Drugs Aust, biggest worry

Press, 19 July 1989, Page 4

Drugs Aust, biggest worry

NZPA-AAP Sydney Drugs worry Australia’s adults most, but child abuse haunts young adults more, according to a national survey. The Silent Majority II portrays a nation fearing crime, distrusting authority, and fretting other issues barely mentioned in the original 1977 survey.

Undetected drug dealers, child abuse, drugs in schools, early prison releases, corporate tax advantages, and housebreaking were the main concerns.

None ranked in the Top 40 in the Clemenger advertising company’s first survey, 12 years ago. Only the thirty-fourth ranked response, seeing the same commercial mpre than twice in an hour, was similar to the lighter worries of 1977. The original survey- included poorly tuned colour televisions and confusion over the metric system. “I think the worry about crime is real, as there is evidence of such things as housebreaking increases, but I think this business about authority, the lack of confidence, goes through the whole thing,” a report author, Judy White, said. The top six issues each concerned more than 91 per cent of those surveyed

from more than " 1000 households in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. No issue worried that many in the 1977 questionnaire, according to' Ms White. Child abuse troubled 86 per cent of those aged between 18 and 24. Over all, women responded “very concerned” more than men, but'showed little concern for feminist categories. “It’s more global,” Ms White said of the new breed of issues. “It simply means that all the important issues have intruded into this country. We have to recognise them. It’s, ‘Seriously, all of those things are just as likely to happen to my home now’.”

Financial issues completed the Top 10, including the costs of land and housing, income ■ tax, travel within Australia compared, with outside, and repairs compared with original costs.

Two thirds of those questioned said politicians favoured re-election over service, ranking it eleventh. Other government complaints followed consistently, .' Immigration missed the list, although Asian purchases of property ranked seventeenth. A.I.D.S. also gathered little reaction.