Page 4563 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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ALCOHOL ABUSE
Ministerial Statement
MR BERRY (Minister for Health and Minister for Sport): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a ministerial statement on the serious harm caused by alcohol amongst our youth in the ACT.
Leave granted.
MR BERRY: Mr Speaker and members, the harm caused by alcohol in the ACT is substantial. Recent estimates suggest that the cost of alcohol problems in the Territory was as high as $94.2m in 1988. Excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for a number of health problems, including certain cancers and cirrhosis of the liver, and may result in irreversible brain damage. Alcohol is also a major contributor to motor vehicle and other accidents, as we all know. While each of these problems impacts on the community and the individuals involved, of particular concern to the Government and the general public are the problems of underage drinking and binge drinking.
Mr Speaker, a survey of alcohol and drug use among secondary school and college students, conducted by the ACT Alcohol and Drug Service in May this year, showed that these concerns are justified. Approximately 2,700 students in years 7 to 11, from government and non-government schools, participated in the survey. Whilst the final report on the survey is not yet available, initial results indicate that alcohol use amongst young people is a problem, and in some respects may be worse than in New South Wales. In the ACT 26 per cent of boys and 22 per cent of girls were using alcohol at least weekly, and I think that is a fairly unimpressive result.
Ms Maher: You laughed at it.
MR BERRY: Preliminary findings from the survey show that, of those ACT students who drank in the last four weeks prior to the survey, 40 per cent of the boys and 30 per cent of the girls reported binge drinking, that is, having five or more drinks in a row, at least once during the month.
Ms Maher interjected and said, "You laughed at it". That is a stupid suggestion because nobody ever laughs at those sorts of statistics. They are very serious statistics which indicate that something has to be done, and that is what this Government is doing. We are acting on information that has been put. No grandstanding; we are about dealing with the issue and getting onto it straightaway. The minute that something was discovered we moved quickly, not like the people opposite. They move with the speed of a drunken sloth. They are very slow on that side of the house, but on this side we get on the job straightaway.
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