MORE ALCOHOL MORE OFTEN FUELS SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Source: Wayne Hall Professor at University of Queensland
Research recently released by the Bureau of Crime Statistics show that the only criminal offence that has become more common in the past two years has been malicious damage to property. A substantial proportion of these offences were committed by intoxicated males late at night on weekends in the vicinity of licensed premises.
While property offences related to heroin and other drug use have been in decline for more than five years, alcohol-related offences are the only drug-related offences showing an increase.
State governments have been liberalising liquor licensing laws because the Competition Commission has decreed they are "anti-competitive", by not allowing licensed sellers of alcohol to compete through longer trading hours, and because restrictions on the number of new licences being issued act as barriers to market entrants. The result of treating alcohol like any other commodity has been more licensed premises in our cities, and more pubs and clubs trading for up to 24 hours.
State and federal governments have developed "partnerships" with the alcohol industry to change drinking culture and reduce alcohol-related problems, with governments increasingly accepting the industry's diagnosis, and preferred remedies, for the problem.
The problem, in the industry's view, is a "minority" of drinkers who engage in antisocial behaviour. It may technically be a minority who drink in hazardous ways, but this still represents a large proportion of young Australian men on weekends. Moreover, the alcohol industry generates most of its profits from binge drinking. Conservatively estimated, two-thirds of all alcohol consumed in Australia (and 90 per cent of that consumed by young men) is consumed in ways that put drinkers' and others' health and wellbeing at risk.
The key drivers of rising consumption are the reduced price of alcohol, its availability because of extended trading hours and the extensive promotion of cheap, high-alcohol beverages.
Instead of acting on recommendations supported by independent research, state governments have adopted the paradoxical idea promoted by the industry that allowing drinking for up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, will reduce binge drinking and public disorder.
Similar policies in Britain in the past decade have produced large increases in alcohol consumption, violence and alcohol-related health problems. Britain now has one of the highest rates of liver cirrhosis in Europe.
Australia's liberalised alcohol laws have had more modest effects than Britain's, probably because of random breath testing and a tax system that makes low-alcohol drinks cheaper. Low-alcohol beer accounts for 40 per cent of all beer consumed in Australia.
The steady increase in malicious damage offences over the past four years probably reflects the effects of liberalisation of liquor licensing. State Governments should heed the lessons of other countries and avoid worsening these problems, by tightening rather than liberalising liquor regulations.