The Front Page revisited: Chlöe Swarbrick’s battle with NZ’s booze giants

Green MP Chloe Swarbrick took on the booze giants in 2022. Photo / Dean Purcell

Over the next few weeks, The Front Page podcast is revisiting some of the major stories covered in 2022.

Aotearoa has had a bit of a reckoning with its drinking culture over the last 12 months.

Multiple documentaries and personal stories have spotlighted the harm drinking can have, while non-alcoholic drinks and initiatives are gaining traction.

Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick is among those taking a stand.

The Auckland Central MP introduced a bill aimed at changing the laws around the sale and advertising of alcohol in this country.

And while the Government is set to adopt some of the proposed reforms, they don’t go as far as what Swarbrick has proposed.

The MP joined us in July to explain why she has taken on this fight, and why she’s willing to take on the lobby groups to see change enacted.

“No one’s going to take away your beer, mate,” she told The Front Page, explaining that the bill was about where and when we want to see alcohol advertised.

“We’re just going to have a conversation about it - and we’re perhaps going to talk about the fact that it’s constantly exposed to our kids.”

Swarbrick understood from the out that she was in for a fight, saying she was willing to go toe to toe with any opponents of the law change.

“Come at me,” she responded to the prospect of the challenge.

“I want to debate them on television, I want to debate them on radio, I will debate them in print, I’ll debate them anywhere. There’s nowhere left to hide really.

“The evidence is clear that alcohol causes harm like any given drug. And if we are to seriously, as a mature nation, deal with that harm, then we have to do it with evidence.”

Swarbrick isn’t wrong.

World Health Organisation data released in May this year showed that three million global deaths every year result from harmful use of alcohol (representing 5.3 per cent of all deaths) and the substance has also been listed as a carcinogen.

“If we are to consider alcohol as a drug in the same way that we do cannabis or tobacco or any other substance,” says Swarbrick, “then we have to tackle it like grownups and say: ‘How do we go about reducing that harm?’”

“I’m the last person to ever advocate for prohibition because prohibition doesn’t work again.”

Listen to the full episode of The Front Page for a full explanation from Swarbrick on the changes she’d like to see and why she thinks they’re necessary.