Summary

Alcohol harms in Australia are extensive and well acknowledged: resulting in 5,500 deaths every year and a further 157,000 hospitalisations. Faced with the evidence of those harms, the alcohol industry’s oft-cited defence is to reference official per capita consumption data which shows national alcohol consumption in decline, in an effort to argue that Australia has become a nation of responsible drinkers. This report dismantles that flawed logic, revealing that the decline in the amount of alcohol being consumed as a nation in fact masks alarming patterns of consumption in significant segments of the population.