The strategy is designed to alleviate the social problems associated with alcohol-fuelled violence on our streets, but it will do little in addressing them and is a Band-Aid solution to a complex issue.

I suggest all it would achieve is to move the problems to an earlier time in the night, making this strategy ineffective.

People will still go out and consume alcohol, police will still have to be called on to deal with alcohol-fuelled violence, nurses and doctors will still have to deal with the injuries, councils will still have to wash the vomit off the streets in the morning — just earlier.

One issue that I would like to see addressed is the responsible serving of alcohol legislation itself.

This legislation emphasises the serving of alcohol to the venue and staff in the hospitality industry, but is only half of the equation.

The law simply focuses on the venue and staff.

However, you cannot have the RSA without the RCA (the responsibility of the consumption of alcohol) outlined as well.

These issues are interconnected.

There are no boundaries in place for how much alcohol you can consume in public.

The only hint of restraint is in the ambiguous guidelines outlined by the RSA.

Once we start putting some boundaries in place and addressing how much alcohol is acceptable to consume in public, the mindset of people who consume alcohol will change and so will the issues associated with them.

— IAN UNGER,

Albury