Page 4571 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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However, it seems to me, as I read through this paper, that all the problems are there, but there is something missing. I suggest that by conducting the sort of inquiry that my colleague Mr Collaery spoke about and moved for - he was supported by the majority of this Assembly - we would be able to identify some of the causes of the problem and some of the ways by which some of our younger people, particularly those under the age of 18, are able to get hold of alcoholic beverages of various types. That, I think, is one of the problem areas that we have and that is one of the reasons why we need this inquiry. We acknowledge that there is a problem. Mr Berry says on page 2:
In the ACT 26 per cent of boys and 22 per cent of girls were using alcohol at least weekly.
He goes on to say:
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 boys and 30 per cent of girls reported binge drinking - having five or more drinks in a row - at least once during the month.
But nowhere in this statement do I find any suggestion about where the children, who are teenagers, are getting their alcohol. I suggest that anyone of that age drinking that amount of alcohol is certainly drinking to excess. This is one of the major problems and is one of the reasons why my colleague Mr Collaery, and others, supported the proposal for an inquiry. We need to identify the root cause of the problem. We know that the kids out there are doing it, but we need to find out how they are getting access to it.
I do not believe that the program that is identified here fully addresses that issue. I think Mr Moore summed it up quite well when he drew our attention to page 5. I reiterate that no single program can effectively impact on the problems of alcohol abuse amongst youth. I think that is very true. It is important that we make our younger elements within our community aware of the problems associated with alcohol, make them aware of what it is doing to their body and the damage that it is going to do to them. Any of us who have had teenage children, or still have teenage children, I am sure are aware of some of the issues related to their access to use and/or abuse of alcohol.
That really is the key to the whole thing. That is why we believe that it is most important for this inquiry to take place. As I think we indicated at the time, we were not seeking to have an inquiry into why our young people use or abuse alcohol; we were trying to ascertain how we could
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