“Jacinta Price, the deputy mayor of Alice Springs council … defeated first-term Country Liberal incumbent Samantha McMahon, who was last week asked to leave the Senate chamber because her colleagues believed she was heavily under the influence of alcohol. She denied she was drunk and later said she was ‘unwell.’”
(Rob Harris, “Conservative Indigenous activist Jacinta Price emerges victorious in NT preselection battle”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Jun. 2021.)
“Senator McMahon’s spokesman, Ashley Manicaros, said the Senator had only one drink with her Nationals colleagues earlier in the evening.”
(Jano Gibson, “NT Senator Sam McMahon’s office says she was ‘unwell’ in Senate, not intoxicated”, ABC News, 24 Jun. 2021.)
Reminder: everyone in parliament should always be sober, with no exceptions, no “only one drink!”
“She [Jacinta Price] has seen too many of her people poison themselves to death from alcohol consumption.”
(Lyle Shelton, “What I learned from Jacinta Nampijinpa Price”, 16 Sep. 2019.)
But sometimes drinkers GAIN preselection unfairly: says Senate Candidate Amanda Stoker
“Australia’s Assistant Minister for Women believes party preselectors did not give her the top spot on the Queensland LNP Senate ticket because her male rival drank beer with them more often.”
(Lydia Lynch, “Snubbed Stoker says rival won top spot by drinking more beer with preselectors,” Brisbane Times, 20 May 2021.)
Encouraging unlimited alcohol increases deaths during COVID isolation
In Queensland, the LNP’s top spot went to James McGrath: he was someone who defended the predatory alcohol industry against NSW Health when they wanted to have any cap on the amount of alcohol delivered to social housing apartment blocks! Does McGrath not know that unlimited alcohol will cause unlimited social problems? Alcohol, and even unlimited alcohol, is supposedly a good way to cope with COVID. Nonsense. Let senators forever quit defending the predatory alcohol industry!
(“‘Un-Australian’ for NSW Health to limit residents’ alcohol”, Sky News Australia, 10 Sep 2021, Liberal Senator James McGrath interviewed by a hotel manager Cory Bernardi.)
In USA, “after increasing around 2.2% per year over the previous two decades, deaths involving alcohol jumped 25.5% between 2019 to 2020, totaling 99,107 deaths.”
(“Deaths involving alcohol increased during the COVID-19 pandemic”, NIAAA, 15 Jul. 2022)