Aussies debate government battle against booze

updated 8:40 p.m. ET Nov. 27, 2008

SYDNEY, Australia - The blood oozes crimson from a jagged gash in the man's head onto the starched white hospital sheet. A booze-fueled bar brawl has left his face shredded, his brain damaged.

Across the emergency room, a clammy-skinned patient who smells like a brewery curls into a fetal position on his gurney, recovering from a near-fatal combination of alcohol and pills.

On a Saturday, St. Vincent's Hospital in the heart of Sydney's nightlife district becomes, in Dr. Gordian Fulde's weary words, "a war zone" of Australia's alcohol casualties.

This is Monday.

Australia has long been known as a nation of beer-loving boozers. But now the government, fed up with what it sees as a growing crisis of out-of-control drinking and subsequent violence, has decided it's time for a change.

In the past six months, a barrage of measures have been rolled out: a multimillion-dollar campaign against binge drinking, a heavy tax on premixed drinks popular with young people, a ban on late-night revelers entering certain bars.

Sharp divide
The actions have ignited fierce debate and revealed a sharp divide.

"We've got to change our drinking culture and habits. It's not negotiable," Fulde says. "We'll drink ourselves off this lovely continent if we don't."

Others say the government's war on alcohol abuse is ineffective or unnecessary — a cheap political ploy based on a grossly exaggerated stereotype of Australians.

Cameron Waite rolls into one of Australia's ubiquitous drive-through bottle shops to pick up his afternoon allotment of beer. To this burly bricklayer, the government's attack on binge drinking amounts to an attack on his country's culture: "They're trying to change Australia."

And therein lies the question: Does Australia need to change?

More important, does it want to?

Party goes on
After a hellish eight-month voyage halfway around the world, the gaggle of British convicts and their jailers were desperate to cut loose.

So when they landed on the shores of this hot, dry continent in 1788, Australia's first European settlers celebrated the occasion properly: with a raucous, rum-fueled booze-up that lasted through a violent lightning storm and the night.

In a sense, the party still goes on. This is, after all, a country whose former prime minister, Robert Hawke, once held the Guinness world record for chugging beer: two and a half pints in 11 seconds.

Test yourself Do you have a drinking problem?

"This feat was to endear me to some of my fellow Australians more than anything else I ever achieved," Hawke wrote of the 1955 stunt in his autobiography.

It's a country where some cell phones come programmed with text messages that read, "Let's go to the pub. Mine's a large gin and tonic." And where former cricket star and sports legend David Boon _ aka "the Keg on Legs" — is best known for a 1989 flight from Sydney to London during which he drank 52 beers.

Throughout its history, Australia's leaders have taken on drinking with limited success.

Rising concern led to a temperance movement in 1832 and, in 1916, a new law ordered bars in the state of New South Wales to close at 6 p.m. That was a disaster. Men leaving work at 5:30 rushed the pubs and frantically chugged, getting as tanked as possible before spilling onto the street, a practice known as the "six o'clock swill." Crime rates soared.

For years, the government has struggled with rampant alcoholism among Aborigines. Last year, it banned alcohol from Aboriginal-owned land in the Northern Territory as part of a crackdown on child abuse. Critics called the ban, which affects an area home to around 45,500 Aborigines, hypocritical and racist. Some say it made things worse, with Aborigines simply seeking out alcohol in other communities.

Now, the federal government has turned its attention to binge drinking.

A mixed reaction
In March, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a US$34.7 million campaign against bingeing, complete with an advertising blitz and grants to community groups.

Reaction was mixed.

"It's a bit rich for a man who got famously stonkered at a lap-dancing club in New York five years ago to be lecturing the rest of us on binge drinking," sniffed a Sydney Morning Herald columnist, Miranda Devine.

Rudd apologized for his visit to the New York strip club and admitted he had too much to drink.

In April his government went ahead with an increase in the tax on premixed alcoholic drinks, which are sweet, bottled drinks popular among young people.

A slew of protest groups popped up on Facebook, including "Aussies Against the Alcohol Tax Increase," which has attracted more than 68,000 members.

"Binge drinking is a big problem and young people shouldn't be smashing themselves," the group's founder, Justin McCoy says. "But people wanting to have a drink after work shouldn't be punished just for the actions of a few."

MORE FROM ASIA-PACIFIC

Asia-Pacific Section Front

China executes corrupt securities trader Obama envoy begins rare trip to NKorea 8 killed in China school stampede Woman kept honey bear, leopard cat in condo Chinese dissident held without charges Asia-Pacific Section Front   Add Asia-Pacific headlines to your news reader: