NZ brewer to follow Aussies on health alerts

Professor Doug Sellman. Photo / APN

A major New Zealand brewer will introduce health warnings on its drinks after Australia's liquor industry announced a similar move yesterday.

Lion Nathan expects to start voluntarily putting health warnings on its products in about six weeks' time, but DB Breweries has rejected the action as ineffective.

DrinkWise Australia, a group funded by the Australian alcohol industry, said about 80 per cent of alcohol products in the country including beer, wine and spirits would carry warnings.

But Professor Doug Sellman, director of the National Addiction Centre, slammed the new labelling as cunning "Clayton's warnings".

He said the Australian messages, such as "kids and alcohol don't mix", were essentially meaningless.

Mr Sellman said more truthful warnings would be "alcohol causes cancer", "alcohol can cause brain damage" and "alcohol can make people aggressive".

Even accurate health warnings were unlikely to have an impact without more meaningful government action, he said.

"At the moment if you say, 'Alcohol causes cancer', people don't even see it.

"And it was the same with tobacco. It wasn't until the price went up and it became a much less normal thing to do, then people started thinking much more clearly about the health issues."

Neil Hinton, corporate affairs director for Lion, rejected the notion that the moves were cynically self-serving.

"The point that we're making is that we're prepared to do our bit on it ... you must ask the question of what would ever be enough?

"Probably prohibition would still have them upset. I think the reasonable man would look at that and say this is a good, responsible step from a good, responsible industry."

He said DrinkWise Australia had picked up Lion's own initiative that was announced in February, and New Zealand warnings would be similar to those in Australia.

The corporate manager of DB Breweries, Mark Campbell, said the company would wait to see whether warnings were introduced under an Alcohol Reform Bill to be considered by Parliament.

But the brewer was unlikely to introduce the health warnings on its own accord, he said.

"We're not of the view that it's going to change anything ... the reality is it has been debated for many years, whether alcohol labelling is going to make a difference.

"But we're realistic that it may well be something that we have to comply with down the track, and really don't have any major concerns about doing so."

New Zealand Winegrowers said they were reviewing their stance on "social policy issues", and Independent Liquor could not be reached for comment.

Last week Netherlands-based professor Peter Anderson, one of the world's leading public health experts, told an alcohol-harm conference in Wellington that alcoholic products should carry health warning labels, just as tobacco products do.