Careless

The new boss of the Australian Hotels Association, Sally Fielke needs to pay more attention to her words than her looks. Here she appears in yesterday's Australian.

This outing she conceded a lack of decent argument by resorting to name calling. In responding to the issue of alcohol related violence she labelled community leaders, wowsers...

"We're sick of being unjustly targeted by a small minority group of wowsers," she said..."The bottom line here is that one of the safest places to go out and have a drink is in a hotel."

What about outside a hotel ? Obviously Fielke doesn't live near a popular hotel, work in emergency services or operate public transport (of course she called for more taxis to shoulder hoteliers' responsibilities).

Her members happily profit from selling a debilitating product, then dump drunken patrons on the street to fend for themselves.

A duty of care ? Pfft.

Comments

[Mark]

What is it about her that makes my skin crawl?

Ah, there it is at the bottom of the SMH article -- "She is, after all, a lawyer."

[Rainer the cabbie]

I saw her last night at my local. She looked OK., after my 5th beer she was a good sort and after my 10th scooner she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Another 3 drinks and I saw her twin sitting next to her, equally sexy and stunning, couple more and the barmaid told me my wife was calling and I better go home. Left the pub to stumble home, met some thugs and now I'm gone.
Its all the Taxi industries fault you know, instead of walking home I could have spewed on someones back seat!

[steve at the pub]

My bullshit-o-meter is ringing overtime on this post.

There are people causing violence/problems in the street/society/wherever.

And those people are NOT the holders of liquor licences.

Nice to see at least one person is in lockstep with Rudd/Bligh.

[Goldstein]

Hmmm.. yes, people attend at pubs, other licenced venues, get shit-faced, leave and get in fights, spew in cabs, biff the missus.. have I covered all the previous comments and the article ?

But -they are ALL (or should be) OVER 18 -they are ADULTS !

Why should the pub owner play mummy or daddy to ADULTS ? If these people can't handle their drink, then the problem is with them, not the publican..

There are laws already about not serving intoxicated patrons. There are already laws about fighting, disorderly behaviour, spewing in cabs -PLEASE -no more laws !!

Maybe put coppers back on the street ? Maybe put some stories in the media about drunks getting arrested for their stupidity ?

Maybe -somehow -get people to take some responsibility for their behaviour ?

And -maybe we're dealing with HUMAN NATURE in all its glory -and we have to just get used to it.. I am sick to death of more and more laws, Nanny-State-ing me toward my first stroke..

And regards the cheap poke at lawyers (comment above) -up yours -some lawyers work for free for the disabled, mentally ill, and infirmed.. It's called "pro bono", and as social problems increase, it's getting more and more the norm..

[Tom H]

If you want to make an argument in your second paragraph that somebody "conceded a lack of decent argument by resorting to name calling" it would help if you didn't resort to a smart-arse crack about her appearance in your first paragraph. Can't say that it gives me any confidence in your own position. Pot, meet kettle.

[adrian]

Tom H, the dominance of Fielke's images is what I'm referring to in the first paragraph, i.e. when delivering a serious message an over-emphasis on the messenger's personal appearance is counterproductive and distracts from that message.

Whilst she's clearly a well presented and attractive woman, it's totally irrelevant to the issue. Thus in the current debate she's in danger of not being taken seriously.

Fielke's training as a lawyer should be even more reason to utilise that background and advance a case, rather than waste the media opportunity by name calling.

[Rainer the cabbie]

I have given the issue a bit of thought and come to the following conclusion :
1. The Lady's looks are of no consequence in the discussion, it only matters considering her role, and even than it is her intellect that will get the right results.
2.To call the latest movement to curb alcohol/gambling behaviour "wowserism" is her job as a representative of her employers.
3.The Tax on alchopos is a slap in the face of advertisers and producers of these products, eg. do not invent products to suck in under age drinkers. If the government is serious about curbing alcohol abuse it ought to put a 200% tax on cask wine, the choice of drink in alcoholic communities.
4. All of us ought to give some thought to the "normalisation" of a drug in everyday circumstance and how accepted the daily consumption of alcohol has become to every one of us. Was it always this way? The last generation has treated booze as something special, they had a drink to celebrate or relax at in a certain setting, we have treated it as a right to induce alcohol every night of the week, some more on weekends. And then we wonder why our kids are binge drinkers, having set the perfect example.
5. The violence outside of venues is part too much drink/70% drinking and drug taking.
6. I dislike "wowsers" myself, but at this point of time I think they have a point.

[Goldstein]

Rainer :

Thanks for the logical, well set out analysis -nice to read thoughts written without heat or hyperbole..

I always kind of rankle when I see a product or behaviour taxed/fined more on the grounds that if it is more expensive it will discourage it -this always hits the poor more than the rich -so a $250 speeding fine is like an hour's work for a judge, or a day's work for an average salary earner -but is the gross income for a whole week for a person on a pension..

Likewise, putting up the price of pre-mix drinks.. it's always "win" for the government.. more money from new or increased taxes.. As you say, cask wine is the choice for boozers, not sophisticated mixes..

But I still feel this is yet another simplistic, easy (non)solution to a complex problem.. Why do people want to numb themselves ? Why is it acceptable to get blind drunk, fall over, fight, vomit ? Why do people want to harm themselves with alcohol etc ?

And by the way, this is not a "new" problem -drunken-ness is age old.. Your experience of "The last generation" is very different to my experience of a family history blighted by alcohol abuse. My mother used to climb trees to escape from her drunken father's beatings, my father grew up in a home where his mother drank all day and then fought with her husband when he got home from work -also drunk from a 3 hour detour in the pub. My Uncle lost his wife when she died after a drunken fight with a lover, and then lost his son to the welfare because of his alcoholism, and his son grew up into a drunk in part to block the horrors of his foster home.. and on and on it goes..

When I was a kid my friends ate plants like datura to get wacked, or sniffed petrol, or glue or paint in bags until they fell over. They couldn't afford grog. When they could get it they used it -and a number didn't get past their mid-twenties thanks to motor accidents involving grog.. But if it wasn't grog it would have been weed or mushies or glue..

Only a moron would pretend that increasing the cost of grog was going to solve anything, except give governments even more of our money than they already greedily take..

[BB]

I don't think she is that far off the mark. When I lived in Bondi Junction, it seemed that every pub in the area was a magnet for idiots that wanted to fight. No matter how much the publican invested in upgrading their pub and improving security, the area just contained or attracted a lot of dickheads that liked to get it on.

I now live in the inner west. There is the odd pub with a reputation for bruising, but most are family friendly venues. Some are hard to move through on the weekend because of the density of prams. We take our kids to them, as they can run around in a pub and not annoy people as much as say a sit down restaurant. Our friends take their kids. Parents generally do not take their kids to venues that are full of drunken, aggressive knobheads.

If I ruled the land, anyone arrested for drunk and disorderly would spend a night or three in a cheap, nasty lockup and would spend their days working off their hangover by picking up litter on a chain gang. Fines don't work, but having to explain to the boss why you missed work on Monday (Um, I was on a chain gang for being drunk) might slow some people down when it comes to boozing. It wouldn't slow everyone down, but it might slow enough down to reduce the problem.