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COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Official Committee Hansard
SENATE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Reference: Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill 2007 [2008]
THURSDAY, 15 MAY 2008
CANBERRA
BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE
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SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Members: Senator Moore (Chair), Senator Humphries (Deputy Chair), Senators Adams, Al-
lison, Boyce, Carol Brown, Lundy and Polley
Participating members: Senators Abetz, Barnett, Bartlett, Bernardi, Birmingham, Mark
Bishop, Boswell, Brandis, Bob Brown, Bushby, Campbell, Chapman, Colbeck, Collins,
Coonan, Cormann, Crossin, Eggleston, Ellison, Fielding, Fierravanti-Wells, Fifield, Fisher,
Forshaw, Heffernan, Hogg, Hurley, Hutchins, Johnston, Joyce, Kemp, Kirk, Lightfoot, Ian
Macdonald, Sandy Macdonald, McEwen, McGauran, McLucas, Marshall, Mason, Milne,
Minchin, Nash, Nettle, O’Brien, Parry, Patterson, Payne, Ronaldson, Scullion, Siewert,
Stephens, Sterle, Stott Despoja, Troeth, Trood, Watson, Webber and Wortley
Senators in attendance: Senators Adams, Birmingham, Boyce, Colbeck, Fielding,
Humphries, Moore and Siewert
Terms of reference for the inquiry:
To inquire into and report on:
Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill 2007 [2008]
WITNESSES
BRYANT, Ms Jennifer, First Assistant Secretary, Department of Health and Ageing .. 41
FLADUN, Mr John, General Counsel, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand..... 41
FLYNN, Ms Julie Patricia, Chief Executive Officer, Free TV Australia.......................... 24
GOSS, Mr Wayne Keith, Chair, Free TV Australia........................................................... 24
HART, Ms Virginia, Assistant Secretary, Drug Strategy Branch, Department of Health
and Ageing.............................................................................................................................. 41
HERBERT, Ms Sarah Jane, Manager, Legal and Regulatory, Commercial Radio
Australia ................................................................................................................................. 35
JONES, Professor Sandra Carol, Director, Centre for Health Initiatives, University of
Wollongong............................................................................................................................... 1
LEARMONTH, Mr David, Deputy Secretary, Department of Health and Ageing......... 41
SMEATON, Mr Daryl Peter, Chief Executive Officer, Alcohol Education and
Rehabilitation Foundation Ltd ............................................................................................. 14
WARNER, Ms Joan, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Radio Australia.................. 35
WILSON, Mr Scott, Deputy Chairperson, Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation
Foundation Ltd ...................................................................................................................... 14
Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 1
Committee met at 3.38 pm
JONES, Professor Sandra Carol, Director, Centre for Health Initiatives, University of
Wollongong
CHAIR (Senator Moore)—The committee is continuing its inquiry into the provisions of
the Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill 2007 [2008]. Professor, we welcome you.
Senator FIELDING—Excuse me, Chair. Could I raise an issue of concern from the last
inquiry?
CHAIR—I do apologise, Professor. Senator Fielding, perhaps you should have raised it
before we had the witness here. What is your concern?
Senator FIELDING—It has come to my attention that one of the senators at the last
hearing has close links to the alcohol industry and in fact works for one of the alcohol
groups—
CHAIR—This is a statement for us to take in private. I apologise to the witness. We will
have this discussion in private.
Proceedings suspended from 3.39 pm to 3.42 pm
CHAIR—Professor, you have information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of
witnesses and evidence?
Prof. Jones—Yes, I do.
CHAIR—The committee has your submission. Thank you very much. If you could make a
short opening statement to put your issues before the committee, then we will go to questions.
Prof. Jones—Thank you. Firstly, just having conducted numerous studies into the effects
of alcohol advertising on young people and the effectiveness of the current Australian system,
I very much welcome the opportunity to be involved in what I think is a much-needed review
of these issues. I will try very hard to focus on the terms of the bill. I have lots of opinions on
other things, but I will stick to labelling and advertising. I know the aim of the bill is to create
a culture of responsible drinking and to facilitate a reduction in the alcohol toll. I think that a
cultural change is absolutely essential, given our current levels of alcohol consumption and
alcohol-related harm among young people. I will not go through the detail of that because I
know you have lots of submissions. However, given the clear evidence from both
experimental studies and longitudinal research, exposure to alcohol advertising is clearly
associated with drinking intentions and drinking behaviours among young people.
In terms of the specific components of the bill in relation to health information labels, I
definitely support the proposal to include these labels, but I think some research is needed on
exactly what the content and format of those labels should be. The evidence from other
countries is equivocal on whether they work or not. I think a lot of that is due to the way that
they are designed and the way they are worded, particularly the tailoring of messages to target
audiences so that they are salient. For example, labelling alcopops with warnings about issues
associated with the harms of binge drinking would be more appropriate than warnings about
the long-term effects of cancer. We have to think about who the target audience is.
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CA 2 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
In relation to restricting TV and radio alcohol advertising to after 9 pm and before 5 am, I
think that the primary impact of that will be to remove the current anomaly which allows
alcohol advertising during live sporting telecasts, which is a big problem in this country. It is
something that does not happen in many other countries. Our research and the research of
others clearly shows that children have a very high awareness of and liking for alcohol
brands, particularly due to their exposure to them during sporting telecasts and the links that
those children make between those products, their sporting heroes and the codes. I did note
that Free TV in their submission argued that young people do not make up a substantial
proportion of the sports-viewing audience. If we look at the data they presented, it includes all
sporting types and does not differentiate between things like lawn bowls, which children do
not watch and which does not run alcohol advertising, and Australian Rules football and
rugby, which are completely saturated with alcohol advertising and are very much watched by
children.
In terms of requiring alcohol ads to be preapproved by a government body, there is very
clear evidence that the current industry system—both the pre-vetting system and the
monitoring and regulation—is completely ineffective in protecting young people from
inappropriate messages about alcohol. The industry holds up the current codes as exemplars
of the effectiveness of self-regulation, but repeated research studies have shown that both
experts and community members perceive the system to be ineffective and clearly perceive
messages to be present in those advertisements that the code supposedly prohibits. In banning
alcohol ads which link drinking to personal business, social and sporting success, the specific
wording may need some work to make sure that it is something possible for us to monitor and
implement. The fact that those specific clauses and words are currently in the industry self-
regulatory code demonstrates that they are quite reasonable and that even the industry has
agreed that those are the sorts of message we should not have in alcohol advertising. We have
consistent research evidence that those messages are there and continue to be there under a
self-regulatory system. The code needs to be expanded to include banning alcohol advertising
which encourages excessive consumption, associates driving and drinking, for obvious
reasons, and encourages people to drink alcohol based on its higher alcohol content.
Obviously the use of the word ‘ban’ implies that this needs to be an independent non-industry
regulatory system in pre-vetting, in monitoring and in some sort of punitive strategy to
prevent these ads going back out there.
CHAIR—Thank you, Professor. We will go to questions.
Senator FIELDING—Thank you, Professor Jones, for coming here and for your
submission. Would you please explain to the committee the evidence that shows children and
young under-aged people are being exposed to alcohol advertising? Is advertising linked to
young people drinking more alcohol?
Prof. Jones—As I mentioned before, the Free TV submission stated that it was only a
small proportion of young people watching. I think they said that 3.8 per cent of the viewing
audience of televised sport was children aged 13 to 17, but if you looked at the proportion of
the population at aged 13 to 17, that is not substantially different. As I said, it covers all forms
of sport, so they are exposed to the advertising. The study commissioned by the Department
of Health and Ageing, the King et al study, which I think most of you are familiar with,
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 3
showed that the exposure to televised alcohol advertising among 13- to 17-year-olds is only
slightly less than exposure to legal-aged drinkers. It is quite clear that they are exposed to it
and the evidence is that this advertising has some impact on their drinking. For a long time we
have had cross-sectional and experimental studies where we have been able to say that kids
who are aware of alcohol advertising drink alcohol. The argument has been that we really do
not know which direction that works in—whether it is because they like alcohol and so pay
attention to the ads.
However several recent longitudinal studies from the US have conclusively shown that
there is a very, very strong link with exposure to advertising and drinking. They have been
able to put specific numbers on that through the number of advertisements that children see
and the direct link to their increased alcohol consumption—they consume alcohol earlier. I
have mentioned the specific papers in my submission and I can provide them if people want.
It is very strong evidence because it is collected over a number of years. They look at children
and they have controlled for a whole range of other factors—their peer influences, their
family influences, their socioeconomic situation, their prior drinking—and they clearly find a
very strong association between the amount of alcohol advertising and marketing they are
exposed to, the age at which they start drinking and the amount of alcohol they consume.
Senator FIELDING—I noticed you have published a number of journal articles about
alcohol marketing in Australia. The most recent was in the Drug and Alcohol Review in
January this year, called ‘How effective is the revised regulatory code for alcohol advertising
in Australia?’ Could you tell us about that study and what it found about the operation of the
Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code?
Prof. Jones—It is important to put that in the context—we have been doing these studies
for some considerable time. Originally, we looked at alcohol advertising in 1988-89 and at the
extent to which the decisions made by the Advertising Standards Board and ABAC were
consistent with young people’s perceptions of the messages in the advertisements and also
expert academic judgements on whether or not the ads breached the code. We found that—
CHAIR—What years were they again?
Prof. Jones—The papers were published in 2001 and 2002.
CHAIR—They referred to which period?
Prof. Jones—They referred to the period of May 1998 to April 1999.
CHAIR—About one year.
Prof. Jones—Yes. They looked at all 11 alcohol advertisements that received complaints
during that period. We got copies of the alcohol ads and, the complaints and the decision
records, and we had a group of independent experts—marketing academics—have a look at
those ads and look at the code. Of the 11 advertisements, there were seven for which the
majority of the experts felt they were clearly in breach of the ANA code—the code monitored
by the ASB. We also had university students studying marketing look at the same
advertisements, and they perceived that 11 of the 11 advertisements were in breach of the
code, but the Advertising Standards Board did not uphold any of the complaints.
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CA 4 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
When that was published, there was obviously a lot of discussion around that and the code
was revised. We have done similar studies since then. It is almost like a catch-up process
because you do a study and you find the system does not work, and they say, ‘We’ll tweak the
system and toughen it up, and we’ll get a bit more consistent in making sure that we adhere to
the code.’
As you said, the most recent one we published was in January of 2008. That was 14 alcohol
advertisements that were run between May 2004 and March 2005 and the complaints that
were associated with those advertisements. Again we recruited six expert judges. This time we
thought, ‘Well, we’ll go outside marketing,’ so we had people from marketing, people from
communications and people from public health. Of those ads that we asked them to look at,
for eight of the 14 the majority of our experts felt they were clearly in breach of the code. For
six out of the 14, the group was split. There were none where a majority felt that the ad
actually complied with the code. However, the Advertising Standards Board did not uphold
any of the complaints, they did not adjudicate five of them because they were one-off
promotions, and ABAC upheld one of the complaints. We have seen this consistent pattern
over a number of years. Each time there is a review of the system, we do another study and
find that the system does not work.
Concurrent with that, we showed the same advertisements to 287 young people—15- to 24-
year-olds, and 110 of those were under 18—and we asked them, ‘What do you think of the
messages in these ads?’ Across the advertisements, we had figures like 74 per cent of the
young people felt that the advertisement they saw suggested the product would make them
more sociable and outgoing, 90 per cent said it would help them have a good time and 59 per
cent said the ad said the product would make them feel less nervous. That is across 14
different ads with completely different messages, so some of those ads really were not
tackling those sorts of topics in their presentation. If we looked at specific ads, there were a
number where 80 and 90 per cent across the board were perceiving that: ‘The ad says clearly
to me that, if I drink this product, it will help me succeed with the opposite sex, it will help
me feel more attractive and it will make me more confident.’ That is the message kids are
taking away from these ads and I think that is really, really concerning. That is why I think we
need to do something about the way the ads are pre-vetted and the way that they are then
regulated.
Whether or not the Advertising Standards Board or ABAC think those messages are there,
if we have clearly and consistently shown over an eight-year period that young people think
those messages are there, that is what they take away. ‘If I drink that product, I’ll have fun,
I’ll be confident, I’ll fit in, I’ll be relaxed, I won’t be nervous and I’ll be able to make friends.’
They are really powerful messages with a huge impact on their intentions and on their
drinking behaviours. I think we really need to address that with something a lot more
definitive than saying, ‘We’ll let the industry have another go at the fixing it up again.’
Senator FIELDING—From what you have just shared with the committee in your
submission, obviously you do not think the current system is working. What is your preferred
approach to regulating alcohol advertising?
Prof. Jones—I think we need two things: one is that alcohol advertising needs to be
regulated by somebody outside the industry in both the pre-vetting and the actual monitoring
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 5
of the advertisements. I think there needs to be some actual consequence for breaches. Even
in the rare event that the current board, which is not effective, decides that an advertisement
breaches the code, all that happens is that they ask the advertiser to withdraw it. They are
totally free to bring out another advertisement next week that contains the same message. I
think we need a formal regulatory system that states, ‘You cannot do these things. We will
check your ads before they go out and make sure those messages are not there.’ If an ad
manages to get on television or in a magazine with that message, it should be immediately
withdrawn. The advertiser or the manufacturer should have some sort of penalty for doing that
so that they do not do it again next week.
The other thing that is really important is that, if we are trying with this to protect young
people, then, to me, the people who really know whether these messages are there are the
young people themselves. It is not the message that the advertiser or manufacturer thinks if
the young people want if the advertiser is 45 years old, tired and jaded and sees 100 alcohol
advertisements a day. So I think a component of that regulatory system should be to have
some way of ensuring that we understand the messages under aged drinkers are taking away
from these advertisements.
Senator FIELDING—Moving on to the alcohol information labels. Do you think that
health information labels on alcohol products are worthwhile and why is that?
Prof. Jones—At this stage, it would be difficult to say definitively that the labels will have
an effect. I think there is a potential for an effect if they were tested first to make sure we had
the right sorts of messages and the right sorts of formats. We have done some very early
exploratory research with young people and found that their perception is that they would be
influenced by messages like ‘binge drinking has this effect on you’. In this forum I probably
will not use the wording that they used, but I am happy to leave a copy of the draft paper.
Messages that resonate very clearly with young people involve things that do happen to them.
That sort of thing would be effective. ‘If I went to drink another drink and I saw a message
that told me of a consequence that I believed and had seen happen, that would resonate,’
whereas a message that says, ‘You’re going to get cancer if you consume alcohol,’ is really
not going to have an impact.
The other thing that is very clear from our research and from other research that has been
done by other organisations is that young people are very concerned about their friends. They
need a message that would assist them and empower them to communicate with their friends
to raise those things in discussion. That is something that came up very clearly. ‘If I was with
my friends and I saw those labels on the drinks, it would enable me to bring up that
discussion.’ Messages like ‘Drinking excessive alcohol can lead to unsafe behaviour’ and that
it can lead to hangovers—that is one they like, though it does not have a particularly negative
health consequence in the long-term. The perception of the young people we have spoken to
about the sorts of things that are credible to them in terms of immediate short-term risk
include messages that empower them to talk to their friends and raise it as an issue to discuss
with each other and serve as a prompt to remind them at the time that they are consuming it. I
think that is the problem. They are aware of the risks. They have all done PDHPE at school
and they have all been told the risks of alcohol. But when they are out there drinking with
their friends, they are not really thinking about what they learnt in PDHPE last week. Having
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CA 6 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
a salient and relevant reminder means that there is real potential for an effect. If the messages
are investigated and carefully researched to make sure that they are relevant, we will not have
a backlash effect where young people perceive them as unrealistic and reject them.
Senator HUMPHRIES—You make the comment in the submission that you believe the
proposal should be extended and that it should:
… include the banning of alcohol advertising which encourages excessive consumption … or
encourages consumption of the beverage based on its higher alcohol content.
Prof. Jones—Yes.
Senator HUMPHRIES—I have been trying to think of examples of those sorts of ads.
Prof. Jones—I can think of an example. It is one of the advertisements that we complained
about in the study that I mentioned. It is an advertisement for a beer brand. The name the ad
company uses for it is ‘Kebab’. There are some men sitting in a bar and the ad says something
like: ‘You are out with your friends, you have a drink then you have another one and another
one and another one.’ Somewhere between the last beer and going home to their wives they
have a kebab and they end up on stretchers in a hospital. It is supposedly quite a humorous ad.
We lodged a complaint about that on the basis that running a message that shows people
sitting in a bar and saying, ‘Have another one and another one and another one,’ seems to be
encouraging excessive drinking. The view from the Advertising Standards Board and ABAC
was that, because there was apparently a clock on the wall at the back of the venue they were
in—if you looked very carefully and were paying lots of attention—and you could see from
the hands on the clock that an hour was passing between each ‘another one and another one’,
though each happened immediately in the context of the advertisement, and they were
actually drinking safely, it was not encouraging excessive drinking. That is just one example.
Given some time, I could probably come up with lots of other ones. That is what I am saying
about problems with the way the code is currently implemented. That seems to me a fairly
unusual explanation.
Senator HUMPHRIES—You mentioned the Free TV Australia submission before. In their
submission they pose a test as to what should be the threshold we reach before we enact
legislation like this. They say:
… there must be clear evidence of a causal link between the current regulatory treatment of alcohol
advertising (ie, the existing content and pattern of advertisements), and the issues the Government—
they mean Senator Fielding—
seeks to address.
Do you think we can say that that test has been met with the legislation?
Prof. Jones—Yes, because I think we have clear evidence that young people are exposed
to alcohol advertising and we have clear evidence, from small-scale studies in Australia, that
children are very much aware of it and that it influences their drinking. We also have
evidence, as I mentioned earlier, from some very extensive longitudinal studies in the US that
that exposure leads to increased drinking amongst underage drinkers. So I think it has
definitely been met.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 7
Senator HUMPHRIES—And increased drinking among underage drinkers necessarily
equates to damage to those people from the consumption of alcohol—
Prof. Jones—Yes.
Senator HUMPHRIES—and damaging behaviour with alcohol later in life?
Prof. Jones—There is clear evidence that children who consume large amounts of alcohol
when they are 12, 13, 14 years old are at substantial risk of short-term and long-term harm,
yes.
Senator COLBECK—Have you had any significant discussions with the panel members
who actually do the adjudication of the advertisements for ABAC?
Prof. Jones—No.
Senator COLBECK—What about interaction with ABAC themselves?
Prof. Jones—I have had very limited interaction with ABAC. It is quite difficult to have
interaction with ABAC because they are quite hard to find. Until very recently they did not
have a website, and it is actually quite difficult to contact them directly. You have to contact
them through the ASB. I have had interactions with the Advertising Standards Board,
including a number of conversations with and letters from the current chair, Fiona Jolly. Most
of my communications have been through that channel rather than directly with ABAC.
Senator COLBECK—With respect to the code—and you have noted in your comments
today that over the last seven or eight years there have been a series of upgrades or
modifications to the way the code is worded and structured—is your concern with the way
that the code is structured at the moment and how it is worded or with the implementation
processes?
Prof. Jones—My concern is primarily with the way it is implemented. If you look at a
number of the clauses of both the ABAC code and the AANA code, you will see that
messages in those advertisements that are perceived by independent experts to be clearly in
breach of the code and are perceived to be there by young people who are arguably the target
audience—or hopefully not the target audience—are consistently claimed by both panels not
to be there. So I think it is the implementation that is the problem, rather than the wording.
Senator COLBECK—We heard evidence at our Melbourne hearing that it is virtually
impossible to make an advertisement aimed at an adult audience that is not going to appeal to
younger people, because of their aspirations to be like older people.
Prof. Jones—I think that is completely untrue and I think we have evidence that that is
completely untrue. We know that specific things in alcohol advertisements, or in any kind of
advertisement, particularly appeal to young people—things like cartoon characters, cuddly
animals, certain types of music and humour. I can give you an example. We did a study
recently where we talked to young children in grades 5 and 6. A lot of them are experimental
drinkers—or, hopefully, not experimental drinkers. We showed them stills from alcohol
advertisements that had run during sporting telecasts of the cricket. We did not show them the
alcohol product. It was not clear what was being advertised. We showed them stills from the
ads and we asked them if they knew what the ad was. There is an ad for Johnnie Walker that
has Justin Langer in it. He is a cricket player. Most of you probably know that; I didn’t. The
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children did not recognise that ad. They were shown the complete ads at the end of the study.
When they were discussing the ads later they were asked about it. The interviewer said, ‘Does
it matter that the cricket players were in it? You are all cricket fans. Why didn’t you notice it?’
The children said things like: ‘No, it’s just pretty boring. I wouldn’t pay attention to it.’ So
they did not recognise the ad. Even though they are fans of that particular cricket player they
did not pay attention to the ad. The ad was ‘boring’.
They all recognised some of the other ads, like the Bundaberg Rum ads, though, and we
got comments like: ‘Yeah, if that ad comes on I watch it,’ ‘The ads are hilarious,’ ‘They attract
our attention,’ ‘My dad drinks that,’ ‘It’s really funny,’ ‘You know the music part,’ ‘The VB ad
makes you laugh at the start and you always want to stay and watch the end of it and see what
happens,’ ‘I like the Bundy ad because it has got the pink polar bear.’ The kids know these
ads. You can make an ad that is really effective for adults that children do not even notice. We
showed them some of the wine ads, and they had no idea what the product was. They thought
they might have been selling boats or insurance. To me, that shows you can do it.
Senator COLBECK—You are talking about a primary school demographic. So I am not
accused of verballing one of the former witnesses, I think I ought to say that it was perhaps
the teen market that was being put to us. We were talking about, say, the 15- to 17-year-old
group, who had strong aspirations. I think it would be safe to differentiate between kids in
primary school and teenagers aged from 15 to 17. That was the group that I was targeting my
comments at. You might have some evidence in relation to that, too, which I am interested in.
Prof. Jones—You could not say, ‘This ad will appeal to someone who is 18 years and one
week old but it won’t appeal to somebody who is 17 years 11 months and three weeks old.’ It
is not that fine. But you definitely can make an advertisement that is not particularly
appealing to 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds that is appealing to a 19- or 20-year-old. You put it in a
work environment.
An ad that springs to mind is a beer ad where they walk around with a canoe. When you
talk to 20-, 21-, 22-year-old males, they think that ad is great. When you talk to 16-, 17-year-
olds, they have no idea what you are talking about, so it is possible. It is equally possible to
make alcohol ads that appeal really strongly to 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds that do not appeal to 18-
, 19-year-olds. An example of that is in the 2001 paper that we wrote where we looked at
some ads for a premixed drink. They were radio ads which showed young people in social
situations where they were really uncomfortable. There was one where a girl was getting
ready to go out. She thought that she looked overweight and she was stressing about what to
wear, so she opened her drink and said, ‘As I drank my first drink of the night I thought:
“Hey, who cares?” and I went and changed my clothes.’ There was another one where she was
worrying about a boy she had met and he did not ring her. When we tested those ads with
young people, the 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds perceived they were targeted at them or someone
slightly older than them but within their age range. The 19-year-olds perceived that they were
targeted at people younger than them and that the ads were not relevant. So I think you can
make that distinction. I do not think you can make the distinction between someone who is
17½ and someone who is 18, but without any problem you can clearly make an ad for a 20-
year-old that is not going to appeal to a 15-year-old.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 9
Senator BIRMINGHAM—For the benefit of the committee, lest there be any doubt, can I
make it clear that I am a previous employee of the Winemakers Federation of Australia. That
matter is on my public parliamentary biography and has been well known by all members of
this place since the time of my maiden speech. Professor Jones, thank you for your time and
evidence today. It is nice to have someone who has researched advertising in the manner in
which you have. Have you looked at other areas of advertising aside from alcohol advertising
in research?
Prof. Jones—Yes, we do a lot of work in food advertising and some work around
pharmaceutical advertising.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Have you done similar testing as to whether they meet the
regulatory codes that are applied?
Prof. Jones—Yes, we have, particularly in relation to food advertising and the AANA code
on advertising to children. We find some similar sorts of things arising. It is not as bad as it is
with alcohol advertising. In food advertising they are doing a more efficient job in rectifying
some of those things quite quickly. The area of magazine advertising is really problematic
with children’s food advertising because there are a lot of issues around advertorials and what
is an advertisement and what is editorial. Television advertising is less problematic. With
pharmaceutical advertising Australia is fairly unique in that area in that we do not allow
pharmaceutical advertising directly to consumers but we allow disease awareness advertising.
The level of compliance with the code is fairly high.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—For the ads that you have tested for the alcohol sector, a lot of
those come with problems that you would say fall under the AANA code?
Prof. Jones—Yes. A lot of them come with problems that fall under both codes.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Sitting on other committees, I have certainly heard concerns
about the application of the AANA code by the ASB and their panel. We have spent a lot of
time talking about ABAC around this table. Do you share those concerns?
Prof. Jones—Absolutely. I think that the Advertising Standards Board in its current form is
not effective in the way that alcohol advertising or any form of advertising is regulated in
terms of the clauses of the code. That is very clear from our research. That is very clear from
community responses. I have not addressed that because I was sticking within the terms of
what we are looking at here. I think that is one of the things that is going to be really
important if we are going to improve the situation with alcohol advertising, and that is why I
was saying that the way the bill is currently worded needs to be expanded in terms of the
things that are not allowed. Some of the things that occur that are really problematic in
alcohol actually fit currently under the AANA code. If we look at things like the portrayal of
women, which is a big issue with alcohol advertising and a big issue in terms of the harms
associated with alcohol, there is some evidence from the US concerning consistent exposure
to those sorts of sexist messages in alcohol advertising and gender relationships, domestic
violence and those sorts of things. If they are not going to be properly regulated by the ASB,
there is the potential that they should come under a more specific code. Putting sexist or
derogatory messages in any form of advertising is inappropriate but when you combine that
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with a product that is harmful and known to be associated with encouraging those kinds of
attitudes and behaviours, I think that is particularly problematic.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—In your submission you talk about the difficulty of
appropriately reflecting community perceptions. I am wondering how you are confident that
the panels you have had which assess these advertisements reflect such community
perceptions. How do you think such panels can be better constructed than they are by either
the ASB or ABAC?
Prof. Jones—In most of our studies we have had two types of panels. We have had a panel
of experts who have been chosen because they work in areas where they deal with consumers.
They are people who deal with communications, marketing and areas like that, particularly
where they educate other people in terms of how consumers think, feel and respond to things.
They are people who have a fairly good understanding of consumers. At the same time, in
most of our studies, we have also had consumer groups, whether that is people who are
underage, university students or other people. We have always tried to merge those two things
together. So we look at whether what our experts are telling us is consistent with what the
community or the young people that we are trying to protect from the alcohol advertisements
are telling us. We find those things are very consistent and completely inconsistent with the
decisions that are currently made by the board.
In terms of how a board like that should be constituted, I think it should have a fairly broad
representation. I think it should have a reasonable level of turnover, because one of the things
that become problematic is if you see enough disturbing advertisements after a while they
stop having an effect on you. By having people see those things over and over again, there is
always going to be room for people to say, ‘We let that one through last year and this isn’t
quite as bad as that one,’ so I think you need turnover. But there needs to be, and I have
mentioned this in my submission, a way of integrating the community’s actual views in that,
whether that is by some sort of annual community survey that is conducted, one that looks at
what consumer attitudes are or whether consumer perceptions have changed over time in
terms of violence, sex, excessive consumption of alcohol and those sorts of things. There
needs to be some way of actually keeping track of what consumers think and making sure that
whatever decisions a board is making are consistent with consumers.
I do not hold up any particular profession, whether it is mine or someone else’s, as being
the arbiter of what the community thinks. The community is the arbiter of what the
community thinks. But what we consistently see at the moment with decisions coming out of
both of those boards are decision records that say things like, ‘Twelve members of the
community complained; the board met and the board considered,’ and then, and we see this
thing all the time, ‘Because the advertisement was humorous, the board determined that it
would not breach community standards.’ If I do a survey of 100 young people and they tell
me that a message that is not supposed to be there is there I would trust their view of what
they perceive to be in that message more than the view of a board of people who are really not
in touch with the community.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—So an annual market research type approach would be a high-
order recommendation from you regardless of whether we have a regulatory framework by
government or a continuation of some kind of quasi-regulatory framework or an abandonment
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 11
of that and back to self-regulation. So you think if they actually did some testing annually and
tested ads, ones that had been screened and had been approved or rejected, to see whether
they matched up with community perceptions that would be a useful process for informing
their board and their system?
Prof. Jones—I think that would be absolutely imperative for a really effective regulatory
system. If what we are saying is that we are protecting the community from things that are
inappropriate, it is not what we as experts think is in there or what the advertisers tell us is in
there; it is what messages consumers do take away, so I think consumers need to be involved
in deciding that.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Finally, when is the research that you are currently doing on
labelling, the research that you alluded to but did not wish to share terribly much about, going
to be completed?
Prof. Jones—No, it is completed. The paper has been drafted and we will be submitting it
to a journal probably within the next few days. I am happy to provide the committee with a
copy of the draft paper as long as you realise it is a draft and there may be a few typographical
errors and things in it.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Sure. Have you provided a submission to FSANZ for their
current inquiry?
Prof. Jones—No, I haven’t.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—I am not sure when their time line for submissions closes. Are
you planning to?
Prof. Jones—I am told it has closed, so I am not. On another note, I have been told that
there is going to be a hearing at some point in the future looking at some of the other issues
around alcohol packaging and marketing, so I would certainly be intending to provide a
submission to that.
Senator SIEWERT—Professor Jones, if I ask you a question that you covered previously
I apologise. I was at another meeting and could not get here in time. You make the point in
your submission—and we have been talking about it—about 13- to 17-year-olds actually
seeing only slightly less television than 18- to 29-year-olds. I should put on the record that I
have an 18½-year-old and that it is impossible to tell him not to watch certain television
programs. In fact, we fight about it regularly. How many 13- to 17-year-olds would be
affected if this legislation were implemented and we moved it to 9.30? In your opinion, would
that significantly stop 13- to 17-year-olds watching those ads?
Prof. Jones—I do not think the proposal is to move it to 9.30. The proposal is to have it
not allowed from 9 pm to 5 am. The big change that it will make, and I did mention this
earlier, is that it will stop alcohol advertising during live sporting telecasts, which is
something that is quite unusual in Australia and something that does not happen in most other
countries. That is where we find young people are exposed to alcohol advertising. The work
that we have done with young people who are heavily into watching sports shows they have a
really high awareness of alcohol advertising and a very high perception that that is something
that their heroes do.
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An 11-year-old in one of our studies talked about a VB ad that was on the television during
the cricket. VB is a really good example, because most men drink, especially when they play
sports. However, when they are tired from their sports, they go and have a drink. That is what
I think we need to protect children from. That is a really powerful message: I am watching my
sporting hero on TV and then an ad comes on and I see my same sporting hero knocking back
a beer, drinking a Bacardi or whatever. That is what I take away from that. That is what the
men do when they are tired. Then they come back on after the ad break and are ready to win
the cricket. I think the legislation will protect 13- to 17-year-olds during those sorts of
telecasts.
Senator SIEWERT—You are right. In our previous hearing the issue of the need to extend
the legislation further to ban alcoholic companies sponsoring sport came up. Do you think
that is a good idea?
Prof. Jones—Yes, I do. I have not addressed that issue because I did not think it was
within the context of this bill. I think it would have to be progressively done and carefully
managed in the same way that it was done when tobacco sponsorship of sport occurred. There
were all the doom and gloom merchants at the time when that happened and people said,
‘Sport in Australia will die because we don’t have tobacco sponsorship.’ It did not happen. We
do still have sports.
Senator SIEWERT—They moved on to alcohol!
Prof. Jones—They moved on to alcohol. But there are a lot of other high-profile, well-
funded sponsors—for example, cereal companies—of sporting events. If you watch the
tennis, for example, you almost never see an alcohol advertisement because they are
sponsored by things like shampoo companies, razor companies. There will be other sponsors
out there. It would need to be carefully managed to make sure it did not have a major impact
on sporting codes and some sort of funding would need to be provided while that transition is
occurring. But I think, given the very strong evidence that there is a huge association between
playing sport, watching sport and consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, as a country that
is a culture that we really have to try to change.
Senator SIEWERT—I accept the argument that it is very important to ban alcohol
advertising in association with sport during the day. Would a total ban be better?
Prof. Jones—If we had an effective regulatory system where it was not left in the hands of
the industry and we had a code that we complied with then I do not think a ban on alcohol
advertising is necessary. I think if we advertised the product for what it was then I do not
think that would be a major problem. It is a legal product, it is a product that many people use
socially and many people use safely and I would not necessarily support it, particularly at this
point. But currently we have alcohol advertisements that tell people, particularly children,
very clearly: if you drink this, you will be sexy, attractive, successful, rich, beautiful, have lots
of friends and be confident. That is not true. Anyone who has drunk as much alcohol as some
of these kids do actually knows that it does not. It makes them angry, dangerous and
unattractive. I think if we had responsible, honest alcohol advertising that did not portray
inappropriate messages and we adhered to that and made companies comply with it we would
not need to ban alcohol advertising.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 13
CHAIR—Professor, I think we will have to wrap up because of our time constraint. If we
could get a copy of the paper that you mentioned, that would be very useful. We understand
that it is a draft, but I think it hits on some of the points we are particularly interested in.
Prof. Jones—Would you like copies of any of the other papers that I mentioned?
CHAIR—We would like anything you can give us, Professor.
Senator HUMPHRIES—The report you refer to, on page 8 of your submission, of the
International Centre for Alcohol Policies on how other countries fare with greater restrictions
on advertising would be really good to see. Thank you.
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CA 14 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
[4.24 pm]
SMEATON, Mr Daryl Peter, Chief Executive Officer, Alcohol Education and
Rehabilitation Foundation Ltd
WILSON, Mr Scott, Deputy Chairperson, Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation
Foundation Ltd
CHAIR—Welcome. Do you have any comments to make on the capacity in which you
appear?
Mr Wilson—I am also the Director of the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council.
CHAIR—Have you given evidence before?
Mr Smeaton—A number of years ago.
CHAIR—I always ask that, so we go through the whole procedure. Information on
parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence has been provided. We
have your submission and I believe we are about to get something else. I now invite either or
both of you to make an opening statement and then we will go to questions.
Mr Smeaton—I will make an opening statement which adds a little bit to the submission.
The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation supports the intent of the legislation.
We believe the measures in the bill will not do any harm. However, in and of themselves, or
even put together, they will make less than any significant reduction in the alcohol toll and for
that reason the foundation does not believe that the legislation in its current form should be
passed. In relation to alcohol labelling, the ministerial council on food standards has asked the
Food Standards authority to look further at labelling of alcoholic products across a range of
health and social harms. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy has an ongoing review of
the self-regulatory code for alcohol advertising. The AER Foundation supports alcohol
labelling of a greater breadth and depth than is currently the case, and we certainly support the
current standard being considered by FSANZ in relation to drinking while pregnant or
breastfeeding.
We also believe that the alcohol advertising code needs a comprehensive review and that
indeed it should be a regulated code, not a self-regulatory code. We do not believe that the bill
currently before the Senate will achieve either of those aims.
The only thing that will ultimately reduce the alcohol toll is a comprehensive review of the
alcohol taxation system to introduce a pure volumetric taxation system. That will increase
prices appropriately around the most dangerous volumes of alcohol sold. We believe that the
federal government should remove alcohol from the National Competition Policy, because
alcohol is not like eggs or milk or whitegoods. It is a drug and it is the only drug subject to
National Competition Policy guidelines. Its removal from the National Competition Policy
will allow the states and territories to review their licensing laws around the number of outlets
and indeed around trading hours, both of which contribute significantly to the violence
associated with excessive alcohol consumption. Already, three states in this country are
permanently fined five per cent of their competition payments because they did not deregulate
alcohol quickly enough—and I refer to Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 15
The matters that I have outlined are things that work. Enclosed in the package that I gave
you are some references to a number of research papers that support the comments I have
made. I will not go into them in detail, unless senators wish to ask specific questions. But it is
clear that we need to reduce the alcohol toll—$15.3 billion and rising, with economic health
and social costs and the fact that at least 3,000 Australians die every year directly as a result
of alcohol causes. We believe that it is a very conservative estimate, because many deaths are
not recorded as being alcohol associated and yet we know they are. We believe that the
alcohol taxation system is substantially broken and must be fixed.
Mr Wilson—I would like to reiterate what Daryl said. The foundation and other
community groups do support alcohol warning labels on products. I heard somebody ask the
last witnesses, ‘Will that reduce the impacts and tolls on people from alcohol?’ The person
perhaps said, ‘No.’ I do not think that warning labels are really targeted at that sort of issue
anyway. In 2008 I cannot understand why Australian consumers do not have the same rights
as consumers of Australian alcoholic products that are exported right around the world. For
example, if you are in the US, Canada, the UK or Europe and you pick up a bottle of Jacob’s
Creek or other Australian products, they have warning labels about consumption whilst
pregnant, drinking and driving and using heavy machinery, but the same product here, which
is produced in Australia, does not have a warning label. I cannot understand why, in 2008, that
is the case. One of the questions that one has to ask is: how many Australians die of
anaphylactic shock from eating peanuts? If you pick up any food products these days, they
have labels that tell you that there are peanuts in them. If these sorts of issues were not
important, why would people force food manufacturers to put information about peanuts or
other sorts of products on the labels?
Also, as you probably are aware, the federal government has recently had nurses go into
Indigenous communities and look at some of the social issues and see, for example, whether
pregnant women are consuming alcohol or things like that. Perhaps, if there were a warning
label on a bottle of beer or a cask of wine, some community education would actually start. If
you had a warning label on the Grange Hermitage, for example, that was released in Adelaide
just recently, people sitting in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide or Sydney would start talking
about alcohol and the associated harms, because there is a warning label on a bottle of alcohol
that costs $550. I think that would go a long way down the track to raising awareness of the
harms of alcohol to consumers.
Senator FIELDING—Thank you for appearing today. The AER Centre for Alcohol Policy
Research has recently produced a working paper by Claire Wilkinson and Robin Room called
‘Warnings on alcohol containers and advertisements: International experience and evidence
on effects’. I understand that one of the conclusions of that paper is that ‘the warnings should
be attention getting, should occupy a considerable portion of the package service and should
involve rotating and changing messages’. Have you any more comments to make about that?
Are you familiar with it?
Mr Smeaton—I am familiar with the research. It is of course independent research, even
though the AER Foundation does provide substantial financial support for the centre. I think
the issue around warning labels is, and will be, a contentious one. I personally do not support
the graphic labels that we currently have on tobacco. Alcohol can be used safely; tobacco
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kills. I therefore think that we need to be more focused, certainly on the health and social
harms. We also need to be capable of assessing, for example, the calorific content of alcohol. I
was at a conference in Queensland earlier this week where somebody equated four beers to
four doughnuts. That was in the context of a young woman being told that when she was
about to have her fifth drink she was about to have her fifth doughnut. When she realised that
the calorific content of the drink was exactly the same as a doughnut she was shocked.
CHAIR—Mr Smeaton, I think we might get sued by the doughnut industry in this
particular inquiry, because that analogy has been drawn to us as a negative. I see the point.
You are raising the issue about calorie content, body image and health.
Mr Smeaton—Absolutely. In relation to advertising, the evidence around the world is that
advertising works to some extent where it is a regulated code, not where it is a self-regulated
code.
Senator FIELDING—Can you go through that a bit more?
Mr Smeaton—Where alcohol advertising is regulated by government, and we do not have
the approach to advertising that Sandra Jones outlined, then there is some evidence to suggest
that along with other measures alcohol advertising can affect the rate of consumption. But
where it is a self-regulated system it does not have the same effect.
Senator FIELDING—Your submission states:
... the current regulation of alcohol advertising in Australia is seriously inadequate.
How would you like to see alcohol advertising regulated? It is important to get your thoughts;
could you expand on that a bit more?
Mr Smeaton—I think the French approach to advertising, where they advertise the alcohol
and not the people who drink it or the social circumstances in which it is consumed, is an
approach that allows the manufacturers to achieve their stated aim, which is to influence
brand preference. I think if we had an approach like that, which still allowed a legal product
to be advertised but in a way that really met the objectives of the advertising—and that is to
sell more of your brand—that would be a system I could support.
Senator FIELDING—People reading this may not understand what happens in France.
You obviously know it quite well. Could you expand on that? I think it is important to look at
what another country is doing in this area.
Mr Smeaton—Essentially, as I understand it, they are allowed to show the bottle and they
are allowed to talk about the product, but there are no people in the ads and there are no social
situations depicted. That is broadly it; it is a little more complex than that. But there would not
be an ad on Australian television for alcohol that does not have a high-profile sportsman, a
comedian, a white bear or lots of people having a lot of fun.
Senator FIELDING—Thank you. Mr Wilson, would you like to comment?
Mr Wilson—I support some of what Daryl says, but I actually think it goes a bit further
than that. I do not know whether you saw the V8 Supercars on the weekend—that is one of
the ways that advertisers get around it. I just do not get the message. We are telling people
about drinking and driving and we have Jack Daniels and Jim Beam roaring around at 300
kilometres an hour. I am the same as you, Senator: I have 18- and 19-year-old boys. They sit
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 17
there and watch these things and I guarantee you that, when they go out at night, they buy a
six-pack of Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. Personally, I do not drink anymore, so obviously it is
not coming from a home influence. That sort of stuff does come from those promotions. I just
do not understand why they are allowed to do that. It is the same with tobacco advertising: all
you have to do is pick up a PlayStation game these days and you will see tobacco advertising
in some of them, so they have got around the banning of things through those sorts of
mediums. And those PlayStation games are not targeted at people like me; they are targeted at
young people. So I do have a problem with alcohol advertising.
I was sitting at the airport this morning and picked up the Age, I think it was, and there was
a big spread for one of the outlets pushing their products. You could buy a case or 12 bottles
of wine for 88 bucks, and if you were lucky enough to buy that they threw in another 12. That
is 24 bottles of wine at basically $3 a bottle.
Senator FIELDING—I thank Mr Smeaton for the information about France. I think it is
important because a lot of people do not understand sometimes what other countries are doing
in this area. Returning to the issue of labelling, your submission comments that there are clear
labelling requirements for food but the requirements for alcohol labelling are not the same.
Could you elaborate on that a bit more? Isn’t alcohol just the same as any other product? That
is what some people say.
Mr Smeaton—Alcohol is not a food; it is a psychoactive drug. It may be full of calories
that equate to some other things we might eat, but it is not a food. In our view it should not be
subject to the food standards authority, but the fact of the matter is that it is; but for the same
reasons I do not think it should be subject to the National Competition Policy. We just must
ensure that consumers know that, like things that contain peanuts, alcohol as a drug can cause
significant health harms, social harms and, clearly, gigantic economic costs.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So who should regulate alcohol labelling, if not Food Standards
Australia New Zealand?
Mr Smeaton—I think the government could, by the stroke of a pen, if they took it out of
the purview of the food standards authority. It is a drug; we regulate every other drug through
the Therapeutic Goods Administration and I think that is where it should be. It is a drug we
can use safely, but it is still a drug and when it is misused it is the most dangerous drug in our
community.
Senator FIELDING—I want to clarify something for the record: I certainly do not think
that alcohol is like any other food.
Senator HUMPHRIES—I want to confirm what you said before, Mr Smeaton, about the
effect of competition policies on things like regulating trading hours. You are saying that the
National Competition Policy actually prevents states from putting restrictions on the hours at
which alcohol is sold?
Mr Smeaton—Essentially it says two things: first, that alcohol supply is subject to the full
gamut of the competition guidelines. The first thing it does is remove from states and
territories the opportunity to apply a needs test to the distribution of alcohol. Previously—for
any product, not just alcohol—competitors were able to mount a needs case in relation to the
proximity of another competitor. So it was possible for the local bottle shop, the local two
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pubs and the three restaurants in an area, when a new licence application was made, to say,
‘Hang on a minute, we have more than enough suppliers of alcohol,’ and that was able to be
taken into account. That no longer is the case. So we end up, for example, with a state like
Victoria going from 4,000-odd licences in 1992 to over 19,000 licences in 2008. Professor
Rob Moodie says that that has meant that we have had two new licences per day over the last
15 years in Victoria.
Secondly, however, I think it also allows the industry to put forward cases for longer
trading hours, for example. The AHA continually claimed that they stay open late only
because consumers demand it. I dispute that. I think people go because they are open.
Senator HUMPHRIES—But their being open is the product of competition policy?
Mr Smeaton—It is the product. At least two states or territories—the ACT, your own
territory, and Queensland—currently have discussion papers out on a review of their
licensing. Both of them state quite clearly that the number of licences and the trading hours
are a problem. Yet they do not put anything in place to restrict that other than to try to raise
the cost, for example. In Queensland they are talking about substantially higher licence fees
for people who want to close at 2 am, and substantially higher again for people who want to
close at 4 am. At least in Victoria the government has bitten the bullet and put a 12-month
moratorium on any new licences. I think that is a significant start.
But it is because alcohol is subject to National Competition Policy that there has been a
very open slather, in my view, on both the number of outlets and on the trading hours. One of
the references I have given you in the paper is a study by the AER policy centre—alcohol
policy centre—showing a longitudinal analysis of both outlet density and trading hours over
nine years in Victoria, which suggests that they directly contribute to a 70 per cent increase in
alcohol related violence.
Senator HUMPHRIES—On the diagram you have given us with the alcohol taxation
levels per product, I assume that the figure immediately below the glass or the bottle is the
number of standard drinks in each container.
Mr Smeaton—I will briefly explain the table. Apart from the green writing, the table is
essentially the standard drinks pamphlet: 1.5 standard drinks in a full strength beer, 0.8
standard drinks in a light beer. What we did, using the ATO measurements, was to provide for
the committee the actual tax per drink. So it is not tax per standard drink, it is the tax for that
particular drink.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Or, in some cases, tax per bottle.
Mr Smeaton—Yes, and you can work out the tax per standard drink by dividing the
amount of tax by the number of standard drinks. The result of all of this is that spirits is the
only alcohol beverage now taxed volumetrically, since the change to the alcopops, because
until that change they were only taxed at half the rate of bottled spirits.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Is that figure for the premixed drinks the present arrangement or
the new arrangement?
Mr Smeaton—It is the new arrangement, which is the current arrangement unless or until
there is some move to reject that change.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 19
Senator COLBECK—You indicated that you had issues with both the code and the
operation of the code. I think we have basically covered the operation of the code from your
perspective. Can you elaborate on your views on the code itself?
Mr Smeaton—The code talks about all sorts of things that alcohol advertising should not
contain. I can best explain it, I think, by referring to a series of ads for Tooheys New.
Senator COLBECK—I am Tasmanian so I may be handicapped in that sense.
CHAIR—You said that, Senator!
Mr Smeaton—Tasmania makes some great beers. Tooheys New, however, is probably
pretty popular on the mainland—on the northern island. There was a series of three ads. The
first has a young man walking along the street who comes across a stray dog. He takes the
dog home but on the way it jumps the fence and wins a greyhound race, he gets a great
cheque—and he has a Tooheys New. The next ad has the dog digging in the garden and it digs
up a great big bone which is supposedly a dinosaur’s bone, the guy gets another big cheque—
and he has a Tooheys New. In the final ad, he sees a ‘lost and found’ sign on a telegraph pole,
he recognises the dog and he takes the dog to the place. The door opens before he knocks, and
the very attractive young woman is shooing off her previous boyfriend and she invites in the
man with the lost dog—and there is a glass fronted fridge full of Tooheys New. I think each
one of those ads offends the code, but nothing was done about them either by the self-
regulatory board or by the monitoring board. I just use that as an example.
Senator COLBECK—That demonstrates the operation of the code, but what I am talking
about is the code itself—how it is structured and worded. If it were operated in a different
structure or in a different way—say, as the bill proposes effectively, through a government
controlled entity—does the code have the attributes that would satisfy the AER?
Mr Smeaton—I think if there was a government regulated code then we would have a
greater chance of the elements of the code being adhered to by advertisers. I think they are
honoured totally in the breach at the moment. My preference—and I think it is supported by
some of my colleagues to some extent and less perhaps by others—is the approach that I have
described, which is the French approach, where you can certainly advertise the alcohol but
you cannot associate it with anything other than the alcohol.
Senator COLBECK—So that would be the structural change that you would make, with
your preference, to the code?
Mr Smeaton—That is what I would prefer to see, yes.
Senator ADAMS—Thank you both for your presentation. Mr Wilson, you mentioned
nurses going into Indigenous communities and community education. Can you elaborate a
little on what they do and the process that is used? Also, does your organisation have some
solution for the problems associated with the communities?
Mr Wilson—From what I gather, once a person is diagnosed as being pregnant—I suppose
at the local health service or whatever—that would trigger a visit from the nurse, wherever he
or she might come from. Part of the issue is that they would then visit to try and provide a bit
of a wellness check and to make sure that the person is not getting involved in other sorts of
problems like drinking or taking other drugs. Obviously, if they identify those sorts of things
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then they would take that back to the health clinic and perhaps arrange for some other
intervention.
From our point of view, that is all well and fine at the end stage. But there should be some
community education in place first. For example, as you probably know, many have foetal
alcohol spectrum disorder. We need to go around and try and educate not just Indigenous
communities but broader Australia about some of these issues, including foetal alcohol
disorder. The NHMRC guidelines—the present ones, not the draft ones—still say that doctors
should advocate to women that it is okay to drink in moderation. It makes it very difficult for
groups like us to come along and do community education and say, ‘There might be problems
later on in life for their children if women consume alcohol,’ when women have gone to the
local doctor and he has said that it is okay to drink in moderation. Whenever we tend to raise
these sorts of issues with experts and people like that, they say, ‘Scott, it’s just an Indigenous
issue.’ I do not believe that is the case. If you look at Canada, for example, they estimate that
something like 300,000 Canadians are born every year with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder,
Indian and non-Indian. The same issue is here in the Australian community, but for some
reason it always gets quarantined down to an Indigenous thing so the rest of society does not
have to do that much about it.
Part of a comprehensive campaign would include labelling of some sort. It is very difficult
say, ‘This product consumed while pregnant might cause a bit of harm,’ if there is nothing on
the product that you are consuming. Any other product that has consumer information,
whether it is medication or whatever, tells you what some of the harmful effects might be.
Alcohol, as Daryl said, is a drug. The World Health Organisation has categorised it as a
category 1 carcinogen. I cannot understand why we still do not have that information on the
labels. That would be the first step in terms of community education. A whole range of things
could happen after or in conjunction with that.
Senator ADAMS—As an organisation, have you had any contact with the network of
divisions of general practice?
Mr Wilson—We try and have some involvement with a whole range of different groups.
But we have not had any contact with that group specifically.
Senator ADAMS—There are 119 divisions of general practice throughout Australia. They
have their headquarters here in Canberra. They are close to the GPs and could get a message
out.
Mr Wilson—They are members of other committees that Daryl and I, for example, are
members of. In those forums we have contact, but, from the group that I work for, I do not
have that contact.
Mr Smeaton—Certainly the foundation has worked very closely with AGPN for the last
five years. We funded the development of Managing the Mix and the new Can Do initiative
around comorbidity, for example. AGPN are a member of the alliance that we formed a few
weeks ago against alcohol related violence.
Senator ADAMS—You have obviously got into the loop, which is good.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 21
Mr Smeaton—This is an issue that is not just for the alcohol and drug sector. The broader
public health sector and indeed the direct health sector are very concerned about the issue as
well.
Senator ADAMS—I was just looking through your presentation papers, which are very
good, on the nightclub issue. What are you doing as an organisation as far as they are
concerned? Are you making any inroads there? Having two sons who have been assaulted in
nightclubs I am fully aware in reading that presentation you have supplied that it is a huge
worry. What advertising happens in nightclubs regarding any adverse circumstances of
drinking?
Mr Smeaton—Licensees and staffers of nightclubs in every state are supposed to at least
voluntarily comply with the responsible service of alcohol. In my view, they clearly do not,
even in those states where it is compulsory. I do not think there is any doubt that all liquor
outlets supply alcohol to people who are already intoxicated. I think that is a significant
contribution, particularly in the wee small hours of the morning, to a level of intoxication that
leads to significant harm—not just violence from personal assaults but falls and injuries,
alcohol poisoning, motor vehicle accident deaths and things that are just too horrible to
contemplate such as people drowning in their vomit after they have fallen asleep somewhere.
I do not think there is any doubt that those sorts of things come about—and I do not have
empirical data other than the fact that this is what I believe because I see it—because people
are being served while intoxicated.
I do not know if senators watch the 60 Minutes program, but about two months ago at the
end of an episode they had an actor go through about eight or nine different scenarios in clubs
with a hidden camera and act out intoxication—and he was served every time. I think if we
are going to be serious about addressing excessive alcohol consumption and its attendant
harm, we need to do all the things I have talked about in relation to licences, but we also need
to really enforce responsible service and punish any breach. At the same time, we need people
to really understand that there is a level of personal responsibility. But, if you rock up drunk
and get served, the only person who can be sanctioned in relation to that is the licensee and
the person who did the serving.
Senator ADAMS—You make the comment that there needs to be a regulated code. Can
you just explain briefly how you would see that regulated code.
Mr Smeaton—The regulation is in relation to alcohol advertising. We certainly believe
that there needs to be a significant examination of responsible service across all states and
territories, I think at least to make responsible service of alcohol training mandatory for
anybody working in the alcohol industry. But even in those places, for example, there is no
requirement for people to renew that training. So you do the training once, you get a piece of
paper and you can work in that industry forever. In some cases, of course, there is no
compulsory training, although most licensees do comply and get their staff trained. The
hospitality industry has a very high turnover of staff and, in the states where it is not
compulsory, I suspect there are many people working behind bars who have never done RSA
training.
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CA 22 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Mr Wilson—I think part of the problem also in a lot of state liquor licensing acts is that
there is no real interpretation of what intoxication is. So, therefore, it comes down to personal
judgement. Do you know what I mean?
Senator ADAMS—I do.
Mr Wilson—Unless there is actually a definition in the act then it gets a bit tricky. If you
are a young barperson and your job is to stop someone from being served when they are
intoxicated, what happens, for example, if someone is on medication that gives the same
appearance of intoxication? If you refuse that person service and they sue that hotelier, then
there is a bit of a problem. I think that, where the liquor licensing act mentions intoxication, it
has to really come up with some sort of interpretation that everybody can adhere to. At the
moment, it comes down to personal judgement.
Mr Smeaton—If I might just add to that, I think that is a very difficult thing to do. One of
the measures that is often involved in responsible service is to try to remember how many
drinks you have served somebody, and generally the test is, if you can remember you have
given this person four drinks, then you should be looking for signs of intoxication. Now, there
is a bar in Melbourne on Queen Street in the old RACV club that has a floor capacity of
7,000. It is one bar and it has one licence and it is open until 4 am. How can you remember
whether you have served any one of those 7,000 people? I have walked past it and it is on the
first and second floors, I think, of the building and it is a very long building—that is why it
has got the floor capacity of 7,000. The line is usually about 250 metres long and five people
wide; they wait to get in and much of the violence occurs in the line rather than inside the
premises themselves.
So I think it is an extraordinarily difficult thing. One of the exacerbating problems, of
course, is the number of premises. I think that is why lockouts or curfews are a very important
thing, because once you leave you cannot get back in. Let me tell you, drinkers do know
about RSA. They do know that they might get refused service, so they have three drinks and
then they head off to the next bar and have three drinks before heading off to the next bar, fall
over, and still getting three drinks.
Senator SIEWERT—One of the issues that has come up through the inquiry is the fact
that this bill does not cover all of the areas where alcohol is advertised—cinemas, planes and,
in particular, online. There has been a bit of concern expressed about the extent of advertising
online. Would you suggest it be extended to those mediums?
Mr Smeaton—My understanding is that it does extend to internet advertising.
Senator SIEWERT—No, it doesn’t.
Mr Smeaton—The ABAC code does.
CHAIR—Not the bill before us, though, Mr Smeaton; the ABAC code does.
Mr Smeaton—Of course, but this bill does not, and as I have said earlier we believe that
the bill is deficient and should not be passed. But I think all alcohol advertising in any
medium should be subject to regulation, and I think it should be of the kind that I have
outlined where you advertise the alcohol and not anything associated with the alcohol. If that
were the case then I think we would have an approach to advertising that could be supported
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 23
and that would meet the claims of the manufacturers as to why they advertise, which is to
establish brand preference.
Senator SIEWERT—I presume, looking at your submission, that you would then support
that extending to all advertising, which would then be subject to the government body rather
than to self-regulation.
Mr Smeaton—Of course, yes.
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CA 24 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
[5.03 pm]
FLYNN, Ms Julie Patricia, Chief Executive Officer, Free TV Australia
GOSS, Mr Wayne Keith, Chair, Free TV Australia
CHAIR—We will get started quickly. Mr Goss, you have done this many times in other
capacities.
Mr Goss—Chair, I will make a few points and then take questions and beyond that Julie
will be able to stay. The first point I want to make is that Australia’s commercial free-to-air
broadcasters take very seriously their responsibility to ensure that television content and the
way that it is presented accord with community expectations, particularly with regard to
children and young audiences.
The second point is that the commercial free-to-air television sector is mindful of
community expectations regarding the appropriate advertising of alcohol products.
Accordingly, there is—in my view, quite rightly—an extensive range of restrictions already in
place particularly as regards restricting children’s exposure to alcohol advertising. We see that
broadcasters comply with these requirements and that there is very little evidence of
community dissatisfaction, with viewer complaints consistently low. Accordingly, we would
submit that, before the current suite of regulatory restrictions is amended or expanded, there
should be clear evidence that the current pattern and content of alcohol advertising on
television are contributing to the misuse of alcohol.
I will finish on this point. We would like to note that the failure of the legislation to take a
consistent approach across media platforms must, in our view, raise the question as to how
effective this would be as a means of targeting young people’s exposure to alcohol advertising
when you look at the full spectrum of advertising that is available. Those are the points I
wanted to make. We have some statistics and evidence, and we are happy to leave details of
those with the committee.
CHAIR—Ms Flynn, do you have to leave as well?
Ms Flynn—No, I will stay.
CHAIR—Mr Goss, are you are okay if Ms Flynn continues with your evidence?
Mr Goss—Absolutely.
CHAIR—I thought we ought to put that on record. I knew you would be. As Mr Goss has
to go very quickly, do any senators have a particular question for him?
Senator HUMPHRIES—Yes. Mr Goss, I will ask about what you feel is the state of
evidence available in Australia today about the influence of advertising on the consumption of
alcohol particularly among young people. I put to Professor Sandra Jones earlier today the test
which you put in your submission as the threshold that needs to be met before regulation
occurs. You say:
... there must be clear evidence of a causal link between the current regulatory treatment of alcohol
advertising ... and the issues the Government—
its legislation—
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 25
seeks to address.
She said, yes, the evidence of that causal link is there. Have you looked at the issue she
canvasses in her submission? If so, what is your response to that? If you haven’t—
Ms Flynn—Sorry, we have looked at other things but I missed who you said it was.
Mr Goss—It was Sandra Jones.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Yes, Professor Sandra Jones.
CHAIR—Our first witness.
Senator HUMPHRIES—She is from the University of Wollongong and works in this
area.
Mr Goss—I am not aware of it.
Senator HUMPHRIES—In that case could I invite you to perhaps take it away, have a
look at it and see how what she said to us gels with what you say about the state of evidence
on this question.
Mr Goss—I will just make one point, and I am sorry that I am going to have to go in a
minute. It is that the research that we got, which we are happy to leave with you, shows that
only about 1.5 per cent of all advertising to children under 17 is for alcohol, and all is pre-
vetted by ABAC. We are happy to leave that and more material with you. I suppose the point
we are making is that this is a very worthy goal that the legislation seeks to achieve. We
would just question whether this is the way to achieve that goal given that if you cut out
advertising in one area it is redistributed to others and those other areas are not subject to the
sort of regulation that free-to-air broadcasters are subject to and comply with. We will leave
that material with the committee.
CHAIR—Thank you for coming, Mr Goss. We do apologise for the inconvenience of the
schedule. We will continue asking questions of Ms Flynn and then, if you have anything you
particularly want to add, please send it to us.
Mr Goss—Will do.
CHAIR—We will return to Senator Fielding.
Senator FIELDING—My question is in relation to the question that was asked before. I
will come to it from a different way because of the causal link. Free Television Australia’s
submission states:
Before there is any further regulatory intervention in relation to advertising of alcohol products, there
must be clear evidence of a causal link between the current regulatory treatment of alcohol advertising
(ie, the existing content and pattern of advertisements), and the issues the Government seeks to address.
Given that alcohol is a special class of product that can do great harm if misused, is it not
incumbent on advertisers and the alcohol industry first to prove they are advertising in a way
that does not cause harm rather than relying on others to pull it into line?
Ms Flynn—I think we would argue that the regulations that have been put in place on free-
to-air commercial television—I might point out they apply to nobody else but us—have been
put there over an extended period of time. They date back to the days of the old Australian
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CA 26 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Broadcasting Tribunal. They were inherited with the change of legislation in 1992. We have
had a number of reviews of the code of practice in that time. This has not been an issue. There
is no evidence of large-scale complaints; in fact there are minimal complaints in relation to
the scheduling of alcohol advertisements.
Advertisements are time restricted and then content restricted through the ABAC system
and through our own commercials advice clearance area. We do not run ads that do not
comply with the ABAC code. I suspect there has been some discussion about the Bondi
Blonde ad. That is a classic example. We would not approve that ad. We told them that if they
wanted to put it on television they would have to go back and comply. It is my understanding
that they said: ‘Thanks and see you later. We’ll run it on the internet and in cinemas.’ That is
exactly what happened. We are not aware of the restrictions that have applied suddenly
contributing to the situation. These restrictions have been in place for a very long time. It is
not something that is new.
This issue has occurred at a time when our child audiences are heavily fragmenting, as is
evidenced in the ACMA report on the Children’s Television Standards review, at a time when
we know that advertisers are taking their advertisements to the less regulated areas of pay TV,
the internet, outdoor, backs of buses and the Sydney Morning Herald. I heard the previous
witnesses talking about the Age. I have here today’s Sydney Morning Herald. The same ad
runs in the Daily Telegraph, but I thought I would spare you that! So some of the evidence
that has been put to the committee has actually ignored all of this and misrepresents, in our
view, the amount of advertising for alcohol that is done on commercial free-to-air television.
Why is it that all of a sudden a half-hour between 8.30 and nine o’clock is an issue when
we know there is a very small young audience? Thirteen- to 17-year-olds represent a very
small percentage of that total audience and, according to the AusTam data, they drop off on a
minute-by-minute basis very rapidly from 8.30 to nine o’clock. Why is that somehow going to
make a significant difference? I have said before that the issue of alcohol advertising and live
sport has been there for 40 or 50 years, as far as I am aware. It has been something that has
always been carefully monitored and complied with in terms of the content of the ads.
If the parliament wants to take a different approach then we would argue most strongly that
that approach must apply to every form of media that there is. Otherwise, you are singling out
one form of the media in a highly convergent media world for a particular approach. We do
not even represent the majority of the advertising that children are exposed to. In fact, if you
take the total of the advertising we represent 25 per cent.
We think that if you are going to achieve something here you cannot just focus on
commercial free-to-air television, which is the only heavily regulated area at this point. It
seems to be a bit roundabout in terms of where, if we are looking at extending these things,
we need to be. We also know that major companies have been quoted in a range of
newspapers—the Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and B&T, which is a trade magazine
focussing on broadcasting and television—that they are advertising first on the internet and
using viral marketing and all the other ways to reach young people via mobile telephones et
cetera. So it seems to be an odd thing that you would further regulate and take the dollars
away from this area and put the dollars into somewhere that is less regulated. When we come
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 27
to the evidence, causal links and what have you, I would suggest that that research needs to
look at something other than television if it is going to be valid.
Senator FIELDING—There was a lot in that response—thank you for that. That was not
meant to be a negative comment, by the way; it was—
Ms Flynn—We see this as a genuine dialogue. As broadcasters, we are very committed to
ensuring that we comply—I am only aware of two ads, by the way, in the last five years that
did not comply. The manager of our commercials advice area, Ruth Ward, has been there for
over 25 years. She is the gold standard on the history of these things. We take these things
extremely seriously. We have a constant review and training process in place for the people
who are clearing ads and, given our responsibilities under the Children’s Television Standards,
we are particularly aware of ads that target children. In alcohol ads you are not allowed to
target children. You must comply with ABAC and if you do not we will not run the ads. More
generally, with the AANA and the beefing up of the Advertising Standards Board, which
looks at content of advertisements, we have given them an undertaking in the last couple of
years that, if they find something in breach and the advertiser does not remove it, we will. We
do not have a formal arrangement in place, but we would offer that as a step that the
broadcasters would be happy to implement if that were to occur. I only know of two instances
of ads that were in breach—the Bondi Blonde ad was one; the second was a newish wine
producer—and when they were advised of the fact that they had to comply with ABAC, they
went back and did so. So we are not aware of ads that are going to air that are in breach
somehow of the ABAC scheme. We are happy to work with whoever we do not administer.
We are not part of the ABAC scheme, but we are happy if there are changes to the ABAC
scheme for them to be applied to television.
Senator FIELDING—You mentioned kids and the Australian Television Audience
Management, or OzTAM, as it is probably more widely known. Figures show that more than
12 per cent of the audience for weekend television sport is aged under 18 years, and two-
thirds of that number are aged 12 or younger—that is on page 13 of this report. Alcohol ads
can be broadcast during these programs. Do those statistics cause you concern that so many
kids are watching sport and seeing alcohol advertised?
Ms Flynn—I do not have the figures to hand, but they are a very small percentage of the
total child universe at that time—and I am happy to bring those figures to you. But it is not
100 per cent of 13-to 17-year-olds or nought to 14-year-olds watching those programs; it is a
small percentage of the total universe. There are two sets of figures here: there is the
percentage of the total audience that is viewing and the percentage of that particular age group
that is actually viewing. They are quite different sets of figures.
Senator FIELDING—Obviously, you are aware there is a restriction on time for alcohol
ads—
Ms Flynn—Absolutely.
Senator FIELDING—and then there is a another standard that says that for sport that can
be an exception. In 2008, does that make sense to you?
Ms Flynn—As I said, it is a process that has been in place for the best part of 50 years, as I
understand it.
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CA 28 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Senator FIELDING—I am aware of that but I am asking if that makes sense to you.
Ms Flynn—It is a recognition of the fact that the majority of the audience—around 80 per
cent—is an adult audience and those ads are targeted to adults not to children. If you are
going to stop children’s exposure to any ads then we are going to have to turn the television
off and fund it through the public system without advertisements. Our care is to make sure
that we are not targeting children and that we are not showing them at times when children
predominantly make up the audience for television—and we do not.
Senator FIELDING—But your own figures say that there is a substantial number of kids,
whether you call it 10 to 20 per cent based on the figures—
Ms Flynn—Those children are watching, in the broad, with their parents; they are not
watching on their own. I think the figures we used for the CTS were that 60 per cent of under-
12s watch television with their parents, and it is over 50 per cent for teenagers watching
television with their parents. So, yes, there is exposure. This is an issue for the community at
large and the parliament to decide but, if you are going to go down that path, I would stress
again that you need to make it apply to every form of advertising that there is, not just to
commercial free-to-air television.
Senator FIELDING—On page 2 of your submission you also say:
… there is little evidence of community dissatisfaction …
… … …
The number of alcohol advertisements which are the subject of viewer complaint through the ABAC
Scheme remains low.
Ms Flynn—Yes.
Senator FIELDING—Regulation of alcohol advertising is a complaints based process—
you did not say this; I am saying it is a complaints based process—
Ms Flynn—No, but that is true.
Senator FIELDING—That implies that if there are no complaints, there is no problem.
Given evidence in another submission—which is from VicHealth, so you may not be that
familiar with that one—
Ms Flynn—I have seen the VicHealth one.
Senator FIELDING—that only three per cent of people know about the Alcoholic
Beverages Advertising Code, ABAC, I would be surprised if there were any complaints at all.
Ms Flynn—Let me assure you, there might be only three per cent who know about the
ABAC code but there are a lot of people who know about the free-to-air commercial
television code of practice, which is the document I have here and which is advertised on
every television station around the country virtually every day of the year—I think it is four to
six days short of every day of the year. A condition of the code of practice of ACMA and,
previously, the ABA is that it must be rotated across every timeslot during a week. Every
broadcaster has to promote this. We take large numbers of telephone calls at every broadcaster
in every part of the country and we have our own complaints process. Content complaints go
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 29
to the ASB. We have a very close relationship. If someone comes to us and it is an ASB
matter we will automatically pass it on to the ASB, and the ASB will come back to us.
I do not have any evidence that viewers are shy of telling broadcasters what they think
about what they are seeing, whether it is content or advertising, and I do think that that is a
misleading sense of what is actually happening on television, because on television they know
exactly where to go to complain. We have an extensive website. We put the website up only in
the last five years, after I arrived at Free TV, and we are constantly upgrading it. We have just
been through a process to make it more user-friendly, and I can tell you that over the last
couple of years we have had a constant increase in people accessing the website, going to the
code of practice and getting an explanation of the range of issues that they can complain
about. We take that need to actually engage with our audience very seriously. We think it is
important and we are happy to do whatever we can. If we can contribute to an understanding
of the ABAC code—if that is one of the things you think people need to do—then that is
something we are happy to use our website, given that people do know how to access that, to
encourage them to do. I think transparency in all these matters is very important. We are not
on a different approach from you on that.
CHAIR—Thank you, Ms Flynn. The evidence you have just given was also given by the
ABAC representatives in Melbourne, if you have a look at the transcript—one of the entries
to their scheme was through yours, and we spoke about that. Senator Humphries?
Senator HUMPHRIES—I do not think you were here earlier today when Professor Jones
from the University of Wollongong gave some evidence about her research into the effects of
advertising on the views of young people towards alcohol. She said in the course of that that
she felt that the ABAC system was fairly loose. It was interpreted very literally in some ways
and did not really screen out the things it should. She gave an example of what she called the
‘kebab ad’, which you may be familiar with. These guys are saying, ‘Let’s have another
drink’—it seems to be happening repeatedly—and before they go home they have a kebab. I
vaguely recall seeing this.
Ms Flynn—It is not one that springs to mind.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Okay. She points out that the ad was allowed through because
there was a clock in the background and the clock rotated an hour between each drink. It
looked like they were just knocking them back, but in fact the clock showed that they were
doing it over several hours. Therefore they were not drinking excessively and therefore the ad
complied with the code’s requirement not to depict people indulging excessively in alcohol. I
suppose I would ask you whether you think those sorts of ads, if you could review that one,
actually represent a breach of the spirit of the code.
Ms Flynn—That complaint would go to the ASB, I think, as a content complaint. But, as
far as broadcasters are concerned, if there are changes to the ABAC we will comply with
them. We are not going to say, ‘These things are set in stone; you should not do them,’ but I
would repeat my mantra: you cannot just do one thing for one form of media only and not
apply it to everybody. So we think a consistent approach across all media is appropriate. And
bear in mind that we are the only people with a time restraint. I am not familiar with the pay
TV code specifically, but I think they just have a general thing that says, ‘You must be aware
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CA 30 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
of the audience composition’—I am not sure how you interpret that—whereas ours is very
specific. In terms of content of ads, as long as they are consistent across all platforms, I think
we understand the need for those content provisions to be in line with community standards. It
is not for me to comment on an individual ad in the ABAC standard, but we give an assurance
that we will comply and make sure that the ads comply with the ABAC rules whatever they
may be.
Senator HUMPHRIES—The comment was also made by Professor Jones that the
problem with the figures that your submission gives regarding the size of the 13- to 17-year-
old audience watching weekend sport is that it covers all sports including things like lawn
bowls, which the kids are not interested in.
Ms Flynn—We do not show lawn bowls.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Okay.
Ms Flynn—I am sorry! For children, if they are interested in sport, most of the sport on
commercial free-to-air television is things like football and cricket; we are not talking about
lawn bowls.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So you are confident those figures hold up pretty well across
most sports.
Ms Flynn—Yes, we are.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Thank you.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—I was after a quick clarification of a few statistics that have
been quoted. Mr Goss, before he left, gave a 1½ per cent statistic.
Ms Flynn—That is a figure of the total percentage of ads that children in that age group
are exposed to. According to the AdEx data for this year, 1½ per cent are for alcohol.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—And that is comprehensive of all mediums of advertising?
Ms Flynn—No, in our medium.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—So it is 1½ per cent of advertising on television that they are
exposed to.
Ms Flynn—Yes, that they are exposed to.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Thank you for that. I quote from your submission:
The percentage of Australian children aged 13 to 17 years watching sport on television at the weekends
is 1.9 per cent.
That is from the group of statistics that Senator Humphries was just highlighting, I think. For
clarity, could you explain how that is measured, please?
Ms Flynn—I am not an AusTam data person, but I am happy to come back to you on that.
We have a briefing note that we can leave with you on how these things are measured.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Thank you. Is there an equivalent statistic you can give us for
the 8.30 to 9 pm timeslot?
Ms Flynn—Yes, I am pretty sure there is. We will come back to you on that.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 31
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Thank you.
Senator SIEWERT—I accept your argument that if we are going to have restrictions they
should apply across all media because I have certainly been in areas where they are showing
alcohol ads that kids see. But I suppose I have some trouble with the analogy with the
newspaper because (a) I think you would be struggling to find people between the ages of 13
and 17 who would be reading—and I do not wish to offend it—the Sydney Morning Herald
and (b) the point that Professor Jones was making is that the ads that are supposedly being
targeted at children are ones that attract children’s attention. She gave evidence that there are
alcohol ads that are particularly targeted at younger drinkers.
Ms Flynn—Are we talking about children or young drinkers?
Senator SIEWERT—Younger drinkers.
Ms Flynn—So 18 plus?
Senator SIEWERT—Yes, I think—
Ms Flynn—Children are not allowed to drink before they are 18.
Senator SIEWERT—Yes, you are right, but the point has been made in other evidence
that just because children are not allowed to drink until they are 18 does not mean that they
are not being targeted.
Ms Flynn—The ads are not allowed to target children on television. I repeat, they are not
allowed to target children, and they do not.
Senator SIEWERT—I hear what you are saying. The point is that, as I understood it, the
research she was talking about showed that they are actually attracting younger people’s
attention.
Ms Flynn—Well, whether they attract people’s attention or not, so do a range of other ads
that a child might be asked if they recollect for a whole range of other products that are not
targeted to them either. That is what I said about exposure: ‘exposure’ does not mean you are
targeting; nor does it mean, even if the child can remember the ad, that the child is necessarily
interested in the product that is being sold.
Senator SIEWERT—The point that was being made, as I understood it, was that,
according to the research, ads were being made that were being specifically remembered by
younger people and that older people were not paying attention. If I understood her correctly,
what she was inferring from that was that they are being targeting because the ads are not
actually getting the message through to the older people.
Ms Flynn—I think there is a large room for debate on that. I would say again that, as far as
content is concerned, these are community standards that have been set and we are certainly
happy to comply with whatever the community standards are. We are not making the ads. We
are clearing the ads in accordance with the regulations that currently exist. We take that
responsibility very seriously and we will continue to do so. We are not out there saying, ‘You
must let us do X or Y.’ We are here saying, ‘We comply with the regulatory environment.’
Senator SIEWERT—Okay. Part of the bill, as you know, also talks about it not being self-
regulatory but regulated by a government body. What are your comments on that?
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CA 32 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Ms Flynn—We have a co-regulatory system ourselves. We think a self-regulatory system
has been acceptable up until now. If you are going to make it go through ACMA, you would
actually have to fund ACMA extensively and resource it, and we think it is a much more
inefficient process. We would certainly think that the effort should be put into ensuring that
the current system works efficiently and to the standards that everyone is happy with.
Senator SIEWERT—This is where I want to go a little bit further—
Ms Flynn—I understand there are government representatives on the ABAC board.
Senator SIEWERT—Yes, there is one.
Ms Flynn—And I think there are community representatives on the ABAC board. I do not
think there is just one government representative. I cannot speak for ABAC but I think there
are a range of representatives on the board. I think there are world’s best practice standards for
self-regulatory schemes and we should ensure that those are what apply here in Australia.
Senator SIEWERT—Can I just go a little bit further. You said you were prepared to
comply with the standards, but then you seemed to be saying that you think self-regulation is
okay. Isn’t that the crux of the matter, because people have been saying that those standards
are not adequate, and certainly the senator who proposed this bill does not think those
standards are adequate?
Ms Flynn—That is not our scheme. That is the ABAC scheme, which we apply as a matter
of course as commercial television broadcasters. All we are saying is: if you want to change
the scheme, we as broadcasters will comply with whatever that is, but it must apply to
everyone, not just to us.
Senator SIEWERT—I do take that point.
Ms Flynn—Otherwise, I do not think you are going to achieve what you want to achieve.
Let’s not forget that the audience that is fragmenting the fastest for commercial free-to-air
television is the child audience, the youth audience. Its members are driving the fragmentation
of traditional media audiences, whether it is newspapers, magazines or whatever. I would
suggest that they might not be reading the Sydney Morning Herald, but the Telegraph and a
large number of magazines that print these ads are probably around, and they are exposed to
outdoor media. A few years ago, the most exposure my teenage children got to alcohol ads
was as they got on the bus to go to school every morning—there were ads on the sides and
backs of buses and bus shelters. I must say that, after complaining to some of the local state
health ministers and others, the amount of advertising seemed to decrease. People all say,
‘What about television?’ but if government buses are running these ads for alcohol then I
think we all ought to be looking at ourselves very closely.
Senator SIEWERT—As I said, I do take the point. I have seen the ads on the bus shelters
for a rather well-known variety of sparkling wine.
Ms Flynn—I would also point out—and this has not come up till now—that by and large
the alcopops or ready-to-drink products are not advertised on commercial free-to-air
television. No RTDs, as I understand it, have been approved by CAD in the last couple of
years. There may have been one or two along the way but they are not primarily advertised on
commercial free-to-air television.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 33
Senator SIEWERT—Never or not primarily?
Ms Flynn—I will come back to you with the exact data—
Senator SIEWERT—If you could.
Ms Flynn—but I think you will find it might be one or two.
Senator SIEWERT—Essentially this discussion is revolving around that half hour but
also sport. Do you show a different type of alcohol ad during the sports viewing than in the
evening?
Ms Flynn—You would have to speak to the commercial free-to-air broadcasters. I do not
know how that scheduling works. I can ask the question. I will take that on notice.
Senator SIEWERT—If you could, that would be appreciated; thanks.
Senator COLBECK—I got the impression, Ms Flynn, that you have your own internal
process to ensure that you believe that advertisements comply with the ABAC plus any other
codes that—
Ms Flynn—The CAD process is that we do not give commercial television advertisements
a number unless we are sure they comply with all relevant state, territory and Commonwealth
legislation.
Senator COLBECK—What is the process that you go through to assure yourself of that?
Ms Flynn—The people who are in our commercials clearance advice are trained on a
regular basis. We have people who have been there for very long periods of time; in fact, we
have a member of staff who has been there for over 30 years. So we have great consistency in
terms of the senior people who are clearing the ads. They are talking all the time with the
ABAC people and they get a tick from them that this thing has been approved. If something
does not have an ABAC tick or we are uncertain then we refer it back to the ABAC people.
Senator COLBECK—If something came back with an ABAC tick and you thought,
‘We’re not sure,’ what process would occur?
Ms Flynn—If it comes through with an ABAC tick then it has been approved.
Senator COLBECK—That is essentially what I was trying to get at.
Senator ADAMS—Ms Flynn, do you receive data on complaints from your members?
Ms Flynn—Yes, I do, and I report it quarterly to ACMA. So we bring all the data together.
I think it is fair to say that in total there are roughly around 240 or 250 complaints. It has been
pretty consistent. We put in an annual report to ACMA on the annual complaints as well. If
there is a particular event, program or issue that is causing concern, you will see spikes.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—So 240 to 250 complaints quarterly. Is that it?
Ms Flynn—That is it.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—For programming, advertising and everything else?
Ms Flynn—Yes. What normally happens is that lots of people ring up and make
complaints to the television stations. They are advised on how to make a formal complaint if
they wish to make a formal complaint. They are asked whether they wish to make a formal
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CA 34 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
complaint. Lots of people do not want to make a formal complaint; they just want to make
sure that someone has heard them and listened to what they had to say. Lots of complaints are
not code matters. They may be complaints about how someone looked, what they might have
commented upon or how their hair was done on any particular day—there are a range of
issues. It might be a complaint about the scheduling—for example, that it was five minutes
behind what they expected it to be. There are a range of things. We advertise the complaints
process extensively. I can give you the number of downloads we have for the code complaints
document. I know that we used to give out or mail out large numbers of copies per week. We
still mail out copies, but I am not sure in what numbers. We explain to people what they need
to do if they wish to complain.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Do you break the 240 to 250 complaints per quarter down at
all?
Ms Flynn—Yes, we do. It is all available—
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Do you break it into programming and advertising and then
into subcategories within those?
Ms Flynn—Yes. It is very detailed. I do not have a copy here with me. But I am happy to
get you an annual report on code complaints. I do not know whether the quarterly one is made
public, but the annual one is.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—If you could provide that to the committee, and in particular, if
there is anything that highlights the proportion of complaints relating to alcohol products, that
would be good.
Ms Flynn—It is virtually non-existent.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Thank you, Ms Flynn.
CHAIR—Thank you, Ms Flynn. I again apologise for the confusion over the time.
Ms Flynn—I am sure that Mr Goss understands, having been a politician. We are very
happy to take any further questions that the committee might want to ask.
CHAIR—That would be lovely. We have asked you for a couple of things. If we could get
them, that would be good.
Ms Flynn—We will bring them back to you.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 35
[5.42 pm]
HERBERT, Ms Sarah Jane, Manager, Legal and Regulatory, Commercial Radio
Australia
WARNER, Ms Joan, Chief Executive Officer, Commercial Radio Australia
CHAIR—I welcome witnesses from Commercial Radio Australia. Information on
parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence has been provided to
you. We have your submission—thank you. If either or both of you would like to make some
opening comments, you may. Then we will go to questions.
Ms Warner—All we will do is give you a couple of headline points from our submission.
We purposely kept it fairly brief. We are happy to take questions on it. We are quite pleased to
be here to have this opportunity to address these issues. We believe in the rationale behind the
bill and we are keen to assist in the development of a culture of responsible drinking. But our
concerns are that the bill as it is currently drafted does not recognise the existing and effective
coregulatory structure already governing the advertising of alcohol on radio. Radio is a little
bit different to other forms of media, too, because we have no visual cues that we can use. We
have an existing framework of coregulation, not self-regulation. Similar to television, we have
the commercial radio Australia codes of practice. These are coregulated by us and the ACMA.
As part of our codes, we require our members to adhere to any other applicable codes,
including the ABAC and the AANA code on the advertising of alcohol. Just as TV made the
point that only 25 per cent of alcohol advertising is on television, only five per cent of alcohol
advertising is on radio. The rest of the ads are outdoor, print and magazine ads.
We have a very good compliance record with the coregulatory structure. We have had only
one complaint regarding radio alcohol advertising, and that was upheld by the Advertising
Standards Bureau last year. That was not about the advertising of alcohol; it was about racial
vilification. In terms of our own commercial radio codes of practice, which require that the
misuse of alcohol is not promoted and that alcohol is not glamorised in any way, we have had
no complaints at all. We think that is a pretty good record for radio.
In listening to an earlier submission, it was interesting to hear it proposed that the
advertising of alcohol on television is not about people but more about the brand. I think if
you were characterising radio alcohol advertising you would say that it is probably more
about the brand as well because of the characteristics of the actual medium, the lack of
images. We are an audio medium. We believe that there is no evidence of a causal effect, as
you know from our submission, linking responsible radio advertising with irresponsible
drinking patterns among the young. We do not understand, without any evidence or clear and
longitudinal research, what the benefit would be of imposing further restrictions on radio
advertising. Those are all the headline points, but we are happy to answer any questions or
expound on any of those points.
CHAIR—Ms Herbert, do you wish to add anything at this stage?
Ms Herbert—Not at this stage.
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CA 36 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Senator FIELDING—Thank you, Ms Warner and Ms Herbert. How many people under
18 years of age hear alcohol advertisements on commercial radio?
Ms Warner—We do not have research into that. It is true to say that our programming on
commercial radio is not targeted at people below 16 years of age. We do not have any
children’s programming on commercial radio at all, even though we survey 10- to 17-year-
olds. I have not got the research figures here with me, but I can certainly make some available
to you. In terms of how many hear alcohol ads, I could not give you any numbers on that.
Senator FIELDING—I am trying to work out how, if you do not know that, you can say
that it is not a problem.
Ms Warner—There is no evidence that it is and we have had no complaints. Parents are
very quick to complain to commercial radio, I have to tell you. If they are listening to a
breakfast show, for example, and they hear some obscene language they are very quick to
complain to their local commercial radio station and to ACMA. We have had no complaints
from parents about alcohol advertising on commercial radio. I think that in itself tells you
something.
Senator FIELDING—Have there been any studies at all into whether or not there is a link
between advertising on radio and problem drinking?
Ms Warner—Not specifically relating to radio that I am aware of.
Senator FIELDING—If there is not then does that mean there is no evidence to say that
advertising alcohol on the radio is responsible? You will turn that around. I will let you speak
for yourself. Go on.
Ms Warner—I would ask you: are there any specific studies that prove that alcohol
advertising on radio encourages irresponsible drinking among young people or children?
Senator HUMPHRIES—You have made the point in your evidence and in your
submission that only five per cent of alcohol advertisements are broadcast on commercial
radio compared with other forms of media. You say that in these circumstances there is no
obvious logic or benefit in imposing further regulatory restrictions on radio. I assume you
would agree that whatever regime we have that applies to television, whether it is this
legislation or something else, ought to be applied to radio as well. There are obviously
differences in the things that you can do on radio and what you can do on television but do
you agree that the concepts that you cannot associate with alcohol ought to apply equally to
television and radio advertising?
Ms Warner—In terms of concepts, yes, I think I would have to agree. But I need to make
the point that we do not have children’s programming on commercial radio. We do not target
children with our programming. We target young people, certainly, with music shows.
We also need to make the point that we do not have any visual cues. So our ability to
represent alcohol as a desirable lifestyle choice—as you can do with visual representation,
and as perhaps some magazines and some outdoor ads do—is severely limited on radio.
Again, I would say that our co-regulatory system seems to be working very well. Just as the
former speaker, Julie Flynn, said, anything that is in the ABAC will be enforced in
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 37
commercial radio because it is a requirement of our codes that we adhere to all the other
codes.
Senator HUMPHRIES—But you are not arguing in the submission that, if there were a
decision made to extend the arrangements as proposed by this bill to television, they should
not also be extended to radio?
Ms Warner—It depends what they are.
Senator HUMPHRIES—The ones in the bill.
Ms Warner—We think the bill goes a little bit too far in saying that alcohol advertising
cannot occur at certain times of the day.
Senator HUMPHRIES—I accept that. All I am saying is, if the parliament decided that
that were an appropriate restriction to place on television, you are not saying that there is a
reason why we should not impose that restriction on radio. For example, if we were saying
that you cannot advertise before nine o’clock at night on television, you would not say that
there should be an exception made for advertising on radio before nine o’clock at night.
Ms Warner—Yes, we would, and we would probably want to provide you with further
evidence on the listening patterns of 10- to 17-year-olds to commercial radio and perhaps
prove that 10- to 14-year-olds are not listening to commercial radio at night or after the
evening; they are watching television. We would want to have the ability to input into that a
little bit further when we are a little bit clearer on what might get up and what statistics we
could supply to make a case for radio being treated differently.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So you have got statistics on listenership at certain times of
night—
Ms Warner—Listening patterns, yes.
Senator HUMPHRIES—among age groups.
Ms Warner—Yes, we do.
Senator HUMPHRIES—It would be great to have that material, thanks.
Ms Warner—We can supply that to you.
Senator HUMPHRIES—In your submission, you say:
Licensed premises are bound by State or Territory legislation which regulates the way in which they
advertise on radio. The restrictions vary from one jurisdiction to another ...
Can you give me an example of that? What sort of legislation in the states regulates
advertising?
Ms Warner—Our broadcasters are very alive to this issue as well. If they get an ad that
they may not feel comfortable with, even if it has an ABAC tick, they will call and seek
advice on whether they should broadcast it. Our advice is always: if you are feeling unsure as
to whether this would be in any way in contravention of the interests of your audience, then
do not broadcast it. For example, in some states there is regulation that stops any sort of
happy hour advertising. That is not common across all states, but in some jurisdictions you are
not allowed to advertise free offers like ‘Buy a slab and get one free.’ On radio, we are
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CA 38 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
allowed to advertise the brand but not any specials. That is not common across all
jurisdictions.
Senator HUMPHRIES—I would have thought that there were constitutional reasons why
a state could not impose a restriction on broadcasting, because it does not have power over
broadcasting.
Ms Warner—They can. They have done it in other areas. For example, in New South
Wales they imposed a restriction not actually on broadcasting but on the industry that operates
there. So they will impose a restriction on how an ad can be formed or what can or cannot be
included in an advertisement, and we will adopt that, even though it is not exactly a restriction
on us; it is a restriction on our client. One thing we do not want to happen is for us to
broadcast something that is in breach of a client’s code and gets that client into any trouble.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So it is more a case of there being a code that affects the
industry and you complying with it in order respect the industry’s position.
Ms Warner—We will adopt it, yes. We do not adopt it into our codes, but it is covered by
3.1(b) in our codes, which says that we will adhere to all other codes of practice for other
industries where appropriate.
Senator ADAMS—I want to ask about rural commercial radio versus metropolitan
commercial radio. Would your alcohol ads be more prevalent in rural areas or in the city?
Ms Warner—We have not surveyed that, but I would not think so. The advertising split in
regional Australia is 80 per cent local and 20 per cent national. Not many of our regional
stations are getting national alcohol campaigns. That is one of the issues they have: they are
not getting a lot of national advertising. They would be getting mainly the local bottle shop
advertising. In fact many of our regional members ring in. The local bottle shop that wants to
advertise: ‘Get a slab on your way home.’ We do not want to advertise that because it is
promoting misuse of alcohol, drinking and driving, so broadcasters will reject that ad. Or the
local hotel might say they want to advertise the publican’s happy hour. Again, our
broadcasters do not want to do that because it is in breach of our code of not promoting the
misuse of alcohol. The ads that the regional broadcasters get would be from local bottle shops
and, probably, hotels and clubs rather than from a national alcohol brand. There may be
exceptions to that, but in the main I think you will find that that is the case.
CHAIR—What about sport? I am thinking about the component of the bill that relates to
sport and advertising and about the commercial radio networks and what they advertise. They
would do racing in some places across the country, wouldn’t they?
Ms Warner—Yes. A lot of licensees in regional areas who are doing racing do not have a
commercial radio licence. They have a narrowcast licence or a section 40 licence because in
many jurisdictions they could not get a commercial licence. You will find that the commercial
radio licensee is in the city and the relay stations have a different class of licence.
CHAIR—And football coverage?
Ms Warner—It is the same thing. The networks that have the football coverage, like
Macquarie Southern Cross and 2GB in New South Wales, would then sell on their program to
regional networks, sometimes to community stations.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 39
CHAIR—Would there be a possibility of alcohol advertising on those? I am trying to think
through alcohol sponsorship.
Ms Warner—Yes. If the code is being sponsored by an alcohol brand—if it was sponsored
by Tooheys or it was called the Winfield Cup—then obviously it would be. I hate to admit I
am not up on all the sporting codes. They would mention it, but it would be in terms of a
brand—
CHAIR—Yes, rather than a straight advertisement process.
Ms Warner—rather than promoting a lifestyle through an ad.
CHAIR—We heard from the TV industry about how their complaint mechanism worked.
Is yours similar? If there is a complaint about an ad for an alcohol product, would they ring up
the local radio station, and then would it automatically transfer?
Ms Warner—Yes. They are required to put their complaint in writing. The radio station
must respond within 30 days. If the listener is not happy with the response they can then
escalate the matter to the ACMA. We had 198 complaints in total across the industry in 2007.
That is 260 radio stations. We have had 43 complaints in this first quarter. Not one has been
about code 1.3(c)(i), which is promoting the misuse of alcohol. The majority of those
complaints are about how the radio station has handled a complaint—they have not got back
to them within 30 days or they have not liked their answer. Certainly we support
wholeheartedly what Senator Fielding is trying to do, but our strong view is that restricting
radio advertising of alcohol products is not going to achieve the aim that he hopes to achieve,
particularly as the advertising on radio is probably more brand advertising, more like the
French model, than promoting a lifestyle.
Senator FIELDING—I would like a clarification. You said that commercial radio does not
‘target’ kids. I think that was the word you used.
Ms Warner—Yes.
Senator FIELDING—Are you going to table which audiences are listening? I assume that
covers age groups from 13 to 17.
Ms Warner—Yes. We can break it down.
Senator FIELDING—Could you do that by hour, because I am sure you have got it. I
noticed that you have.
Ms Warner—We could do it by day part.
Senator FIELDING—Could you do it by hour as well, because I know you have
probably—
Ms Warner—No.
Senator FIELDING—You do not get it at all?
Ms Warner—No. We do not have electronic measurement, so we do not have minute by
minute data, but we do have day part data, which is what we publish.
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CA 40 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Senator FIELDING—I thought advertisers got a good feeling for what audience is
listening by the hour and that that is how they pay for their advertising, as they know the
audience.
Ms Warner—They do it by day part and by program
Senator FIELDING—And when you say ‘day part’, what sort of day parts?
Ms Warner—The morning session, which is 5—
Senator FIELDING—Could you break it up? Could you table that?
Ms Warner—Into the day parts?
Senator FIELDING—Yes, if you could.
Ms Warner—Sure.
Senator FIELDING—That would be great. By age groups. Thank you.
CHAIR—Thank you, Ms Warner and Ms Herbert, for your attendance. Could we get the
stuff we have asked for as quickly as possible for this process?
Ms Warner—Yes. Can I get a clarification. Do you want it just from the last survey or
would you like it from the last couple of surveys? We have eight surveys a year.
CHAIR—Is it possible to get a year’s data? Can that come through?
Ms Warner—Do you want all of 2007 perhaps? That would probably be the easiest to get.
CHAIR—That would be very useful. Give us the data for 2007 and then we will trawl
through that and see what we can find. That would be lovely.
Ms Herbert—And, Senator Fielding, the age group you want is?
Senator FIELDING—I think you said you had some between 13 and 17. I assume the
data is there for all the age groups.
Ms Warner—Yes. Our main age breaks are 10 to 17, 17 to 25 and 25 onwards. We will
have to ask our research company if we can break the 10 to 17 down into a subgroup. If we
can we will.
CHAIR—That would be lovely.
Proceedings suspended from 6.01 pm to 6.26 pm
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 41
BRYANT, Ms Jennifer, First Assistant Secretary, Department of Health and Ageing
HART, Ms Virginia, Assistant Secretary, Drug Strategy Branch, Department of Health
and Ageing
LEARMONTH, Mr David, Deputy Secretary, Department of Health and Ageing
FLADUN, Mr John, General Counsel, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand
CHAIR—I welcome officers from the Department of Health and Ageing. Thank you for
making yourselves available outside of standard hours. As departmental officers you will not
be asked to give opinions on matters of policy, though this does not preclude questions asking
for explanations of policy or factual questions about when and how policies were adopted. We
received your submission this afternoon. Would you like to make an opening statement and
then we will go to questions.
Mr Learmonth—I will make a few brief statements to start with to set the scene. Firstly, I
apologise to the committee for the late submission. That said, if I could make a brief
statement, perhaps starting with the overview of alcohol and harm. Our data shows that over
80 per cent of Australians drink alcohol regularly and many do so responsibly. About 35 per
cent drink at least once a year at levels that risk harm in the short term from events such as
accidents and violence. About 10 per cent drink at levels that risk harm in the long term from
conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and dependence.
It is estimated that in 2004-05 the social cost attributable to alcohol misuse was over $15
billion. We have data on how drinking patterns differ across age groups and the 20- to 29-year
age group shows the riskiest drinking pattern. Adolescents also show risky drinking patterns
and they are at higher risk of harm from alcohol than adults because of their smaller physical
size and emotional and intellectual experience. Most people do not suffer ill effects from
modest consumption but the risk of harm increases exponentially as consumption increases.
During the 10 years to 2001 it is estimated that over 31,000 Australians died from alcohol
caused disease and injury—liver cirrhosis, road crash injury, suicide and so on were common
causes.
Turning to the policy framework, the Commonwealth government provides leadership
policy direction, research and national education campaigns. State and territory governments
have responsibility for liquor-licensing arrangements and the provision of treatment services.
All jurisdictions work together through the mechanisms of the Ministerial Council on Drug
Strategy to implement the National Alcohol Strategy 2006-09. It has four priority areas, which
are intoxication, public safety and amenity, health impacts and cultural place and availability.
One of the main sources of advice to health professionals and consumers is the Australian
Alcohol Guidelines. The National Health and Medical Research Council developed the
original guidelines in 2001 and is now in a process to revise and update those guidelines using
the latest scientific information.
Senators would have noticed the announcement of the Prime Minister’s binge drinking
strategy, which comprises funding of $53.3 million for a national binge drinking strategy. It
has three broad measures. The first is $14.4 million to invest in community-level initiatives to
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CA 42 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
confront the culture of binge drinking, particularly in sporting organisations. Two million
dollars will be invested in a ‘Club Champions’ program; $5.2 million in an expansion of the
Good Sports initiative of the Australian Drug Foundation; and $7.2 million in a community
based grants round. There will also be $19.1 million to intervene earlier to assist young people
and ensure they assume personal responsibility for their binge drinking. Finally, there will be
$20 million to fund advertising that confronts young people with the costs and consequences
of binge drinking.
Finally, there are a couple of things from COAG. At the Council of Australian Governments
meeting on 26 March, it was agreed that the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy would be
asked to develop options, including in relation to closing hours, responsible service of
alcohol, reckless secondary supply and the alcohol content in ready-to-drink beverages.
COAG has asked for a report on progress by 15 December this year. COAG also asked the
Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council to request that the Food
Standards agency consider mandatory health warnings on packaged alcohol.
Given the time, I will leave it there and would be happy to take questions.
CHAIR—Thank you, Mr Learmonth. Mr Fladun, at this stage do you want to add anything
from your agency?
Mr Fladun—No, I would not propose to make an opening statement.
Senator FIELDING—I have not had a chance to go through the submission in any depth
or detail at all, but I will do so. If there are any questions, could I place them on notice?
CHAIR—Yes.
Senator FIELDING—Generally, can you explain what legislative controls the federal
government has over alcohol advertising?
Ms Hart—I am happy to answer that. In terms of alcohol advertising, the current
arrangements are of a self-regulatory nature sometimes referred to as ‘quasi-regulatory’. They
operate through the mechanism of the ABAC and the structures that accompany the ABAC,
which consist of a management advisory committee and a range of mechanisms for the
consideration of complaints made about advertisements through the ASB. The body is headed
by a chief adjudicator, who is Michael Lavarch, and a complaints adjudication panel.
Senator FIELDING—Does the government have the power to enforce any advertising
guidelines?
Ms Hart—I think I would have to take that on notice. I would probably require legal
advice; my expertise runs to current arrangements under the code, which is voluntary. I think
you are asking me a broader question about capacity for enforcement.
Mr Learmonth—I think it would a matter for the communications portfolio and their act,
and they would be best placed to comment on that.
Senator FIELDING—So that is not in your portfolio. How could I get that question—
CHAIR—We will take it on notice and contact the department.
Mr Learmonth—Regulation of advertising, I think, is usually under the communications
broadcasting act or administered by that portfolio.
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 Senate CA 43
Senator FIELDING—That probably answers the next one. Which federal agency is
directly responsible for alcohol advertising matters?
Mr Learmonth—With advertising, that would be a matter for the communications
portfolio.
Senator FIELDING—Is that the case for TV, radio, billboard, magazine and newspaper
advertising? This can be put on notice. You will probably say, ‘Look, you need to direct that
there,’ and I am happy to do that.
Mr Learmonth—For what it is worth, I think it would certainly apply to television and
radio. Beyond that, it would be a matter for—
Senator FIELDING—I think we will just put that on notice to the right area. Thank you
for that update on the Monitoring of Alcohol Advertising Committee—you spoke about that
briefly. Can you elaborate a bit more about that committee, which was established through the
Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy in May 2006?
Ms Hart—I am happy to answer that. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, which
looks after alcohol policy and other drug matters, agreed in May that it would establish the
Monitoring of Alcohol Advertising Committee with the role of undertaking continued
monitoring of alcohol advertising and the current regulatory system. The terms of reference
include monitoring of implementation and impact of the current arrangements and regular
reports to the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, the MCDS. Since the establishment of the
MAAC, as I will refer to it, there have been two reports made to MCDS and the next report is
going to the November 2008 meeting of MCDS.
Senator FIELDING—Are those reports public?
Ms Hart—They are not publicly released; they go as papers to the ministerial council.
Senator FIELDING—I would love to see them. Can I?
Ms Hart—I would probably need to seek agreement from the chair of the ministerial
council.
Ms Bryant—He may wish to consult with his state and territory colleagues, but we have to
ask.
Senator FIELDING—Could you ask? Sometimes they do make those papers public.
Ms Hart—Yes, we are happy to do that.
Senator FIELDING—What sort of monitoring has it done? Could you just go through
that? It was May 2006, so it was a couple of years ago.
Ms Hart—That is right. It monitors a range of things, including the level of activity. It
looks at the annual reports that ABAC produces and it also considers any particular topical
issues around advertising. It also has given advice to me as the government representative on
the management committee of ABAC about issues that it wishes to raise or put on the agenda.
For example, there have been some issues around the accessibility and knowledge that people
have about their capacity to make complaints about alcohol ads and the process of doing that.
I have represented that position at the ABAC management committee, and a number of
changes have been made as a result of that representation. I think the principle one is a
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streamlining of the ABAC website so it is very easy for consumers in particular to find how
they would go about making and placing a complaint.
The other thing that is under development which has arisen as a result of MAAC
discussions is the development of some guidelines. The ABAC is pitched at quite a high level.
There are general statements about the operations and scope of the code. One of the
discussions around such a high-level code has been the difficulty sometimes for consumers
and advertisers in knowing how the code will apply to the exact details of an ad. Through my
representations on behalf of the MAAC, the ABAC management committee is in the process
of developing a set of guidelines that will sit with the code. They include further information
about what the terms in the code mean and how it operates and will list and link to a number
of adjudicated decisions so that people can see in real life, if you will, how the application of
the code to particular decisions would work.
Another thing I might highlight in terms of concrete action that has resulted from MAAC
discussions, considerations and reports was the decision to include public health
representation as part of the complaints adjudication process. Two academics with expertise in
public health—Professor Baum and Professor Mattick, who has expertise in drug and alcohol
issues—have been added as members to the complaints adjudication panel. The MAAC was
very keen, obviously, to have that point of view taken into account in the adjudication
process. We were also keen, given the volume of consideration that goes through that process,
to have two academics who were available for quite a high-volume activity.
Senator FIELDING—Since May 2006 what reports have been made public from the
MAAC?
Ms Hart—I would need to take that on notice. I am aware of the confidential reports that
go to the MCDS. If I may, I will take that on notice. Off the top of my head, I am not aware of
public reports that have been made available but I can check that for you.
Senator FIELDING—Okay. I assume it is funded from federal moneys in some way—at
least some of it.
Ms Hart—The committee consists of representatives from the Commonwealth—from my
department—and then from Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales
Health. They are all either state or federal public servants who are members of the MAAC.
Senator FIELDING—I think the public would be pretty interested to know from May
2006 what you folks have been up to. I am not saying it is good or bad. I am just saying that I
think for 2006 and 2008 there should be some reports that should definitely be made public. I
would be pretty keen to see them.
Ms Hart—As I say, I would be happy to take that on notice and give you some information
about that.
Senator FIELDING—Earlier there were some comments as to community representatives
being on the ABAC committee. I think there are no community representatives on it. I think
there are two Australian government representatives on it. Would that be right?
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Ms Hart—There is one position for a government representative. You might have seen in
the most recent report two pictures of Commonwealth representatives. One is of my
predecessor and one is of me.
Senator FIELDING—Right. So you are the representative—is that right?
Ms Hart—That is right. That is correct.
Senator FIELDING—What do you actually do on it?
Ms Hart—I attend meetings of the management committee. I raise issues that arise out of
Commonwealth policy considerations or arise on behalf of state and territory jurisdictions
generally as put to me through the MAAC process.
Senator FIELDING—Does the public ever get a chance to know what you are saying on
behalf of the public in the ABAC committee?
Ms Hart—Apart from any input that would appear in the annual reports, and considering
confidential information to the ministerial council, I do not think there would be a direct
public feedback loop from that process.
Senator FIELDING—Would you be able to outline anything in the last period? How long
have you been on the ABAC committee for?
Ms Hart—I have been on the management committee for approximately 18 months.
Senator FIELDING—In those 18 months have you had any concerns at all with anything?
Ms Hart—I have put positions that have been adopted—just to refer back to what I talked
about in the description of the MAAC activities—as to the need for public health input into
the adjudication process. Obviously, that is an important part of decision making around the
advertising and public health perspective. That was raised through the MAAC discussions and
brought by me to the ABAC management committee meetings. We also scrutinise annual
reports and statistics about the level of activity and complaints. We have discussions about the
operation and time frames for the pre-vetters process and we have regular discussions of any
advertisements that have been controversial. I think that is largely the nature of the discussion
at the meetings. They occur three or four times a year.
Senator FIELDING—Would you provide the ABAC committee with the Australian
public’s views or would you provide the government’s views?
Ms Hart—I am there as the government representative on the committee.
Senator FIELDING—Have you raised the issue of alcohol advertising during sports
programs and any concerns relating to that?
Ms Hart—No, I have not. I do not think that during my time on the committee there has
been any discussion on that issue.
Senator HUMPHRIES—I want to come to the part of your submission where you talk
about food regulation arrangements. I will just see if I can step through what I understand to
be the legal arrangements with respect to making a new standard for advertising alcoholic
products. The bill purports to amend the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act. Does an
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amendment to the Australian act have the effect of changing any provisions of the mirror
equivalent New Zealand legislation?
Mr Fladun—No, it does not.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Do we generally have an alignment of food standards legal
arrangements between Australia and New Zealand?
Mr Fladun—That is correct.
Senator HUMPHRIES—And we try, therefore, to synchronise our amendments to the
legislation, but we would not be doing so in this case unless New Zealand were to pass its
own equivalent piece of legislation?
Mr Fladun—That is also correct.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Underneath the act there is the Australia New Zealand Food
Standards Code, which is a vehicle for a cooperative arrangement between 10 jurisdictions:
the six states, the two territories, the Commonwealth and New Zealand. It is that code through
which new food standards are actually made, isn’t it?
Mr Fladun—The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code is a compilation of
individual standards. The mechanism by which those standards actually acquire legal force is
through an intergovernmental agreement between the Commonwealth, states and territories. It
is called the Food Regulation Agreement. It was initially signed in 1991, but it has been
amended and it is now the 2002 version. That particular agreement gives effect to what would
otherwise be just pieces of paper with print on them.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So the expectation is that new standards, which are to apply
across Australia, at least, if not New Zealand, are to be developed under that
intergovernmental agreement in a process that involves consultation with all of the
stakeholders?
Mr Fladun—I am not too sure that actually will work in the context of the Food
Regulation Agreement because item 9, as I read it, simply requires FSANZ to make or publish
a standard, and in that sense—it appears to me, anyway—it circumvents the development
approval processes within our enabling legislation of the FSANZ Act, in any event. Because
of that, there is no actual trigger within the Food Regulation Agreement to pick up those
standards within the states and territories. So, on my reading of the proposed provision, it
would require FSANZ to simply make a standard without going through the process by which
that standard becomes law in the jurisdictions.
Senator HUMPHRIES—To look at the political level, first of all, we are having a
unilateral decision by the Commonwealth to make a new standard when all the other
standards which FSANZ has developed to date have been made in cooperation with all the
stakeholders?
Mr Fladun—Yes, in cooperation under that intergovernmental agreement.
Senator HUMPHRIES—You make the point in the submission that the FSANZ Act has
no effect on state or territory food law because of Commonwealth constitutional restraints,
and you say that there is no capacity for the states or territories to enforce the proposed new
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standard—the 87A standard—in the bill, if it were to be inserted, as it would not be
considered a food standard for the purpose of the code because it has not been made under the
food standards code.
Mr Fladun—That is correct, and it goes back to the trigger. I can refer you to the clause—
it is clause 23 of the Food Regulation Agreement—which sets out the adoption process for
those standards that FSANZ develops and approves. In effect, that clause says that
jurisdictions will only adopt or incorporate into their domestic food law those standards that
have been developed and approved by FSANZ. What section 87A, as proposed, does not do is
contemplate that development process by FSANZ, so the Food Regulation Agreement will not
actually pick up the standard that would be required to be made under that provision.
Senator HUMPHRIES—As I understand it, the only enforcement mechanisms for
standards at the moment lie within the hands of state and territory governments.
Mr Fladun—That is correct; under their food legislation.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So if a standard somehow were made under this process—and I
take on board the points you raised about the problems—the Commonwealth has no
mechanism to enforce it, which it makes unilaterally outside that intergovernmental
agreement.
Mr Fladun—Not as I would understand the constitutional position.
Senator HUMPHRIES—There is a standard being considered at the moment by FSANZ
at the request of the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand for a warning to pregnant
women about the effects of alcohol consumption while pregnant. Is it possible for these
arrangements to be piggybacked onto that arrangement with respect to alcohol intake while
pregnant?
Mr Fladun—The matter that you refer to is an application. Applications generally have a
finite scope that is defined by the applicant; whereas with proposals that FSANZ undertakes
under our legislation, our scope is far broader. With that particular application, it has a scope
which you have described but it does not contemplate piggybacking nor does the act allow
piggybacking of other matters that may relate to alcohol.
Senator HUMPHRIES—So the Commonwealth parliament by passing this legislation
cannot force FSANZ to piggyback—for example, it could not force FSANZ to piggyback this
because it would be onto that standard being developed for pregnant women because it would
be in breach of the intergovernmental agreement.
Mr Fladun—The FSANZ Act does not contemplate that piggybacking process, Senator.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Lastly, you say there is no international consensus on the use of
warning labels on alcoholic beverages nor consistency of format or of wording. Furthermore,
there are no specific codex standards in relation to labelling of alcoholic beverages. Does that
mean that there is effectively no template or model that Australia could pick up right now and
use in the way that is foreshadowed in the amendment?
Mr Fladun—I do not think that was part of my contribution to the DHAS submission.
Senator HUMPHRIES—Can the department answer that question?
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Ms Bryant—I think that is correct. There is no template that we could simply pick up and
use in the sense contemplated by the bill—if that is your question.
Senator HUMPHRIES—That is fine. The only other question I wanted to ask about was
the effect of national competition policy on the capacity of states and territories to restrict
trading hours. I assume none of you can answer a question about national competition policy.
Mr Learmonth—I think that is probably a fair bet, Senator.
Senator HUMPHRIES—I thought not but I thought I would just take a wild stab at that. I
will put that on notice. Who would regulate national competition policy—Treasury?
Mr Learmonth—Treasury, I think would be first start.
CHAIR—That is when they come at estimates.
Senator ADAMS—I want to ask a question about the Goods Sports program as far as rural
and regional communities go. Is that going to cover those areas as well as metropolitan areas?
It is on page 13 of your submission.
Ms Bryant—You are asking if this program will be available in rural and remote areas—is
that it?
Senator ADAMS—That is right.
Ms Hart—I will answer that. Because it is a recently announced initiative but it is building
on an existing program, initially the focus will be on rolling it out further, with priority over
the next year or two for rural and remote implementation of the program.
Senator ADAMS—I will watch that and make sure that it does.
Senator COLBECK—Going back to the ministerial council and the 2006 committee, have
there been any communiques that have come out of that in relation to the work that has been
done that you are aware of?
Ms Hart—Have there been any communiques from the MAAC?
Senator COLBECK—Or the ministerial council that relates specifically to these matters.
Ms Hart—I would need to check. The ministerial council always issues a communique
following its meetings. I do not have copies of those communiques on me. I cannot—
Ms Bryant—We would have to check if the content included this program.
Mr Learmonth—We can provide that on notice.
Senator COLBECK—That is fine. During the 18 months that you have been on the
committee, what has been your interaction with the industry as such? How willing have they
been to take on board the suggestions of government and modify their processes to comply
with those wishes?
Ms Hart—During my period on the ABAC management committee?
Senator COLBECK—I know that presuming is a dangerous thing, but that would be your
scope of experience so that is why I am asking about the time that you have been on the
committee.
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Ms Hart—I suppose my summary assessment is that they have been willing to consider
and respond to issues that have been put to them. As I outlined before, some of those have
either resulted in action or in the process of yielding actions consistent with the decision. My
experience has been that I was able to give a full coverage of concerns or issues that I raised
and that the industry representatives were fully willing to listen to that and to consider as a
management committee how we might make a response to those issues.
Senator COLBECK—There has been some concern from a range of witnesses with
respect to the independence of the complaints panel and the pre-vettors. Could you give us
your perspective on how independent they are in their activities?
Ms Hart—Yes, I would be happy to do that. On the issue of the independence of the
adjudication process, our perspective is that the addition of two public health experts to the
adjudication panel was very useful and a very important part of ensuring independence. It was
also a very strong representation of the public health component of alcohol advertising
arrangements. My understanding is that the pre-vettors are independent of industry. Based on
the current pre-vettors, they are largely drawn from people who have a legal background. I
know in one instance that the Immigration Review Tribunal has been a strong part of the pre-
vettor’s background. In other cases, it has been a background in forms of market research. The
selection of pre-vettors is designed to ensure independence. The composition of the
adjudication panel is designed to ensure independence in that the requirement is to have one
of the public health experts, the chief adjudicator and a member who has advertising or
market research expertise.
Senator COLBECK—You are happy that they are effectively operating under their own
cognisance in respect of the decision-making processes that they undertake with respect to the
work that is put before them?
Ms Hart—I can only make an assessment on the application of the principles of the code.
As my colleague has reminded me, the adjudication panel provides copies of the decisions to
us. They have always been happy to discuss the nature of those decisions or to allow us to
raise issues—or that avenue is there—so there is the capacity for us to scrutinise those
decisions and consider whether or not the code appears to have been objectively applied to the
ads in question.
Senator COLBECK—But they do effectively operate independently from the ABAC
management committee?
Ms Hart—Yes they do.
Senator BOYCE—Referring to the introduction on the first page, you described the
drinking of ‘ready to drink’, or RTDs, by young girls as alarming and you gave some
statistics. Is that alarming because these are people who have not drunk before? Can you
explain what you mean by ‘alarming’ there?
Mr Learmonth—There are probably a couple of aspects to that. One is what the research
shows as the growth in the consumption of RTDs on the part of our younger population. If I
could give you a couple of measures—
Senator BOYCE—So they are drinking more ‘ready to drinks’?
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Mr Learmonth—I can give you a couple of measures to illustrate that. For example, there
is one study which showed that, for females between 15 and 17, those for whom an RTD was
their last drink, went from 14 per cent in 2000 to 60 per cent in 2004. There is a separate
study, which I think is the high school study, which showed that, for children between 12 and
17 in the years between 1999 and 2005, RTDs as the drink of preference for boys went from
six per cent to 14 per cent. For girls it went from 23 per cent to 48 per cent. What we are
seeing is evidence of increasing attraction to this particular product. That is one part of it—the
growth in RTDs and that segment of the market.
I think—and Ms Hart might elaborate on this—the other concern with that type of product
in particular is its particular characteristics. There is research which shows that it has
particular issues for younger and juvenile populations, particularly given that it encompasses
alcohol with a range of sweeteners, milk products, energy drinks and so on that have a
lifestyle resonance and that also can mask to some extent the knowledge and appreciation that
there is alcohol there. It can give them something of a false sense of security. So in some
respects it falls into a slightly different category. Given the growth and the nature of the
product, I think that would be a concern.
Senator BOYCE—Does your research tell you if these young women were drinking other
drinks and switched to RTDs or whether they are new to alcohol because of the attraction to
RTDs?
Ms Hart—I would need to explore that and take that on notice for you. The information
that Mr Learmonth referred to is largely couched in terms of asking young people about their
preferred beverage. So whether or not we could extract from the data an answer to your
question I need to take on notice.
Senator BOYCE—Personally, I am going to be more concerned if this is new drinking
rather than simply substitute drinking. So I am interested in the use of the term ‘alarmed’ here.
I am keen to know what information you can give us there.
Mr Learmonth—I can answer that. There are certain factors associated with that particular
product and with that particular segment of the market. There have been studies in the UK and
Sweden, for example, which show that—the nature of those drinks—the consumption of those
drinks tends to be in less controlled circumstances and associated with heavier alcohol intake
and greater drunkenness.
Senator BOYCE—Than?
Mr Learmonth—Other products.
CHAIR—Which research is that from?
Mr Learmonth—It is a publication called Alcohol in Europe: a public health perspective.
It was a report for the European Commission in 2006 by the Institute of Alcohol Studies in the
UK.
Mr Learmonth—Here it is. I am very happy to provide it to you if you would like it. It is
actually an extremely good report. It is a meta-analysis, if you like, of an awful lot of
academic research and papers and it presents a very good summary of much of the available
research on alcohol regulation and harm.
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CHAIR—I may regret this, but I am later going to ask if we can have that tabled.
Mr Learmonth—You are welcome to it, Senator.
CHAIR—We have been blessed with another inquiry around this topic in the next couple
of weeks, and I think, by the sound of it, the report could be useful. We will take turns to read
it.
Senator SIEWERT—I heard a radio show—it could have been The Health Report on
Radio National—that was talking about RTDs. The proposition they were putting on the
show, as I understood it, was that sweetener and milk, in particular, mask the taste of alcohol.
When you are younger, you do not actually like the taste of alcohol and the sweeteners and
the milk mask the taste of it and make it acceptable for younger drinkers. I wonder, therefore,
if that then links not to substitution but to introducing people to drinking. That is how I
understood the show; I could have been misinterpreting it.
Mr Learmonth—I think there is evidence around that. I think it is also, as with those other
studies I mentioned, associated not necessarily with initiation but with the type of drinking. It
is associated with higher levels of risky drinking in those studies that I referred to from this
report.
Senator SIEWERT—I would be interested in anything you have around the issue of
introduction, because I think one of the core issues is how much of an introduction to drinking
it is causing. Obviously, the risky behaviour is bad, but you could be carrying out risky
behaviour on other alcoholic products besides RTDs.
Ms Hart—I am happy to provide the committee with a report we did, which was produced
by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales and
which looked at taste perceptions, attitudes and experiences. I think it covers many of the
issues you have raised.
Senator SIEWERT—Thank you. That would be very useful.
Mr Learmonth—I have the executive summary, if you would like that.
Senator FIELDING—Could we have both of those tabled?
Mr Learmonth—I could leave those if you would like.
Senator SIEWERT—I would like to follow up on the FSANZ issues that Senator
Humphries raised and the issue around piggybacking. As I understood it, you said you could
not piggyback it because it had not been done before. Is it possible that you could amend
legislation to allow that to happen? As I understood it, for what was in the legislation and for
what FSANZ deals with, you always have to have the agreement of the states and territories.
Mr Fladun—To give effect to the standard—to give it some legal force or effect?
Senator SIEWERT—Yes.
Mr Fladun—When FSANZ develops a standard it is approved by the FSANZ board and
then goes through the ministerial council process. If it goes through that process without a
review, we then publish the standard. Without any other mechanism, that standard has no legal
effect. It gains the legal effect through the Food Regulation Agreement, and in New Zealand
through the treaty on joint food standards. Getting back to your question about piggybacking,
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what I was saying was that there is currently no provision in the FSANZ Act—not the Food
Regulation Agreement—to provide for that piggybacking process.
Senator SIEWERT—Do you have anything to do with the labels that are already on
alcohol that is exported, or is that a completely separate process? When we were in Victoria
we were shown copies of the labels that are used for wine that is exported out of Australia to
the American market, which has to have warnings on the label. Have you had any
involvement with that?
Mr Fladun—My understanding is that wine is regulated through the Australian Wine and
Brandy Corporation Act. Generally, food standards that are developed in Australia apply to
domestic and to imported food. They also apply to exported food in the sense that, under the
food legislation, the manufacturer has a defence against noncompliance with the standard by
saying, ‘I am exporting it to another country and that product meets that other country’s
requirements.’
Senator SIEWERT—So the short answer is no, you have not had any involvement with
that at all?
Mr Fladun—Not in terms of exports, no.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—While we are on FSANZ, the ALAC application is, as all such
applications are, evidence based. Is that correct?
Mr Fladun—That is correct, according to the various provisions within our legislation that
set out the matters that we have to have regard to and the objectives that FSANZ has to apply
in assessing that application.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Who undertakes that assessment?
Mr Fladun—The FSANZ board undertakes that assessment.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—What particular skills, without going into too much detail, do
they bring to make such an evidence based assessment?
Mr Fladun—The FSANZ board comprises 12 members from different sectors, including
consumer representatives, industry experts, primary production experts, but of course in
making that assessment the board is informed by expert staff within the food authority.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—That includes expert staff on population health issues?
Mr Fladun—That kind of expertise would be brought in on a needs basis through
consultancies that survey those kinds of activities.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—For an application, such as the one from ALAC, where a draft
is due this month, I believe, you would expect that that population health type expertise would
be brought in?
Mr Fladun—I would expect so.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—With regard to the reference by COAG to the ministerial
council requesting that FSANZ consider mandatory health advisory labels, does that proposal
type process go through the same evidence based process as an application such as the one
from ALAC does?
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Mr Fladun—The exact same matters need to be considered by the board in dealing with a
proposal, as they do with an application, so yes.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—So we would, again, expect it to be evidence based, with input
from public health expertise along the way prior to, finally, a FSANZ board consideration of
the recommendation?
Mr Fladun—That is correct, if the board considers those matters to be relevant.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Ms Hart, it is nice to see you again. Very briefly, has there
been any discussion that you are aware of at the MAAC or at the MCDS with regard to
advertising during sports programs? Has this matter been raised as a concern or problem in
your time working in this area?
Ms Hart—No, not that I recall during my time in the area. I would need to look back over
previous papers to see whether it had been raised before my time.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Finally, Mr Learmonth, this is more a question on notice for
the other inquiry. I think you stated in your opening statement, ‘The risk of harm increases
exponentially as consumption increases.’ The terms of reference for the other inquiry, which
have come to this body, relate particularly to assessments of at risk populations. We get some
very large figures thrown at us, saying that up to 60 per cent of young people drink at risk.
What I would hope that inquiry might be able to do, and maybe you can take it on notice for
submissions that the department is making, is break down that notion of at risk, particularly
where indeed incidences of harm might occur. I realise there is a line where somebody
becomes at risk, but I am assuming that somebody who drinks 16 standard drinks a day is far
more at risk than somebody who drinks six drinks. Also, is there data, particularly relating to
the incidence of harms, that may relate to those levels of consumption in a slightly more
bracketed way than is often presented?
Mr Learmonth—We will do what we can to break up any evidence we have. We can, I
suspect, disaggregate it in a number of ways. We talk about low risk and high risk and short-
term risk and long-term risk, and I have some definitions if that will help you. We also have
the guidelines. We will see what we can do to segment the large numbers into the kinds of
risks and, as far as we can, clarify which parts of the population are represented in each
category.
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Thank you.
Ms Hart—I can add to Mr Learmonth’s answer. You have a copy of the 2007 household
survey data—I hope that has been provided to you.
Mr Learmonth—We have just tabled that.
Ms Hart—You will see in that a number of tables that break down risk in terms of either
short-term or long-term harm and that also break down levels of risks in terms of low, risky
and high-risk drinking patterns. The one-pager that Mr Learmonth has just tabled, based on
the 2001 NHMRC alcohol guidelines, will show you what that means for males and females
in terms of the risk categories. I think the top page will tell you the difference in definition
between short-term and long-term harm. So to some extent, as Mr Learmonth said, that allows
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you to marry up those definitions with what is reported in the household survey. We can also
give you some further—
Senator BIRMINGHAM—Thank you for that. The concern comes, as you can probably
guess, from the fact that ‘binge drinking’ terms are thrown around a lot and statistics, I
suspect, often relate to both low-risk and high-risk categories that are attached to such terms,
so it would be nice to clarify some of those a little more.
Ms Hart—There is a working definition that tends to be used in the research of binge
drinking, and that is largely around anything that is above the low-risk category. So for males
it is more than six standard drinks—sometimes reported as five and above—and for females
more than four standard drinks in a day.
Senator ADAMS—In your introduction page, page 3, in the fifth paragraph you talk about
the incidence for 15- to 17-year-olds, with the data starting in 2000 and the last data in 2004,
and say it has increased 60 per cent. Have you any further and more recent data than that,
since it is now 2008? We have been getting evidence from other areas that says this is actually
on the decline, rather than going up. I know it is different data, and that is the problem—this
is 2004. Surely there must be something a little more recent.
Ms Hart—You are referring to, as you will see in the footnote, the alcohol consumptions
patterns study, which we have not redone. Our intention would be to do so, but at the moment
that is the most recent data.
CHAIR—That is a departmental focus?
Ms Hart—Yes, it is.
CHAIR—How often is that down? Is there a set schedule for that?
Ms Hart—I will need to check. I do not think it is on a regular schedule, the way the
household survey is, but I can check that.
Senator COLBECK—I want to go back to the data and the issue that Senator Boyce was
talking about, as to whether it was a transference from one alcoholic product to another or a
substitution of one alcoholic product for another. Most of the other figures are remaining
relatively constant. There is no question that the number of girls in particular that are drinking
RTDs is the figure that stands out across all of this data—it jumps off the page at you—and
yet the figures for those that are indulging in risky behaviour as a percentage of the overall
population are remaining relatively static. I am interested, as Senator Boyce is, in what they
were drinking before and what they are drinking now. Is there any data on that from previous
surveys?
Ms Hart—We obviously have data on the growth in preference for RTDs. I would need to
check what data we have on consumption over time of beer, wine and straight spirits.
Senator COLBECK—And other types of products.
Ms Hart—Yes, other types of alcoholic products. I will have to take that on notice.
Senator COLBECK—Thanks very much. There has been some discussion about the
extent to which those that are indulging in high-risk drinking have been indulging at a greater
rate. Do you have any longitudinal data on the number of drinks per session for different
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categories over a period of time? I have seen one data set that indicates that the number of
drinks consumed at an individual’s last session has being relatively flat over a period of time,
for those indulging in risk behaviour, at around eight or nine drinks. Do you have any long-
term data on that, so that we can get a handle on whether some of the anecdotal evidence we
have been given or the suggestion that has been made to us is, in fact, supported by evidence?
Ms Hart—So your question is whether the total volume of consumption has changed over
time?
Senator COLBECK—For those who are indulging in that high-risk behaviour, is there
any data that indicates that over a period of time—
Mr Learmonth—We know what you are getting at. What we will do is see if we have
some data—
Senator COLBECK—Of the percentage who are drinking, were they drinking nine drinks
at a session in 2001, 10 drinks or 15 drinks?
Mr Learmonth—You are asking whether there is any time series data that shows changes
in patterns of overall consumption and, within the consumption, what the mix of it was.
Senator COLBECK—Yes.
Ms Hart—We will see what we can find. The difficulty is people’s assessment of a
standard drink and their self-report on how many drinks that they have had in a particular
session.
Senator COLBECK—I have been through the household survey and I looked for that as a
piece of data, because there was some evidence that we were getting. I understand the
variations and the problems with the data collection that come from asking people how much
they have had to drink when their memories might not necessarily be all the best in the first
instance. Notwithstanding that, if there is any data that can give us some indication of what
the levels of consumption might be, that would be of assistance to us.
Ms Hart—Okay. We will certainly have a look at that.
Senator FIELDING—Mr Fladun, I understand that Food Standards Australia New
Zealand has already rejected an application for health information labels on alcohol.
Mr Fladun—There was an application some time ago. We are going back some years. It
was around 2000, from memory. I was at FSANZ at the time. On my recollection, it was
rejected on the basis that there could no meaningful label that could be constructed around the
message that the applicant wanted to convey on the label. From memory, it was the Society
Without Alcoholic Trauma. Part of their application was to have alcohol labelled as a
dangerous drug. My memory is pretty much exhausted there. The matter was rejected. It went
to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which is an applicant’s right. Then we went into the
process of gaining evidence for and against the argument. The applicant withdrew the appeal
in the AAT.
Senator FIELDING—Thank you. Just following up on that—that is my understanding of
it, so I thought that I would double check with someone who was physically there—I can
understand that it is easy to reject an application on specific words, but would Food Standards
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CA 56 Senate Thursday, 15 May 2008
Australia New Zealand be willing to accept the job of working on producing the best alcohol
information labelling system for consumers after research and market testing?
Mr Fladun—I would need to take that on notice. I am basically here with my legal hat on
today. I could not necessarily speak for the board on that issue. We prepare proposals to look
at those kinds of matters. But whether that one would be on our work plan is another matter
which I would need to seek advice on.
Senator FIELDING—If you could that on notice, that would be quite good. There was
comment, which might have been from you or from this side, about the bill referring to a
template for a label. I do not think that it is a template. It is more what you would call some
basic parameters. Someone was saying that you could not implement the label.
CHAIR—I think it was a question from one of the senators as to whether there was a
template.
Senator FIELDING—The bill just goes through a couple of basic parameters and they
can be changed by ministerial standards anyway. Are there health information or warning
labels that Food Standards Australia New Zealand has mandated on other foods or drinks?
Mr Fladun—Yes, in relation to allergen labelling—
Senator FIELDING—Can you answer just generally first, across the board. I will ask the
question again: are there information or warning labels that Food Standards Australia New
Zealand has mandated on other foods or drinks? You can go narrow, but you can also go
across the whole realm.
Mr Fladun—Across the breadth of food, there are various labelling requirements,
including ingredient labelling—
Senator FIELDING—Could you provide a list or could you just go through some now,
more than just one or two? There are quite a few.
CHAIR—Senator, I have to interrupt because the opposition members have to go. Do you
have these questions on notice?
Senator FIELDING—I could.
CHAIR—We are 15 minutes over the scheduled time as it is. Mr Fladun, you can take
questions on notice. Senator Fielding, we did agree at the start that questions could be put on
notice. I thank the witnesses. You have agreed to take on notice some requests for information
and Senator Fielding will put some questions on notice. We appreciate the time the
department officers have given us, and we will meet again soon. Thank you, Hansard.
Committee adjourned at 7.26 pm
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