Garth George: Drink-driving and abuse are perennial problems

There are two things I can tell you with absolute certainty: no matter how hard they try, the police and road safety authorities will never eradicate drink-driving; and the amendment or repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act will do nothing whatsoever to alleviate this country's appalling shame of child abuse.

It is generally accepted that, of every 10 people who at some time in their lives taste alcohol, one will become addicted to the stuff. I was one who drew the unlucky 10th marble, so I know what I'm talking about.

And a general rule of thumb in the medical profession is that one in every five hospital beds is occupied by a patient whose underlying problem is excessive alcohol consumption, irrespective of whatever other ailment is being treated.

That's not surprising. Alcohol is a mind-altering chemical, a brain poison and an addictive drug. And, were it invented today, it would be available only on prescription, and probably confined to hospital pharmacies at that.

Because there will always be alcohol addicts among those who drive motor vehicles, there will always be drivers who drive over the limit.

So it is not, as police said this week, that the message is not getting through; it is that those among us who are addicted to booze are incapable of receiving the message.

There is no doubt in my mind that any man or woman who receives a second conviction for drink-driving has a problem with alcohol. And the same likely applies to anyone whose reading is more than double the legal limit.

Normal people whose probably accidental over-the-limit offence leads to a conviction will make absolutely sure it never happens again.

And normal people rarely drink enough, particularly if they know they are driving, to put them too far above the limit.

Thus it is likely that anyone caught these days for a second time, or way over the limit, is addicted to the drug alcohol and even immediate licence suspension and the impounding of vehicle aren't going to do any good.

The alcohol addict will simply wait out the time of the suspension and the impoundment then get in his or her vehicle and do it again. They can't help themselves.

I have, of course, known of cases in which the shock of a drink-driving conviction has led the offender to seek help with his or her booze problem. But not often.

What needs to be done is for the police and the courts to be empowered to compel those whose licences have been suspended and/or vehicles impounded to attend a course or courses on the dangers of alcohol.

A simple lecture on alcohol - what it is and how it affects the mind and body, and the consequences of prolonged overconsumption - should suffice.

The display of some bottled livers destroyed by cirrhosis and atrophied brains from those who have died from Korsakoff's syndrome might help to get the message across.

Such courses would have a better chance of carving down the rump of the drink-driving problem than the punishments in place - and if such courses turned even one person back from a descent into the evil and generally fatal disease of alcoholism, they would be worthwhile.

And now to the unnecessary and unwanted debate on smacking. I wonder how long the public are going to put up with politicians who, confronted with the evidence that the majority of the electorate don't want it and know it will have an adverse affect on society, will persevere with legislation simply to impose on the populace their own agendas.

We had it with prostitution reform and with civil unions and now Green (and rabidly socialist) MP Sue Bradford has the bit in her teeth, galloping ahead of public opinion in her determination to remove from the Crimes Act the provision that parents may use "reasonable force" to discipline their children.

It is obvious, however, that the Government is using Ms Bradford as camouflaged point person for this little exercise, for we learn this week that Government, through the Ministry of Justice, has paid for an anti-smacking Canadian psychologist to come here to be the keynote speaker at a conference on abuse and neglect.

I find it highly significant that in this debate on smacking there is never any mention of the word love, no acknowledgment by the anti-smacking brigade that discipline - and sometimes physical discipline - is an act of love.

In well-regulated families in which physical discipline is appropriately applied in the interests of establishing life-protecting parameters, the children will more often than not do well at school, stay out of trouble, contribute to their communities, society and the economy and eventually themselves become good parents.

Parents who fail to discipline their children are failing in their responsibilities, whereas those who gently, firmly and promptly apply discipline, be it physical or oral or by means of a temporary deprivation of some sort, are showing their children they love them.

And the funny thing is that that principle guided family life for generations in this country and it is only since it has been cast out - with a lot of other traditional beliefs - that we have developed the vast problems with children and young people we have today - child abuse and neglect foremost among them.