Alcohol products cause harm to far too many Australians. In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), nearly 100 people die and over 1,500 people are hospitalised because of alcohol. People in the ACT are twice as likely to be a victim of an alcohol-related incident, compared to other drug-related incidents.
The ACT Government developed the ACT Preventive Action Plan 2023-25 with the aim of preventing chronic diseases by supporting people to choose lifestyle behaviours that reduce their risk of developing preventable diseases.
FARE lodged a submission to the plan to ensure that the prevention of alcohol harms exacerbating in the ACT community would be included in the plan.
FARE’s submission to the plan focuses on the objective of ‘fewer people drinking at risky levels’ listed under priority area 4 of ‘reducing risky behaviours.’
Recommendations in our submission are as follows:
- Amend the action for addressing harm from the online sale and delivery of alcohol from ‘investigate options to address impacts of online alcohol orders and home delivery on health and wellbeing of Canberrans’ to ‘Introduce higher standards for online orders and home delivery of alcoholic products that prioritise the health and wellbeing of Canberrans.’
- Amend the intermediate/short term outcomes for addressing harm from the online sale and delivery of alcohol from ‘Impacts and potential future actions identified’ to ‘legislation updated to prevent harm from the online sale and delivery of alcohol, including: limiting late night delivery of alcohol, introducing a two hour safety pause for alcohol deliveries, ensuring adequate identity verification is established at point of sale and delivery and ensuring that alcohol deliveries are not left unattended or delivered to people when intoxicated.’
- Amend the action that focuses on delivering health promotion programs in community settings to specify that health promotion programs should be evidence-based and independent of alcohol companies and their lobby groups.
- Include an action for preventing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in the community through primary (prevention of FASD in the community) and secondary (diagnosis and intervention of FASD in the community) prevention.
- Include an action for reducing alcohol promotion in the ACT community.
- Under the recommended action for reducing alcohol promotion in the ACT community, include the intermediate/short term outcome of modernising the regulation of alcohol promotion in the ACT Liquor Regulation 2010 to address alcohol promotion that occurs for alcoholic products sold by take-away or online retail.
