Marketing of Milk and Soft-drink Based Alcholic Beverages to Children
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I ask the Minister for Commerce a question without notice. Is the Minister aware of a study by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre that recommends, on the basis of a survey, that the Government should introduce a ban on the sale of premixed milk and soft drink based alcoholic beverages? Is the Minister aware that the research shows that most young people cannot taste the difference between these alcoholic beverages and non-alcoholic equivalents that are designed to be indistinguishable from the sweet drinks that children enjoy? If, as the Premier has said, the Government is prepared to consider any measures to protect young people from alcohol abuse, would the Minister agree with his comments in 2003 in this Chamber that some of these potentially dangerous products, such as ‘Mudslides’, ‘Cruisers’ and ‘Breezers’, are targeted toward children and should be banned, just as the almost identical milk-based ‘Moo Joose’ was banned in 2003?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I assume that Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes asked me that question in my capacity as representing the Minister for Health for today. I refer the honourable member to some narrative that I am aware of in this policy debate, and indeed he would be aware of it because he has contributed to the debate. The study referred to by the honourable member reiterates something that is quite important about the changing pattern of alcohol consumption. The anecdotal observation is that transition from youth to adult in the normal transition that might take place in Western cultures, also often, but not absolutely, includes the transition to the consumption of alcohol. Although there might have been some rough patches in all generations, the transition is normally marked by what we might have thought of as acquiring a taste for various alcoholic beverages.
Generally speaking, for those of us are who are able to remember, there was a time when we were young enough to find the taste and smell of beer or wine not attractive and even repulsive. It took us a while in our late teenage years, or perhaps even in our early twenties, to acquire a taste for alcoholic drinks. Some people may wonder why we bothered doing that, why did we not drink low-calorie soft drinks? Some people may not have been healthy even doing that. The bottom line is that this is an important debate; it is bigger than that New South Wales jurisdiction or the national jurisdiction. The marketing of alcoholic products to younger people has become a global debate. That marketing has blurred the line on what used to be a fairly accepted transition from being a young person to an adult and acquiring a taste for alcohol.
For a variety of marketing reasons, the major global corporations and some gifted local entrepreneurs have decided to blur that line completely and make many alcoholic products look, smell and taste like soft drinks or milkshakes. There is very little mistaking that it is a deliberate program to blur the line between a young person’s transition to adulthood and transition to acquiring a taste for alcohol. That is certainly problematic. There is also a suspicion by many people that it corresponds with a deliberate policy of marketing alcohol products to younger people, to try to recruit younger and younger people to the consumption of alcohol. Obviously that brings a higher risk of alcohol abuse later in life, and that is supported by research, and there is also the risk of alcohol abuse while young people are going through that transition.
These are important questions. The New South Wales Government led the way in partnership with the Commonwealth Government and the Victorian jurisdiction on formulating agreed guidelines for changing alcohol marketing. I admit that since the portfolio of drugs and alcohol was returned to the Minister for Health, I do not have the latest brief on the development in that debate. I am sure the Minister for Health will be able to provide more detail about that. I am aware there is action in response to that research which is quite comprehensive and across the jurisdictions.
