National leader Judith Collins has announced her party's wine policy. Photo / Mark Mitchell
National leader Judith Collins has announced her party's wine policy. Photo / Mark Mitchell
National wants to change New Zealand's alcohol laws so vineyards and cellar door wineries are able to charge for samples they are currently required to give away for free.
National also wants to launch a new tourism festival to support domestic tourism and help New Zealand's wineries.
Collins announced thepolicies at WineWorks in Marlborough this morning.
"Our picturesque wineries are world-renowned tourist attractions and provide huge boosts to the local economies of regions like Marlborough, Hawke's Bay and Central Otago," she said.
A number of other previously announced National policies – such as the party's plans to allow more seasonal workers into the country and spending $600 million on water storage – would also help the wine industry, Collins said.
Under current laws, wine tourism operators are not able to charge for wine samples from cellar doors.
That means businesses are not able to charge for the samples they offer, unless 85 per cent of their revenue comes from the sale of alcohol.
This is difficult for wineries operating restaurants to achieve.
Collins said that the wine industry has been pushing for the Government to fast-track legislation to allow them to charge for samples.
National has promised that, if elected, it would amend the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act within its first 100 days to allow cellar doors to sell wine samples and bypass the 85 per cent of revenue test.
The party would also launch a New Zealand Tourism Festival to help local communities and regions across the country and support the domestic and transtasman tourism markets.
"This festival will focus on supporting events like the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival to get back up and running and market themselves across New Zealand and Australia," National's policy says.
"It will reinvigorate regions as tourists spend money across the hospitality, accommodation and tourism sectors."
