Rebalancing the scales

The events in Sydney last summer, which culminated in the NSW Government winding back 100 years of the gradual liberalisation of trading hour regulation for premises selling alcohol, showed that communities can be heard over the noisy self-interest of the alcohol industry. It also demonstrated the value of concerted campaigning.

It demonstrated the importance of the advocates for change investing in planning, research and strategising as a precursor to achieving population-wide reform that will improve the public’s health.

A similar investment to support program development, service improvement and advocacy was also reflected in the success of efforts to tackle Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) in this country.

The establishment of Australia’s first national FASD Plan, the launch of the Women Want to Know program to encourage health professionals to talk to women about consuming alcohol during pregnancy, and the Pregnant Pause campaign which encourages men to support their partners not to drink during pregnancy by not drinking themselves were all part of FARE’s strategic approach to behaviour change and public health reform.

Of course this would be not have been possible without the support of communities affected by acute levels of alcohol-related harm. This was amply demonstrated in Sydney last summer. Community outrage at the callousness of the deaths of two young men was palpable.

But communities need support too. The Alcohol Community Action Project (ACAP), which was a pilot project partly funded by the Australian Rechabite Foundation, demonstrated that for communities to combat the impact of more and more alcohol outlets in their neighbourhoods, they sometimes need professional help. ACAP successfully tested the idea that professional assistance can and does make a difference to efforts to stop the proliferation of alcohol outlets.

FARE’s challenge for 2015 is to use the evidence collected from the ACAP pilot project to establish a permanent service that will be available to defend community interests against the power of the alcohol industry. It will also be critical in efforts to better mobilise communities more generally in the fight against vested interests over the public interest.

FARE’s professional team, with the backing of a determined Board, will inject energy and provide strong leadership in these efforts to stop alcohol’s harms.

We will continue to be innovative in our advocacy to combat an alcohol industry that has deep pockets, that wields extraordinary power over our political leaders and never hesitates to bully and intimidate.

The span of our work will be wide and our research inquiry will continue to delve into areas where deficiencies in knowledge provide paltry excuses for Government inaction.

The absence of a National Alcohol Plan on alcohol is an embarrassment, especially given research shows that the magnitude of alcohol-related harms continues to rise, as starkly shown in FARE’s Alcohol’s Burden of Disease report. Our resources will be focused on holding the new Abbott Government to account and pressuring the Opposition to develop strong public health policy to reduce death, disease and injury caused by alcohol.

Families also deserve better and FARE will be there on the frontline demanding that governments take action to reduce tragic levels of family and domestic violence and intolerable levels of alcohol-related child abuse.

Rebalancing the scales in favour of the public interest over vested private interests will take on increasing importance. A political system that has preferenced private interests, at the expense of public interest, is a risk to the very underpinnings of Australia’s liberal democracy. John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty, that a central the role of government is to intervene to prevent harms to others. It is philosophy that sits comfortably with FARE.

Self-interest and an entitlement mentality is contaminating the public discourse at the detriment of the public good and FARE will be acting in the tradition of more than 150 years of public health accomplishments.

We will be there for all Australians.