Your Voice

Rudd's binge drinking crusade seems to be heading into seriously prudish territory with Government guidelines to be released soon proposing to define four middies of beer as a binge. Now I make home brewed beer, and generally serve my beer in pint glasses. By those standards, and with my beer usually having an alcohol content of around 6%, if somebody has just two glasses of beer at my home they are on a binge.

We're not talking about people falling down drunk here, and people often call me a prude for refusing to serve a full pint to somebody who is driving (people who are driving can get a half pint for women, or two half pints for men, and depending on what is in the keg can come back for another half pint about once an hour).

That this small amount of alcohol is to be regarded as binging is not the most shocking thing about the guidelines, though. The most shocking thing is that in all this, the voice of reason is none other than Tony Abbott, who has said:

There is a moral panic, which is taking over the land. There is no doubt that binge drinking is a problem, but it is no worse than in the past.I am in favour of people improving society but you have to be reasonable about it. Usually these debates are more about establishing the virtue of the people leading the way. In the end what an individual does is his or her responsibility particularly with something that is legal. While we can't ignore the problem; we need to know the real enemy, and that is illicit drugs.

Tony Abbott promoting liberal positions? The next thing you know he will say the Government has no business telling people who they can and cannot marry. Perhaps a second stint in opposition is giving him some much needed perspective.