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Reckless liquor regulation punishes City of Casey

In the State of Victoria, big alcohol comes first and families a distant second.

The recent approval by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation of another Dan Murphy’s booze barn, despite opposition from the City of Casey and Victoria’s Chief of Police was appalling. And ironic in a week when the government responded to the recommendations of the recent Royal Commission with a massive investment in family and domestic violence programs.

The Victorian Government has to act to put a stop to this madness.

The City of Casey is the state’s alcohol-related family violence epicentre and holds a number of unenviable records: the largest number of bottle shops, 70 and counting, of any local council of Victoria, the highest number of family violence incidents of any local council and the highest number of family violence offences with the presence of alcohol.

With the approval of the new 1,400 square metre Dan Murphy’s warehouse to be built in Cranbourne East, those numbers will sadly only rise.

The Royal Commission into Family Violence must be regretting not making stronger recommendations to the Andrews Government regarding alcohol’s impact on family violence.

The Royal Commission passed the buck when it comes to alcohol, instead leaving it to the state government to ensure that its mooted Liquor Act review took alcohol’s role into family violence into account.

That is now looking very weak.

The Royal Commission dedicated a day of its public hearings last July to the topic, with a wealth of evidence from alcohol researchers and experts who all highlighted alcohol’s significant role in family violence along with suggestions for the regulatory changes necessary to reduce those harms.

And the evidence is damning.

Alcohol is a significant contributor to family violence in Australia. It is estimated that alcohol is involved in up to 65 per cent of family violence incidences reported to the police and up to 47 per cent of child abuse cases each year across Australia.

Here in Victoria, the number of family violence incidents involving alcohol has climbed 85 per cent over the last decade to 14,015 per year. That’s almost 270 alcohol-fuelled incidents in Victorian homes each week.

The one positive is that there are solutions to tackle this tragedy, and we don’t need to wait for generational change to save lives and reduce the level of harm in our community.

As the Royal Commission heard, implementing alcohol availability controls and other policies known to reduce alcohol-related violence are vital to preventing and reducing the severity of family violence. Individual control measures like the proven 24/7 Sobriety should also be on the agenda.

We know a great deal about the link between the concentration of outlets licensed to sell alcohol and the subsequent harms seen in the surrounding community.

It’s very simple: the greater the number of outlets, the greater the harms.

Further, a study led by Monash University just last year found that it is the large bottle shops and liquor chains which contribute most substantially.

Which makes the Royal Commission into Family Violence’s decision not to provide specific recommendations for actions that address alcohol even more unfathomable.

The extent of alcohol harms in Victoria cannot be denied, with three lives lost, 18 assaults, 81 hospital admissions and 22 ambulance attendances in Victoria every single day.

And the problem is only growing worse.

Approving yet another unnecessary booze barn in a community already struggling to deal with alcohol-related violence, against the wishes of police and the local council, was a massive failure by Victoria’s liquor licensing regulator.

Now the Andrews Government must step in and fix this mess, announce the terms of reference for the proposed review of the Liquor Act and halt reckless licensing decisions that will result in more family violence.

Time to put the families of Victoria first.

Michael Thorn

Michael was was Chief Executive of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) from January 2011 until November 2019

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