Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Franklin for her question. I know that as the mother of several young children she is thinking about what will happen when they become teenagers. Along with many on this side of the House, she is particularly interested to make sure that teenagers do not have cheap and easy access to alcopops.

Today in the Senate the Liberal Party have made clear again their intention to oppose the government’s alcopops measure. What they have made clear is that they intend to send a cheque for $300 million directly back to the distillers. That is what I call one hell of a shout. They are going to make alcopops cheaper for teenagers. As a consequence of the Leader of the Opposition’s absolute lack of interest in this issue and his determination to show no leadership, he is going to make sure that young people can get these products at a cheaper price everyday in probably just a couple of weeks time if this measure fails. In fact, I am sure that Malcolm Turnbull is going to fast become the toast of every 18th birthday party from Brisbane to Broome. They will be happy that they can get these products cheaper thanks to the Leader of the Opposition. It really is quite surprising.

He might be the toast of the 18th birthday parties across the country, but he will not be toasted at the emergency departments across the country. The Liberal Party will be cursed when emergency departments have to pick up the pieces across the country. He might be toasted at schoolies, but he certainly will be cursed at every police station across the country. He might be toasted around the board tables of big alcopop companies, but around the kitchen tables, by mums and dads of teenagers, he will be cursed.

Let me explain again why this measure is so important—particularly for those on the other side of the House who might not have been in the parliament in 2000 when the Liberal Party first created this tax break for alcolpops. They took a sugary drink they knew was targeted at under-age drinkers and they gave it a tax break. Since then, these drinks have become immensely popular. Let us just have a look at one of the statistics. For high-risk female drinkers aged 15 to 17, in the year 2000, before the Liberal Party gave alcopops this tax break, only 21 per cent had drunk alcopops on their last drinking occasion. By 2004, after four years of this tax break, that had risen to three out of every four 15- to 17-year-old high-risk female drinkers. Alcopops sales shot up by 250 per cent, all courtesy of a decision by the member for Higgins.

We know that alcohol abuse is a serious problem. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, we are prepared to do something about it. It is not just the alcopops measure; we are also investing $872 million in prevention measures—$53 million in direct anti-binge-drinking initiatives. If this measure is passed we have put on the table another $50 million to look at sponsorship, to look at expanding the social marketing campaigns and to look at a number of community-level initiatives. Since our measure has been in place—for almost 12 months—310 million fewer standard alcopops drinks have been sold. That is a lot less consumption. Overall, alcohol sales have fallen by 124 million standard drinks—and Malcolm Turnbull wants to give them all back.

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