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  Nicola Roxon April 27, 2008  Watch our reportSunday's political guest this week is the minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon. LO: Nicola Roxon, welcome to "Sunday". NR: Good morning. LO: Rudd's midnight sweep on bottle shops booze tax up. That's the front page headline in one of our papers today, is the excise on premix drinks a health measure or a grab for revenue? NR: Well, look, this is a really important health measure, and I think, to be honest, the previous government simply made a mistake reducing the excise on these ready to mix drinks. What we've seen from 2000 when they did that, is an absolute explosion in the sales of these products, and we've seen some serious problems showing particularly for young people, and young women, a report that's being released today just shows that there are thousands and thousands of girls,15 and under, who are drinking these products to amounts that and levels that have never been seen before. We know they are price sensitive, we know young people do change their habits depending on price, so we think that this measure will have a health impact and that's why we've introduced it. LO: Well, let's go through this in detail, the starting point seems to be a national drug strategy household survey that's just been released, which shows, I think, that the normal trend of females being more responsible than males when it comes to drinking is reversed in the case of teenage girls. Can you give us details on that? NR: Yes, look it's actually a stunning bit of material that has been put together by the Institute of Health and Welfare, and you're right in saying that in almost every other category, it's men that are the risk takers when it comes to alcohol and tobacco, and elicit drugs, but for the young women, what we've now seen, and we are talking about under 15s here, we're not talking sort of 19 and 20-year-olds, the pattern of risky children. LO: Children. LO: Yeah, risky drinking at three times the level that we see for young boys. Now, it's a problem for either men or women, I know, but there is something going on, which I think we can see from the patterns is related to the fact that these products are targeted to young people. They're full of sugar, you know, they're marketed so you can't particularly taste the alcohol, and we've seen an explosion in their consumption by young people, and we want to try to turn that around. LO: Well, one of the findings was that at least twice as many girls, aged 14-19, are consuming alcohol at a level that's high risk of long-term harm than boys of the same age. Girls aged 14-19 are more likely than boys at the same age, to have tried marijuana, methamphetamines and cocaine, I mean, why are girls apparently more susceptible? NR: Well, unfortunately this research doesn't show us why, but I think that there are a range of complex issues that we have to start tackling, we have to take seriously that young people do have health issues, some have mental health issues, some have body image issues, there's pressure, I think, to behave like adults much earlier than there has been, but I do think that these products are also ones that lend themselves to being particularly attractive to young people and to young women. We can track the change in the way that young women have been drinking these products from the time that the Howard Government changed the excise in 2000, and we've seen patterns where it's gone from about 14 per cent of young girls drinking these products up to about 60 per cent, so this is an explosion, that we think, needs to be tackled. When you put together both the research from the Institute of Health and Welfare, and the patterns from the producers of sales, we have a problem that must be turned around and this is the place that we're starting. LO: Well we're talking here about such things what, Bacardi breezers, rum and coke, vodka cruisers, why did the previous government reduce the excise, what was the reason they gave? NR: Well, look, it's really hard to understand. I mean what we're doing is closing that loophole. It means that if you buy, like you say a Bacardi Breezer, vodka and orange that's already premixed you will be charged the same excise as if you bought that alcohol as a spirit and mixed it yourself. Now, that's sensible, we don't want there to be an extra price incentive to buy these products, but it's beyond me to understand why the previous government did that. I don't know if it's pressure from lobbying, I don't know if they just made a mistake, but we've started to see the social consequences and we're not going to just stand by and let that keep happening. LO: Well, under the decision that takes effect from midnight last night, the excise on these drinks go up from $39 a litre of pure alcohol to $67 a litre, now that's a pretty big jump, isn't it? Are you sure that will be enough to act as a disincentive? NR: Well, it is a pretty hefty jump, it's an increase of about 70 per cent, it does put it on an equal footing to bottled spirits, so equalising it, if you like, which I think is important. We know that these products will go up probably between about 30 cents of up to $1.30, depending on the amount of alcohol in each of the different products, and that's a significant amount for young people. We've got research that shows that young people are price sensitive and if that means this is a deterrent, then that will be a really successful measure from our part. LO: Can we cut to the chase, you're saying aren't you, that the previous government, I suppose in the person of Peter Costello really is partly responsible for this jump in binge drinking among young girls? NR: Well I think the previous government is partly responsible. I think they made a mistake. We're going to turn that around. I think there are broader social trends that are at play here that we also have to worry about. The research that's being released today does show other disturbing trends for young women that you've mentioned in terms of illicit drug use as well so I am not pretending that they are single-handedly responsible for it, but the patterns and links that we can see that flow from that decision in 2000 are strong. We have the power to change it and that's why we've taken this action as of midnight last night. LO: Well, it's estimated that this excise increase will raise about $2 billion a year, I think, that's a heck of a lot of money, how will the government spend it? NR: Well, look, it is a large amount of money, and obviously the budget papers released on budget night will show the detailed assessments of what's expected to be raised. We are going to make sure that a big chunk of that excise will be spent on our National preventative health strategy. It's something that the Prime Minister and I have made very clear from the beginning of being in government that we regard this as a top priority, and this change will see the single biggest investment ever by a Commonwealth Government into preventative health measures, and that's a very exciting thing to be part of, and something where I think Commonwealth money will be well spent in improving health outcomes across the country. LO: But you're not going to spend all the money on preventative health measures, what will happen to the rest of the it? NR: Well look, we will be spend in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars, so I don't think you should underestimate the significance of being able to spend a significant portion on preventative health measures, but I think we need to remember something else. This is actually a health measure in itself, we have clear research to show that buy increasing the excise and increasing the price of these products we will be able to at least partially deter some young people from drinking this product and the amounts at which they drink. So it's something that we're concerned about achieving a health outcome on its own, and, of course, it will free up a significant amount of money for us to invest in broader preventative health measures as well. LO: You mentioned a new national preventative health strategy, what are we talking about, are we just talking about another government advertising campaign or something more than that? NR: No, we're talking about something that is far more comprehensive than that. We've established a preventative health care task force which is led by Professor Rob Moody who's a leader actually in terms of world public health campaigning. He and his team are going to develop a comprehensive strategy for us. That looks across the board at the sort of interventions the Commonwealth should be involved with. We did this really well in Australia with tobacco. We probably need to relook at how we can reduce smoking rates further. We know we need to tackle it in terms of alcohol and off course, there is a growing risk from obesity as well. They're the top three target jobs that we've given this new task force, and we've given ourselves a timetable of the middle of next year when we want to have our preventative partnerships with the states up and running, so this will be a pretty comprehensive strategy. I'm sure there will be public campaigns, but there's also much more person to person interventions than we need to think about. Community initiatives that we need to target, school programs, it needs to be comprehensive for it to make a real difference. LO: Now, last weekend's 2020 summit call for a National preventative health agency to be set up funded by taxes on products with high social cost, is that what you are going to do? NR: Well obviously the excise measure that we've taken overnight is picking up on one of those themes, that the 2020 summit was very strong on. We will consider the proposal to establish an agency, but first we want the task force to do its work, and the negotiations with the States to proceed. It may be that as part of the comprehensive strategy, that's what's recommended, but at this stage we're not committing to that, we will consider it along with other recommendations from the 2020 conference. LO: Well one of those recommendations was fast fruit for schools, is that the kind of thing you could fund out of the $2 billion? NR: Well, it certainly is the type of thing you could fund. There's actually a vast array of community initiatives that focus on nutrition, exercise, strengthening community attitudes to mental health and interventions that might be needed for young people, exercise programs and bone strengthening, if you like, for older people, which has been shown to have some really positive benefits. What we want the task force to do is actually to look at what's already happening, to look at what's happening around the world, to tell us which interventions work. Some of them sound good but we need to make sure that they will actually be successful, and that's why we're not rushing to try to itemise the sorts of projects these will go into. Some we've already supported, like the kitchen garden programs in schools as part of our obesity measures, but we want to get advice on what's working in the community, and we funded some research so that we can back the ones that are the most successful. LO: On this program last Sunday, the Deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, said she'd read Alistair Campbell's Diaries of the Blair Years, and she talked about when Blair was in trouble Alistair Campbell's advice was let's declare war on binge drinking, the implication is that, that's what Kevin Rudd is doing, what's your response to that? NR: Well, I haven't read the Diaries, I have to confess my partner's reading them at the moment, I'm next in line when he gets through that massive book. I don't think that we're modelling this on anything that's happened elsewhere, we can look at our own research here and see that we have a problem and we have quite a bit cultural problem. I think the broader community understands that and I think the broader community, particularly parents, want to be part of the solution, but they also look to the governments to play their bit. This is something we can clearly do, where we know that the price messages that we send can have an impact and I'm actually very proud to be part of a government that's determined to take this on, when it is a difficult social problem that needs tackling. LO: Minister, we thank you. NR: Thank you very much. |
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