Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the recently released Senate report on ready-to-drink alcohol. Does the Prime Minister support an increase in the legal age of drinking from 18 to 21?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find it remarkable that in this whole debate about binge drinking and what governments can productively do to bring this problem back under control we have a clear choice between the two sides of politics: a government prepared to act and those opposite prepared purely to play politics with this, and politics of the lowest common denominator. That is the bottom line here. We have a policy to deal with binge drinking. We have more to do on this front. It is a problem brought to the government’s attention by police commissioners, health authorities and various state government authorities across the country. The last time I looked—and it is a position also on the question of the tax measure as it relates to alcopops—the position we have taken on alcopops was completely endorsed by the former senator in the gallery who has just been referred to; namely, former Senator John Herron—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The more Joe shouts out loud the more we know Joe does not like to hear it. That is basically the bottom line. We believe that these measures can be conducted currently within the set of arrangements which apply to the legal drinking age in Australia. We have no plans for changes on that score. We will, however, have much more to say on the whole question of dealing with the challenge of binge drinking. But I go back to the first premise: we take the advice from the police commissioners and the health authorities seriously. We are acting on the problem of binge drinking. Those opposite say, ‘Don’t worry about it. You can’t do anything about it. Simply tolerate what’s occurring at present,’ and in fact at the edge say, ‘Well, there’s not really much of a problem at all.’ There is a very clear alternative here: a Labor government with a plan of action on binge drinking, with still much more to do, and those opposite who are content to sit idly by, do nothing and simply engage in opportunistic politics on the way through. Frankly, on this they stand condemned.