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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3250 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Whilst we acknowledge the significance of the problem and the fact that the problem that is being sought to be addressed here is a growing problem and whilst we have major concerns about public safety and perceptions of public safety, this does not seem to us to be an appropriate or a particularly well-considered way of dealing with the issue.

MS TUCKER (10.44): The Greens will be supporting this legislation. I have listened to what Mr Stanhope said, and I understand that the proposal has changed. I do not think that is necessarily inconsistency. It is just that the proposal has been developed as people have discussed it. I recall a function in Mr Moore's office for Christmas last year where I spoke to one of the public health officials, who was talking about the incidence of injury on New Year's Eve as a result of glass. This proposal is for one year and looks at the impact of reducing the accessibility of glass for a night of the year which traditionally in Australia has been a night when people get out of control from drinking alcohol.

Mr Stanhope said, "Why are you targeting one form of alcohol?" It is probably because that is more likely to be what was in the glass found broken in public places. That would be my estimation of it. We do not have hard data on this, and for that reason you could say, "Don't do it." But it seems to me a reasonable thing to do. It is just for one year. The Greens are asking that an evaluation be carried out after the initial trialing of this public health initiative.

This bill is about trying to minimise some of the harm which results from the use of a drug which is legal in Australia but which, as we all know, is one of the most abused in our culture. This seems a very small step to minimise some of the harm to people who are going to be victims of injury as a result of the way people drink on New Year's Eve. It seems perfectly reasonable to me. We can wee afterwards whether it has made some impact on the experience of people in the hospitals who have claimed that there are huge issues at that time of the year and that there is a lot of injury. The bill seems quite reasonable to me, and I am happy to support it for this initial time.

MR BERRY (10.47): On the face of it, it is reasonable to try to prevent injuries to people in the community and workers who are going to be working in the melees that sometimes occur on New Year's Eve-police, emergency workers and so on. But the legislation does not do that. This is dumb legislation. Have a look at the practicalities of it. Do you think that a VB drinker who only ever drinks VB out of a glass will suffer the indignity, to them, of drinking it out of a can? No, they will not. They will buy it earlier and cart it with them, if necessary, to make sure that they get their VB in a bottle. I do not think people here understand the passion that some people have for drinking beer out of a glass bottle.

Beer drinkers who drink particular varieties are not going to change because the ACT government to changes the rules for 12 hours. They will buy their beer earlier and have enough to keep them going until 12 o'clock, and they will get stuck into it again when you can buy it after the period of the ban.

Why on earth is it that we are worried about only one alcoholic product in glass? I suspect that a full beer can, if you are hit in the head with it, would hurt just as much as an empty VB bottle. I have never been hit by either, and I do not want to be used as a test bed here, but even drunks usually understand that if they want to do a bit of damage with a can it is no good throwing it empty. That will not hurt anybody.

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