Manurewa MP Arena Williams (centre) receives the petition from Hāpai te Hauora CE Sela Hart as Green MP Chloe Swarbrick look on. Photo / RNZ
Manurewa MP Arena Williams (centre) receives the petition from Hāpai te Hauora CE Sela Hart as Green MP Chloe Swarbrick look on. Photo / RNZ
OPINION:
The good news is that Chlöe Swarbrick's Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill has made it onto Parliament's agenda.
The bad news is that such an important piece of public health legislation relies on luck to even see the light of day, with the chances of a member's bill being drawn being roughly on par with winning Lotto's fifth division.
And the worse news is that Swarbrick's bill will almost certainly fail.
National has already said its MPs will vote against it; Act MPs are likely to follow suit. Given these parties claim to support local control of local matters (or is that only for water and not for wine?), it is probably not the bill's intention to make it easier for councils to implement local alcohol policies that bothers them.
However, the bill also seeks to end alcohol sponsorship of sports clubs, teams and venues, and to restrict alcohol advertising.
These measures come from the Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship's October 2014 report. Then Health Minister Amy Adams responded to that report by saying it raised "a number of questions … [and that] a thorough quantification of the implications of the proposals is critical".
Eight years and two governments later, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson told RNZ that "around the question of sponsorship I want to work through that issue more deliberately than just passing this piece of legislation".
In the meantime, a 2018 study by the Universities of Otago and Auckland found that children were exposed to alcohol marketing via sports sponsorship every day.
Green MP Chloe Swarbrick's Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Minimisation) Bill needs cross party support. Photo / NZME
"Alcohol companies' sponsorship of sport led to the exposure of children to alcohol marketing in their homes, on their clothing, and in traditional health promoting environments such as sports venues," said lead researcher Tim Chambers.
Māori and Pacific children were found to have respectively five and three times higher rates of exposure to alcohol marketing than New Zealand European children, a disparity the study attributed to higher rates of exposure via off-licence outlets and sports sponsorship for Māori children.
This is not a rogue result. Research earlier this year showed children in Wellington are exposed to 4.5 alcohol advertisements a day, with Otago University's Professor Louise Signal saying "there were few settings children could escape these harmful marketing messages".
It's not just public health academics saying this. Outdoor advertising companies promise that advertisers can "hand-pick locations" and that billboards "offer a more targeted connection to specific audiences".
Robertson talks about the "very substantial sum of money" alcohol companies put into sports. However much that is, it is surely a fraction of the Law Commission's 2010 estimate of the annual cost of alcohol-related harm in New Zealand – between $735 million and $16.1 billion.
In August, Act's Chris Baillie also had a member's bill drawn from the ballot. His sought to abolish restrictions on selling alcohol over Easter weekend, Anzac Day and Christmas Day.
It failed, but because of concerns over workers' rights. Not a single reference to public health concerns or to the social cost of alcohol consumption in Aotearoa was made in the entire debate.
The assumption that alcohol needs to be readily available 365 days a year normalises its consumption; associating it with sport and with artificially enhanced good times glamourises it.
The current regime is failing our people: it's past time to call time on it.
