- SYDNEY (Independent Foreign
Servicey) -- Australia's hard-drinking lifestyle is under threat as politicians
consider radical proposals that would make it illegal to be drunk in a
pub or a club.
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- Drinking has been part of Australian culture since convict
days, when rum was the unofficial currency of the penal colony of New South
Wales. But that culture is now being blamed for an epidemic of alcoholism
that is causing a host of problems, including domestic violence and carnage
on the roads.
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- The tendency of Australians to drink to excess, particularly
in the company of "mates", was subjected to blunt scrutiny at
an alcohol conference in Sydney last week.
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- The summit, organised by the state government, heard
stories of drinking binges ñ particularly in Aboriginal communities
ñ by children as young as 10.
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- Bob Carr, the premier of New South Wales, acknowledged
that drinking was embedded in the lifestyle but called on Australians to
re-evaluate their behaviour.
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- "As a community, are we willing to tolerate this
sort of self-destructive excess?" he asked.
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- "Is it mateship to watch your mate downing schooner
(glass of beer) after schooner when you know his wife and kids are already
afraid of him?
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- "What sort of mateship allows a group of girls to
go out drinking and do nothing when a friend, drunk, gets into a car with
a stranger who's been drinking?"
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- The meeting, which was attended by politicians, health
professionals and alcohol industry representatives, recommended policy
changes like the blacklisting of drinkers who go from pub to pub late at
night.
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- Proposals to introduce a zero alcohol limit for new drivers
and penalise patrons found drunk on licensed premises are being considered.
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- The conference mirrored a drugs summit held by the New
South Wales government in 1999, which led to the establishment of a controversial
centre where heroin addicts inject themselves under medical supervision.
The alcohol industry is unhappy about plans to cut opening hours and fine
pubs where violent incidents recur.
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- The president of the Australian Hotels Association, John
Thorpe, introduced himself to delegates as "public enemy number one".
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- Thorpe reminded his audience that Jesus had turned water
into wine and noted that alcohol had been served at the Last Supper.
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- He suggested that Leonardo da Vinci's painting, The Last
Supper, should be retitled The Last Supper Without Wine.
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- ©2003 The Star. All rights reserved.
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- http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=218609
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