No thanks – I don’t drink. I have been saying this to waiters and hosts for more than 40 years, knowing that alcohol and me don’t mix.
But that’s just me. To 95% of the community alcohol is a good part of life, and good luck to them.
It’s hard not to be emotional about grog, as the first fleeters called it when they arrived here with alcohol more than 200 years ago.
The facts are that alcohol is part of our society, and of course for the past 60 or 70 years an important commercial consideration. It is a great contributor of tax to Governments and an employer of hundreds and thousands of people. And of course its use is perfectly legal.
But all that we know.
Now it’s about to come to the forefront again. The Federal Government plans to bring before the senate the “alcopops” legislation again in an effort to reduce binge drinking.
I am for anything that reduces binge drinking, so I think that it is worth giving it a go.
Presumably Turnbull and his mates will vote against it although I don’t know why, which will again leave it to the Family First Senator Steve Fielding who last time around wanted to do a deal and trade his vote to get alcohol sponsorship out of sport.
It’s a dilemma in two ways.
First, taking alcohol out of sports will make absolutely no difference to the pattern of how much people drink.
Secondly, the major sports will be left in an extremely difficult position because they have a belief from the highest levels of Government that there would be no move against alcohol in sport sponsorship. This would be a retraction of that undertaking.
But the stakes are high and perhaps the Government believes they have to give in to the Senator and his crazy ideas.
Alcohol contribution to the sponsorship of sport now covers the complete range. It’s not just the blokey rugby league but also the gentile world of tennis, the highly successful family orientated AFL and our great Australian cricket, and everything else.
The sponsorship dollars that support sport are in the hundreds of millions. Not to have it would be a disaster. But more importantly, banning alcohol sponsorship would make absolutely no difference to any perceived alcohol problem.
I hope the good Senator does a bit more research and changes his mind.
If Senator Fielding thinks that banning alcohol sponsorship in sport will have a major impact of messages to youth then he should think again.
I quote from a 2003
"The Centre on Alcohol Marketing and Youth's own research has demonstrated that overall alcohol advertising on televised sports programming in 2003 was more likely to be seen by adults than youth: youth make up 13.3% of the national television viewing population but on average only 9.1% of the audience for televised sports with alcohol advertising.5 In most cases the youth share of the audience for this advertising was lower than the proportion of youth in the television viewing population.
The situation is much the same in
Despite Senator Fielding's good intentions, it is highly improbable that isolating sports coverage will serve his ends whatever they may be.
And with Anzac Day approaching General Cosgrove talks about his mates in a VB commercial that is on air now. Should we ban the General as well?
If I was to talk to the Senator I would tell him of two people that I know who spent their whole life troubled by alcohol and were in fact alcoholics. They would have hardly watched any sport in their life. Sport had nothing to do with their drinking.
Sadly, they both died in the last year and I paid for their funerals, as I should.
You see Senator one was my younger brother and the other one my mother.
Senator, before you blow up sport for the ordinary person, give me a call.
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