RESTRICTIONS around alcohol service and consumption are familiar in the Hunter. The famed Newcastle solution, which has since spread far beyond this region, has transformed a nightlife largely considered out of control.
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Yet this approach to increasing public safety is not without its critics and detractors. The Keep Sydney Open campaign against nightlife restrictions’ effect on the economy and culture of a city is one that has earned significant support.
Take-away alcohol sales, however, have remained an issue largely in the margins of these high-profile debates.
Data revealed in an application for a bottle shop at Kurri Kurri makes for uncomfortable reading, particularly given its finding that a single additional liquor outlet in Cessnock would exceed “the point at which [the research] suggests that the rate of domestic assaults starts to increase sharply”.
The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research findings were considered “objective facts from which the inference can be drawn that granting the licence is likely to lead to an increase in the rate of assaults in Kurri Kurri”. The dangers of alcohol for consumers and, evidently, for those around some consumers make it virtually impossible to argue that alcohol should be entirely unrestricted. Equally, however, it is important that those restrictions are based in fact and avoid unnecessarily limiting the access of those who drink responsibly. The clarity of the research in this case, and its links between alcohol and domestic violence, make for sobering reading for even the staunchest supporters of less onerous limitations on access to alcohol.
The Newcastle solution addressed the established link between a high proliferation of liquor outlets and harms, including domestic violence. But much of the debate to date around accessibility centres on venues and inner city precincts. Perhaps more attention is required in addressing issues in areas like Cessnock.
Governments and regulators are tasked with striking a difficult balance between restriction and freedom around a substance that is commonplace in Australia and ingrained in the nation’s culture of celebration exhibited in the weekend grand finals.
As long as they are following data as clear as in this case, regulators must continue using a scalpel to excise the malignant social costs of alcohol consumption.
