The wowsers are drunk on power

CITIZEN, put down that drink! You, yes you, have a problem. Our entire nation is awash in booze ... or so public health "experts" say.

CITIZEN, put down that drink! You, yes you, have a problem. Our entire nation is awash in booze, with ordinary Australians liable to turn into brainless zombies moaning "Beer! More beer!" if they so much as see an ad during the cricket.

At least so say public health "experts", commentators, authors and politicians who have figured out that repeating the phrase, "Australia's alcohol-soaked culture" is a quick way to win a grant, sell a book, or scare up a few votes And who can blame them?

As these things go, it is becoming a better bet than "man-made global warming" - which is a little past its use-by date.

But, like New Year's Eve revellers after their third bottle of champagne, those who would get us into a collective worry about our drinking habits tend to get the facts confused.

While it is one thing to be concerned about thugs whose idea of a good time starts with punching people, it is quite another to suggest that Australia spends each day struggling through a hangover and holding on for happy hour.

The fact is Australia is something of a middleweight when it comes to alcohol consumption. Our drinking is well off its peak, and each year we show a greater preference for wine over beer and spirits. This trend reflects our increasing sophistication and interest in food, and suggests a growing European-style drinking culture, which should be applauded.

But to the new nannies and secular Methodists of today's temperance movement, there is little difference between mums and dads having a few wines on a Sunday afternoon or a couple kicking on for a nightcap after a romantic dinner on one hand and the criminally violent, amped up on booze as well as drugs or steroids on the other.

According to NSW's own statistics, booze-related assaults and hospital admissions are heading down - and have been since 2008.

Those allegedly responsible for fights and bashings are often already on bail or parole or have serious criminal records, suggesting the problem isn't so much licensees letting thugs in as magistrates letting them out.

The goal of these neo-prohibitionists is "denormalisation". Or, in layman's terms, they would like to see an Australia where having a drink is not illegal so much as socially objectionable.

Children play a big part in this long-term strategy to boost the sales of tea sets and doilies. In recent months commentators and columnists have fretted over whether school fetes should sell wine, because it might send the wrong message to children, to whether family-friendly beer gardens should be banned because, again, it might send the wrong message.

The suggestion is that parents who model responsible alcohol consumption are setting their children up for a lifetime sleeping under railway bridges.

The reality is, parents are more than likely doing the right thing and helping their children see how adults act so, when the time comes, they can do likewise.

Children are, after all, adults in training and, with a few obvious exceptions, keeping grown-up activities secret and behind closed doors is no way to raise young people who will know what is expected of them when their time comes.

The absurdity of this approach was seen in a heavily promoted campaign a few years back which showed children being scarred, generation after generation, by bringing their otherwise productive, happy, social, keeping-a-roof-over-the-family's-heads dads a beer while he tends the barbecue with neighbours and friends.

The obsession of the high priests of the public health cult - and their acolytes in the media and politics - with booze reflects a number of factors. Having all but won the war against tobacco, those who live off the heady combination of grant money and telling other people how to live their lives must find new dragons to slay (hence various other campaigns to rid the nation of sugar, fast food, and even wood-fired fireplaces).

Such obsessions always play out in the same tedious, freedom-diminishing ways: Restrict access and raise prices. Thus we see urgings to raise the price of alcohol, despite the price of a bottle of gin or a six-pack of beer in Sydney being eye-wateringly high compared to in, say, the US.

Also on the cards is a move to progressively wind back opening hours so that the city is tucked up in bed nice and early, even when late at night in much of Europe, people are only just beginning to think about whether they have room for dessert.

None of this is to minimise some people's very real problems with alcohol. They should not drink - and be helped at every turn. But to blame our entire culture for the actions of a few is to deny not just where the real issues lie, but to make solutions that much more difficult to enact.

James Morrow writes about food and culture at prickwithafork.com.