Online deliveries
The rise of food delivery services in NZ has also given way to alcohol deliveries, booze becoming available at a touch of a button and at your door within the hour.
Alcohol Healthwatch research has found 73% of deliveries required no ID checks and almost half was left unattended at the door.
The study included 46 orders over two months in 2023, by a researcher under 25 years old.
Galloway told The Front Page all you have to do to buy alcohol online in most cases is check a box saying you’re over 18.
“I think we need to look across the ditch to Australia where you might have to scan your ID and have it verified before it’s delivered.
“You could have a period of time where there’s a stand down so that we’re not getting that extension of a drinking occasion leading to harm.
“There are simple things we can do. We’re one of the few countries that have rules around this and we’re certainly an outlier,” he said.
Nicholls said at present, the law does not require ID checks before you deliver to a house.
“We do support a strengthening in this area and in principle our retailers, both supermarkets and bottle stores, believe the same licensing requirements that apply to alcohol sale and supply in store should apply to online purchases and delivery.
“We need to have a look at this area and work out the appropriate processes that we need to put in place to strengthen it,” she said.
Pre-made drinks ban
New South Wales is considering new guidelines regulating alcoholic versions of soft drinks and ready-to-drink beverages, although Premier Chris Minns appears to have poured cold water on the plans.
It specifically wants to crack down on confectionary-flavoured drinks or colourful designs - over fears the ‘alcopops’ are too appealing to young people.
It includes flavoured vodka mixes and alcoholic ginger beer.
Galloway said Australia’s discussion around this began with a product called ‘Hard Solo’ - which replicates a soft drink.
“We’re not saying these products can’t exist, but it certainly had an appeal to minors.
“If you go into a bottle store and look in the RTD section many of these products are brightly coloured, and probably do appeal to minors, but there’s no check on the way in, before they are put on the shelf.
“This is a system that relies on people complaining. The Advertising Standards Authority [ASA] is an industry self-regulatory body. They make reasonable decisions, but the system relies on complaints,” he said.
Nicholls told The Front Page the New Zealand market is very different to Australia’s.
“Every new product launched in New Zealand has to go through a pre-vetting system and that can be done with the Association of New Zealand Advertisers.
“There is a voluntary industry code for RTDs... the legislation in New Zealand is actually very strong in this regard,” she said.
Auckland alcohol policy
Auckland Council has adopted its local alcohol policy for the city, coming into effect on December 9.
It’ll mean bottle shops and supermarkets across the region won’t be able to sell alcohol after 9pm instead of 11pm.
There are also stricter rules for new off-licenses opening in the central city and 23 other suburbs.
The rules mean any application to open one in these areas would likely be declined for the next two years, unless they meet a very high threshold.
Galloway said the evidence tells us that the more available alcohol is, the more harm it causes.
“That very same spread of research tells us that we will see a reduction in things like crime, alcohol-related presentations to emergency departments from the modest change from 11pm to 9pm for retail sale in Auckland.”
But, Nicholls thinks we need to understand more about how we’re drinking before restricting when we can sell alcohol.
“Is there something that tells us this suddenly becomes a dangerous hour? I think all it’s going to do is inconvenience customers.
“The push for tougher restrictions such as reducing the number of alcohol stores and limiting operating hours needs to be based on evidence that these measures will make a material difference in reducing harm. We don’t see the clear evidence.
“A recent police study actually showed that the majority of alcohol purchases are made around 6pm, not during the later hours that have been targeted. We would support a more nuanced approach that considers all stakeholders, retailers, consumers, police, councils, and social agencies working together,” she said.
Hazardous drinking
The annual Ministry of Health “New Zealand Health Survey” released in November showed hazardous drinking or harmful alcohol consumption among adults declined by 4.7 percentage points in the past four years to 16.6%.
The largest decrease in hazardous drinking over the past five years was among young New Zealanders aged 18 to 24 – a decline of 13.2 percentage points to 22.6%.
Although the legal age for purchasing alcohol in New Zealand is 18 years old, 51% of those aged 15–17 years drank alcohol in the past year, which has declined by 8.9 percentage points since the survey began in 2011/12.
Nicholls said it’s still higher than we want, but it’s trending downwards.
“When we compare our drinking with other countries in the OECD, Kiwis are drinking less than the OECD average, which includes less than the US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, and Ireland,” she said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about New Zealand’s approach to alcohol and whether there needs to be more laws.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
