This opinion piece by VicHealth CEO Todd Harper first appeared in the Herald Sun on 9 January 2009.

Summer holidays are a great time for enjoying a beer at a barbecue, a family get together or watching the cricket.

But over recent summers things have changed -- light beer has all but vanished from our fridges and cool boxes. Light represents less than 7 per cent of the packaged beer market and has been in freefall for years, with no sign of this trend changing.

This shift from low-alcohol products has coincided with the increase in violence on Australian streets. It is highly likely to be one of the reasons for this surge in alcohol-fuelled violence. The traditional Australian beer-drinking culture is still strong among men, particularly among those who drink at risky levels.

The 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey revealed that full-strength beer is the product most typically drunk at dangerous levels. It's also more likely than other alcohol products to be associated with late-night violence and drink-driving, and is linked to long-term health problems such as brain damage and liver disease.

Part of the problem is that beer drinkers are switching back towards full-strength (or high-alcohol) beers, particularly the so-called premium beers -- the fastest growing beer category. Barely one in five male drinkers nominates light as their preferred drink. With a rising tide of binge drinking and associated violence and crime in Australia, shifting our drinking culture towards lower-alcohol alternatives is essential.

At present, the tax on a standard drink of light beer containing 2 per cent alcohol is 19 cents.This is almost four times higher than the tax per standard drink on cask wine, containing 12.5 per cent alcohol, which is only 5c. Put another way, the tax on a stubby of light beer is 20c while the tax on a glass of cask wine is only 5c a standard drink. A change to the tax system -- scrapping the tax on light beer -- gives us our best chance of encouraging drinkers to switch to low-alcohol products. The challenge is also there for the breweries to develop low-alcohol products popular with consumers.

It won't be easy. Beer drinkers will need convincing that the low-alcohol alternative is not only good value, but also passes the taste test. Plenty will already tell you that light beer does pass the taste test, but the alcohol industry could surely come up with more products if there was an incentive for them to do so.

We should immediately scrap the alcohol tax on low-alcohol beer. It would be a major incentive for many people to switch to low-alcohol products, and in the longer term it may also encourage the alcohol industry to do more to promote lower-alcohol products. Now that the head of federal Treasury, Ken Henry, is reviewing Australia's tax system, this is the perfect time to try a cut in light-beer taxes. Already we provide tax exemptions for beer with an alcohol content of less than 1.15 per cent -- lifting this threshold to 2.7 per cent would include many low-alcohol beers marketed in Australia.

It would also mean reducing the cost of a slab of light beer from about $31 to $26, compared with about $38 for a slab of full-strength beer. That's a big hip-pocket incentive for people choosing to drink responsibly. The benefits are likely to be significant. Unlike high-alcohol beer, lower-alcohol products are associated with much lower levels of assaults on our streets.

Shifting Australia's drinking culture is one of the toughest issues we face in reducing the ugly scourge of binge drinking, and the tremendous harm it causes. But providing a better deal for Australians who drink responsibly is a good place to start.

Todd Harper is chief executive of VicHealth