John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently attended the Good Sports breakfast hosted by the Australian Drug Foundation to help promote the success of the Good Sports program, which strives to create positive and healthy sporting communities and to reduce the culture of binge drinking.

I had the privilege to speak with Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie, former Chief of the Army, who informed me of a shocking statistic. In the Australian armed forces, between 10 and 20 men and women die each year from alcohol related causes. To put this in context: our country has lost 40 soldiers over more than a decade in Afghanistan and the Iraq wars. Our forces have a proud and honourable tradition, yet it seems there is a culture of binge drinking within sections of even our most disciplined of communities. The Army, together with the government, must combat this negative drinking culture.

The organisation Good Sports have been very successful in reducing risky binge-drinking behaviour in local sporting organisations. They have overseen a 15 per cent drop in short-term harm such as violence and injury and a 14 per cent drop in long-term harm like cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. I applaud John Rogerson and everyone at Good Sports for their important work.