Page 3262 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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Now, 18 months later, the committee is again pondering alcohol related problems in its current report on the behavioural problems of young people. Since the time of this report, February 1990, we have had amendments to the Liquor Act, and we now have the legislation proposed by Mr Stefaniak; but the problems are, if anything, worse than ever before.
I turn, for example, to the Social Policy Committee's present inquiry into behavioural disturbance in young people. I do not wish to pre-empt the work of that committee, and I hope Ms Maher will not see me as doing that. Rather, I will draw members' attention to a number of aspects of alcohol problems related to young people. There is a special urgency about this - and I am grateful to Mrs Grassby for stressing that in the committee - because we have a limited number of sitting days left, and we really have only four or five months of effective time in this Assembly, and this is a major problem.
I draw the following points to the Assembly's attention: The first, alas, is that excessive use of alcohol in pregnant mothers affects not only them but also the foetus in embryo. That, of course, is right across the age range. Ponder on the side effects in particular on young teenage girls who become pregnant. Secondly, alcoholism, or excessive use of alcohol in the home, often leading to domestic violence - a matter which all of us are very greatly concerned about - is disastrous not only for the parents but also for their children. Children learn to be alcohol addictive from their parents, and we have had evidence in the committee which raises this problem very dramatically.
Thirdly, we now come to the teenage years, and I have a number of points. I have been at a high school where the previous weekend from 30 to 40 young teenagers had been rounded up by the police in connection with an alcoholic binge, and many members here can give other examples. Where did they get the grog from? Who supplied it? What suppliers broke the law? Further, I have been to a youth refuge where we learned that all the young people had drug problems. "What is the main drug?", we asked. "Alcohol" was the clear reply. We were told that some people as young as 13 or 14 were on alcohol detoxification treatment.
The next point is that I spoke at length to one teacher in one of our colleges. She had made an inquiry of a range of her students about alcohol related problems in their homes. Only a few students out of an entire class did not report such problems; and there was the implication - but that may not be so - that they did not do so because they did not wish to do so. Next, in an earlier existence, as Dean of Students at the ANU, I visited the ANU Union the night after a so-called concert. The vandalism and barbarism of such an event has to be seen to be believed. Those social barbarisms continue. That is not years ago; that is now as well.
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