Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Western Australia, indeed across Australia, alcohol is playing a greater role in social disruption. In my Kimberley towns, as a result of alcohol consumption we are seeing violent assaults, domestic violence, child abuse, child neglect and four out of 10 births affected by foetal alcohol syndrome. Western Australian governments of the last few years have suddenly realised this is going on—it has been happening since the seventies—and they are now putting curbs in place. The wisdom, decided in Fitzroy Crossing, for instance, of limiting the sale of take-away alcohol to that containing nothing in excess of 2.7 per cent alcohol is impacting on the whole town. The result is that the problem drinkers have now moved on to other towns across the Kimberley. The plan now is to impose the same idea on Halls Creek. People of course simply move on if they have a drinking problem and have difficulty in accessing alcohol. They move to other towns and they take the problem there. The police in the prohibited town are of course very happy because they do not have the incidents. Putting ad hoc bans in place in towns because it seems like a good idea at the time, an idea held by some of the people, is not satisfactory. If these preventive measures are put in place in some of my towns, why not put the same restrictions in place in suburban Perth and see how the populace likes it?

In addition to that, we are seeing the ad hoc closure of licensed premises if events such as funerals take place because of the violence as a result of the combination of skin groups coming together and the consumption of alcohol. In place of these ad hoc restrictions I propose, across the state, the introduction of a licence to drink. For many years we have realised the danger of motor vehicles. We have had licences to drive and have insisted that people so licensed are instructed in the process of driving a dangerous motor vehicle. I propose that the same idea be adopted in relation to the purchase and consumption of alcohol and that all persons legally entitled to do so carry identification and a card which says they continue to be entitled to do so. Any offences that they commit and are found guilty of would result in the taking away of their licence to purchase and consume alcohol. In the long term this would be the only way to put an effective law in place that did not find the innocent disrupted and the guilty moved on to another town. Something must be done. The ad hoc arrangements which have now been put in place in the Kimberley by the Western Australian government will not work in the long term. We need to be very sure that, instead of shunting the problem elsewhere, we address the problem for all time across the state, especially in the areas where it is causing a problem. (Time expired)