Technical Paper 3:
Preventing Alcohol-related harm in Australia: a window of opportunity

1.4 - Alcohol policy and programs in Australia

|TOC|next page

Preventing alcohol-related harm is a responsibility shared among all levels of government. The Australian Government and the states and territories are working together through the mechanisms of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy to implement initiatives as part of the National Alcohol Strategy 2006–2009.[6] The strategy is a plan for action developed collaboratively between governments, industry and community partners. Key action areas initially identified for the strategy include:

• Monitor and review of alcohol promotions
• Increase community awareness and understanding of the extent and impacts of intoxication
• Improve enforcement of liquor licensing regulations
• Support whole-of-community initiatives to reduce alcohol-related health problems
• Develop and implement social marketing campaigns to reduce alcohol-related harms.

At a state and territory level, key alcohol policy and program responsibilities include law enforcement, licensing regulation, the provision of treatment services and drug education in schools. Additionally, all states and territories have strategic plans to address alcohol, which vary in scope and funding. Given the diverse range of adverse outcomes of drinking often experienced at a local community level, local governments also play an important role, including their functions in environmental health, planning, community development, waste disposal and youth services.

Local governments can contribute to the management of the physical availability of alcohol and the creation of safer drinking settings, and engage in environmental design and planning that contributes to and supports community wellbeing. There are many examples of innovative, locally responsive measures in Australia, in part to respond to the modern phenomena of ‘night-time economies’.[8]

Throughout Australia, there is also a considerable amount of community-based activity under way in preventing alcohol-related harm, some of which is government funded and some of which is led by charitable groups. The contribution of community-level action is significant, and is integral to the effective implementation of federal, state and local government polices and programs.

Overall, while rhetoric is aimed at prevention, and there is currently a mood to address the negative side of alcohol use, there is great difficulty in gaining coherent, cooperative, strategic and effective action. This situation might be compared to the place of and responses to tobacco smoking in Australia in the 1960s.

|TOC|next page