LIQUOR LICENSING (SUPPLY TO MINORS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (10:33): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Liquor Licensing Act 1997. Read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (10:33): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill is about empowering parents to make decisions relating to when their own children are introduced to alcohol. Currently in South Australia it is an offence to provide a minor with alcohol in a public place—in a park or on a beach. It is an offence to provide a minor with alcohol in a licensed establishment. It is an offence to provide alcohol to a minor anywhere in South Australia, other than in a private residence, and in a private residence alcohol can be provided to any minor by any adult. This inappropriately usurps what should be the rights of a parent.

This is a matter that has been addressed in the Eastern States: in Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales by Labor governments, and in Victoria by a Liberal government. This need not be a matter which attracts the partisan politics that unfortunately underpins so much legislation. This is something that one would hope would be a mature legislative policy response to what is a very serious issue in our community.

On 28 July 2011 I first introduced a bill very similar to the one that has just been tabled. This bill is a refinement of that and has been subject to much feedback from many members of the community, in particular the police—and I will get to that later. In that speech I outlined particularly some detail relating to the adverse health affects of alcohol consumption by young people. I gave some detailed statistical evidence showing the nature of the problem we have in Australia of far too many young people drinking far too much alcohol far too early, and also in that speech I discussed some of the issues relating to the legislation interstate and demonstrated that, whilst this bill and bills of its nature, can never be a catch-all and cure all, they nevertheless have made a significant level of assistance in those other states.

There have been prosecutions for supply. It has been able to be policed and, while it does not fix everything and it will not fix every circumstance, they have made a contribution. It is a tool in the armoury of government and of law enforcement in assisting to reduce the rate of teen drinking in our community.

I bring briefly to the attention of the house the fact there are too many young people drinking. The most recent data from 2008—and I believe there will be an update soon, which hopefully demonstrates some better figures—from the Australian secondary school survey into students who consume tobacco, alcohol and over the counter illicit substances in 2008, it identified that one in five 14 year olds has had a drink in the last week, one in nine 13 year olds has had a drink in the last week, and one in twelve 12 year olds in Australia has had a drink in the last week. That is two children in every average year 6 class in the nation, three children in the average year 7 class and six children in the average year 8 class who were drinking last week, who will be drinking again next week and the week after that and the week after that.

The effects on a young mind of alcohol introduction at such an early age are significant. Again, I direct members back to my speech of 22 July last year, where I went into some detail, and in particular quoted from the Alcohol and the Teenage Brain Report by Professor Ian Hickie of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney, one of Australia's leading experts in this field, although, especially in recent weeks and months, he has had plenty of others backing him up with similar findings.

But the damage with young people drinking indicates that there are some key issues. This has become particularly noted in the last 15 years as our medical technology and mapping of the brain has advanced significantly. In particular we know that the frontal lobes of the brain, which relate to complex thought, decision-making capacity and inhibition, undergo their critical phase of development during the teenage years, during early adolescence and the teenage years, just when you do not want them to be affected by alcohol.

Secondly, alcohol even in small doses in adults particularly goes towards reducing the activity of the inhibitory responses in the brain. So the brain responses that would normally function when they would stop somebody from acting in a foolish or dangerous way are inhibited by alcohol, particularly in the teenage years. Thirdly, alcohol on all of us has a sedative effect: if you have too much alcohol you lose control of your fine motor functions, but at the same time you also start to go to sleep. That fine motor control function is also lost by teenagers who drink, but because of their heightened levels of stimulation they do not have the sedative effects, they do not go to sleep, they simply lose control.

Fourthly, the research points to concerning levels of mental health problems, particularly anxiety and depression, displaying amongst those who have had frequent and significant exposure to alcohol during the early and mid-adolescent years. Fifthly, young people who are already displaying elements of anxiety, depression or psychotic disorder, who also add alcohol to that cocktail, are at very high risk of self harm, attempted suicide, accidental injury and persistence and recurrence of their primary mental health function. These are elements which often affect adults who drink alcohol as well, but all of these elements are significantly heightened when young people drink alcohol. It is clearly something that we need to address as a community when so many of our young people are drinking so regularly.

Parents are concerned about this. This bill came into being as a result of parents coming to me as their local member saying, 'How can we deal with this? How can I stop my child from binge drinking on the weekend when it is a choice of either letting them go to their friends' parties where I know they will have alcohol, even though the parents who are hosting these parties have not talked to me about it, or stopping them going to that without risking complete social isolation and ostracism?'

It is a real concern. Many parents would come to many members of parliament, I suspect, with similar concerns. The fact is that there is nowhere for them to go at the moment. This bill gives them somewhere to go. It has been driven by parents and it is supported more broadly, of course. It is supported by health experts; it is supported by school leaders. The peak bodies of all of the school groups—public, Catholic and independent—have all come out as recently as this week in the media to call for legislation of this nature.

I note that the Hon. Trish Worth, former member for Adelaide and currently chair of the DrinkWise organisation, along with Associate Professor Michael Baigent of DASSA (Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia) and Flinders University, and also Jaime Holland from Pembroke School came out in October last year to brief members of parliament who are interested. I thank the many members who came along to that briefing session.

I particularly thank Trish, Michael and Jaime for coming and giving that session. Trish spoke on public policy, Michael Baigent on the health effects and Jaime Holland on how it plays out in school communities. It was a very worthwhile briefing session and I think many people got some good perspective. There is a broad range of support.

Starting from the parents' perspective, I note that Jane Doyle—the fabulous Jane Doyle—news reader for Channel 7 and also commentator on FIVEaa summed up really well actually one of the things that this bill can do for parents. I will use Jane's words because she is a marvellous speaker:

...I think the most significant part about the proposed legislation is that it gives parents somewhere to go; forget about the penalty stuff, but it actually gives you somewhere to go and say 'well actually it's not correct', because what you get from parents who are serving alcohol to 16 and 17 year olds is that they say they're going to get it anyway and so we're going to serve it to be responsible—as a parent who doesn't want their child necessarily involved in that you've got nowhere to go... You can't say to them 'it's illegal, you're doing something wrong at the moment' because they're not [it is not illegal]. And so it's a really good message to give parents somewhere to go.

Parents, when confronted by their children pressuring them to allow alcohol to be served at their parties will finally be able to say, 'It is not appropriate to do so. The law says that it is not appropriate to do so.' If the children push and say, 'Actually, we can get everyone's permission,' it will at least ensure that there is discussion held with every parent involved so that people are talking about these issues. We need to educate the community and educate parents that they cannot just serve alcohol to another person's child.

Think about it from this perspective: going back to fundamental principles, why should an adult be able to give a mind-altering substance to a minor who they do not have a duty of care for and do not have a personal relationship with? Anyone with children would think about this fact that there are so many 14 or 15-year-old children drinking at the moment. Why should they be supplied alcohol by somebody who you do not even know in a circumstance which you have no control over? Geoff Munro, the policy director of the Australian Drug Foundation wrote to me saying:

Without this legislation, any person can give any child any amount of alcohol without that child's parents knowing or approving.

Michael Baigent wrote to me, saying:

Over the last decade we have learnt more about alcohol and levels of intake associated with harm...I think that it is hard to see reasons for opposing what you have proposed. I think it is an important Bill that hopefully is supported.

That is Associate Professor Michael Baigent, clinical director of the Centre for Anxiety and Related Disorders, senior specialist at DASSA and a board director at beyondblue. The District Council of Peterborough wrote to me, saying:

A few years ago, a youth died in Peterborough as a result of an adult supplying liquor to a group of youths. The liquor was home made and apparently those concerned regularly supply it to the youth in town. So until it is made illegal to supply a minor with alcohol with meaningful penalties, this situation is always hanging over the community.

The Federation of Catholic School Parent Communities wrote to me, saying that they are pleased with this bill and noting that the bill would:

...encourage and empower parents to set clear boundaries regarding access to and supply of alcohol both when hosting parties in their own home or when their own children are invited to attend parties at the home of others.

I have received dozens of letters from high school governing councils around South Australia, but I particularly want to note the first one that came in because they summed it up quite well. The Renmark High School Governing Council wrote to me saying:

As parents of high school aged children, many of us struggle with the very issues you mentioned in your speech and are encouraged that you are acting on these concerns. We would like to offer our support for this amendment bill.

Professor Brenda Wilson, chief executive of Cancer Council SA, said:

Cancer Council SA supports your bill to make it unlawful for anyone other than the child's parent to provide alcohol to a minor and commends your endeavour in moving a private member's bill.

Time prohibits me from going through too many more. But, in particular, I want to note the contribution from then acting police commissioner, Gary Burns, now, of course, our police commissioner. He noted that, 'Despite the concerns that have been raised by some, these bills can be policed effectively.' Acting commissioner Burns, as he was then, suggested five methods that would make last year's bill easier to police, and I can tell the house that we have adopted four of them. The five that he has suggested are:

1. Police intervening at a party be allowed to remove only a small number of samples of alcohol, rather than all alcohol present, in order to supply evidence. We have included that in the bill.

2. The police commissioner said that a lower maximum penalty would be appropriate, so we have lowered the maximum penalty.

3. The police commissioner has suggested that the fine should be expiable, so we have made the fine expiable. The maximum penalty is $2,500, the expiation fee is $210, and that will make it easier to enforce.

4. The previously identified six factors relating to the application of the law; for example, how intoxicated the child was and the state of the supply. The police commissioner suggested that those six factors be removed and the offence of supplying alcohol to a minor be an absolute offence, either an offence or not. We have complied with the police commissioner's suggestion there.

5. The police commissioner suggested that the onus should clearly be on the adult supplying the minor with alcohol to establish that they had obtained parental or guardian consent. We have not followed up on that discretion because we felt that it was perhaps making it too difficult for parents.

This bill is about making things easier for parents—making the opportunity of their nurturing, guiding and educating their own children easier and giving them an opportunity to be backed up by this parliament and backed up by the laws of this state when determining how their children should react to an instruction that, 'No, we don't want you to have alcohol because you're 14 years old and it's terribly bad for you and it could have terrible consequences,' and he cannot say, 'Well, I'll just go to my mate's place, and his dad lets us have a couple of beers.'

I think this can be backed up with a strong education campaign. I hope that the government takes this on board and either supports this bill or introduces something very similar because, for all the talk about alcohol-related violence in our community and for all the talk about alcohol abuse by consenting adults in licensed premises, fundamentally it gets back to: why do people have alcohol problems?

The research suggests very strongly that most alcohol problems can be traced back to when somebody started drinking. There is a high correlation between early alcohol introduction and significant alcoholism down the track. This bill will help to address that. It will give tools to parents to be able to best look after the interests of their families, and it will be fundamentally, I think, of assistance to law enforcement, to our education system and to parents in assisting South Australia's community to deal with some of the problems related to alcohol abuse.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.