Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I thank crossbench senators for the way that discussions have occurred over the last few days. Senator Fielding, you were concerned that those discussions were not occurring earlier. The work of the government, which I have enunciated in this chamber, has been ongoing since day one of the government. I will not repeat the work that we have been doing over the last 14 months, but you can read it, if you want to, in my previous contributions. We have been working on changing the culture of binge drinking in this country through a range of measures. The letter, of which the Senate has a copy, between Senators Brown, Siewert and Xenophon confirms the agreement between those senators. I thank them, first of all, for their understanding of the necessity for this measure to proceed and, secondly, for understanding the need for a comprehensive approach to tackling binge drinking.

I remind senators that this is only part of a range of measures that our government is undertaking. We have established the Preventative Health Taskforce. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy has a range of measures that it is investigating and addressing, including some of the concerns that have appeared in this document today. Some $872 million over six years will be spent on a comprehensive and broad-ranging preventative health agenda for not only alcohol but also tobacco, obesity, healthy lifestyles—a whole range of measures. Alcohol and the National Binge Drinking Strategy will be a part of that.

The agreement today between senators and the government goes to another investment of $50 million. I suggest Senator Fielding could have a very good look at that because it does address some of the questions that he is concerned about. Senator Brown has covered that already. Some $50 million will be invested in a range of measures designed to tackle binge drinking, including a fund to provide sponsorship to local community organisations who provide sporting and cultural activities as an alternative to other forms of sponsorship. Senator Brown is right: changing the public health space is incremental. This is a step along the road that Senator Fielding would like to travel. I do not think he can sneeze at what has been achieved in that agreement. There will now be a fund that sporting organisations can apply to that will provide sponsorship for probably junior football, junior cricket, junior soccer and junior netball as a start. But Senator Brown is right: changing public health policy is incremental. Just look at what happened over time with tobacco.

The second agreement is the community level initiatives designed to tackle binge drinking. We have already undertaken that. The infrastructure is in place and the community is very keen to be part of this process. That will be partially funded. Enhancing the telephone counselling services and alcohol referrals is part of the agreement, as is a possible expansion of the existing social marketing campaigns. We are now in a situation where the government can indicate that we agree with those proposals but not if the measure is not passed. That is the reality. We cannot agree to the measures that have been identified in this letter if the legislation is not passed unamended. We will only agree to these measures if the legislation is passed in an unamended form. I hope that has been made perfectly clear to the chamber and to those who are interested.

Finally, Senator Xenophon has an interest in the advertising regime and he and I acknowledge that Senator Fielding also has an interest in that. The letter says:

These would be in addition to the proposals on mandating ‘safe drinking’ content in alcohol advertising and significantly strengthening current data collection arrangements that we have already discussed—again which will only proceed if the legislation passes unamended.

For Senator Xenophon, the ABAC proposal—