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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1554 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I am happy for this bill to be dealt with later. I do hope there is some government business on the program that the Assembly is going to deign to deal with today.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (10,53): I wish to speak briefly to reinforce the points made by my colleague Mr Quinlan and by Ms Tucker. There are some very significant aspects to the proposal to remove the differential between low-alcohol beer and standard beer. It would be interesting to hear the views of the minister for health on this subject and on the message that the removal of this subsidy will send from this parliament to the people of the ACT. I do not think it can be gainsaid that the administration of alcohol taxation can be seen, in part, as a very significant health promotion strategy. Part of that strategy is to regulate prices to reduce the availability of alcohol in the community.

I have no doubt-it is almost certain-that any study of the impact of pricing on alcohol consumption and studies in relation to price elasticity would indicate that unless the variation in price is significant the impact on consumption patterns is minimal. There is no doubt that the tax on low-alcohol beer is quite significant. It does encourage drinking in moderation, and to the extent that it encourages the consumption of low-alcohol beer it discourages binge drinking.

The minister for health in particular would be aware that alcohol is second only to tobacco as a preventable cause of death and hospitalisation in Australia. It is worth commenting on the extent to which alcohol and alcoholism impact so gravely on the health of so many Australians and are such an enormous cost and burden to the community. It is incongruous to me that the ACT, through a consistent position and policies by successive governments over the last dozen years or so, have developed perhaps the most stringent legislation in relation to smoking and the consumption and advertising of tobacco. I hear the minister, Mr Moore, talking about this constantly in this place. We all know the extent to which the minister has pursued the issue, just as previous governments and previous ministers for health have pursued the need to prevent consumption of tobacco and tobacco products.

In much of what Mr Moore says in his campaign in relation to the smoking of tobacco, he talks about the symbolic importance of much of what we do. Much of what we do in relation to our campaigns to prevent smoking is symbolic, and it does have a significant symbolic impact and effect. The minister would be able to confirm for us that, in 1996, 3,656 Australians died from alcohol-related causes, that there were 96,000-plus hospital attendances attributed to alcohol-related conditions, and that those alcohol-related conditions accounted for 714,000 hospital bed days.

Many of the harms caused by alcohol result from people becoming intoxicated, so the consumption of low-alcohol beverages should be encouraged, not discouraged by this sort of measure. It does not need to be said that intoxication contributes to the incidence of road crashes, drownings, accidents, violence and absenteeism from work. Binge drinking is a major problem, particularly amongst young people. It is incongruous that we are proposing to remove this subsidy and move to pricing parity between low-alcohol and standard beers when the Commonwealth is engaged in a new advertising campaign designed to address the problems of binge drinking among younger people. That is a particular concern.

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