On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, I present the committee's report, incorporating dissenting reports, entitled Report on thehealth impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia, together with the minutes of proceedings.

This is a landmark report into the effects of alcohol and other drugs in Australia. It's taken two parliaments, and it is really quite a comprehensive look at how in Australia we are spending a very large amount of money on the effects of alcohol and other drugs and how the harms caused by these substances in our society are very difficult to manage. The focus of the inquiry was to identify gaps in our current frameworks for dealing with these harms and thus consider how, as policymakers, we can better address them.

As I said, it is a very comprehensive report. It is a very interesting one. We did quite a significant amount of travel, and I'm very, very grateful to the members of the health committee for the work that they've done and for the way they approached this particular report. The members across all party lines worked in a very collegiate manner and really were incredibly helpful in how they approached each issue. I can honestly say it is a very bipartisan report that I think will make a significant difference to how we manage alcohol and other drugs in our society for years to come.

I'm very grateful for the help of the deputy chair, the member for Kooyong. Her intelligence and her expertise are in no small way responsible for the comprehensive report that we've delivered. I'm very grateful for her help and her incredibly collegiate manner in which she approached the committee, so thank you. I'd also like to thank our secretariat, and I'd like to mention them each by name because they worked incredibly hard. They did a lot of extra work and spent a lot of time on this report, and I'm grateful for their help. I'd like to mention Paul Zinkel, Kimberly Elliott, Kilian Perrem, Jack Clews, David Salvestrin and Georgia O'Connor. I'd like to thank them for their help in delivering this report.

The report itself makes 30 recommendations to the Australian government which cover a lot of the work that we did. It's reflective of the complexity of the issues that arose in the evidence that we received. This included more than 300 written submissions and 15 public hearings. Of course, alcohol is the most common drug for which Australians require treatment and interventions, and the cost to our community is measured in tens of billions of dollars. Whilst the inquiry received evidence of some positive declines in alcohol consumption, the committee is rightly concerned by the continued high levels of harm being experienced in this country from risky alcohol use, particularly by the fact that these impacts are not equally distributed across the population. There are certainly pockets of severe harm that we need to address. The policy and regulatory landscape that exists in Australia for the marketing, pricing and taxation of alcohol is very complex, but the role that advertising plays in influencing behaviours and attitudes towards alcohol, particularly on young people and those at high risk of alcohol dependence, is concerning. In particular, I'd like to say the fact that in a developed country like Australia we're still facing significant risks from fetal alcohol syndrome is something that is really a disgrace and needs to be addressed as an urgent manner.

The committee's recommendations in regard to alcohol abuse include establishment of mandatory alcohol advertising and marketing frameworks. It includes increasing research to be conducted on point of sale and alcohol availability. The committee also recommends national standards for the online sale and delivery of alcohol that will consider restrictions on alcohol availability, particularly for high-risk groups in an effort to try and reduce the risk that alcohol poses in family and domestic violence. The committee also recommends an increase in public awareness amongst men and women across all age groups of the current guidelines to reduce health risks from drinking alcohol. It's also been noted in the last few seconds that deaths from overdose are higher than road traffic deaths in Australia every year. This is something that has to be addressed on an urgent basis.

Once again, I'd like to thank my committee members and the secretariat for all their hard work. This is a very important report, and I commend it to the government.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

I rise to speak to the Report on the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia from the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability. I thank the committee chair, the member for Macarthur, for his wonderful leadership of this inquiry; my colleagues on the committee; the secretariat; and the many interested parties who contributed to this inquiry.

Through 98 submissions and eight days of hearings, the committee heard in depth about the scale and complexity of alcohol and other drug harm in Australia. Alcohol and other drugs affect our health and justice systems, our families, our communities and the most vulnerable people in our society. This report makes 28 recommendations across prevention, treatment, workforce data, First Nations health, alcohol marketing, online alcohol sales and the development of future national strategies. I support all 28 recommendations.

The committee has recommended a mandatory regulatory framework for alcohol advertising and marketing and the withdrawal of the government's representative from the industry's ABAC scheme. It has called for national standards for online alcohol sales and delivery and for Treasury to model changes to alcohol taxation. It has recommended a nationally coordinated early warning system for illicit drugs, continued rollout of take-home naloxone and evidence based drug education in every secondary school in this country. It calls for routine alcohol screening in primary and antenatal care, continued and improved action on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and integrated cross-sectoral models of care on workforce.

On workforce, it recommends longer Medicare consultations, more drug and alcohol nurses, mandatory training in medical college curricula and a national framework for peer workers. It also recommends a new national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' drug strategy, increased funding for Aboriginal community controlled organisations, funding models that reflect the cost of regional and remote service delivery and more treatment services exclusively for women.

I've tabled supplementary comments alongside the report where I felt the evidence warranted a stronger response or where there were issues that the inquiry was unable to examine in sufficient depth. In particular, I draw attention to the capacity of our treatment system. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Australians are unable to access the alcohol and other drug treatment that they need. Workforce investment is essential, but it won't solve the shortage of facilities for inpatient detoxification and residential rehabilitation. I've recommended a national audit of treatment capacity against demand, including for young people and for adolescents.

Harm reduction is one of three pillars of Australia's National Drug Strategy, but to date it has received a very small proportion of Commonwealth alcohol and other drugs funding. I believe that harm reduction should be recognised as a standalone pillar of the drug and alcohol program, with dedicated funding for that purpose. And I've suggested that needle and syringe programs, pill testing and supervised injecting facilities should be eligible for Commonwealth funding. At this point, they are not.

My supplementary comments also raised concern about the influence of alcohol industry donations and lobbying on public policy. This is an ongoing issue affecting the democracy of this country on a really important issue.

I've also raised the question of alcohol taxation and pricing. I support the committee's call for Treasury to model Australia's alcohol taxation settings. Australia's wine equalisation tax continues to favour the production and selling of low-cost wine. It needs to be replaced with a uniform volumetric tax. This has been recommended by multiple government inquiries, dating back to the Henry review. We've still not actioned a really big policy piece in this country.

I've further recommended that the government consider a minimum unit price for alcohol, informed by the positive experience of the Northern Territory with minimum pricing. The people who represented those communities affected were very positive about it.

Finally, the National Drug Strategy expires this year, and the government needs to provide clarity about the next strategy, its funding and its implementation and ensure that the workforce required for it is properly supported. Alcohol and other drug harm is one of the major public health challenges facing Australia. This report provides a really important roadmap for action. I commend it to the House and urge the government to act on its recommendations without delay.

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.