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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3059 ..

I would also like to reflect on alcohol as one of the substances—arguably the major substance—that people have problems with, combined with mental illness. While there are restrictions on tobacco promotion, and health warnings attached, alcohol is an extraordinarily visible product. In many supermarkets now you cannot get in without walking past alcohol. Often it is being handed out for free. For people who are attempting to deal with alcohol, that kind of visibility and availability are damaging. The links between alcohol use and self-harm, violence and depression are well established.

We need to look at how we organise our society in terms of planning, services and regulations. In this instance, as we did have legislation which meant that tobacco should not be so visible in supermarkets, I do not see why we cannot have a similar legislative response to alcohol. On that subject, I have been noticing supermarkets lately where cigarettes are very visible. I am not quite sure whether that is because supermarkets are not compliant with the law or whether we have changed the law. I do not recall our changing the laws, so I think it is something I should alert the government to.

We need to look at an extension of the health promoting school model to our city perhaps. The idea, which can be read into this motion, that mental illness—and for that matter self-harm—always exists as a pathological condition in need of education and research is too simplistic. Mental illness, self-harm and suicide are often a natural, understandable response to or consequence of a person’s life experience and situation. That it is through engagement with people and understanding their narratives that some of the damage can be repaired and that people can build better lives have to be part of any debate about the issue.

Richard Eckersley speaks about the morale of our society and the importance of a sense of belonging. I would like to quote a little from one of his articles in a recent Families Australia Bulletin in spring 2003, because I think he is extremely good and very articulate on the issues. He states:

People accept, and reflect in their behaviour, the psychological truths that what matter most to happiness and health are the quality of people’s personal relationships, social affiliations and spiritual attachments, and the intimacy, meaning, support, belonging and stability these offer. Instead of conflicting with these associations, and often undermining them, material aspirations and achievements assume a much less dominant role in people’s lives.

He goes on to talk about the potential for us as a society to deal with these issues and talks of change. He states:

This change is largely a grassroots development, not a politically led movement. As scholars had noted, postmodern society had demolished the grand narratives, universal creeds and institutional authority that had in the past been the regulator of values and beliefs about the world. It had thus left people morally adrift, but also with the opportunity to be truly moral beings for the first time, exercising genuine moral choice and accepting responsibility for the consequences of those choices. Some writers called it responsible individualism or proper selfishness. Critically, this responsibility applies not only to people’s personal lives but also to their social roles.

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