Australia politics live: teals to take alcohol producers to task over brands appealing to underage drinkers

Crossbencher Kylea Tink will host talks with alcohol producers and retailers over the push for tighter regulation. Follow today’s live news updates

Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

The teals push to have stricter regulation around the marketing of things like alcohol (as well as junk food and gambling) is not new – it has been one of the issues the crossbench, and independent senator David Pocock have been pushing since April/May.

The main thrust of the campaign is to have the government close the advertising loopholes that let companies “saturate broadcast and social media with harmful product marketing”.

By the time a child reaches 13 years of age, 72 million data points will have been collected on them – and this is used to build a profile of them so that marketing can be used to most effectively target them.

Alcohol and gambling companies are using this data to track, trace and target our children with marketing online.

For a company like [Japanese brewer] Asahi to come out and say there’s no problem with that product to me indicates there’s a clear breakdown in between community expectation and corporate expectation.

Questions have to be asked of both the company and the [Alcoholic Beverages Advertising Code panel] … that product did not pass the pub test.

This is a critically important cost-of-living measure for 6 million Australians whose medicine bills will halve if this measure is supported by the Senate.

But it’s also good for their health. We know that 60-day prescriptions, which are very common around the world for ongoing chronic health conditions, improve medication compliance. It also has the ability to free up millions of GP consults, which we know are desperately needed out in their community.

Continue reading…

About Author