Drink age: where our MPs stand

The poll found that adopting a split age was more favoured than other options. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

Only drinkers aged 20 and older will be able to buy alcohol at bottle stores, dairies and supermarkets after MPs vote on the issue next year, a poll of politicians suggests.

But the survey confirms politicians' belief that the drinking-age issue is only one part of tackling what has been described as New Zealand's drinking crisis.

The Herald poll of all 122 MPs found that adopting a split age - under which the age for buying a drink at a pub, bar or club remains at 18 and the age for purchasing alcohol from bottle stores, supermarkets and other retail outlets rises to 20 - was more favoured than other options.

Thirty-one said they would vote for the split age. Eighteen favoured keeping the age at 18 and 12 wanted only 20-year-olds to be able to drink in pubs and buy from off-licences.

The survey also found 44 MPs had yet to make up their mind on the issue.

The split-age plan is among measures proposed to curb New Zealand's binge-drinking culture.

But Hospitality Association chief executive Bruce Robertson said that although he had no commercial objection to a split age, it would make little difference to youth binge-drinking.

"The problem is with 14- to 17-year-olds, and making it illegal for 18- and 19-year-olds to purchase at an off-licence isn't going to change that."

The association wanted a minimum drinking age - currently there is no legal drinking age - a purchase age of 18, and a return of a law against public drunkenness, Mr Robertson said.

"We need to shift responsibility to consumption rather than supply. You're not going to change the drinking culture unless you focus on the consumption side of it."

MPs will decide the issue in a conscience vote next year.

The Herald poll reveals that adding together those who favour or are leaning towards the split age and those who favour an across-the-board increase suggests that a return to a purchasing age of 20 at off-licence premises is likely.

But about a quarter of MPs were either undecided or not prepared to say which way they would vote.

Many MPs said the purchasing age could not be considered in isolation from the rest of the alcohol law reforms the Government will introduce to Parliament before Christmas.

National's Piako MP, Lindsay Tisch, was undecided but leaning towards the split age because it appeared that was what his constituents favoured.

He said he had been "knocked around" badly by a group of drunken youths, all under 16, some years ago and believed that whatever the legal purchasing age, young people would still be able to get alcohol.

A Maori Party spokesman said the age for purchasing and drinking alcohol was "just a small part of the wider picture".

The party was "keen to see issues of alcohol abuse tackled at their root - by looking at the undue influence of the liquor industry on communities, the extent of advertising and promotion of alcohol, and the fact that the great majority of alcohol abuse occurs among older age groups".

Outspoken Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira expressed a view shared by several MPs who supported keeping the purchasing age at 18: "If they're old enough to die for us [in the military], they're old enough to drink with us."

Labour's Mangere MP, Su'a William Sio, supported raising both ages to 20, "because I see first hand it's an issue we've been battling against here in Manukau City and Mangere".

Keep It 18 lobby group spokeswoman Jenna Raeburn said a split age or a purchasing age of 20 unfairly discriminated against 18- and 19-year-olds, who had all the other rights and responsibilities of an adult.

Members of Keep It 18 belong to the youth wings of each party.

Act leader Rodney Hide was undecided and "still doing the work".

He said he had voted in favour of 18 in the past, "but this is a serious piece of work - I don't just want to pick on just one aspect. I want to go through and look at it properly."

The numbers:

* 31 MPs: To split the drinking age (18 for bars, 20 for off-licences).
* 12 MPs: To raise the age to 20.
* 18 MPs: To retain age at 18.
* 44 MPs: Undecided.
* 11 MPs: Undecided but leaning towards a decision.
* 6 MPs: Won't say.

- additional reporting: Derek Cheng