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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2266 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

It is possible, Mr Speaker, to change the culture of a society. That is what I think we need to do in respect of some people and alcohol consumption. I think the society's cultures have been changing. When we look at cigarette smoking and the use of tobacco, we find that the culture has changed most significantly, over a relatively short period, when you think about culture change. I think the culture has changed rather more rapidly in Australia, certainly on the part of some people, in respect of gun ownership. The general acceptance of changes in gun laws indicates that.

So, those two very significant moves give me encouragement that we can also change some of the culture attached to consumption of alcohol. I think, in this case tonight, the Minister should simply stand up and carry out some of the assurances that flow from his commissioning of the report some time ago. Let us revert to 24-hour trading. Let us also get on and see whether we can do something about the problems attached to alcohol consumption.

MS TUCKER (8.46): Mr Speaker, since we have been in the Assembly, there have been a number of debates and discussions about drugs and their related harm and about minimisation of that harm. It is interesting that some members and groups in society have quite different approaches to particular drugs. As a society, we seem to have extreme tolerance of abuse of alcohol in particular. It is seen as almost unAustralian to say, "Let us do something about changing attitudes to alcohol abuse". It is even painted as wowserism. Yet when we talk about other substance abuse it is called "a public health matter", even "a moral matter", certainly not "wowserism".

For example, Mr Berry and the Labor Party have taken a very strong stance on tobacco and other drugs and have even pushed the hard line of prohibition, in the interests of public health. Some members seem to be absolutely against any drug law reform and harm minimisation initiatives such as the heroin trial. Mr Moore has raised these issues many times in this Assembly, and he has been a great proponent of harm minimisation strategies. The Greens have been very sympathetic to all proposals which might minimise drug-related harm in the community. This includes addressing the underlying social problems which cause abuse of substances.

Mr Wood alluded to those more underlying cultural factors. I personally think that a round table discussion is not going to do a lot, although it is useful. I am not saying that it is not useful, but the discussion about why we are so reliant on drugs in our society is very complex. Basically, I have been much more pragmatic than that at this point. I have been looking at how to apply a standard harm minimisation approach, in particular, to this issue of alcohol abuse in our community.

When the trial of 4.00 am closing was first raised, we were concerned that such a trial might have negative impacts, such as were reported to have resulted from a similar trial in Darwin. We asked that a literature search be carried out by the Government before they made a decision to start such a trial. This was done, and the consultants reported that similar trials carried out in different locations within and out of Australia were inconclusive. The Government decided to go ahead with the trial anyway. At that time, we stated clearly our concerns about this process.

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