Liquor Legislation Amendment Bill 2010
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES [5.52 p.m.]: I speak on behalf of Family First on the Liquor Legislation Amendment Bill 2010, the object of which is to give effect to certain measures set out in the Government’s action plan entitled “Hassle Free Nights”. The bill provides for the establishment and implementation of precinct liquor accords and community event liquor accords. These accords enable measures to minimise, or ideally prevent, alcohol-related violence or to protect the good order and amenities of the area in which the accord applies. The bill enables the director general to impose licence conditions requiring licensees to participate in an accord and, in the case of a precinct liquor accord, to require licensees to pay contributions towards the costs associated with the operation of the accord.
The bill enables the director general to impose licence conditions affecting the trading hours on any licensed premises. It extends for a further 12 months the freeze on the granting of liquor licences and various other liquor-related authorisations and developmental consents in relation to certain premises in central Sydney. It enables police officers and local council employees authorised by the Commissioner of Police to confiscate alcohol from people who are drinking in public places that are situated in the area and in which the drinking of alcohol is prohibited by a local council. There was a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald last week from a couple who had just returned to New South Wales from an holiday in Italy. In their letter they expressed their amazement at being out in public in central Rome late on a Saturday night, after midnight, without observing anyone lurching about drunk, brawling or vomiting, as was the usual behaviour they saw when they were back home in Sydney.
They had not realised what was the norm for the self-respecting and the responsible use of alcohol in the rest of the world until they were lucky enough to travel overseas and see it for themselves. They pointed out in their letter to the Sydney Morning Herald that, interestingly, access to alcohol is even easier in Rome than it is in Sydney. They explained that Romans can buy alcohol in every supermarket and they are able to drink until the middle of the night in hotels. The difference is not in the availability of alcohol but in the cultural norms surrounding its use in Australia and Italy. Apparently, many Australians accept that drunkenness and the resulting public disorder, binge drinking and violence are the norm until they travel overseas and observe other sensible drinking behaviours.
But not everyone travels, not everyone observes responsible behaviour and not many people bring those behaviours back home. In other words, it is our society’s long-established attitudes and continuing behaviour that are the real basis for the current social problems, not the existence of the availability of alcohol. However, it is notoriously difficult to change cultural norms. Sydney has had 200 years of being a rum colony, so we must do the second-best thing and make changes where we can; we must curb the availability of alcohol to those of our citizens who are unable to restrict themselves with internal controls. The statistics are nauseating: apparently one in four teenagers across Australia has been hospitalised as the result of an alcohol-related incident, being either the culprit or the victim.
The breakdown of our society has gone so far that alcohol-related bashings, glassings and murders are not unusual; they are now just part of the regular news. The senseless beating to death of hapless strangers, the stomped heads of innocent people walking home after work or a birthday party, the unrecognisably mutilated face of the Irish backpacker who will never recover full brain function—what kind of savagery is this? And why are we not calling it what it is: a state of emergency due to the violence of some of our citizens? Precinct and area liquor accords are externally imposed restrictions on a segment of the population that has shown to be unable and unwilling to summon the self-control to restrict themselves. I feel that public drunkenness and misbehaviour should not be tolerated anywhere, not just in these specified areas with the accords. But these specified areas have been chosen because of the high incidence of violence over a long period.
Even going so far as to install cameras on every corner will not help if this behaviour is the standard that our society simply accepts. While we are discussing the problem, why should we not seriously consider raising the drinking age to 21, as it is in many other parts of the world such as the United States of America? Enough research has already established that younger brains are too immature to handle alcohol properly, and in addition are seriously stunted by it. Such age limits work elsewhere, where they are appropriately enforced. Why not here? Elements in our society that demand 24-hour-a-day access to alcohol for anyone who wants it are not concerned about people’s welfare. Who really needs another drink at 2.00 a.m., 3.00 a.m., or 4.00 a.m.? Giving alcohol to people who have nothing better to do with their time than pickle their brains is idiocy.
These people are the very persons who have no self-control when they finally leave the premises, who are quick to be offended, and quick to use weapons, their boots or smashed glass. Is the right of drunks to order another drink, or the right of hotels to sell it, a higher priority than the civil rights and safety of innocent non-drinking people on their way home from a concert or their jobs who will later be set upon? This legislation is necessary for the protection of courteous, law-abiding, ordinary people of the community who deserve better than being the hapless victims of this uncontrolled element of our society time and time again. For that reason Family First supports this bill.