Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - I rise to support the bill. I think that if there is any member who is not going to support this bill, they obviously have not been out late at night and experienced the problems that we have from alcohol. If you walk around the streets late at night and talk to the police they will tell you that the biggest problems they have of an evening are normally drink or drug related in some way or another. It is a big problem.

There was an interesting comment in either today's Mercury or the Examiner - by a doctor on the north-west coast. He said that almost all the people coming into the hospital system after a certain hour at night were affected in some way by alcohol or drugs.

Mrs Smith - He's the late-night doctor, is he, every night?

Mr DEAN - He might well be, I do not know, but it is in the paper for you to read today. It is interesting that these problems are out there. They are huge problems. In his recent statements in relation to binge drinking in this nation, the Prime Minister brings this to everyone's attention. There is now a big campaign nationally to address the problem and just about every State in Australia has come on board, accepting and recognising that there are huge problems out there.

I think the Prime Minister has allocated $20 million, from memory, to a very strong advertising campaign in relation to these issues. It is fortuitous in a way that this bill comes to us today for us to look at and to look at ways of decreasing the supply of liquor to young people and also addressing very clearly the issue of people in licensed premises who are able to readily access alcohol.

The member for Rumney mentioned that not all people who might seem to be drunk are in fact. That is quite so but normally, Mr President, there are regular drinkers, regular people who go to hotels and licensed premises who for some reason or another want to drink themselves into oblivion and those people are normally known to the licensees and they recognise that it is usually an alcohol-related problem and not some other medical problem. It is usually fairly easily identified.

The ready availability of alcohol is one of the problems, as has been mentioned often. There are studies which show, Mr President, that the more bottle shops there are, the more outlets for alcohol, the greater the impact on people in relation to alcohol-related health issues. One study - and I do not have it with me - identifies that this is more so in lower socioeconomic group areas where bottle shops, for instance, are put within easy access, which does impact and create some problems in those areas. I think these are the things that we need to address.

I want to quote from a document that we would have all received from TasCOSS back when we were looking at the Liquor Licensing Amendment Bill 2006, so it goes back to then. It is a document signed by Mat Rowell in fact when he was in that position. It is an undated document but I will just quote in relation to liquor outlets. It reads:

'Our concerns about the availability of liquor in Tasmania were heightened by the Supreme Court's decision last year which essentially paves the way for the large retail chains to co-locate their subsidiary liquor outlets with their existing supermarkets across the State.'

That is a concern and I do not know whether we are looking carefully enough at where these places are located, and the number of them, because it does impact. There is no doubt about that; the studies are very clear on that, Mr President.

Under-age drinking is a problem and going back three to four weeks ago, I moved a motion at a Launceston City Council meeting in relation to drinking issues around the streets of Launceston, asking that council give support to this bill.

I think most members would have received a letter following that, Mr President, because the council unanimously decided to support this. We are concerned about the availability of alcohol to young people. Some of the comments that came out from that were interesting, but alcopops, as we know, is a difficult area.

I want to refer to a document that I have, which probably all members have received. It is a document drawn up by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Australia Ltd for the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, when he was talking about this issue. I want to give one or two quotes from that document because I think they are very pertinent and tell us a lot about some of the alcohol issues.

They refer first of all to the advertising campaign of the Federal Government, costing $20 million over a two-year period. It will be shock advertising so it will give some very graphic pictures of what alcohol is doing to a lot of our young people. That is the point I want to make here, that it is all very well for us to pass this legislation to make these amendments, but without a strong advertising campaign it really does not have as much impact.

Could the Treasurer please address in his answer to this debate what advertising we will do in support of these amendments, which I am confident will be supported because we do need them. We also need a very strong campaign to get the message out to all these people.

The document reads:

'Taken with the proposed Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill,' -

this is the Federal bill -

'the measures you are introducing will make a difference. However, there are a number of other actions that we believe are necessary to change the youth binge drinking epidemic.

It is widely recognised that the most popular drinks with under-age drinkers are the "alcopops" or RTDs (ready to drink, sweet, attractively packaged, spirits/fruit juice/soft drink, mixes, that are about 6-7% alcohol).

A study by Choice magazine interviewed 78 teenagers between 18 and 19 and found:

60% liked the taste of alcopops

Only 25% liked wine and 38% liked beer;

24% couldn't taste the alcohol in 4 alcopops tested and another 7% were unsure

They like the way alcopops are presented and taste.

They can contain 2 standard drinks in one can.'

When we discussed the recent amendments to the smoking legislation to prevent smoking in vehicles and the other amendments that came forward at that time, we were very clear there to address menthol-flavoured cigarettes, sweetened cigarettes and all of those things, saying that that is a real problem. That bill, in fact, outlaws that type of cigarette but here we are -

Ms Forrest - Just the fruit-flavoured ones, not the menthol.

Mr DEAN - The flavoured cigarettes that attract people to that activity, not the menthol ones. Here we have exactly the same situation with alcohol, Mr President, where we have these flavoured alcohols and, as that study showed, many of the people who drink these flavoured alcohols do not even taste the alcohol in it and some probably would not even know it was really a strong alcoholic drink. They are in fact quite strong. What are we doing about it? Nothing.

Mr Aird - No, actually the industry itself has now agreed to limit the amount of alcohol in those pre-mixed drinks to 5 per cent alcohol. Your comments are accurate but to say that nothing has happened is not quite right because the industry itself has initiated that agreement but they only did it, in my opinion, in anticipation of some regulation to deal with it, as you would expect.

Mr DEAN - I will make one or two further quotes from the document I have been referring to which addresses some of those issues:

'Jill Stark in an article in the Age entitled "Alcopops target teen Drinkers" (6/8/07) quoted Mat Baxter, a marketing executive behind vodka-based drink "Absolute Cut" who said that the market was booming for high strength, pre-mixed spirits that "get young people drunk faster"'.

That is a statement made by a person in that business. I quote again from the document:

'"Young people could buy 3 drinks with 7% alcohol and get the same effect for less outlay than if they bought five 5.5% drinks," he said.

Mat Baxter is admitting what the alcohol industry has been denying - that "alcopops" are directly aimed at young people.'

Another quote that I wish to make from this document is:

'A 2005 national survey of alcohol use by secondary school students showed that 47% of girls aged 12-17 and 14% of boys that age had drunk pre-mixed spirits in the previous week.'

These are quite alarming figures when you think about it. You have young people between the ages of 12 and 17 involved in this type of activity, which to me is not the way that we ought to be going. We know very well that once you start this sort of activity, it normally becomes bigger and better as we move forward.

The same situation applies to cigarette smoking. That is why we are currently targeting cigarette smoking, especially in young people. We are trying to turn them and move them away from what is know to be an extremely unhealthy activity creating lots of problems in hospitals, in a similar way to alcohol.

Another thing mentioned in this document which I believe gives concern is the way that we have gone with road safety issues. We are trying to get national laws and rules and regulations in relation to traffic issues, in other words common laws throughout the State. I believe that is what we should be doing also with laws in relation to alcohol. Again, I will quote from this document as I find it very interesting:

'Another very important issue that would help to reduce under-age drinking is to introduce uniform laws throughout Australia to prevent anyone, other than a teenager's parents supplying them with alcohol.'

I think that the member for Mersey mentioned that. I believe that is a position that we ought to be adopting. I do not think that anyone else has the right to provide a teenager, a young person with alcohol other than their parents. I also question the right of parents to do it in relation to some age groups. I will quote a couple of the differences from the same document:

'Under Victorian Law it is legal for any adult to supply liquor to a person under 18 if they are in a private residence.

Under NSW Law it is illegal to supply liquor to a person under the age of 18 unless they are a parent or guardian of that person or they have received permission from the child's parent or guardian.'

For that there are very high penalties. I believe we ought to look at some of these laws and have some consistency across the country.

Mr Aird - Has anyone been prosecuted under those laws?

Mr DEAN - I do not know, I have not gone into that.

Mr Aird - I do not think that they have.

Mrs Smith - Is that because they are working?

Mr Aird - Seeking a level of compliance can be problematic.

Mr DEAN - In raising that, I guess one could say it is the same in relation to a number of other laws, couldn't one?

Mr Aird - That is true.

Mr DEAN - Yes. The fact that the law is there is sufficient in the greater number of cases, 99.9 per cent of the time; that is sufficient in itself to curtail that activity.

I want to return to the flavoured alcoholic drinks, Mr President. If you read the papers - the Examiner, Mercury, Advocate - you will find there are a lot of people who are concerned about the attractiveness of those drinks to young people. I cannot really stress strongly enough the problems associated with that and the fact that we need to do something about it.

I think the member for Mersey, or somebody, mentioned the strict controls that should apply to providing access into licensed premises to under-age people. We require, under legislation, identification for access into these places but in many respects that identification is flawed, in my opinion. The identification is not strong enough, in my view.

I want to relate something that occurred to my family and me when I was in America. We tried to access licensed premises in San Diego and we could not get in, no matter what our age was, unless we could conclusively prove that we were over the age of 18 years. We produced driver's licences and other identification we had such as medical cards; they would not accept it. The only thing that -

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Were you very young-looking in America?

Mr DEAN - Well, in my case, that is interesting. I should tell the rest of the story. When they looked at me they said, 'You are okay, we won't worry about you'. But then they upset me; they looked at my wife and said to her, 'You need to produce identification'.

Members laughing.

Mr DEAN - I was a bit upset. But, Mr President, they required us to produce our passports or other documentation that they said would be acceptable to them, and that was some American document that they were making reference to. I am saying that I think we are too eager at times, on the evidence and information I have, to accept identification to allow people into a licensed premises. I think we really need to address that issue.

I do support the bill. As I said, I think this is a move in the right direction. I think that this does tighten up some of the looser areas. One area that I will mention in the Committee stage relates to people who are entitled to get licences to operate licensed premises. Although I support the bill, I do believe there are a number of issues that we ought to be addressing, such as who is able to supply liquor to teenagers, to young people. I think that is an important issue and the other, as I have stressed on a number of occasions, is the availability of alcohol outlets and where they are located. I think it is extremely important, if we are serious about this. The other issue concerns those fizzy drinks, scented drinks commonly known as alcopops. I think we need to address those issues, Mr President.