Anti-drunk laws noticeably hypocritical

The disgraceful fact is that Indigenous Australians are imprisoned at a rate higher than Blacks under apartheid in South Africa, a July 9 National Indigenous Times editorial pointed out.

The law occurs in a broader context. The federal government has embarked on a war on “binge drinking”.

NSW Premier Nathan Rees has jumped on the bandwagon. An October 21, 2008 SMH article said that the night of a by-election thrashing for his government, Rees “could not believe what he saw on Sydney's streets when he headed home late on Saturday night after his Labor Government's thumping at the ballot box”.

Rees said the “exhibitions of public drunkenness that I saw were mind-boggling”.

Noting Rees is “known to enjoy a drink”, the SMH said “not everyone is convinced by his sudden discovery of alcohol-related violence”.

It seems some cynics suggested this was a populist ploy to distract attention from a disastrous electoral result flowing from a decade of Labor government policies that have combined corrupt incompetence with anti-people neoliberalism.

We should be suspicious of any government-initiated moral panic. If the federal and state governments were really concerned with our health, they would fix our public health system. This is about shifting responsibility for social problems with systemic roots onto ordinary people.

The global financial crisis is already impacting on Rudd’s beloved “working families” - with talk of a “jobless recovery”. Corporate profits may bounce back, but the rest of us will suffer rising unemployment - and accompanying pressure to accept worsening wages and conditions. Greater economic hardship will inevitably be accompanied by greater levels of alcohol abuse and associated social problems.

Rather than pushing for policies to resolve such problems at the expense of the big end of town, we can expect Rudd to give us a bout of tut-tutting, head shaking and pious reminders that four or more standard drinks a night is dangerous to our health.

It may even be the occasion for fresh laws giving police more powers to harass the increasing numbers who lose out from a system that bails out corporate criminals, while leaving the rest of us to bear the brunt of a corporate-caused crisis.