A positive start but not enough: binge-drinker's grieving mum

Amy-Rose Allen (22) was killed three months ago while driving drunk. Photo / Supplied

The mother of a young binge-drinker who died after crashing her car says the planned changes to alcohol laws do not go far enough.

Catherine Peary's daughter Amy-Rose Allen, aged 22, was fatally injured when partially flung from her vehicle south of Morrinsville three months ago.

When Amy-Rose was 18, she got on the booze with friends in Auckland and fell three storeys from a building, ending up in hospital with serious head, chest and leg injuries.

Mrs Peary said the changes the Government is expected to announce today - including giving local councils greater say on the number of liquor outlets in their area - were positive but not good enough.

"I am sceptical of the regulations. There are too many liquor stores already.

"I would rather have heard that the drinking age went back up to 20 and liquor went out of the supermarkets.

"It's binge-drinking - a whole drinking culture - you want to break. I'm not sure this will do it. Time will tell us whether it's worked."

Mrs Peary said she felt the changes were more accommodating to those running the "booze shops" rather than the people whose lives were being affected - and lost.

She and husband John, Amy-Rose's stepfather, marched with hundreds of people in Auckland last week calling for the Government to adopt Law Commission recommendations that include raising the drinking age and limiting liquor advertising.

Mrs Peary said the 2006 accident that put Amy-Rose in hospital occurred after she and a group of friends had won a $100 drinks tab at a bar but were told they had to use it immediately.

The Government needed to address such promotions, Mrs Peary said, as they promoted binge-drinking.

"What I read on Facebook is quite worrying. There are a couple of [Amy-Rose's] friends who clearly want to escape into that alcohol world. It's a lifestyle, it's a culture now.

"The Government needs to seriously look at putting it out."