It's little wonder our fishing industry is threatening to blockade Australian ports when they see Kevin Rudd offering car giant $35 million of our money to build a new hybrid Camry in Melbourne – especially amid suggestions the car-maker would have gone ahead with the project anyway.

The fishing industry here on the Coast is facing a real crisis – as is our tourism industry.

In the face of rising fuel costs and competition from cheap, inferior imported prawns, the industry is calling for state and federal government assistance along the lines of the $8 million announced last week for Queensland’s tourism industry.

Yesterday, local industry representatives staged a protest rally in Mooloolaba to send a clear message to the federal government they need urgent help.

They say the industry will be dead on the Coast by Christmasif there is not decent assistance offered.

According to long-time fishermen, there are freezers of local product everywhere that can’t be shifted, while Australia continues to import thousands of tonnes of product.

Representatives of the importers say that a big part of the problem is the Queensland seafood industry is not good at marketing itself.

They say one of the reasons there is so much product imported from overseas is that there is not enough local product being caught to meet demand. Or perhaps it is a case of the product’s availability not being known or promoted well enough on a regular basis.

A Queensland government seafood study, investigating the impacts of fuel costs and cheap imports on the industry, is expected to release its recommendations in August.

But trawler operators say that could be far too late with immediate action needed.

While it is clear the government should be offering whatever help it can to ensure the survival of our local industries, the industry itself has to think outside the square in terms of finding ways of getting its product directly to the public, at a cheaper, more competitive price.

The harsh reality is that while we all like to support Aussie industries, when the price of the local product is beyond our budgets, too often we will resort to the cheaper, imported product – or none at all.

Hardly Australian, I know, but a sad fact of life for families looking to do more with their own budgets in the face of rising fuel costs.

Part of the solution must be providing more opportunities for trawler operators to sell their product direct to consumers – whether it be through special days or food markets.

As one blogger on thedaily.com.au asked recently: “Is it really the government’s job to insure against every industries’ business risks?

“Should taxpayers have to bail out every industry that starts going under? Even when they are stockpiling millions of dollars worth of stock, but just refuse to sell it at a reduced price?

“How can they cry poor and demand handouts when they are sitting on assets?”

The blogger did go on to qualify his comments with a huge but –
“All of this could have been averted if Aussies did the patriotic thing and only bought Aussie seafood?

“I can assure you all that I will not (and do not) buy imported seafood when possible. I will not buy fish or prawns from overseas, however I have also found it difficult for the past year or so to justify the expense of buying local produce too.”

And unfortunately, for the industry, he’s not alone.

Nation of binge-drinkers
So it’s official. We are a nation of binge drinkers, it seems.

Research from the National Health and Medical Research Council has found four alcoholic drinks should become the absolute limit for safe drinking.

The federal government is going to have a huge task in selling those national drinking guidelines.

The guidelines are expected to say men and women should consume no more than two standard drinks per day, either three glasses of wine or four middies of beer.

The move comes after a 70 per cent rise in the excise on so-called alcopops – a move that has largely backfired as drinkers abandon pre-mixed drinksfor buying bottles of spirits.

Federal opposition leader Brendan Nelson smells a rat. He’s called for prime minister Kevin Rudd to rule out a tax increase on beer and wine, accusing the government of trying to whip up hysteria about binge drinking.

While increasing taxes on alcohol wouldn’t worry me a bit, the lesson learnt from the alcopops saga is that the government has to be smarter than that. We can’t legislate or tax our way to better drinking habits.

We need to develop education campaigns – and discover some of the fundamental reasons why so many Aussies – particularly our young people – seem driven to drink.

For a lucky country with so much to offer, we seem to be hitting the bottle a little too often. Surely there are better ways of enjoying our weekends.