Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It may be out of order to refer to interjections, but I think Senator Evans was right when he earlier interjected that it is, in a sense, a matter of price with respect to the various programs, because this measure raises revenue and is intended to deal with the whole issue of binge drinking.

One of the first issues the media asked me about when I came to the Senate was what I thought of the measures. I consistently said nine months ago that I thought that $53.5 million—out of what back then was $3.1 billion—for tackling binge drinking seemed to be quite inadequate. I also said that I was sympathetic to the intent of the measure as it had been portrayed to me by the government—and I accepted the government’s position at face value—which was to tackle the issue of binge drinking, which the government identified, quite rightly I believe, as being a very real social problem. The uptake of drinking by young people, especially young women, was emerging as a very significant social issue. This particular measure was intended to tackle that by increasing the price of the beverages and also by putting money aside for programs that could actually make a difference. That is something that I have not resiled from.

The issue now is the extent to which the government has made commitments to deal with binge drinking. That $53.5 million hardly seems to be adequate. I refer you to the media release made jointly by the Minister for Health and Ageing and Senator McLucas in relation to the National Binge Drinking Strategy. Reference was made to measures, to community groups and to programs, and I referred to some of those in the context of my second reading contribution. As I understand it, over 300 applications were received for these community based programs and only 19 were funded because of the constraints of the revenue available in the context of the government’s National Binge Drinking Strategy. In my quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, that works out to about $3.5 million for the 19 programs.

These programs, let us make it clear, were national programs throughout the country. They included, for instance: the Nambucca Valley Youth Services Centre for the Mid North Coast Street Team—$250,000 to engage young people in developing and implementing preventative strategies to reduce the incidence of risky alcohol use; the King Island Council, for the Youth Access Program—$60,800 to provide alcohol-free venues for youth related activities; the Lutheran Church of Australia—$248,954 for the ‘On Friday Night in Kilburn’ project; the Australian Red Cross Society Queensland, for the Binge Drinking Harm Minimisation Project—$150,000 to respond to binge drinking, specifically towards the needs of vulnerable target groups in the greater Brisbane and Toowoomba areas; Anglicare North Queensland Ltd, for their Youth Substance Misuse Service’s binge drinking initiative—$150,000 to provide school leavers with awareness of laws, penalties, standard drinks, drink spiking and many similar activities; and the Russian Ethnic Representative Council of Victoria for their Reducing Binge Drinking in Russian/Slavic Communities project—$150,000 to conduct a broad community education campaign. These were just some of the many worthy projects that were approved. But, given that there were 319 projects, and even if a third of those would have been eligible and would have had a great degree of efficacy about them, that still shows that there is a lack of adequate funding.

I think it is important to reflect on what both the health minister and Senator McLucas said in that media release:

It is important to empower local communities to deliver local solutions to local problems. They know best the specific circumstances and details of what goes on in their own regions, towns and cities.

They have a solid understanding of what activities will and won’t work. They also have the commitment and energy to succeed.

The media release goes on to say:

The grants will enable community groups and organisations to combine in strong, effective partnerships to combat binge-drinking alongside community members and organisations such as police, health and youth workers, cultural groups and local government authorities.

It went on to say:

The Rudd government is determined to fight binge-drinking. These grants will enable the battle to be taken directly into local communities, by local communities for local communities.

I could not agree more with what the government is doing, and the government is to be commended for these projects. They are diverse projects from a combination of community groups, NGOs such as the Red Cross, ethnic community groups and church groups. They are a good mix of projects, but there simply are not enough of them. We need to have many, many more of these projects in order to make a significant difference, and that is why I believe it is important to provide additional funding for that. That is my concern.

On the issue of sponsorship that Senator Siewert has spoken about, I think it is very important that we put that in context as well, because the effect of sponsorship by alcohol companies on young people should not be underestimated. There is also the issue of advertising, which Senator Fielding has been outspoken on for some considerable time. I commend him for the bill that he introduced last year to deal with alcohol related harm which I believe had very many good elements in it. This is not simply about money; it is about making a difference with the significant revenue that the Commonwealth is getting from this measure—$1.6 billion over four years—on top of about $6.7 billion in revenue that it gets each year from alcohol excise. When you consider how little goes into preventative measures to directly combat binge drinking and alcohol abuse, I think it is quite reasonable to consider that this measure targeted towards binge drinking actually addresses the issue of binge drinking in a much more substantive way.

On the issue of advertising—which, as I said, Senator Fielding has been outspoken on for some considerable time and deserves credit for—let us look at the research. Research by a team from the University of Connecticut and published in the journal Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine provides some support for the WHO recommendation in relation to alcohol advertising. This research found that for each extra alcohol advertisement experienced per month, young people consumed one per cent more drinks. The researchers also analysed young people’s drinking in relation to the money spent on advertising based on industry figures and found investment in marketing also increased consumption. The finding that alcohol advertising was a contributing factor to young people’s drinking quantities over time is a significant one. I think it is important that that causal link is considered. And that is not a measure that involves spending any extra money; it is a measure that involves regulation.

I am concerned that the government has not been prepared to take on to a greater degree the alcohol industry in relation to this. Senator Siewert has said that the industry has been lurking around the corridors. I always enjoy talking to Gordon Broderick, one of the lobbyists for the industry—and I say that genuinely; we may agree to disagree, but he is a very affable chap to talk to. I think the industry did drop off some Passion Pop and some other alcopops, which are on a shelf unopened, I want to assure Senator Evans—although one of my staffers did say that the bottle of Passion Pop did bring back some fond, or maybe not so fond, memories from his youth which I will not go into in any more detail! But I think it is important to put that in the context that there is an opportunity to do a lot more on this. I can understand that the government says, ‘We are spending this $53½ million and we are also spending $872 million under the COAG initiatives on various health issues.’ But let us put that in perspective. The healthy children initiative—again, a worthy initiative—provides for interventions for children from zero to 16 years of age to increase physical activity and improve nutrition through childcare centres, preschools and families. The government’s document in relation to that says that states and territories will be able to address prevention of excessive alcohol consumption as part of these programs. Well, of course they will. But the fundamental question I have asked in relation to that $872 million for programs is: how much of that—which the government says is new money and I accept its word that it is new money—is in fact for new programs?

One of the key issues that needs to be determined here is: are these programs that would have been implemented in any event genuinely new projects? Given the government’s quite laudable commitments to dealing with issues of childhood obesity or increasing physical activity or measures to do with tobacco, which is one of the other matters that will be dealt with in this $872 million, to what extent are these genuinely new projects an advance as a direct result of the $1.6 billion that has been raised? That is an issue that my office has not been able to get a fixed or firm answer on. I do not want to be critical of Minister Roxon’s office because I believe that they have been absolutely helpful and genuine in terms of information we have requested, but there seems to be a lack of appropriate research, a lack of material in relation to this, and I think that is a real problem.

For instance, the healthy communities program relates to healthy living programs supporting physical activity, improved nutrition, smoking cessation and reduced alcohol consumption to be rolled out nationally through local government organisations in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Alcohol consumption is part of that, but in terms of this specific measure—dealing with alcopops and binge drinking, particularly by young people—the sorts of programs that have actually made a real difference have been the $3.6 million in the round of grants for grassroots community work targeted at combating the impact of binge drinking. To me, the real problem is that not enough has been spent.

I can understand the frustration of the government, but, given what the government’s intentions have been to deal with this, I think that this is about the binge drinking. It is about tackling this serious social issue. The principal difficulty I have had is that the funding that has been set aside—and this cannot be categorised as pork-barrelling of one particular state; it is about money being spent nationally—has been insufficient. I am not suggesting that the criteria be changed for the funding or that it be allocated to one particular community or state or region; it is about ensuring that there are enough of these programs rolling out to make that big difference in terms of binge drinking.

One of the issues that has been raised—and I am grateful to the Parliamentary Library for the research that they have done on binge drinking programs elsewhere around the world—is that the conclusion has been reached that it is not surprising that comprehensive community level interventions should prove most successful in reducing binge drinking amongst young people, given the multifaceted nature of alcohol related problems. The World Medical Association notes that alcohol related problems are the ‘result of complex interplay between individual use of alcoholic beverages and the surrounding cultural, economic, and physical environment, political and social context and, as such, broad based approaches that employ different but synergistic strategies are required to effectively tackle binge drinking’.

I could not agree more. That is the sort of thing that needs to be done in tackling this and I believe that the government has shown the way forward with the first lot of grants, totalling $3.6 million, to deal with it. But that is simply not enough to get to that tipping point of making a significant difference to appreciably reduce the level of binge drinking in the community. That is why I think that, if there is a way for the government to ensure that there are additional funds to make this difference, this could be a worthwhile measure. But, on the basis of the evidence before me and on the basis of the commitments already made, I cannot support this measure.