Editorial: A weighty call to action

OPINION: Just what police will achieve in the fight against alcohol-related crime when they mount a massive two-day trans-Tasman operation next month remains to be seen.

But as a statement of intent, there's no doubt that the announcement of Operation Unite carries a lot of weight.

The mere fact that police from across Australia and New Zealand will be working in tandem on the operation gives it a sense of serious purpose that could never be achieved through sporadic local operations.

Plainly, given the resources that will necessarily be involved, this is not an operation that is being undertaken on a whim. A deeply compelling reason is needed to even begin planning an exercise of this magnitude.

Our own police commissioner, Howard Broad, described alcohol in a report in yesterday's Herald as a major driver of the problems police have to confront and few people could claim to be surprised by that statement.

What will be interesting during the two days of next month's exercise will be to see just how many alcohol-related offences take place. Logic suggests, and one can only assume this is one of the reasons police have signalled this operation so clearly and deliberately, that many of the people who might be inclined to over-imbibe and then find themselves in trouble would pull themselves together during the two days of the exercise, knowing there will be an enhanced police presence in communities.

In such circumstances, those who do get nabbed will be the people who either can't help themselves or who simply decide to thumb their noses at the law, and they are the elements police surely want to hit hard through Operation Unite.

Police have emphasised that this exercise is not, in itself, going to be the death knell for alcohol-related crime, which of course is true. Rightly, the drinking culture in the two countries is squarely in their sights. As New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said, "the `drink to get drunk' culture" that exists in both countries needs to be stopped in its tracks.

Of course, one would imagine the primary focus of such a massive exercise being where the bulk of residents in the two countries reside, so communities like ours may not necessarily see the heightened focus that bigger centres will during the "two national days of action".

But it's pleasing to note that additional patrols in rural areas and checkpoints around the region are likely.

Hopefully, more than just delivering a short, sharp shock to some who go on to reoffend, the exercise will lay some real foundations for making inroads into alcohol-related crime here and across the ditch.