Reti’s office told The Front Page that legislative changes around alcohol are not something that’s been considered at this point.
The renewed conversation around alcohol reform comes at the start of Dry July, the yearly fundraiser that encourages people to give up the booze for a month and raise money for Kiwis with cancer.
Alcohol Healthwatch executive director Andrew Galloway told The Front Page the Ministry of Justice has looked into whether we should impose minimum unit price and excise taxes on alcohol, which the Law Commission has recommended.
“It won’t impact when you go out to a bar and buy a drink, but it will impact that really cheap alcohol we know that appeals to hazardous and harmful drinkers or dependent drinkers and also young people,” Galloway said.
“It’s a win/win. There is high public support for it,” he said. “Most people, when confronted with a bit of evidence and the facts, would go ‘I can see why you’d raise excise tax or impose a minimum unit price’.”
Industry leaders, however, don’t think raising the price of beer, wine and spirits will have any such effect.
The Alcohol Beverages Council said it is flawed, as “has been found in Scotland which has recently introduced a minimum unit price [MUP] on alcohol, which showed no real change in harm as a result”.
“This is because harmful drinkers do not respond to price hikes like moderate drinkers do,” the pan-industry group said.
In April, the Scottish Parliament voted to increase the minimum price at which alcohol can be sold by 30%, after consultation on the legislation that was introduced in 2018.
While advocates were pleased the Scottish MPs decided to continue MUP legislation, there is concern about the lack of support for prevention services. MUP is not a tax and therefore does not generate any money for the Government to pour into alcohol rehabilitation and similar programmes.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick had a bill last term that would have curbed alcohol sponsorship at sports events. These reforms were delayed and then culled in the so-called “policy bonfire” ahead of last year’s election.
Galloway said he wished it had gone through.
“There is strong public support for banning alcohol sponsorship at sporting communities and other events that under-18s go to.”
If we were going to introduce alcohol in the present day, Galloway said, we would do so in a different way.
“When we look at regulating, as the Government did a few years ago when we had a vote on cannabis, a product which doesn’t have as much of the harm to others, they looked at the same sorts of things, how it’s advertised, how it’s marketed, how available it’ll be.
“I think if we had the opportunity and we were looking at alcohol for the first time, I think we would take a very different approach to having it so cheap, having it so available, and having it glamourised through alcohol marketing, sponsorship and advertising.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more about alcohol harm reduction and what more the Government can do to curb it.
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.
