Now the cinders have settled on Skyworks for another year, the grog ban of police commissioner Karl O'Callaghan can be applauded.

Every year, the drill goes like this:

On January 27 the year before, some anally-retentive news chief-of-staff diarises: 'O'Callaghan Australia Day booze ban'.

The diary entry lurks latent in the COS's Blackberry Storm until January 12 when - like some pesky wedding anniversary - it pops up on the rectangular floating screen.

The unsuspecting reporter is ordered to call the commissioner's right-hand media man Neil Poh to learn what's the deal with grog this Australia Day.

Mr Poh sighs at the realisation that, whatever his response, irate talk-back calls will ignite the airwaves like so many Perth Hills spot fires.

As usual, the public "debate" will centre around police booze busts banning poor old mum and dad from sharing a shandy with granny by the gently-lapping Swan.

Conversely, well-heeled champagne-sippers are vilified for imbibing from the comfort of their licensed five-star marquees.

What this socially-divisive argument ignores is the 50,000 Emu-swilling bogans scared off this year by Mr O'Callaghan's zero-tolerance approach to public bingeing.

Which allowed mum, dad, granny and the kids to enjoy an evening of pyrotechnics, unmolested by grog-fuelled coarseness and violence.

Also ignored was the fact that the City of South Perth already had a grog ban in place for its Swan River foreshore.

News that Perth was not alone, and indeed was the last state capital to have booze banned from a major Australia Day fireworks event, was similarly lost in the talk-back white noise.