I in no way cast aspersions on the genuineness of Family First Senator Steve Fielding’s concern about alcohol abuse. But he certainly has a very strange idea of what constitutes a good outcome when it comes to reducing it. His vote in the Senate resulted directly in alcoholic soda pops being made substantially cheaper, while at the same time killing an agreement that would have seen fifty million dollars being spent directly on health education, advertising and related anti-binge-drinking measures. And his assessment of the outcome?
“What Family First has done has actually broken the back of the alcohol hold on Australia,” he said.
WTF?! The distilled spirits industry must really enjoy having their back broken, seeing they have put out a statement welcoming the outcome.
Senator Fielding seems to have use his negotiating position to produce a lose-lose outcome for pretty much everybody, except the spirits industry. The spirits industry have as much right as any other legal business to make their case of course, but quite how someone who is an anti-alcohol crusader can see it as a good result is beyond me.
There was another vote in the Senate today where Senator Fielding’s vote was also critical which gained far less attention, as it was overshadowed by the Senate’s debates on alcopops and workplace relations. This was on a motion to allow another debate and vote to be held on legislation which would prevent donations to political parties of up to $100 000 from being kept secret.
Having already used his deciding vote last week to stop this yawning invitation for corruption from being removed – using another curious rationale that a separate and far less serious issue wasn’t also being addressed – the Family First man voted today to prevent this matter being given any further consideration for at least another two months.
Sensible use of Senate balance of power is about assessing how far you are able to use the leverage you have in a particular situation to move things in what you believe to be a better direction, and then assess whether the final result would be a net improvement on where things are now if you supported it. It’s hard to see how either of these outcomes produce a net gain for families – or just about anyone else.
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He has to be simply too ignorant and incompetent to cope with the role. It may just be stupidity or he is simply listening to the Liberal party because he has no idea himself.
On the upside of this bad outcome is that Labor (and also the Democrats) are regretting preferencing FF in Victoria in 2004.
I can’t say I understand the rationale behind Mr Fielding’s decision. I’m not sure what back is broken, nor what sort of a hold the Alcohol industry has on Australia. I wonder if he understands the metaphors himself because it don’t make sense to a simple person like myself.
Anyway, if he really cared about the topic he should do what any sensible person would do, and that is research it.
I think that Fielding doesn’t appear to have a clue what he is on about. He comes across as someone who is really a bit thick! How the hell we can have an ignoramus like him in such a position of authority is really quite sad. Anyone who preferenced Family Last really deserves to have their butt kicked now!! He annoys me more than Julie Bishop and that’s saying something !!
I thought it was $10,000 not $100 000
Spam Box – the disclosure limit is currently $10 900 (and indexed). However, currently someone can donate just less than that to each of the 8 state and territory branches + the national level. The donations to each branch are all counted as separate donations, so none of this would need to be disclosed. This allows someone to donate 9 times whatever the limit is.
The legislation that was defeated also would closed this multiple donation loophole
God spoke to him, maybe.
I must confess, it boggles my mind seeing a former Australian Democrats senator apparently siding with the moral panic merchants from the Christian Right that seems to have Rudd’s ALP and the Coalition in sway.
Pre-mixed drinks are chosen by (shock, horror) young people who then will choose to either (shock, horror) binge drink or (shock, horror?) use the fixed Standard Drinks rating on the can to judge when they’ve had enough instead of guessing how the barman’s mixed it each time round.
Lets face it, it’s just a wowserish tax on young people because young people are “scary,” the demographics are shifting grey and both major parties like courting the Hillsong happy-clappers because they can deliver a significant and solid voting bloc with just an near-election sermon. On its merits, the pre-mixed alcoholic drinks tax deserved oblivion, no matter the odd means it finally took in the Senate vote.
“I must confess, it boggles my mind seeing a former Australian Democrats senator apparently siding with the moral panic merchants from the Christian Right that seems to have Rudd’s ALP and the Coalition in sway.”
Well I don’t want to be too predictable Pete.
And it is ironic that the Christian Right (and the Coalition) sunk this measure, which was the main point of my post.
I understand what you’re saying, and I don’t particularly some of the moral panic of the way the issue is presented, or the implicit (sometimes very explicit) suggestions that binge drinking is mostly about teenagers/young people who succumb readily to the evils of alcohol marketing because they’re so immature, etc. It’s why I didn’t specifically mention young people in my post. My understanding is that the highest proportion of very high levels/harmful drinking is by people in their 30s and 40s.
But while harmful levels of drinking (and related violent and high risk behaviour) are spread across all ages, there is an established connection between price signals and alcohol consumption. And there was (and now remains) an anomaly in the taxation of spiritis in alcopops compared to other spritis that wasn’t there before and I think the attempt to remove that was valid. The Greens did well to use the situation to extract commitments for more money to be spent on public health, but personally if I had been there I probably would have voted for it even without the extra government commitments they negotiated (although you don’t always tell the government that, esp not until afterwards)
A more serious issue in alcohol pricing and how it relates to harmful levels of drinking is more with older peope who have a pre-meditated intention to get smashed – often quite regularly. They are more likely to just go for the cheapest mechanism to achieve that end, much like any other addicted drug user would go for the cheapest option to get their hit. Changing the tax regime so that some of those low price, high volume products (cask wine being the most obvious one) also needs to be done. Of course, this isn’t the only component to strategies addressing harmful drink levels, but it is one that needs to be addressed.
Fielding undecided on human link to climate change
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/04/2589123.htm
Meanwhile, man bites dog. Fielding has commented that families benefited.