Page 3266 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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Dr Kinloch: Read the report, Terry.
MR CONNOLLY: Dr Kinloch suggests that I read the report. Is the Residents Rally adopting the most extraordinary proposition in this report that we should raise the drinking age? Are we saying that a person is an adult for all legal purposes but cannot buy a beer? That is extraordinary.
Dr Kinloch: The GALA report suggests that.
MR CONNOLLY: And do you endorse that? I hope you do, because I am sure the voters of the Territory would find that an extraordinary thing. This rather bizarre suggestion about raising the age for drinking, so that one is an adult for all purposes apart from buying a beer, almost goes back to the good old days when the conservatives were prepared to conscript people overseas to be shot at and to shoot, but would not let them vote or drink. We really have gone beyond these sorts of strange suggestions.
I was very interested to read the report of the Northern Territory Assembly committee on alcohol problems because it really recognised the situation there - as I am advised by officers in my department, and I think most people would accept this - that the Northern Territory is an area where alcohol problems are particularly chronic, and where it is apparent, particularly around Alice Springs and within the Aboriginal community, that there are real problems.
The Northern Territory parliament had a fairly wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry on this, which reported only in August of this year. Did that raise this bizarre suggestion of raising the drinking age? Not a bit of it. It does not apply anywhere in Australia. It is a strange suggestion appearing in the GALA report, but apparently it is one endorsed by the Residents Rally. The Residents Rally is desperate for any opportunity to get a bit of media attention, and it has seized upon this. It has seized upon this crisis, this need for an inquiry, not 12 months after - - -
Dr Kinloch: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Although actual words that are derogatory have not been used, I do take the very greatest exception to Mr Connolly saying that I am putting this forward for political reasons. I am putting it forward as a genuine response.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Dr Kinloch, that is a personal explanation; it is not a point of order. Please proceed, Mr Connolly.
MR CONNOLLY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is just an extraordinary proposition. In terms of figures for under-age drinking, in the ACT there is a degree of active detection because of the cautioning scheme which is unique
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