Judging by the article he penned in yesterday’s Crikey — “Alcohol industry needs to cut the cr-p on alcopops” — it would appear we’ve upset Geoff Munro.
We agree with Geoff that binge drinking is a scourge on the community. We also agree that the way people drink needs to change and we want to be part of the solution.
Geoff Munro’s claim yesterday that Independent Distillers Australia’s inclusion of the National Drug Strategy Household Survey in our Senate submission (which showed beer, wine and spirits were listed as being consumed in risky and high risk quantities but, very significantly, RTDs were not) was “accurate but misleading” has me stumped. The NDSH Survey was unequivocal. We did not mislead, we simply quoted the Survey’s findings.
Similarly, Geoff’s point that we somehow misused the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s numbers is ridiculous. The AIHW itself — on the front page of its Senate submission no less — says that “given the stable prevalence of risky drinking, and the lack of any clear trend regarding preferences for RTDs, the increased availability of RTDs does not appear to have directly contributed to an increase in risky alcohol consumption.” I would think that too was pretty unequivocal.
Our argument against the Rudd Government’s specific excise increase on RTDs is that it has not been done for the reasons Kevin Rudd himself claimed. The increase is a simple cash grab. It’s got nothing to do with health policy. Given the evidence emerging on substitution into higher alcohol and cheaper products, the risk to health will be increased.
It’s common sense that if you increase the cost of a six pack of RTDs, you push consumers toward a less expensive product. It’s what the industry calls “substitution”. Our concern, and the concern of the wider health community, is that people are more likely to buy a $30 700ml bottle of straight spirits with about 20 standard drinks or a four-litre cask of wine with 32 standard drinks for $10 instead of a six pack of RTDs with nine standard drinks for $27.
That this type of substitution is occurring is borne out by the latest industry statistics from the Liquor Merchant Association of Australia (LMAA) which shows movement in wholesale sales of the major spirit and RTD categories from May 2007 to May 2008. Vodka RTDs were down 32%, while straight vodka was up 43%. Rum RTDs were down 16%, while straight rum sales increased by an astonishing 139%.
Like many of Geoff Munro’s colleagues in the health lobby, IDA believes the answer lies with the introduction of a volumetric tax which, in its simplest form, means products are taxed based on their alcohol content. Should the Senate reject the Rudd excise increase on RTDs, it would be doing so because the excise increase does nothing to improve the health of Australians. It’s a Government cash grab, plain and simple. Volumetric tax is the way forward here — for both tax policy and health policy.
I agree with Geof Munro the tax on alcopops a good first step. The Howard Government approved them and that was wrong. The adding of alcohol to soft drinks is a first step to producing alcoholics. As has been said the juveile palate does not like hard liquor because it is an acqired taste later in life. The alcopops industry is simply another one that considers it is OK to make a profit even though it corrupts society. The industry has been conducting a similar campaign thriough the media as has the Carbon industry on carbon production, neither has the well being of the community in mind only their own profits
Dear Doug McKay,
You would happen to have, perchance, a vested interest here……. would you?
Geoff contradicts himself within one paragraph. First he says that Doug McKay thinks there is no problem to be solved, then he quotes McKay as saying that binge drinking is a “scourge of society”. The first part is a blatant verballing of McKay.
Geoff should also be wary of pointing out the faults in other people’s testimony. He told the Senate committee on 12 June that ambulance officers in Bendigo were treating 12 year olds for acute intoxication. Unfortunately for him, he was contradicted the next day in the Bendigo Advertiser.
“RAV Loddon District group manager Michele Murdoch yesterday said regardless of those comments, the occurrence of children as young as 12 requiring ambulance assistance was “very rare”.
“With 16-year-olds, we would probably pick up maybe one of those a week, but as far as the 12 and 13-year-olds, certainly not,” Ms Murdoch said.
“We can’t remember the last time we picked up somebody of that age.”
Many health activists have problems with the AIHW submission because it contradicts their argument. It is not cryptic at all, in fact it is perfectly clear and I recommend people read it.
While bagging the IDA over this is obviously pretty good sport, I agree with the suggestion that alcohol tax should be volumetric. This would eliminate the discrepancies which exist with cheap goon, and more importantly promote the consumption of low-alcohol RTDs. Teeny boppers off to parties with their 4-packs of rainbow-coloured bevvies would be more inclined to pick up the cheap ones, which might be 3% alcohol, than the pricey 6%ers. They would still get drunk (because, lets face it, preventing teenagers getting drunk is never going to happen) but they’d get less drunk, and more slowly too, which would harm their bodies less and reduce the risk of passing out (which is when the REAL harm happens at teen parties).
Doug McKay of Independent Distillers Australia is too clever by half: as I pointed out, his submission to the Senate Inquiry into RTDs accurately quoted part of the findings of the 2004 National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS). But he left out the supplementary bit that stated underage binge drinkers prefer RTDs over every other alcoholic drink. That is a fact. Very unfortunate from Mr McKay’s view, of course, but he did not challenge it.
Instead he tried to confuse the reader, again. He quoted two points from the bald, rather cryptic summary of the 2007 NDSHS survey submitted to the Senate Inquiry by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, to the effect that (i) there has been virtually no increase in risky drinking in Australia since 2001 and (ii) [therefore] RTDs do not appear to have contributed to an increase in risky consumption [since 2001].
But there is no necessary conflict between these findings. Risky drinking may be stable, the use of RTDs may be stable, but that is consistent with RTDs massively contributing to risky drinking by underage people (and having done so before and since 2001).
In company with other representatives of the alcohol industry, Mr McKay appears to think that if things aren’t getting worse there is nothing to be bothered about, and nothing needs doing. He confuses “trends” with “prevalence.” Risky drinking is a huge problem and the fall-out costs Australia $15 billion per year. The 2007 survey may indicate prevalence is stable, and it may mean things are not getting worse, but, to use his term, binge drinking remains a “scourge of society.”
I also note that Mr McKay made no attempt to defend the Mickey Mouse survey he quoted which claimed that RTDs are not consumed by anyone under 18. Apparently, while he thinks he might get that one past the Senate, he won’t try it on Crikey readers.
Geoff Munro, Australian Drug Foundation