Even the two officers who led her away were having a chuckle.

The tabloid media predictably portrayed the assault of a cop by a ‘good sort’ with a humorous tone (it would have been very different reporting if the assailant had been black, Middle Eastern or a homeless person, and not a well-dressed, middle-class white woman).

But was it really funny, or was it a sad indictment of our two-faced approach to the drinking problem that has gripped Australia for the past 227 years?

The national cricket team and State of Origin teams are sponsored by a beer brewer.

We wouldn’t accept it if sports teams were sponsored by heroin or methamphetamine  producers, so why do we accept sponsorship dollars from grog manufacturers given that alcohol abuse costs the nation a princely sum in terms of lost productivity, negative health effects and violence? 

Perhaps it’s time to re-think our approach to alcohol advertising.

It’s an all-too-common theme to see sports personalities – supposed role models for our kids – in the bad books for drunken, often violent, exploits.

But it is a little bit rich to blame individual sportsmen (yes, they’re always men) for booze-fuelled bad behaviour when you consider that those sportsmen are paid (at least in part) by the liquor industry.

They are merely and often unknowingly doing the dirty work for their sponsors.

I can recall the days when Rugby League legends like Wally Lewis would light up a smoke (no doubt a sponsor’s product) while doing a victory lap of Lang Park post-game.

Such a sight these days would cause national outrage. 

A classic example of what we’re doing wrong in our culture of intoxication is how a local Wagga FM radio station, aimed at the youth market, has segments sponsored by a soft drink-style vodka product.

Such ruthless and unethical advertising should be banned outright, and pronto.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that Australia head down the path of alcohol prohibition (with reference to the failed ‘war on drugs’ policy).

Like many other workers I enjoy and look forward to a few cold lagers after a week of hard yakka working for the man. Lifting the drinking age to 21 would also fail for so long as unscrupulous brewers and distillers, along with their exploitative advertising counterparts, continue to aim products at the youth market.

Sadly, alcohol (like illicit drugs) will always find its way into the hands of some teenagers, but as a society we have an obligation to limit the damage caused to our youth.

And the best way to curb our culture of problem drinking among teenagers is to place strict limits on how, when and where alcohol products are advertised. Australia has had much success in curbing tobacco use thanks to the banning of cigarette advertising, which indicates that banning the advertising of alcohol will have the same level of success.

With one hand we implore kids not to drink alcohol; with the other we feed them booze by way of wall-to-wall advertising that’s aimed squarely at teenagers.

As always, if hypocrisy were a sport Australians would be perennial world champions.