With violence against women likely to spike over holidays, doctors call for an end to dirt-cheap grog and sports sponsorships

19 December 2024

Governments, alcohol retailers, advertisers and sporting bodies are being told to step up to prevent problem drinking and the violence against women that often comes with it.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which represents addiction medicine specialists and public health physicians, says violence against women spikes around holidays and major sporting matches due to harmful levels of alcohol consumption.

Professor Adrian Dunlop, President of the College’s Chapter of Addiction Medicine, said the College had long been calling for an end to dirt-cheap alcohol, alcohol sponsorships in sport and other forms of irresponsible advertising.

“The predatory and profit-minded behaviours of some retailers and sporting bodies can encourage people to drink to harmful excess,” Professor Dunlop said.

“As a result, women’s shelters and other services for victim-survivors have been telling us, year in and year out, that they are overwhelmed around holidays and sporting events.

“All sporting codes should champion health and wellbeing, not support an industry that often recklessly promotes drinking to excess and leads to violence.

“As a society, it is in our power to prevent this – governments, alcohol retailers, advertisers and sporting bodies really need to step up.”

The Northern Territory is the only jurisdiction in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand to have a floor price on alcohol – that is, a minimum amount for each standard drink or unit of alcohol.

Despite the policy’s success – with a documented decrease in alcohol-related assaults and emergency department presentations over the first three years of its operation – the new Northern Territory government plans to repeal it.

The NT’s alcohol floor price is $1.30 per standard drink. In other parts of Australia, retailers sell 6 or 7 standard drink bottles of alcohol for as low as $3.50, or around 54c per standard drink.

“Continuing to allow the sale of dirt-cheap grog – or in the case of the NT, planning to repeal a policy that is successfully preventing violence – is completely out of step with supporting the health and welfare of Australians,” Professor Dunlop said.

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