Green MP Chloe Swarbrick forces Government's hand on alcohol reform

Green Party MP Chloe Swarbrick.

ANALYSIS:

A relatively minor change to New Zealand's alcohol laws is a major victory for Green MP Chloe Swarbrick.

The Government yesterday announced plans to help councils set rules for alcohol sales in their own neighbourhoods, as the first move in a series of planned reforms.

While the Labour Government has been reviewing alcohol laws, there is no publicly available evidence that this issue was a priority. It is understood that it caught some in the alcohol industry by surprise.

Government ministers have previously said they would rather address councils' local alcohol policies as part of a broader reform of alcohol laws scheduled for next year.

But it is now being tackled urgently, with Justice Minister Kiri Allan saying legislation will be introduced in December.

The timing of the announcement is significant. It comes just as Parliament was about to debate a private member's bill in Swarbrick's name which contains an almost identical measure. It appears Swarbrick - who has lobbied for her bill for 18 months - forced the Government's hand.

Allan yesterday praised Swarbrick's work on drug and alcohol reform, but dismissed any suggestion the Government was stealing her thunder. She noted that the Government's bill went further than the Green MP's member's bill.

The legislation being proposed by the Government is narrow but significant.

It will remove one of the liquor industry's main avenues for challenging councils' local alcohol policies (LAPs) - though the policies will still be open to judicial review.

The previous National-led government introduced LAPs as part of alcohol reforms in 2012. They were meant to help communities control whether a bottle store could open outside a school or how many hours of the day a supermarket could sell alcohol.

But the reality has been very different. Policies around the country have been diluted, delayed and in some cases abandoned because of legal appeals by supermarkets and the liquor industry. Government's proposal is to remove these appeal rights.

Swarbrick's bill was expected to get a first reading next week. A survey of MPs by the Herald indicated that it was likely to fail at the first hurdle.

But the bill had the potential to make the Labour Party uncomfortable. It is a conscience vote and Labour's South Auckland MPs were planning to support it because their constituents have been despairing at how difficult it is to control the proliferation of bottle stores in their neighbourhoods.

"No one is asking for Manurewa East to be the capital of bottle shops," Labour's Manurewa MP Arena Williams told the Herald.

Now that Government has introduced its own bill, some Labour MPs may feel they can vote against Swarbrick's bill with a clear conscience.

But that's not the end of the matter. Swarbrick said she will not pull her bill and the debate on it will go ahead despite the Government announcement. Her bill includes other measures targeting alcohol sponsorship of sports that she wants to progress.

When asked yesterday whether the minister had trumped her bill, she gave a wry smile: "I just want to commend the Government for listening."