Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I should inform the Senate that the Greens are talking with the government about a resolution of the disagreements that we have had over this legislation, the $1.6 billion over four years that the tax measure raises and the expenditure of some of that, through hypothecation, on the problem of alcohol abuse. That process is not yet concluded, but we are hopefully moving towards an agreement on our part. I cannot speak for the other senators. But I should inform the committee that we are moving in that direction.

It would be good if we could clarify that progress before the committee reports back to the full Senate. In the absence of the negotiators, who are working on that at the moment, I would like to point to some of the matters that are currently being negotiated with the government. Yesterday, we spoke about the need for alcohol advertising and alcohol containers to have warning signs on them. Senator Fielding has been talking to the government, as have we, on both those matters. The government is moving on both those matters.

It is important that advertising—especially that aimed at young folk—has warning signs on it so that people are able to recognise from the outset that drinking alcohol is not a carefree matter, that there are penalties if it is abused and that it needs to be done in a reasoned and sensible way where those who partake in it are aware of the health risks. This is especially so for young people. We have heard in this debate that at the worst end of that is destruction of one’s mental and physical health and a tendency to move to crime. There is also an increase in road accidents and the death toll from them. And there is a massive economic penalty on society.

We have also been calling for the government to consider the matter of a so-called hotline. These days that is much more than a telephone number but it allows people who are in trouble and recognise they are in trouble to very effectively and easily reach out and get help. The more motivated they are, the more likely they are to get help, to respond to that help and to get themselves out of a round of alcohol abuse. That is what binge drinking, for example, is about, but alcoholism is much more than binge drinking. A hotline seems to be a sensible direction to be going in and one that the Greens are keen on, but it does have costs attached to it.

Senator Siewert has been putting strongly to the government—and I think my fellow crossbenchers would all be in agreement—that we ought to be looking at how to substitute sports sponsorship which is currently coming from alcohol based industries, whether they be distillers or other producers of alcohol. This has been debated in this committee as well. It is very clear, not least with young people, that the advertisers pick on sports because it is effective. The purveyors of alcohol are not spending their money on advertising for the community good; they are spending it to increase their sales, and effectively so, and they are targeting sports.

Everybody knows that alcohol damages your sporting ability. Everybody knows you are going to run slower, swim slower and perform with less alacrity on the tennis court, the football field or in any other sport, including motor vehicle racing, if you take alcohol. Yet we have alcohol sponsorship of these very sports, as if it were going to improve excellence. It is a lie. It is just a straight-out l-i-e lie. However, the advertisers recognise that they are on to a deceptive but profitable path through promoting sport as part of their sales pitch. The proposals that the Greens and, I think, fellow crossbenchers have been coming up with and putting to the health minister have been a first step along the road to substituting alcohol advertising for public funding when it comes to sporting organisations. That will no doubt be an excellent thing.

So I am hopeful, at least on the part of the Greens—and we have had very good talks with Senator Xenophon, but I will let him speak for himself—that we are moving towards an end to the impasse which arose last night. The details of that we will put to this committee as soon as they become available, but the prospects of a resolution to that impasse, to allow the government’s legislation to prevail while at the same time ensuring that there is increased hypothecation against the scourge of alcohol abuse, have become brighter this morning and as we go into the early part of the afternoon. We will report on that to the committee as soon as possible.