Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister please inform the House what action is being taken to tackle binge drinking by young people, and how can local communities get involved?

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

As members of this House and many members of the public who have been contacting us about the announcement made by the Prime Minister last week would be aware, the Rudd Labor government have committed $53 million to tackle teenage binge drinking. We have in this House previously outlined three components of that initiative, including further details that were provided last week when the Prime Minister, the Minister for Youth and Sport and I met with the heads of several of Australia’s major sporting codes. What I would like to address today, going to the question the member for Page asked—and I know that many of my colleagues on this side of the House have a particular interest in this—is this: what are the ways that local communities can get involved and be part of the solution to this significant problem? We have allocated $7 million of the $14½ million that we are investing in community level initiatives to support a range of local solutions to these problems. I would like to invite and encourage all members to start talking within their local communities—whether it is to P&C committees, whether it is to the local police, whether it is to clubs, schools or maybe even local councils or to others who have ideas—about ways that local community solutions and projects could be supported in order to tackle this problem and get a good strong message through to young people that this is something that is harming their health, harming the community, causing a lot of grief and suffering and if permanent damage to their health is done it will not be able to be undone in the future.

It is interesting. We were very pleased that, when we announced the policy, the Leader of the Opposition supported it. The Leader of the Opposition was very clear in saying that he thought we were living in a society where we have to do everything we can to educate young people, to educate our children, about the dangers of binge drinking. But this morning, two weeks later, I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition no longer believes that young people binge drinking is an issue. He was on the radio this morning saying that he is concerned that there is a risk that we are in some way assigning blame to young people in relation to their binge drinking. This is not an issue just about blame—although I do accept that, if anyone was going to recognise blame, it would be those on that side of the House, who constantly want to blame others for their inactivity. This is not about blame, but it is about responsibility. It is about explaining to young people that they need to take responsibility for their actions, that they do have consequences. It is about making it clear to them that we are here to help but that they too need to make good choices in their lives. We need to be working with local communities and those who can take leadership roles—whether it is sportspeople, whether it is the local principal, whether it is the local school captain or even some of the local clubs and public sector—and want to be involved in providing decent solutions to these problems. We have put money on the table so that local communities can actually apply for some funding to support their initiatives. I am not sure why the Leader of the Opposition would have changed his tune in two weeks and decided that this is a bad idea, just when I would have thought everybody in this parliament would have been pleased to know that as local members they can start talking in their communities.

There will be an application process for local initiatives. If the member for Indi has a good idea for Wangaratta, the member for Corio has a good idea for Geelong, the member for Page has a good idea for Grafton or the member for Newcastle has a good solution for her community, those ideas will be considered, and funding can be applied for to provide good, strong initiatives in our communities and set an example for young people. This is a community-wide problem. We do not pretend that the government has all of the answers, but I feel pretty confident that, out there in all of our communities, there are people who do have some of the solutions. We want to be able to provide a mechanism for them to apply for funding so that they can use their initiative to make sure that they have an impact for young people.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I encourage the minister to refer accurately to the Leader of the Opposition’s comments about it being a problem for everyone, not just young people.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not a point of order. The member will resume his seat.

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

Actually, I was sure that the member for Dunkley was going to say that he would welcome this sort of funding in his electorate. I am sure in Frankston there would be a lot of community groups that would be worried about this issue. There is a busy pubs-and-clubs scene down there, and I am sure that he, along with other members of the backbench, will be applying for this funding. But, unfortunately, you will need to encourage the Leader of the Opposition to back these initiatives. It is important for us to take action, and we hope the whole House will be behind this initiative.