 the growth in the white spirit—or light-coloured or clear spirit—ready-to-drinks, usually the vodka-based drinks targeted at girls and young women, have increased by 23 per cent. This is against a 15 per cent increase—still a large increase, I might add, but not quite as large as in those white spirit products—of the darker ready-to-drink products.

Within this category, one of the worrying statistics provided in this research is that the highest growth has been in those products with the highest alcohol content—seven per cent and above. These worrying results back up the action taken by the Rudd government to tackle alcohol abuse and alcohol abuse by young women. So while the Leader of the Opposition and the member for North Sydney have been running around the country trying to talk this initiative down, research shows that they just do not know what they are talking about. In fact, only yesterday, the member for North Sydney tried to tell Barrie Cassidy on Insiders that the fact that rum based drinks were popular with older men meant that tackling alcopops growth was a bad idea.

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