Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister advise the House about the impacts of alcohol abuse on policing?

Bob Debus (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Makin for his question. The devastating effects of alcohol abuse are insidious and they are far-reaching. They contribute to family breakdown and family violence and financial, psychological and legal problems, with untold costs to the community. The link between alcohol, crime and social harm to the community is becoming much clearer. The facts are, in a word, sobering. A 2007 report from the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research estimated that New South Wales Police spend at least $50 million a year responding to alcohol related crime. According to the bureau, the money spent by New South Wales Police would pay the annual salaries of around 1,000 full-time constables in New South Wales.

Why is it that, in the face of all the evidence talked about today, the opposition still refuses to support the government in providing a disincentive for kids to get hooked on alcohol at an early age? The Minister for Health and Ageing has reminded us that these alcopops are deliberately targeted at teenage girls, who drink them like soft drinks because that is exactly what they taste like. Nearly a year ago, the New South Wales commissioner, Andrew Scipione, said this:

Drinking habits have changed. What many young Australians are doing now is going out determined to get drunk, whatever the consequences.

There’s been a normalisation of binge drinking rather than an encouragement of sensible drinking and sadly it involves both men and women … Enough is enough and it’s time to change the culture.

That is exactly what the government has been going—investing $872 million in prevention, including tackling alcohol abuse, and investing $53 million in our binge-drinking strategy announced last year, with more to come after the Preventative Health Taskforce reports next year.

The police know the reality. The government knows the reality. What will it take for the opposition to see the true scale of this problem and back the government’s measures instead of backing profits for the alcohol industry? The Leader of the Opposition has backed down to the big distillers and he has decided to let the police of Australia—

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Wood interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for La Trobe is warned!

Bob Debus (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

pick up the pieces. It is not the Liberal Party on the front line on binge drinking; it is the police. The police want action on binge drinking.

Faced with a tough choice, Malcolm Turnbull has backed the peak distillers—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will refer to members by their titles.

Bob Debus (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and left it to the police to clean up the mess. Police in Australia are already stretched, dealing with all of the problems of life as they are thrown out. The last thing we need is for Malcolm Turnbull to hospital pass police cheaper alcopops.