Thanks for the opportunity to lead off today’s discussion …

I’ve been asked to speak on the current AOD environment from a national point of view … on the direction Australia’s heading with its policies on alcohol and other drugs.

Are we at a crossroads as the theme for this gathering suggests?

Or are we on an expressway with no off-ramp in sight?

From where I stand there are precious few crossroads along the way.

Maybe a few “give way” or “stop” signs wouldn’t be a bad thing to give us time for a breather … to really take stock of where Australia stands on drug and alcohol issues … and to act.

The truth is we’re not faring too well.

The international war on drugs has been waged for so long that it makes some of the world’s great military encounters look like a flash in the pan by comparison.

I acknowledge the need for vigilance in efforts to stem the flow of illicit drugs into Australia, on to our streets and into the hands of consumers.

Unfortunately, that’s where they are most often detected and one has to ask what that achieves – other than ensuring that young people, who most often fall foul of the law in such cases, end up with a criminal record that won’t go away any time soon.

Unfortunately, good sense and policy development in this area seem mutually exclusive.

Australia 21 has been pushing for the best part of the last 18 months for a top level drug summit … to weigh up the impact of the war on drugs … to take a long hard look at the logic behind the “lock ‘em up” mentality.

ADCA and many of its like-minded associates don’t condone illicit drugs.

But where’s the rationale in cluttering up our courts and correctional institutions with minor offenders – while the big cheeses of the drug world go largely unscathed?

The money governments spend in this area could be put to so much better use.

Diversionary programs … education … justice reinvestment … giving people who don’t warrant heavy handed treatment a chance to sidestep the criminal justice system …

Look at the disproportionate representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our prison populations.

The most recent figures show that nearly 8000 people who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander were in prison.

That represents more than a quarter of the nation’s entire prison population.

By comparison, only two point five percent of our entire population identifies as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

There are always those who SHOULD be in prison. ADCA doesn’t believe violent or habitual criminal offenders deserve kid gloves treatment.

Consider the ANCD/ NIDAC research from earlier this year that weighed the cost of locking up non-violent offenders against affording them residential treatment.

The report placed the estimated average cost per day of a prisoner at $315.00 … residential treatment clients were costed at as little as just over $200 a day.

Surely the growth in prison numbers tells us that the system’s broke.

Yet, while prisons are being mothballed in Texas in the US – where in the past incarceration was a growth industry – Australian states and territories want to build more.

And at what cost?

Why?

We need to get our prison populations down by weighing up whether minor offenders should be incarcerated … why they turn to alcohol and other drugs in the first place and whether we can help stop them re-offending.

We need to keep people out of courts and corrections facilities.

And we need to use the money we save by doing so to keep things that way.

The “tough on drugs” mindset does nothing – other than sound good from up on the hustings.

It strikes a chord … sure … but fining and jailing people for relatively minor transgressions achieves nothing.

Our other major area of concern is, of course, the unfettered promotion and sale of alcohol.

Three quarters of our population believe that Australia has a problem with alcohol – their opinions no doubt partly shaped by research that shows four million of us drink regularly for the sole purpose of getting drunk.

We know the social cost – an estimated $36 billion a year.

But what do governments do about it?

I saw a program last week that reported an average of 70 cases a week Australia-wide where a night out ends in violence.

ADCA wrote to the prime minister-elect, Tony Abbott last week saying that this culture of drunken violence warranted urgent action.

We emphasised that ADCA wasn’t anti-alcohol – a myth that the industry likes to push if we step on its collective toes.

We were concerned that, despite the belief of the Australian community that we have a problem with alcohol, neither governments nor industry were showing any commitment to addressing the issue.

My letter was in part spurred by Mr Abbott’s thoughtless comment that people shouldn’t be in places where they were likely to get belted.

Mr Abbott’s exact words were … if you are walking down the street at 2am in Kings Cross in Sydney and you get king hit, maybe you shouldn't be there.

That must have been of inestimable comfort to Thomas Kelly’s family …

… or closer to home here in Newcastle, to Tony Brown’s daughter after she was assaulted and robbed.

ADCA also wrote several times to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd on the issue over the past eight months. The only thing all three politicians had in common was their seeming inability to respond to our letters.

Perhaps we’re easily ignored. But we did raise the opinions of police and paramedics who, tired of cleaning up the mess, have spoken out and blamed the availability of alcohol for so many of society’s ills.

Why do governments at all levels fail to heed these opinions?

Why do they not listen to research conducted by their own agencies?

Why are they comfortable imposing alcohol management plans on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities … yet completely ignoring the dreadful behavior so common in wider society?

Barry O’Farrell said last week that his government wasn’t going to institute pub lockouts in an attempt to curb alcohol-related violence … preferring to act on the advice of police.

That’s something ADCA has been urging him to do for the past year.

But it’s not just New South Wales.

Politicians everywhere are behaving badly.

In Canberra in July, the then Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler and his opposite number Andrew Southcott refused to commit to exploring alcohol taxation or advertising reform.

To say that ADCA and other members of the National Alliance for Action on Alcohol were appalled is putting it mildly.

Politicians need to acknowledge that drug and alcohol problems are a national concern.

They need to acknowledge that their rhetoric is hollow.

The then shadow spokesman for health, Peter Dutton told last month’s National Press Club Health Policy debate that the coalition wouldn’t consider a review of the alcohol taxation regime in government.

Why?

Will this be the new government’s policy?

Again, why?

Specially when the evidence points to the good sense in going down this road …

Experience overseas has shown that bumping up alcohol tax and aligning it with a minimum price cuts consumption.

Yet governments go to water when anyone mentions the recommendations on alcohol taxation in the Henry review.

That’s despite the reality of our problem with heavy drinkers drinking more … with young people binge drinking …

Nearly a decade ago, ADCA told the Productivity Commission inquiry into national competition policy that liquor licensing and competition between liquor retailers was simply not on.

And only a few months ago, the latest figures from the Institute of Criminology revealed that the societal costs of alcohol outweigh taxation revenue two to one.

If politicians aren’t going to look at the option from an economic viewpoint – and remember we’ve got a budget black hole the size of Texas – then surely they owe it to the Australian population to consider the nation’s health.

And they need to stop playing fast and loose with the taxes that we pay.

The alcopops tax has raised billions since its introduction in 2008 with the intention of countering binge drinking.

And how much has gone to the cause?

Maybe in the region of $250 million.

Regardless of the government in power, this is shameful. It exposes what was promoted as a concerned response as nothing more than a cynical tax grab.

ADCA made a submission last month to the review of the New South Wales Liquor Act – as I’m sure many of you here did.

Our submission made the point that harm minimisation should be the paramount objective of the review.

In the current legislation the concept gets buried in a discussion on community amenity.

Harm minimisation is one of the tenets of the National Drug Strategy and, as such, is an aspiration relevant to the entire health and wellbeing sector.

And it’s backed up by Professor Harvey Whiteford from the University of Queensland in his contribution to the latest Lancet Global Burden of Disease report.

Whiteford’s study shows mental illness, drugs and alcohol are responsible for more of the global health burden than diabetes or stroke – or from HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis combined.

Depressive disorders cause more than 40 per cent of the mental health burden in the 187 countries and 21 regions studied. Drugs come in at nearly 11 per cent and alcohol nearly 10.

The most vulnerable people are aged 10 to 29.

They’re the people we should be looking out for because Australia's increasing mental health burden stems from population growth and ageing rather than increasing prevalence.

You’ve got to think this means a huge proportion of the population is at risk.

And it links to a deeper malaise.

I for one was surprised to see that at no stage in the course of the election campaign did ANY of the parties mention the marginalised elements of our society.

But the chief executive of St Vincent de Paul, John Falzon, DID raise the issue, saying the election should be about giving a go to people who are missing out.

That politicians needed to show some vision … some heart …

There are many missing out if last year’s report on poverty from the Australian Council of Social Service is an indication.

ACOSS says that more than more than two and-a-quarter million people – just under 13 per cent of the Australian population – live below the most austere poverty line.

ACOSS CEO, Dr Cassandra Goldie provided an even more confronting interpretation.

In wealthy Australia she said, one in eight people overall and one in six children were living below the poverty line.

Think about that when you look at the number of people in the room here today.

ACOSS highlighted the plight of the poor … little access to appropriate housing … lack of mobility … no car, no access to public transport … no access to health or other services … single nationality, socially deprived enclaves … no health or income insurance and no job or job opportunity.

In such an environment, it’s little surprise that people turn to drugs and alcohol, compounding the problem and often giving rise to mental health issues.

And how do we respond to the problem?

We spend two thirds of the total annual budget allocated to illicit drug use on law enforcement – over one point one billion dollars

we spend one fifth – or $360 million on treatment ….

just shy of $160 million – or a tenth – on prevention …

and a piddling $36 million on harm reduction.

Someone’s got it dreadfully wrong!

Consider that in New South Wales, police and the Department of Community Services deal with an average of 350 cases a day of domestic violence.

The government’s own research reveals up to 70 per cent of these are alcohol-related.

In Western Australia, the government wants to spend millions to build a jail in the Kimberley … no prizes for guessing the makeup of the inmates in a facility that will probably be filled the first time the front gate opens.

Still in the region, there was a timely call last week by paediatrician James Fitzpatrick for Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders to be recognised as a disability.

Fitzpatrick’s involved in work at Fitzroy Crossing in the far northwest where women from the local community have brought the condition to public notice.

He says that treating it as a disability will be important in enabling families and schools to access the therapeutic services that they require.

But FASD isn't only an Aboriginal problem – nor is it confined to remote Australia.

Think back to my earlier words about the socially disadvantaged in our society and you’ll see that it’s much closer to home.

Across the border, the Northern Territory insists that mandatory rehab is the way to handle public drunkenness.

The fact that the Giles administration is locking people up for this so-called rehab is tragic from a human rights perspective and laughable as rehabilitees continue to escape from ill-equipped facilities.

In Victoria, suburban Melbourne is in the grip of a methamphetamine epidemic and answers as to how it might be handled aren’t exactly flowing. This is a state that also thinks it needs more prison space.

The Newman government in Queensland has slashed health and wellbeing programs around the state and defunded health promotion programs in areas that can ill afford it.

Even Bundaberg, still reeling eight months after devastating floods, has lost mental health workers as part of the government’s austerity drive.

In this city, where hundreds of damaged homes have yet to be rebuilt, owners and occupants are doing it tough.

And in South Australia, the federal government cut funding to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander drug and alcohol rehab centre at Kalparrin near Murray Bridge.

The South Australian government is currently slashing and burning health services in an effort to save $160 million this financial year, withdrawing from a range of services with a view to the private sector filling the gaps.

With no real voice, the “little” people affected by these government actions suffer.

They’re out of sight and out of mind.

Governments cry poor.

They cut funding to areas where the people don’t have a voice …

Be it those who deal with the disadvantaged – or the disadvantaged themselves …

Governments will probably insist that they’re listening.

They might say that they are drawing on evidence about what works.

The problem is that what they are doing isn’t necessarily going to have the biggest impact.

There are far more effective strategies that they could put in place around alcohol for example that would cost less and have greater impact.

It’s a compromise – satisfying vested interests like the powerful liquor lobby while wanting to be SEEN to be doing something.

Only today will the coalition under Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott reveal the shape of its ministry and it will probably be several months before we get an inkling of how the new government’s policy agenda will affect our society.

At this stage, it’s too early to try to guess how all this will manifest … how it will affect the people we in the health and wellbeing sector represent.

I think today we need to put in clear and unambiguous terms what it is we want to see from this new government … perhaps we should use the occasion to issue a manifesto based on the years of experience of those in this room.

The nature of what we do – the people we deal with – these are all issues at a crossroads

Mine is a want list – not a wish list.

I imagine it’s remarkably similar to yours.

We need to let government at all levels know what we think – what the issues are that we will raise here today – and what we want done.

Thank you.