Claims made by Mr. Daube included those such as: “some retailers are responsible when it comes to selling alcohol to kids, but many of them are not and governments need to act on this”. Mr. Daube also said: “there are problems with the promotion of alcohol” and “at least half of young people said they find it easy to buy alcohol under age”.
Last night, the Australian Liquor Stores Association (ALSA) issued a statement in response.
“Mike Daube’s position reflects his own personal views and is increasingly out of touch with Australian society and available evidence”, ALSA said.
“It is amazing that these claims completely ignore the Commonwealth Government’s agency, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).”
AIHW data demonstrates:
- 84 per cent of underage supply of alcohol is via parents, older siblings, relatives and friends – not purchased from liquor stores or other licensed premises.
- Trends in teenage consumption of alcohol show that around 72 per cent of underage teenagers do not drink alcohol – an increase in abstention of 29 per cent since 2007.
- 84 per cent of Australians believe there needs to be stricter enforcement on adults who supply alcohol to minors.
- The greatest level of community support for enforcement is when penalties are targeted at offenders.
ALSA added: “In the same interview, he calls for increases in taxes and for there to be a reduction in availability and customer choice when it comes to purchasing alcohol. Fortunately most Australians have enough common sense to realise such measures will only punish the majority who drink responsibly and further penalise the hip pocket of Australians who are already paying some of the highest alcohol taxes in the world.”
ALSA CEO Terry Mott did however say: “The one thing we can agree on with Professor Daube is the need for public education and for adults to take responsibility to supervise minors around alcohol and not simply supply alcohol to minors – particularly unsupervised supply to groups of minors”.
“We have long called on government to focus its attention on the real problem of secondary supply and better enforcement of existing legislation around this.”
ALSA and its members will be continuing to take pro-active steps to reinforce a number of its responsible service of alcohol initiatives, such as its ID-25 program and ‘Don’t Buy It For Them’ campaign.
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