Beer embarrassment for ‘real men’

Press, 14 August 1984, Page 12

Beer embarrassment for ‘real men’

NZPA-AAP Canberra A senior National Party Federal M.P. has said he would not drink low-alcohol beer because of what his mates might say. The Opposition’s spokesman on primary industry, Mr Tom McVeigh, told the party’s Federal council meeting in Adelaide that research had shown that many men were in his position.

“There’s no way in the world I will go into a bar and drink low-alcohol beer,” he said.

“I am not going to have my mates saying, ‘What’s the matter with you, Tom? Aren’t you a real man? Can’t you drink real beer?’ , “There are a lot of fel-

lows like me,” he said. Mr McVeigh was opposing a resolution that the Nationals support the sale of low-alcohol beer by introducing a sliding scale of excise according to alcohol content.

He was strongly opposed by a Western Australian delegate, Mrs Marie Dilley, who said she was surprised that the esteem of the men of eastern states depended on the type of beer they drank.

“Let me assure you that in Western Australia a man is no less a man because he happens to drink Swan Light,” she said. “There is absolutely no denigration of anyone in our state who has the sense to

drink low-alcohol beer before he gets out on the road.” Mrs Dilley said Mr McVeigh was simply upset because a low-alcohol Scotch had yet to be invented, and he agreed that his Scots parentage had given him a taste for whisky. But he asserted that support for low-alcohol beer was discriminatory. He said the Government should emphasise an educational approach to combating drink-driving.

The motion supporting low-alcohol beer, moved by the Young Nationals, was passed by the council, with Mr McVeigh the only delegate to vote against it.