Marty’s Insight

Young people. Alcohol. You cannot trust any of those words when put together in a sentence, and you definitely can’t trust them when they’re literally together. Young people are simply not fit enough, mature enough, or responsible enough to consume alcohol. The Federal Government — along with the mainstream press — has declared the topic of binge drinking in this country as more than just a “problem” or “issue”, and even gone past such terms as “crisis” and straight to the term “epidemic”. It’s so far beyond a problem that it’s a disease. And it’s young people who are the problem.

Kevin Rudd and his ever-increasing army of do-gooding, society improving bureaucrats are not only fighting these societal woes, but invariably going to ruin life for us law-abiding, non-nuisance people. That is, at a guess, around about 95% of the population. For example, the Daily Telegraph reports that the Government is likely to raise taxes on pre-mixed drinks:

The cost of a case of “alcopop” products such as Bacardi Breezer, Smirnoff Ice and Jim Beam and Cola, would rise by up to $15 a case, restoring the “cost barrier” that the Howard government removed.

Evil Howard. Crushing the workers by making things cheaper and making it easier for them to get drunk.

The Budget measure - believed to have the support of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Health Minister Nicola Roxon - would reverse the price drop brought about by the introduction of the GST in 2000.

While the price of premium beer rose slightly, alcopops fell by 20 per cent, leading to an explosion in their consumption.

Politically brilliant — Rudd can say “no, it’s not a tax hike, it’s saving Australia!”

Give me a break. It’s a freakin’ opportunistic tax hike.

Confidential alcohol industry research obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows, for the first time, the grip alcopops have on young Australians compared to the rest of the world.

Australia has the highest per capita consumption of alcopops in the world, double that of the next biggest consumers, Britain and New Zealand.

First it’s kids that are the problem for drinking too many of these drinks, and now it’s the drinks (and the evil alcohol corporations) who have the grip on young Australians? Here’s a suggestion to all the boneheaded journalists, lobbyists, politicians and general meddling do-gooders: Make up your mind about what exactly is the cause of the problem. Is it the kids? Is it the manufacturers? Who cares, they say, there’s a problem and the Government must do something! That attitude in itself is the source of a big problem I have with nanny-statists, but the end result is always action taken by the Government that creates more problems than it solves.

Forty-five per cent of girls as young as 12 surveyed by the Australian Divisions of General Practice said their last drink was an alcopop, compared to 8 per cent saying it was beer and 11 per cent wine.

Because girls as young as twelve can freely wander into a bottle shop and buy these pre-mixed drinks. Underage drinking is an area where you need to bring quality of parenting into account. It’s completely ignorant and naive to think that the manufacturers market directly to under-18s, while quality of parenting has nothing to do with drunken 14-year olds.

The Australian General Practice Network’s chairman Dr Tony Hobbs said the “alarming” consumption of alcopops had to be curbed.

Give me a break. For starters, there’s a huge market for pre-mixed drinks, which is very obviously why they’re so successful. But at the same time, there’s nothing stopping people from buying the spirits themselves (say, a bottle or two of vodka) and a few flavoured mixers and making their own drinks. In fact, that is arguably more dangerous, because then you’re letting those irresponsible, immature kids decide how much alcohol goes into their drinks. But instead of thinking the problem through, Dr Hobbs has instead decided to go down the ever so easy path of declaring that “something must be done!”

“Drinks need to be priced appropriately. This tax loophole needs to be closed so that drinks become more expensive, restoring the cost barrier to consumption,” he said.

To begin with, there is no tax “loophole”. There is simply a 10% GST component of the product, which just happens to be less than the pre-GST sales tax that was there before. On top of that there is excise which, according to the Australian Tax Office schedule from February 2008, by my own calculation works out to be around 68.8 cents per standard drink. That is just how it is; manufacturers are not avoiding paying any tax or exploiting anything. The very fact that Dr Hobbs would use such a misleading term shows how much he doesn’t understand the issue.

Secondly, pre-mixed drinks range between about 4% to around 8% alcohol, much the same as full-strength beer. However pre-mixed drinks are sold at bars for more than your on-tap full-strength beers. It’s unlikely you’ll get much change out of $7 if you buy one from a bar or a nightclub after 8 or 9pm, and even less likely to get any change after around midnight if you’re not paying more than that. They are the most expensive drinks you can buy at a bar/pub/club if you don’t count what’s on the cocktail menu (or if you’re picky about what wine you drink).

Alternatively, you can pay around $50 for a case of 24 Vodka Cruisers, or about $30 - $35 for a case of 30 cans of VB or XXXX.

Do these people really think that pushing drinkers away from these already comparitively expensive beverages onto Tooheys New, VB or XXXX — which are already cheaper, despite having a similar alcohol content — will solve anything? What planet are they on? Even then, if all else fails, there is always the trusty goon bag.

Consumption slumped in Britain, when the government in 2002 raised taxes on alcopops by 40 per cent amid similar concern over excessive youth drinking.

Was there a raise in consumption of other drinks to compensate? It’s not as if these drinkers were giving up drinking just because their favourite drinks became more expensive. Let’s be realistic here.

Secondly, the problem that extra taxes creates on certain kinds of drinks is that it makes people more likely to buy spirits and mixers seperately and then mix them manually. Ever see a drunk guy responsibly mix his next JD and Coke? I certainly haven’t. There’s always a lot more JD than Coke in that drink. Or there’s always a goon bag.

Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia’s Paul Dillon said alcopops allowed kids to get drunk from a far younger age.

Anybody who actually believes that is kidding themselves. Something like a Cruiser or a Breezer allows kids to get drunk at a younger age? Or is it just shoddy parenting and supervision? That such a person could be in such a position to make such a comment is truly astounding. Paul Dillon, you have set a new benchmark for idiots everywhere.

“It used to be that young guys tried beer and girls had a wine cooler or passion pop. They had far less alcohol content and were harder to use to get drunk,” he said.

Sure, beer and wine are acquired tastes. But if kids wanted to get drunk, they would. Also, last I checked, the alcohol content of a standard Vodka Cruiser, Bacardi Breezer or a Smirnoff Ice was around 5%. That is, for the idiots amongst us — and I’m looking at you, Paul Dillon — around about the same content as a full-strength beer or a wine cooler.

The Rudd Government minister responsible for alcohol policy, Senator Jan McLucas railed against alcopops when in she was in Opposition.

In a Parliamentary speech in 2004 the Labor Senator recalled a colleague’s 10-year-old child who described an alcopop drink as: “sweet and fizzy and tastes just like soft drinks”.

I only have one question to pose to Jan McLucas about that: “Why the fuck was your colleague feeding their 10-year old child an alcoholic drink?”

Yesterday Senator McLucas would not comment on whether tax on pre-mixed drinks would be raised in the May Budget.

Let me translate this for you: Tax on pre-mixed drinks will be raised in the May Budget. Considerably.

It’s this kind of reaction to these kinds of societal issues which will solve nothing. It will only serve to annoy most of the population by making alcoholic drinks more expensive (so much for K-Rudd fighting for the workers — taxes will go up left, right and centre), and furthering the impression that idiot bogan parents don’t have to look after their kids because Daddy Rudd and his friendly bureaucrats can do it for them.

Give me a break.

Update: Sure, his post is over a month old — which shows how on the ball I am more than anything else — but Yobbo makes a good point on a similar subject.