Page 4753 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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It was also brought to my attention at that stage - I think my memory is correct - that GALA had two inspectors. That seems to me to be a small number of inspectors when the problem of alcohol abuse is so large in the ACT. Maybe the Minister can advise me whether my memory is correct about that number of inspectors.
All of us in this chamber, I believe, have expressed at some stage our concerns about the abuse of alcohol. It is one of our greatest problems in the ACT. This morning I said, and others, I think, shared my view, that if we want to attack the problem of alcohol abuse we need to look at the licensing of the clubs and at the way they operate. I believe that there is a great deal more that clubs, nightclubs and hotels can do to accept responsibility for the behaviour of their patrons. I do not believe that they can avoid the responsibility that surely should follow as they turn out from their doors, at various times, people in a grossly intoxicated state.
Time and time again we read of difficulties that arise and fights that occur. We heard this morning of an unfortunate young fellow who now has considerable brain damage as a result of a relatively minor altercation in the main streets of this town. That, I think, at some stage, is the responsibility of the people who supplied that liquor. I do not think that can be avoided. I would hope that in the not too far distant future a whole raft of further amendments to the Liquor Act will be forthcoming so that we can start to deal more seriously with the problem of alcohol abuse.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (3.56): Mr Speaker, I am pleased to see this Bill and to support it. I think that, as Mr Wood indicated, we can all support closer attention in this Territory to problems associated with alcohol. Speaking as Minister for Health, naturally I have been concerned about the cost in health facilities and resources terms to this community because of excessive use of alcohol or abuse of alcohol. A great many weapons are available to us to combat this problem - some of them educative and some of them preventative, in the sense of measures designed to control the use of alcohol - and I consider this present Bill one small part of that armoury.
I would like to comment briefly on the prompt response of the Deputy Chief Minister to the concerns that were raised in the report only yesterday, I might remind the house, by the Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Bills and Subordinate Legislation. It obviously entailed some work on the part of public servants to have that response prepared in such a short time and I think we should be grateful for the fact that that kind of work went on in a short period to ensure that we could debate this matter today.
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