I'm always suspicious when Govt suddenly picks up on a perannual chronic problem and starts making noises about increasing taxes.We have more poker machines per head than any other country on the planet.Pokies are evil anti-social devices that just sap the life blood of the battlers.No mention of banning them.

Yes our binge drinking/violence problems are getting worse,but a lot of this violence is due to a lack of discipline and a legal system that negates it's responsibility in not creating serious consequences for poor behaviour.The laws are there but they won't enforce them.

Huge increases in taxes on alcohol will again penalise the majority who enjoy a social drink.The ratbags will simply turn to illicit drugs such as speed and ecstacy,thus the problem will just present in a different form.Home brewing will also again become popular and the addicts will increase.Remember prohibition?

Govt has to look beyond taxes a solution to managing our social woes.
Getting Govt off our backs would be a good start,since many would find individual autonomy an uplifting experience.

If alcohol taxes are to be increased,then this money should be given charities that help addicts and not just shoring up Govts bottom lines.I just don't trust them.

Yeah I'm real sus too. But I'm always sus on stats. You could imagine at the local cop shop a memo going out for all officers HAVE to log all incidents relating to drinking becuase the Gubbermint have got a bee in thier collective bonnets and need some numbers. Instantly the stats would go up 50% because ALL the conversations the coppers would have with every drunk, or their interpretation of a drunk would get logged as a stat.

You've got to consider increase in population. Inevitably the numbers would increase, as well. Like you pointed out too, people are getting alot more ballsy with the law. You know if you cause a stink being drunk you'll just get a slap on the wrist.

I don't agree with you here...

"Huge increases in taxes on alcohol will again penalise the majority who enjoy a social drink.The ratbags will simply turn to illicit drugs such as speed and ecstacy,thus the problem will just present in a different form.Home brewing will also again become popular and the addicts will increase.Remember prohibition?"

You're stating that the "ratbags" write themselves off by cheapest means possible. Ain't true. GENERALLY, and in my personal experience through working in the security industry the absolute minority of drunks cause issues. 10% of them at most. More likely 2-3%, and GENERALLY, and in my personal experience, the vast majority of those are in their 20's, mid to late 20's mostly. By a persons mid to late 20's they've pretty much already established their means of getting *hitfaced. 99% of users (from my personal experience) have experimented and established their use or non-use of illicit drugs by their early 20's...if not late teens, unless they're a late 'bloomer'. Go to a pub and canvass the patrons on their opinion of illicit drug usage. I bet you anything you like you'll get a definitive answer from every single one of them. They'll either be totally for it, or totally aginst it. I guarantee.

Part of the problem is that the kids have little hope and the adults are not all that helpful.
Its a forever moving, changing world full of wars and conflicts.
A quiet fear stalks the land.
I always recommend the Christian churches to anyone in trouble. Not the old fuddy-duddy traditional churches with all of the ceremony but the really alive christian churches where theres "jumping" music and joy, joy, joy.
Where theres healings and miracles, and prophecy and tongues and interpretation, and people falling under the power of The Holy Spirit.
The safest place in the future, have a close look at whats happening in the world, will be in Christian churches- on- fire- for- Jesus. Assembly of God, Christian Outreach Centres, Reachout for Christ churches, Christian Life Centres, and all of the independent pentecostal churches are where you need to be.
Theres no hope in booze or drugs. But vast hope in becoming a born again Christian through that one glorious personal commitment to Jesus. You can invite Him into your life anytime, any day!
"Everyone who calls on the name of The Lord will be saved"...Romans 10:13.
HE sure changed my life.

It's the same old thing - a small minority of people are unable to take care of themselves, so we all have to put up with draconian laws, rules and regulations - all to protect one or two dimwits from injuring themselves.

This morning I heard some QLD pollie wants to bring in a bill that extends each spin on a pokie machine by 7 seconds! To make them less fun for problem gambling apparently. Another case of the silent majority suffering because of the governments 'need' to protect the stupid.

I'm very wary of this sudden hysteria over "alcohol fuelled violence" as well. When a catch phrase like that starts to become familiar it's always advisable to take a step back and think for a bit.

I agree that alcohol itself, and alcohol by itself, is the wrong focus but don't necessarily agree with the proposed law and order solutions. There are two things to this: alcohol on one hand, and violence on the other.

Our society is saturated with violence from movies to road rage. Even our public debates are violent if you think about the language used. War on anything you care to name, get heavy with whatever, zero tolerance, stamp out something else.

I think we could do better than trying to restrict alcohol (prohibition never works) and focus instead on campaigns aimed at making violence totally unacceptable, drunk or not, home or not, young or not.

I didn't like the coverage of this issue. It was so one sided, like a hit piece. It's amazing how such views gain so much traction so easily in our society. Media generated outrage. Often violence is consented to by both sides and these incidents shouldn't be used to promote an anti-alcohol agenda.

Kevin Rudd's talk fest is another forum for all the social engineers to come to the fore and try to impose more restrictions on us all for problems of their own making.

Why has our society decayed so much in the last 40 yrs?ANS.Soft option left wing philosophies.Now their solutions are to further penalise and restrict the freedoms of the majority rather than making individuals responsible for their own actions.The result is today is that we have enormous incompetent Govts that are consumed by their own inerta.No passion,no plans ,no infrastructure and no direction.

You're a bit wrong there Arjay and should be careful about being so blindly partisan. The right are very, very heavy on moral values and restrictions. The left have been generally open and liberal. However, both sides seem to choose different targets that they would call evil to society and we end up without anything. I would see more consistency across the board.

The new wowserism that is being foisted on us as a consequence of the feminisation of politics has barely begun. The formula is to find something that men do more than women (or boys do more than girls) and demonise it through the media, then use the public attention generated to gain support for laws that proscribe it, or at least to gain funding for a "study" by one of the "pro-feminist" sociologists that infest the outer reaches of academia like cockroaches around a poorly-kept bin.

"Violence by men against women" is seen as practically the same as murder, yet violence by women against men is dismissed as trivial and violence by men against men doesn't even get a mention except as a tool for promoting the demonistion of alcohol and other drugs. In the media coverage of this disgraceful beat up, I've seen lots of images of violence, all of them involving men, yet none at all featuring the drunken, abusive women that are virtually de rigeur at any pub in the suburbs. If women get a mention, it's as victims. We've now even got the prospect of the RSPCA using images of men beating up women with the "justification" that people who deliberately harm animals may also deliberately harm people! No statistics or hard facts about prevalence, of course, just as there are none mentioned in the latest demonisation campaign using alcohol.

The wowserism is fuelled by the christian churches, who have enormous power to bend the ear of politicians and who are dominated by their reliance on a strong female membership and the male partners they bring along. Without those female members, there would be few church functions caried out, let alone handfuls of money when the collection plate is handed around.

The 'new wowserism' is not a left wing invention. For all Howard's talk and fight against political correctness, the last 12 years saw a real erosion of individual rights.

We may see it go even further under a Labor government, but I hope not.

Countryboy: "The 'new wowserism' is not a left wing invention. For all Howard's talk and fight against political correctness, the last 12 years saw a real erosion of individual rights.

We may see it go even further under a Labor government, but I hope not."

You're absolutely right about Howard's term being all about removal of individual rights; my point was that the feminisation agenda has been going on for some time now, not that the Rudd Government is the proximal cause. I doubt that your wish for an abatement under his stewardship will be granted, however. He's in the grip of both the Christian churches (as was Howard) and a very powerfully feminised Union support base, as well as a powerful wife. Men, especially men who are not of the "Christian nerd" persuasion, can anticipate ever-growing strictures and social stigmatisation. As the domestic violence industry loves to tell us, it's all about control. Also as in that case, the intent is for women to have it and men to be under it.

Couldn't have said it better, Antiseptic. Men have many interests and pursuits that women generally find "too much" or "threatening". It is my impression that the political pressures to ban these predominantly male interests mainly come from that quarter. Then they find some allies in the religious on things like censorship and we have overt oppression of one gender and their interests. It's a slow, subtle process, but it's inexorable since they never rest and need to keep the funding of their sexist academia and pursuits. This of course is a generalisation and there are always exceptions, many men for example are feminists and many women do not fit this mould, but I believe it's more or less accurate. The religious are probably as powerful despite our alleged secularism, but we have both a Federal Office for Women and a Minister for the Status of Women. That's unequal democratic representation and the crazy thing is, feminists or these offices will never admit that women are ever equal and label themselves obsolete because that is not really their goal. They are not end their power and funding like responsibly or admit feminism is not required any longer.