Australia Drinkwise Case Study

The misuse of alcohol is an issue prevalent all throughout Australia and is something all levels of the Government struggle to overcome. According to the AMA (Australian Medical Association), “In 2003, alcohol was the risk factor responsible for the greatest burden of disease and injury in Australian males under the age of 45, and is the second largest cause of drug-related deaths and hospitalisations in Australia after tobacco”. This showed the dangerous impact alcohol was having on Australians and helped push the Australian Government to tighten laws up about alcohol. In this essay, two Australian initiatives will be evaluated, the increase of taxation and pricing for alcohol, and secondly, the introduction of precautionary alcohol advertisements.

The first Australian initiative taken to reduce alcohol was the increase of taxation of alcoholic beverages. It was thought that this would increase taxation revenue for the government, less alcohol-caused injuries/disabilities, and of course, alcohol consumption. This taxation was expected to be extremely effective and would have the same effects as the tobacco tax when it was introduced in 1901. The alcohol excise has only ever increased since 2009, however, the results have not been as what was expected. According to Wagenaar’s study “Effects of beverage alcohol price and tax levels on drinking: a meta-analysis of 1003 estimates from 112 studies.” (Wagenaar AC, Salois MJ & Komro KA, 2009.), the elastics for moderate drinkers decreased by 0.62 after the increase of taxation for alcoholic beverages. However, the elastics for heavy drinkers only decreased by 0.28. This means that the most at-risk drinkers are the ones less responsive to the excise increases. This shows that this is an ineffective strategy to decrease the misuse of alcohol.

The second Australian initiative taken to reduce alcohol was the introduction of precautionary alcohol advertisements.

In 2005, “DrinkWise”, an Australian not-for-profit organisation, was funded in 2005 by the alcohol industry to spread awareness about the unsafe consumption of alcohol that was extremely prevalent during this time. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “the proportion of people drinking at a risky/high risk level has increased over the past three National Health Surveys, from 8.2% in 1995 to 10.8% in 2001 and 13.4% in 2004-05”. This rapid increase was worrying to the Australian public and the Australian Government, so the introduction of “DrinkWise” was crucial in helping reduce the number of alcohol-related incidents. In 2008 and 2009 “DrinkWise” launched two national advertising campaigns, “Kids Absorb Your Drinking”, and “Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix”. These two campaigns were focused around Australia’s overly-apparent drinking culture, and what people can do to break this cycle. 33% of parents reported that because of these campaigns they wanted to reduce their drinking because they wanted to be better role models. This shows the effectiveness of the campaigns. Among other organisations, the Western Australia organisation “Alcohol. Think Again” has launched several campaigns, one of them being the “Let's Keep Alcohol Under Control” campaign. Many people that had seen the campaign agreed that it was extremely effective in raising awareness about society’s problems with

drinking.

To conclude, two Australian initiatives were taken to help reduce alcohol misuse and alcohol-related incidents. The first initiative talked about was the increase of taxation and pricing for alcohol. The taxation had a minor impact on how Australians drink, and the overall law has not changed the extremely wet culture prevalent in today’s society, and therefor has not proven to be an effective way to lessen the misuse of alcohol. The second initiative spoken about was the introduction of precautionary alcohol advertisements. These advertisements are broadcasted by many different organisations, some being the “DrinkWise” campaigns shown all across Australia, and the Western Australia organisation “Alcohol. Think Again” was started back in 2010 and has been spreading awareness all across the state ever since. This strategy therefor has proven to be an effective way to lessen the misuse of alcohol.