Chlöe Swarbrick: Need to reduce alcohol harm clear but MPs won't act

Phasing out alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sports is a focus of the Alcohol Harm Minimisation Bill. Photo / Dean Purcell

OPINION:

At the end of August, dozens of MPs across Parliament wore daffodils on their lapel in recognition of Daffodil Day and the Cancer Society's decades-long work towards the "conquest of cancer".

At the end of September, those same MPs will vote on my Alcohol Harm Minimisation Bill, a law that has the backing of the Cancer Society among many, many other community and health organisations.

Symbolism is important, but it is the easy part of politics. Action, like working to bring those values to life, including where the evidence may rub up against vested interests, is the hard part.

Alcohol, like tobacco or cannabis, is a drug. We can choose whether we want to regulate effectively to reduce harm, because we also know that criminal prohibition will not work.

Yet alcohol, unlike tobacco, has been incredibly successful at managing to avoid harm intervention regulation. While cannabis remains criminally prohibited, used by 15.3 per cent of New Zealanders at least once a year, 78.5 per cent of New Zealanders picked up alcohol. Nearly 20 per cent of New Zealanders did so hazardously, according to our national Health Survey.

For some reason, many politicians remain comfortably vocal for ongoing criminal prohibition of substances, other than alcohol, while unwilling to intervene on alcohol. It's like these laws reflect entrenched powerful interests.

When drafting the Alcohol Harm Minimisation Bill, I chose two of the most evidently robust and – what I thought would be – least controversial interventions for alcohol harm. These are strengthening democracy through enabling Local Alcohol Policies to be implemented without threat of expensive litigation from lobbyists, and phasing out alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sports.

Last term the Government accepted yet another report it commissioned, this one on Safe & Effective Justice, which made the problem plain, "Over recent decades governments have ignored many recommendations aimed at reducing the harm and impact of alcohol misuse. He Ara Oranga, the 2010 Law Commission review Alcohol in our Lives, the 2014 Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship, and the 2014 Ministry of Justice report The Effectiveness of Alcohol Pricing Policies all recommended or provided evidence for a stricter regulatory approach to the sale and supply of alcohol. Much bolder political leadership is required here to take action now."

Yet just a few weeks ago, Minister of Sports and Recreation, Hon. Grant Robertson signalled in a radio interview that he had "concerns" and intimated he would vote against my Alcohol Harm Minimisation Bill. I continue to ask the minister for a meeting about this issue, as I have for the last few months.

Alcohol, like tobacco or cannabis, is a drug. Photo / 123RF

All of this is particularly frustrating because minister Robertson's concerns are the opposite of his past voting record.

In 2009, he, along with our now-Prime Minister (then-Labour List MP based in Auckland Central) and a number of other now-Labour ministers voted in support of Metiria Turei's Bill to end all alcohol advertising on broadcast television and radio – far more broad-ranging than my current bill of which he has the aforementioned inexplicable "concerns".

In 2012, Robertson voted for Supplementary Order Papers on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill from Hon. David Clark, to end all alcohol advertising in broadcast, from Iain Lees-Galloway to prohibit alcohol ads before 9pm and Te Ururoa Flavell's to outlaw any and all alcohol advertising and sponsorship.

On the other side of the House, National Party's Mental Health spokesperson, Matt Doocey, declared during the latest "Smokefree Generation" Bill debate, "I suppose what we always try to do, especially on this side of the House, is look for the evidence base."

Dr Shane Reti also noted the (since controversially withdrawn) letter of endorsement for the Alcohol Harm Minimisation Bill from Dr Gary Jackson, "I thought it was a thoughtful letter from an expert at the coalface."

The evidence is clear, as is the track record of successive governments in ignoring it. Politicians from all sides have the opportunity to reduce drug harm, from a Class One Carcinogen no less, with their votes on the bill within the next month.

After all, that's what the daffodils on their lapels stood for.

• Chlöe Swarbrick, Green Party, is the MP for Auckland Central.