The problem, if one exists, of 'risky drinking' won't be solved by new taxation approaches, desirable as a simplified system might be. What is required is an analysis of who drinks riskily and under what circumstances. The tax approach implied in this article penalises those who drink responsibly equally with irresponsible drinkers. It's the same approach used in the so-called obesity 'epidemic'. The State of Victoria's Children report for 2007 shows that 7.4% of young Victorians are obese. That is, 92.6% are not. It's possible to identify the high risk groups and their geographical locations and to target these groups with, for example, more fresh food outlets and school based health programs or, in the case of alcohol, education progams aimed at high risk drinkers. Before anything is done, however, the 'nanny state' approach which assumes that adults are not capable of making decisions about their own lives has to be defeated. Lecturing the entire populace about drinking or eating or exercise has been shown over the decades to have some impact on those who already act in the desired way and to be ignored by everyone else. Only when this 'holier than thou' attitude disappears are measures which target the most vulnerable groups likely to be effective.

The approach you could take is like the campaign against smoking. Over the years a combination of ads which show the consequences of smoking, prohibitions on where you can smoke, consistent taxes and OH&S legislation has assisting in a decline in that particular type of drug use. Now smoking is regarded in many quarters as anti-social. Hopefully alcohol use will go the same way but not if nothing is done.

As a taxpayer, I'd be happy to see money go towards advertising showing what using alcohol can do to you and how you can be happier without the stuff. Also, restrictions on pub opening hours and where people can drink would help. But governments have to be serious about the extent of the problem. Taxing alcopops and other half-arsed measures is not being serious.

Not a lot of comment here, so I will put my 2c worth in.

Smeaton nail it in saying alcohol should be taxed by the amount of equivalent pure alcohol in the bottle. Implementing it uniformly would simplify the tax system for a start. One rate, applied to all liquor rather than the shemozzle we have now.

His justification of it was poor. Most of the harm from alcohol - the beatings, the murders, the spouse abuse, the theft, comes form the regular heavy abusers. We read about how some middle class white girl gets taken advantage of after having one too many. I guess its the image that causes most consternation in your average parent. But it is not where the damage is done. The real damage is done by the guy who drinks himself into a stupor every night, then goes home to bash up the family. This was proved in Alice Springs, when the local doctors got the law changed. Low cost alcohol was removed from the shelves. The local constabulary was heard to say 6 months later they had nothing left to do - not a single murder. Unheard of.

Why does it work? Because these people are miss fits. And dirt poor. They buy as much of the cheapest sherry or port they can find - the stuff that goes for around $1/litre and drink the lot. This stuff costs so little because of the back room tax breaks Smeaton describes. Up the price to what the rest of us pay for say a can of beer (which is what they did in Alice), and the problem goes away. We are not talking about upping the price of beer or fine wine. The target is 2 buck chuck.

This won't help our over indulgent daughters, and so won't get much popular support. Pity, because its up against the entire wine industry who cry "lost jobs" every time volumetric taxing is mentioned. They evidently put jobs well ahead of the mothers and kids who cope the brunt of the violence their product causes.

Putting up taxes won't stop drinkers.At the last recession of 1990 people started brewing their own and so the Govt lost tax anyway.Make it very expensive and the same will happen again,only some will drink a lot more since a beer can be produced at home for just a few cents.