Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fielding for his interest in this area, which is ongoing. The revised draft Australian alcohol guidelines for low-risk drinking are currently being finalised by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the NHMRC. On 24 August 2008 the Age newspaper ran an article claiming the delay in releasing the guidelines was due to public outcry about how restrictive they are.

I am aware of the situation faced by young people and the difficulty in ensuring that the anti-binge-drinking message gets out. Last Sunday, on 23 November 2008, another phase of the government’s anti-binge-drinking campaign kicked into action with the screening of what, quite frankly, is a hard-hitting and in-your-face campaign, themed ‘Don’t turn a night out into a nightmare’. This issue continues to raise itself.

The Sunday Age also reported on a company attempting to get around the alcopops crackdown by selling drinks that look and taste exactly like alcopops but apparently use alcopops which can technically be defined as beer. As I have said in the past, the government will take a very dim view of anyone who attempts to artificially circumvent our crackdown on the alcopops loophole. The minister has been very firm on this issue and continues to ensure that we address it, for the sake of both the youth and the alcopops industry. There is a need to ensure that we continue to address the issue of how we— (Time expired)