The Echidna: Stepping off the booze bus will save thousands

It's often met with sympathy. "Oh, you poor thing. How long have you been like this?" they ask. Sometimes, it's simply dismissed. "You'll get over it."

And, occasionally, people are affronted, as if something's been taken from them, even though it's me going without. "Don't be so boring. Go on, just one, it won't kill you."

I'm talking booze.

When you reveal you no longer drink - haven't for years - it can feel like you've crossed some invisible line and become an outsider.

There's a creeping awkwardness.

When a friend enthuses about the latest craft beer with its top notes of grapefruit and elderberry and you offer that most craft beers taste like road base - at least that's how you remember them - the conversation stalls.

When you decline the offer of sparkling wine at a celebratory gathering, eyebrows are raised.

"Oh, you must be driving," they assume, as if there's no other reasonable explanation for sobriety.

In the four years - or is it five? - since I stopped drinking, the realisation has dawned with growing clarity that the social lubricant to which we habitually turn is in fact a ball and chain. But I'm decades late in coming to that conclusion.

In George Orwell's 1984, written in 1949, he wrote of the enslaved masses: "Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern ... Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult."

The 400,000 Australians who have resolved to give up drinking this year might encounter the same social disapproval that greeted me but hopefully some of them might be supported. Health concerns have led to some giving up the drink; others simply want to save money.

In case you're wondering, I stepped off the booze bus quite by chance after a bad dose of the flu - I simply lost my taste for the stuff. I might as well have won the lottery.

A survey by Finder found that the average Australian could save almost $2000 a year by ditching alcohol. And that's likely a drop in the bucket of the health costs a lifetime of boozing will rack up.

Right now, we're seeing the consequences of the entrenched booze culture play out in the Northern Territory, where Alice Springs is experiencing such an intense crime wave, even liquor retailers themselves are imposing restrictions on how much alcohol they sell.

Right on cue, there have been calls to deploy the Australian Defence Force to restore order, calls rejected by the NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker.

"We welcome the contribution of all services. But when there's a mention that the ADF should be deployed with a suggestion that it's martial law, I reject that completely. Again, we're not going to arrest our way out of that," he said.

He's right, of course. Arresting your way out of something so ingrained is not an option. Chalker pointed to similar issues in Western Australia and Queensland, protected under the constitution from federal intervention as states rather than territories. Booze-fuelled crime affects in varying degrees every corner of the country.

Our grog addiction goes right back to the early days of European settlement. It's a pernicious legacy of colonisation that along with muskets and carbines, disease and dispossession, the Rum Corps and the alcohol lobby exacts a dreadful toll on First Nations people.

Bringing the dependency under control is complex. We know from America's experience that prohibition won't work. But taxes and education just might.

These days, a pack of cancerous darts costs about the same as a carton of beer. We know smoking rates have collapsed in Australia (although big tobacco is attempting to sneak in again through the back door with vapes) with bans on advertising and ever-higher taxes.

Losing an arm and a leg to smoking-related illness will cost you, well, an arm and a leg. But destroying your life with booze? That's still within easy reach.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Will a military intervention help in the Northern Territory? Are you one of the 400,000 Australians giving up the grog this year? Does Australia have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol? Can it be turned around? How? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au/

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

- In the second mass shooting in a week, seven people have been killed in two related shootings at a mushroom farm and a trucking firm in a coastal community south of San Francisco, and a suspect was in custody, officials say. Four people were killed at the farm on Monday and three at the trucking business on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay, a city about 50 kilometres south of San Francisco.

- Lawyers for the robodebt royal commission will use its next block of hearings to examine how the former federal government smeared critics of the unlawful scheme. Senior counsel assisting Justin Greggery confirmed he will be introducing evidence about episodes when private information about welfare recipients who complained about the scheme was released to the media in 2017, in what officials at the time said was necessary to "correct the record".

- Public support for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is falling as the federal opposition continues to call for more detail on the referendum proposal. A Resolve Political Monitor survey, published in Nine newspapers, showed 47 per cent of voters backed a plan to enshrine an Indigenous Voice in the constitution. The figure, based on more than 3000 responses during a month from late December, was down from the 53 per cent who supported the move in August and September.

THEY SAID IT: "Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life." - George Bernard Shaw

YOU SAID IT: As debate of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament intensifies, Peter Dutton pleases his base but is likely to turn off younger voters.

Chris says: "Dutton follows a long line of conservative, simplistic political strategy - just be negative. They don't have real policies which consider what is in the best interests of all Australians. There are clearly more pressing issues: the environment, conflict, health, poverty and education. The Voice to Parliament is simply that, recognition of what Indigenous people think, hope for, need. We are listening. We are voting on a matter of principle, not the nitty gritty which parliament will determine."

Ross suggests: "It is saddening to walk down the main streets of Darwin, Mt Isa and Townsville and note the number of women, young and old, with split lips, black eyes and broken arms. Of course unemployment and reliance on welfare exacerbate the problem but someone has to accept the fact that no company is going to build a factory in the likes of Alice Springs or Wilcannia where the tyranny of distance kills transport costs. Unemployed youth has to be encouraged to move to where employment opportunities exist even if it means building hostels and providing support to get them through the first couple of years away from family. Without such initiatives, the gap will never be bridged."

Arthur supports Peter Dutton's call for more details: "Peter Dutton has made an extremely valid point, a rare achievement for him. The Prime Minister is asking us to write in effect a blank cheque on his and all future governments to do what they like with the Voice. What is the Prime Minister afraid of? Why can we not have the details? It should be obvious to everyone to create a Voice by an act of Parliament is a far better course of action. If it fails to achieve its intended purpose we will not be stuck with unsatisfactory clauses in our constitution which will be hard to remove."

David sees Dutton's strategy differently: "I've always seen the Voice as a precursor to ongoing legislation to be drafted and approved by Parliament as required. Nothing scary, nothing that will in any way impact on my way of life other than to know that First Nations people have both unalienable rights but also a means to bring issues before Parliament. Sounds like democracy to me. If Dutton manages to scuttle this on ideological grounds (he will claim it's procedural) then it will be yet another stain on his checkered history and pandering to a callow base."

Paul says: "Thanks for the thoughtful piece on the Voice to Parliament. I think that the best way to address the concerns of those opposed or undecided would be to establish the Voice by legislation to start with so that it can be seen in operation prior to a constitutional change (eg similar to the South Australian approach). After a period of operation, people would be able to make an informed decision in a referendum."