alcohol reform?

Posted by Robin Ransom on 1 April 2011 | 0 Comments

The Alcohol Reform Bill is presently being considered by Parliament. These two words together in the title of the proposed legislation create an impression that all uses and users of “alcohol” require “reform”, an impression more suited to a prohibitionist polemic than a clear-headed attempt to address the real problems associated with the harmful use of alcoholic beverages.

Much of the harmful use is obvious to anyone who follows the news. It is associated with consumption of large volumes of cheap alcoholic beverages over short periods of time, mostly by people who set out to get drunk. Road carnage, domestic violence and street brawling all commonly result from harmful use of alcoholic beverages. These are vastly different scenarios from the civilized consumption of a glass or two of wine with a meal, in convivial surroundings.

Responsible, moderate wine consumption is not harmful, indeed it is seen these days as having health benefits. The most recent thorough and objective review of the evidence regarding alcohol-related harm is the US Government’s Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010. This report concluded, amongst other things, that …an average daily intake of one or two alcoholic beverages is associated with the lowest all-cause mortality and a low risk of diabetes and coronary heart disease amongst middle-aged and older people.

In its attempt to curb the abusive use of alcoholic drinks the Alcohol Reform Bill proposes a number of useful changes to the law. It also includes a number of others which misguidedly target the responsible consumption of wine. It proposes to put a number of licensing and compliance restrictions and costs on winemakers and their cellar-door sales operations which will increase the regulatory and licensing regime to a point where it may well put numbers of small winemakers out of business.

The Bill also ignores a set of recommendations made by the Ministry of Justice in a Cabinet Paper in 2008. This noted that wineries are a low-risk environment for alcohol abuse, and concluded that there is a strong case for some regulatory relief for winemakers in the Sale of Liquor Act as it stands at present. Recommendations in this Paper were agreed to by the previous Government, so it is ironic that the current Bill comes from a Government which pledged to reduce the intrusion of the State in New Zealanders’ lives and reduce the crippling compliance costs which business and commerce, including winemakers face in trying to run our businesses.

If you like the idea of being able to visit the cellar doors and cafes of New Zealand’s winegrowers can I suggest that you write to Lockwood Smith or Simon Power and express your concern about the impact this Bill is likely to have on small winegrowing operations. If you want to be able to quote chapter and verse you can Google Alcohol Reform Bill, although be warned it is a monster!

Robin Ransom

(published in Mahurangi Matters, April 2011)