Page 1459 - Week 05 - Thursday, 12 May 1994
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Ms Szuty noted the AHA's suggestion of a liquor advisory committee. This is something that in fact I have discussed in the last week or so with the AHA with a view to establishing that as a body to advise me as Attorney-General on liquor issues. To some extent, we have that de facto at the moment, in that the AHA have been a very enthusiastic participant in the safer civic subcommittee. The former president of the AHA is a member of that committee. The concept of a formal liquor advisory committee involving the AHA and the licensed clubs is one that I think is sensible, and we are moving down the path of putting that in place.
The issue that we differed with the committee on was the recommendation that young people be allowed to drink on licensed premises, restaurants, with their parents present. We disagreed with that not because we disagreed with the premise underlying it. The premise underlying it is that we have a problem in Australia, a problem which can be addressed only in the long term, about the way we view alcohol and about the way young Australians more than young people in other countries seem to want to binge drink, to get heavily into alcohol. The observation that led Mr Moore to his conclusion was that in some European countries where wine is very much a part of the family culture young people, as they approach 18, do not seem to have this obsession to go out and get into the grog as much as young Australians do. I think that is an accurate observation, but the way to address it is within a family context. The practice that many families adopt of allowing younger adolescents to have a glass of wine at the family dining room table or the Sunday afternoon meal is a sensible family practice. I have observed persons from families of a European background in which that practice has occurred. I have seen those young people grow into adolescence and become young adults who do not seem to have the obsession that many from an Anglo-Celtic background seem to have as they approach 18 to go out and get into binge drinking. I think it is a very sensible practice, but best done within the family. The problems of doing it in licensed premises, we felt, were insurmountable. But, as a strategy for getting long-term change in Australian drinking practices, if it is done within the family context it is a valuable suggestion.
Madam Speaker, in conclusion, the Government felt that this was an important committee report. For some time, as controversy has been raging about issues such as youth and alcohol, the Government has been saying that it was waiting for this report because it valued the work that was done in the many hours of public meetings that were put in. The response the Government has tabled, by and large, picks up the recommendations of the committee, and I am pleased that where we have varied there seems to be general consensus that our erring on the side of caution was not inappropriate.
MR CORNWELL (11.16): Madam Speaker, I want to make some brief comments in relation to Mr Connolly's statements on pubcard - which, I think I should place on record, indicate a remarkable about-face by this Government, in spite of what Mr Connolly may be saying. The fact of the matter is that if he had bothered to go out into the community and talk to young people - I do not mean the group that the Chief Minister set up as an advisory body; I am talking about ordinary young people out there in the community - he would have realised just how important this card is for identification, particularly for 18-year-olds.
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