Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everyone knows that the demon drink can get people into trouble. Sadly, alcohol, if consumed in excess, can unleash pent-up emotions or simply remove common sense. The results can sometimes be at best embarrassing while at worst fatal. I am pleased then to lend my support to the Just Think campaign of my local paper, the Cairns Post. It is aimed at combating irresponsible drinking. The campaign is focused fairly and squarely on getting people to just think about their drinking and what it might mean, not only to themselves but to others. The campaign follows a series of alcohol and drug fuelled violent incidents in Cairns. The Cairns Post reported on these events and wanted to do something positive for the local community. It saw the need for a public education and safety campaign to help combat the violence and it has joined a sister News Ltd paper, the Geelong Advertiser, in the Just Think campaign. The Cairns Post website, www.cairns.com.au, sets out clearly what the campaign is about. It states:

It’s not a wowser, unrealistic anti-drinking campaign. It’s a campaign that simply asks you to just think about it …

• To think about alcohol and your behaviour, your decision-making.
• To think about your levels of control when you drink.
• To think about how alcohol and you affects your friends, your partner, your children.
• To think about what it does to your body. To think about how you behave as a bystander when confronted by alcohol-fuelled violence.

Posters featuring our local basketball team, the Cairns Taipans, and a tragic victim, Craig Hadrick, who died following a violent, alcohol fuelled fight at a sporting club, have been distributed among hotels and clubs in the tropical north. The campaign has the support of the local branch of the Australian Hotels Association. It is not about saying ‘don’t drink’ but ‘just think’.

Having returned to parliament, I have taken the opportunity to speak with the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, about the campaign, and to Geelong based members of parliament like the member for Corangamite and the member for Corio about the Geelong Advertiser’s campaign. As we all know, our local Cairns based senator, Jan McLucas, is backing the campaign. The campaign fits well with the Rudd government’s new national strategy to combat binge drinking. The national strategy begins with new initiatives aimed at supporting community action to combat binge drinking among young people, ensuring that young people take personal responsibility for the impacts of their binge drinking, and includes a national advertising campaign.

I was pleased to be able to support local community organisations that applied for funding through this new national binge drinking strategy and hope they are successful in the first round. I believe we can build links between these projects and the Cairns Post’s Just Think campaign. Working together, we can combat irresponsible drinking and by doing so we can not only save lives but repair relationships and build stronger families and communities. It is incumbent on us all to drink responsibly and encourage our family and friends so that as a community and a nation we develop a more responsible drinking culture. I want to congratulate the Cairns Post and their editorial staff, led by Mark Alexander. Remember: it is not about saying ‘don’t drink’ but ‘just think’. (Time expired)