COMMITTEES

Dr RYAN (Kooyong) (10:20): I rise to speak to the Report on the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia from the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability. I thank the committee chair, the member for Macarthur, for his wonderful leadership of this inquiry; my colleagues on the committee; the secretariat; and the many interested parties who contributed to this inquiry.

Through 98 submissions and eight days of hearings, the committee heard in depth about the scale and complexity of alcohol and other drug harm in Australia. Alcohol and other drugs affect our health and justice systems, our families, our communities and the most vulnerable people in our society. This report makes 28 recommendations across prevention, treatment, workforce data, First Nations health, alcohol marketing, online alcohol sales and the development of future national strategies.

I support all 28 recommendations. The committee has recommended a mandatory regulatory framework for alcohol advertising and marketing and the withdrawal of the government's representative from the industry's ABAC scheme. It has called for national standards for online alcohol sales and delivery and for Treasury to model changes to alcohol taxation.

It has recommended a nationally coordinated early warning system for illicit drugs, continued rollout of take-home naloxone and evidence based drug education in every secondary school in this country. It calls for routine alcohol screening in primary and antenatal care, continued and improved action on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and integrated cross-sectoral models of care on workforce.

On workforce, it recommends longer Medicare consultations, more drug and alcohol nurses, mandatory training in medical college curricula and a national framework for peer workers. It also recommends a new national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' drug strategy, increased funding for Aboriginal community controlled organisations, funding models that reflect the cost of regional and remote service delivery and more treatment services exclusively for women.

I've tabled supplementary comments alongside the report where I felt the evidence warranted a stronger response or where there were issues that the inquiry was unable to examine in sufficient depth. In particular, I draw attention to the capacity of our treatment system. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Australians are unable to access the alcohol and other drug treatment that they need.

Workforce investment is essential, but it won't solve the shortage of facilities for inpatient detoxification and residential rehabilitation. I've recommended a national audit of treatment capacity against demand, including for young people and for adolescents. Harm reduction is one of three pillars of Australia's National Drug Strategy, but to date it has received a very small proportion of Commonwealth alcohol and other drugs funding.

I believe that harm reduction should be recognised as a standalone pillar of the drug and alcohol program, with dedicated funding for that purpose. And I've suggested that needle and syringe programs, pill testing and supervised injecting facilities should be eligible for Commonwealth funding. At this point, they are not.

My supplementary comments also raised concern about the influence of alcohol industry donations and lobbying on public policy. This is an ongoing issue affecting the democracy of this country on a really important issue. I've also raised the question of alcohol taxation and pricing.

I support the committee's call for Treasury to model Australia's alcohol taxation settings. Australia's wine equalisation tax continues to favour the production and selling of low-cost wine. It needs to be replaced with a uniform volumetric tax.

This has been recommended by multiple government inquiries, dating back to the Henry review. We've still not actioned a really big policy piece in this country. I've further recommended that the government consider a minimum unit price for alcohol, informed by the positive experience of the Northern Territory with minimum pricing.

The people who represented those communities affected were very positive about it. Finally, the National Drug Strategy expires this year, and the government needs to provide clarity about the next strategy, its funding and its implementation and ensure that the workforce required for it is properly supported. Alcohol and other drug harm is one of the major public health challenges facing Australia.

This report provides a really important roadmap for action. I commend it to the House and urge the government to act on its recommendations without delay.